My trip from icy cold mountains to a balcony with evening sun and summer temperature! 10/4-2013

I called the bus company in Ioannia to make sure my bike would be allowed on board, they said no problem, but something was telling me I needed to get there as soon as possible. Leaving Monodendri I wanted to see the stone bridges but with the amount of roads going left, right, up and down I didn't dare taking the chance I'll end up on some back road where it would take me forever to get out of Vikos-Aoos National park. 
Turns out I ( read the GPS ) found that road anyway sort of.

I have changed my tactics when it comes to nasty dogs, unless I can safely pass them at high speed I now slow down, almost to a walking pace, and go Cesar Milan on their ass. That is using Ssch! and reacting as the North Atlantic would if you gently placed a yellow rubber duck in it's waters. Turns out that works fine, kind of bores
those hell spawn enough to go sniff their crotches instead.

Anyway, on my way out of the National park the GPS thought I hadn't been tested enough so it picked a road over a mountain that wasn't absurdly high but the incline was like 45 degrees, I was so high up on my toes that my shoes almost fell off. THEN it gives me a serpentine downhill with a road with razor sharp rocks the size of
oranges. Parts of it I just walked because the bicycle is so heavy I had to lean back, push my heels into the stones, use my brakes and it still forced me lean back while gravity dragged me downhill. It turned out I lost one of my metal clips under my shoes in the process and those things are attached to the sole with two(2) screws.

The start of the downhill, the grass vanished fast and left rocks as the underlay.

A smile from ear to ear came onto my face when I found Blue Monster energy drinks in Ioannina, I bought the ones they had in stock, sadly only three.

Thanks Tommy for introducing me to these things... ;)
Hello, my name is Marcus and I'm an addict.

According to my plan 2.0 I bought a bus ticket to Kalampaka and enjoyed every kilometer of it, once there I settled in at the hotel, my room had a balcony with chairs, a table and evening sun.

Toti Sister hotel - my room.

Moussaka, potatoes and Mythos beer for dinner!

Statistics!

Recorded video; 5 hours 47 minutes 43 seconds
Pictures taken; 620

So far. :)

Lets break out the calculator!

Something has been gnawing on my mind. Time.

When I was a Monodendri during Tuesday 9/4-2013 I realized that time has caught up with me.

My plan looked like this;

Wednesday; Start trip to Kalampaka.
Thursday; Reach Kalampaka.
Friday; Free day Kalampaka as it was one of the big highlights.
Saturday; Start trip to Thessaloniki.
Sunday; Reach Thessaloniki if I can put in two 100 kilometer+ days.
Monday; Prepare to go home and fix packing bike and everything else.
Tuesday; Flight leaving midday.

That leaves a sour taste in my mouth, I will end my vacation stressed out and probably tired - so I have changed it to this;

Wednesday; Bicycle to Ioannia and take bus to Kalampaka.
Thursday; Free day Kalampaka.
Friday; Bus from Trikala or Kalampaka to Thessaloniki.
Saturday; Free day Thessaloniki.
Sunday; Free day Thessaloniki.
Monday; Prepare for departure on Tuesday.
Tuesday; Flight leaving midday.

Sounds like a much better end to my vacation, and, my dear readers, I almost got myself killed several times over while I had my free day today so adventure is still to be found within the frames of my vacation... ( Thursday 11/4-2013 ), but that's in a coming update. ;)

A freezing night, a stone forest and the world's deepest canyon! 9/4-2013

It is off season for the hotels in Monodendri, when I woke up this morning it was freezing in the room, I had two thick blankets over me and was freezing my ass off.

While I thought the hosts of Hotel Ladias was among the nicest ones I've had so far my experience at their hotel was dragged down by a few things. Firstly they turned on and off the radiators, most likely to save power costs, and that's why it was so cold this morning. The breakfast was excellent but since they seem hellbent on saving power they hardly had heating in the main restaurant either nor decent light, in my part of the hotel ( a separate building to the restaurant ) as soon as you left your room the lounge and corridor was freezing cold and not particularly inviting to use. Their wifi was horrible as well, in went up and down and I had to try and find a sweet spot in my room to use it at all, lastly their was some type of insects that got into my room - I caught 6 small bugs.

But again, the hosts was great, the breakfast was very generous and in all fairness should they have fixed the heating so you felt more welcome and get rid of the bugs it would have been at the top of my hotel list so far.

I got the lovely cheese pie for breakfast among many other delicious things!

I had planned to visit the Vikos gorge while on this visit high up in the Greek mountains, my hosts suggested a shortcut through the forest and even tho it was early spring here and leaves and whatnot hadn't shown their faces yet it was a beautiful, healthy nature that hugged me as I trekked through the woods.

On my way to the Gorge I passed through the Stone forest, it was similar to the pictures above with less trees, some parts looked like someone put a keg of dynamite in the middle of the rocks and just let everything fall as it wanted after the explosion.

After that I came to the Vikos gorge, as I walk towards it I shot video and you can hear on the video that I am scared of heights... It is the world's deepest gorge, see the wiki link up above.

It was a tiny path of like 1,5 meters without any fence or protection against certain death!!!
A tiny wall protected my lower legs at the designated "view spot".

Despite my terror it was a truly impressive place, massive is the word your are looking for.

After that I went back and took the hotels advice on where to eat, the town on Monodendri is really beautiful and I can see myself going there during summer at some point.

Piglet boiled in wine with fries and a Mythos beer, I also got a oven baked apple with liqueur and whipped cream as a complimentary desert, good food, the restaurant was called Frosa's pies.

A short recap of Albania and what's to come! 8/4-2013

I leave Albania with three words in my head, friendly, challenging and beautiful.

I've got countless smiles on my way through this country, it has pushed me a lot further than I would have pushed myself and the beauty of it's countryside, it's many remains from ancient times and it's mountains has left a permanent mark in me.

It's highlights consist of Butrint, Berat, Gjirokaster, Sarande coastline and The Blue Eye.

Now it's time for the last push of my adventure, Greece and it's National Park, it's monasteries and Thessaloniki.

Goodbye Albania! 8/4-2013

It's a weird season here, one day summer, the next autumn, winter or spring. Today I left Sarande by taxi to Syri Kalter, or it's English name, The Blue Eye. It's a underground spring with crystal clear, icy water from it's underground spring. I can imagine what a sight it would be in it's summer dress as it looked extremely beautiful this day in cloudy skies with a gentle rain.

I thought I'd cut the trip shorter since I already passed this road the other day after my crash. This time it took quite some time to get up and over the mountain roads, I took a break at the scene of the accident. Later this day I got an explanation to the hundreds of memorials that's been scattered along the roads in Albania and also in Greece. 

This memorial is from the road between Maliq and Gramshi, also known as the Road. It was shot as a movie of me biking the road and it was raining, that's why it's slightly blurry.

They are memorials of people who have died in roadside accidents, I imagined that might be the case but the sheer number of them made me wave that thought away, maybe because I didn't wanna become a memorial myself.

Anyway, once over the hill it was... wait for it... DOWNHILL! But it has to be the slowest decent ever, the road on the opposite side of the mountain of wich I had my crash was a lot more dangerous, more "straight of the cliffside"-like. I shot some video from it with my GoPro. So I paced myself extremely much.

Once I got closer to the border I decided to stop and eat in an attempt to void me of Albanian currency.

Regular roadside place, it was rice with peas and a chicken fillet rolled up in bacon stuffed with peppers, the chicken was  the most stringy thing ever.

After that I headed to the border and had a Cappuccino and a Red Bull just at the border crossing. A very friendly and welcoming Greek border guard waved me past all the cars and said I wouldn't be able to reach Monodendri, my goal in Greece, because it was late in the day and a lot of steep climbs during the last 30 k's.

He was right, I called the hotel I had booked a room at and mentioned I would't get there in time. They offered to come pick me up for 20 Euro and I took their offer. It was nice talking to someone speaking English for a change on my way up to the mountain village. Once there, after a hot shower, I sat in their restaurant near an open fireplace and ate a complimentary cheese pie made my the mother of this family owned hotel, Hotel Ladias.

Lovely warn fireplace and a cheese pie to die for!

Slept very well.

A very uneventful day in Sarande. 7/4-2013

So today I had another free day in Sarande, sadly the weather wasn't anywhere near what it was the day before but I thought I would do a check-up on my bike and besides that just don't do anything in particular.

That's what happened!

I had major problems communicating with the girls at a fast food joint and after a while I managed to order my brunch, a grilled sandwich with chicken, bacon, cheese, mayonnaise and... potatoes! Seems the don't get enough carbs in these countries I mean c'mon - bread and potatoes in a sandwich?! Anyway, it was good and I washed it down with a Amstel as they didn't have local beer.

Saved about half of it for a afternoon snack!

After that I headed to the supermarket and bought some stuff and on my way home they seemed to have a kind of a farmers market on the main strip along the beach.

Lots of vegetables in the place on the left!

When I had postponed starting with the bike long enough I took the bull by it's horns and got started, I removed the front wheel, the tire and the inner tube and examined it, it wasn't in need of any tuning from what I could see. I then tightened the bolt for the saddle, that's the one thing that I can't get fixed properly, it always loosens after a while and tilts forward enough for me to risk hurting the family jewels should a sudden need of braking occur.

Tomorrow I leave Albania!