Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Today’s stats:
Distance traveled today:  60.1 km
Total trip distance:  3183 km
Max speed:  61.99 km/ hour
Average speed: 16.4 km / hour
Total time biking: 3:40
Total days biking: 56
Spending: 103.70 euros

We woke up on the beach to a beautiful sunrise. It made me wish we had rough camped more often.

Another nice, easy day of riding, though with a few more hills than in the past two days. Upon Marcella’s advice, we decided to take a short ferry to Salamina Island to cut our kilometers and avoid hectic city riding. Damn Italians don't wear helmets, so I suppose they have to be more careful choosing routes.

Marcella had nicknamed Richard the stunt man yesterday, when, in slow motion, he fell off his bike while nearly standing still. And today, when she saw how quickly he pedaled up mountains and the urgency with which he did just about everything, the name stuck. 

When we got to the ferry docking area, Richard was, as usual, one step ahead of the rest of us. We were still trying to figure out where to go, when he pointed to a booth and zoomed past us to buy the tickets.

“You’re always in a rush, aren’t you Stuntman?” Marcella joked.

The ride across the island was quiet and tranquil. About halfway, Richard and I found a small auto shop and asked for a bathroom.

“For you, yes,” the man said to Richard. “But for lady, it’s not good.”

“Oh, it’s ok,” I said.

“It’s not clean,” the man protested.

When I finally convinced him to let me use it, he led me to me a small squat toilet which was far better than many toilets I’ve used. In fact, Richard recently started calling me a punk for my ability to pull my pants down just about anywhere to pee. Maybe after five months on the road, my frame of reference is a bit out of whack?

At the other end of the island, we took another ferry to Perama, back on the mainland. Then we cycled into Pireas, where Marcella and Bernardo were going to catch a ferry for the Greek Island of Crete.

After an extended period of “whatever you want”, the four of us where finally able to make a decision on where to have lunch. Over gyros, we exchanged contact information and pictures.

“If you ever change your mind and decide to keep riding,” they told us, “you should meet us out east and we can continue together.”

I knew they weren’t just saying so. We’d only spent a day and a half together, but saying goodbye was sad – not only because we had so enjoyed our time with them, but because we were also saying goodbye to our trip, while they were just beginning their adventure.

M & B, best of luck with your trip. May your passion lead you to beautiful places and experiences. And who knows, maybe we’ll see you along the way!

The ride from Pireas to Athens was a bit of a roller coaster and I think Richard wished we had taken the train into town instead. We accidentally ended up on a major highway with no shoulder, called Syngrou Avenue. Cars zoomed past us as 100 km/hour a little too close for comfort. We stopped on the median and considered crossing the other side of the highway to get to a smaller road, but it would have been impossible without being hit. So we continued on until we were finally able to exit onto a smaller road and take a tunnel underneath it to the other side.

Athens is a great, lively city and we stayed in a cheap hotel right downtown. We spent the evening walking around vendor-filled streets and got great entertainment watching the cat-and-mouse game between police and the unlicensed Africans and South Asians selling all sorts of shit, from to Vuitton purses to mini space crafts with neon flashing lights to dancing donkeys, and my favorite of all: plastic tomatoes that splatter when you smack them on the ground, before gathering themselves back together in the shape of a ball. How these guys could continue going to work everyday was beyond me. Every now and then, we’d see a pack of them running down the street with huge garbage bags of products followed a few metres behind by four police officers walking with a menacing stride. A street that was full of vendors emptied in minutes when word spread that the police were coming. Look-out men were conspicuously placed at strategic points to alert the running vendors when it was safe to return and start the game all over again. It was a show the whole city watched every day.

Tomorrow, I get to work taking apart and packing my bike. Richard is now leaning towards sticking around Greece and then catching a flight from Athens to Beirut, where he will start a new job in January. Crazy how time flies. What you’ve spent months planning and looking forward to is over before you know it.