It's Shanky's birthday today! We had a huge buffet breakfast and did a shorter cycle today. However, it wasn't easy, we had the final mountain of our trip. So it was one long uphill ascent and then the same going back down, we tried to "enjoy" it as it's our last big climb and thankfully the road was not busy at all and it was a cool and cloudy day so perfect for cycling. We are now in the final countdown to our destination, Thessaloniki, 2 days left now and the rest of the road is flat!
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| The view of Lake Kastoria this morning |
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| Half way up the mountain and we could see the lake 20km away |
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We are on the right road to Thessaloniki -
not back to Albania please! |
The Greek cyclist
We had a much smaller hill in the second half of the day and a local cyclist on his road bike cruised by our side to have a chat. He was intrigued about our trip and gave up some tips in the local area and how to sit comfortably on the bike, we told him we were aching. Before he jetted off he offered to give us his number if we needed but we were only a few kilometres from the hotel so we declined politely. As we approached the hotel, we could even see it, there were three crazy dogs barking wildly on the road we were headed on. After the incidents in Bosnia and Albania I was not keen to go past them while riding. So we got off the bikes to make a plan, just out of the corner of my eye I saw a cyclist coming down the other road, so I said let's see what he does.
As he came closer it turned out it was our Greek cyclist friend. He assumed we were too tired to cycle, but we explained our predicament, he promptly jumped off his bike and walked us past the dogs. He chatted away calmly all the while explaining about stray dogs here in Greece and that a good tactic is to spray them with water or to try to talk to them to calm them down. We walked by and there were 8 more in the field to the right and then two behind a fence on the left who continued to bark wildly as we all walked past. We were saved! Thanks Greek man.
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| A Greek church on the cycle today |
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| Messing around at the hotel |
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| Shanky's birthday cake - it was yummy and gooey inside |
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