A Macedonian detour

June 22, 2013

Distance: 40.6 miles Climbing: 2349.1 ft

Due to some confusion the day before, we missed out on the brewery tour, but were told to come back in the morning. We had a quick breakfast and showed up when the brewery opened ready for the tour. We spent about half an hour engaged in confusing dialog with the lackadaisical security guard before a woman who worked in the office came by and found someone to give us the tour. Our guide turned out to be production manager for the whole brewery. He ended up being really cool and opened up a lot once he realized Chandler and I knew a lot about brewing. His whole brewery is controlled with a SCADA system which means he can manipulate the most minute details of the brewing process from any computer equipped with the proper software. He knew a ton about lagers and the beer he brewed, but when we were comparing malt to water ratios for our American style India Pale Ales, he kept saying “Impossible!” He had been on a tour of a Budweiser brewery in Florida and assumed that was how all beer in America was created. We tried to explain craft brewing and “100% malt” but it didn’t seem to translate. For as saturated as the micro-brewing culture is within the US, it doesn’t seem to have penetrated to the Balkans!!

The raw ingredients

Beer nerds

While chatting and looking at the computer system we sipped some of their black beer which was just a lager with some black patent malt to color it. The last part of the tour was through the bottling and kegging station, and then we hit the road before 10am. Being so close to Macedonia, we decided to take a swing through for a few days before passing back through northern Albania. The ride to the border was mostly flat with a few hills that made for easy riding. Crossing from Albania to Macedonia was as straight forward.

Lovely flat road

Church, mosque and donkey

We planned to make a circuit around Ohrid Lake which saddled the border, through the town of Ohrid and then back up a river gorge into Albania. Since on the map the road appeared to follow the lakeshore, we assumed it would be flat and mellow so we could make good time. The road was actually shoulderless and narrow, winding up one steep hill after another, leaving us sweating buckets. There were tons of tourists in sporty rental cars out for a drive passing way to close and too fast for the quality of the road.

We were planning on camping outside of Ohrid, but it quickly became obvious that was not going to be an option. The closer we got to the town of Ohrid, the more developed the land around the lake became. When we reached a small town offering apartment rooms for rent, Chandler suggested we stop. We ended up finding a great room which included internet and a balcony overlooking the lake for 20€. We parked our bikes around the back on the building, carried our panniers to our room and then had a swim in the lake.

The water was the perfect temperature after a hot, sweaty ride. We swam around for an hour to cool off. There were a lot of little fish that would come and nibble our legs if we held very still. The sensation reminded me of the fish pedicure I had in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We had fun seeing who would attract the most fish.

Swimming in the lake

Feeling much more relaxed, we headed back to our room to shower, do laundry and use the internet. Once chores were out of the way, we headed to a restaurant for pizza. We had access to a kitchen at the apartment, but with prices so low, we had to take advantage of not cooking or cleaning.

Korçe

Jul14

June 20 – 21, 2013

Distance: 27.9 miles Climbing:1968.5 ft

We lingered the next morning as long as possible over second cups of espresso before forcing ourselves to get on the road. It was a short ride to Korçe from Erseke, up and down hills and past meadows filled with flowers. We had one big pass to climb, but again the traffic was almost nonexistent and the grade was mellow. The cars that did pass us were courteous and friendly. With both of us feeling so strong, it was almost a shame we had such a short day.

Chandler and his “bar of justice”

Another beautiful view

Maybe I will switch from a bike to a horse?

Who’s next for a haircut?

Normally, when we hit large cities, people ignore us and treat us like any other tourist. Korçe was completely different. Old men were leaning out windows to wave and young men were banging on bar windows to get our attention. I felt like a celebrity as we traveled through town. We biked around and after some meandering, we found the small local “Hotel Vienna” which rented huge rooms at 20 Euros a day. Unfortunately, the rooms were on the third floor and there was no air-con. We rearranged the room so we could open the windows behind the beds, which let in a little breeze. We spent the rest of time exploring town.

There was a pretty extensive market at the center of things, rivaling anything we had seen in Asia. Pretty much any item of construction material or hardware was on sale at cheap prices. There was also a central nucleus of food sales where women sold cherries, olives, peaches, tomatoes and all sorts of other produce at rock bottom prices. Chandler got caught in a bidding war between two olive sellers and ended up buying a half kilogram from each at a total cost of less than $3. There was a lot of cheese and butter on sale also which we didn’t buy since we don’t have a great system for long term storage.

We took a rest day in town and gorged ourselves on cheap pizza and lamb and chicken gyro’s for Chandler. We discovered the Korça Brewery which was a major highlight. There was a lovely shaded beer garden serving food outside where we spent several hours relaxing. The atmosphere was great and the prices we unbelievable. We added up the price of every item on the menu and it worked out to less than $40. We ordered up a feast and stayed well within our budget.

A small feast

Albania so far was a cycle tourist’s dream come true: friendly people, good traffic and roads, beautiful scenery and cheap food and accommodations. We were already making all kinds of fantasy plans about future vacations.

First day in Albania

Jul12

June 19, 2013

Distance: 38.8 miles Climbing: 5232.9 ft

We were excited to experience Albania. Jenny and I came in through a remote corner of the country, so we weren’t sure what sort of towns we’d come into first, but we knew they wouldn’t be touristy. We rolled into a town which we think was called Carshove, but we’re not 100% sure. There was suddenly a lot of hustle and bustle, mainly people working on the engines of big diesel dump trucks, and washing them. A man wearing a fluorescent vest waved us into a café offering espresso, which sounded heavenly.

After two pretty decent coffees and a couple of bottles of cold water, we were on our way. We didn’t have any Albanian Leke yet, so we paid in Euros at an extortionate rate. Luckily, coffee is cheap and even paying double is way less than paying full price at home!

We rode on, and soon we started to get into some serious views. The mountains in southern Albania are really high and held some big snow fields and maybe even some glaciers up high. We were really excited to be in some big alpine terrain, which reminded us a lot of Alaska in some ways. Even though we were climbing like crazy we were both in ecstatic moods.

Standard jumping photo

Greece was a letdown for us, even though it had the great landscapes and food, the bad car driving, the tepid attitude of the people and the cost of things was a bit deflating. We were ready for something new.

We read about Albania’s complex recent history and a lot of common knowledge seemed to indicate it was still kind of dangerous. Briefly: Albania was the most extreme Marxist communist country ruled for decades by a paranoid and oppressive dictator, Enver Hoxha. The country did not join up with the Yugoslav bloc, had a shaky relationship with the USSR, and then became more aligned with the Chinese before becoming more isolated. A massive amount of time, money and resources was spent building thousands of these miniature concrete bunkers designed to repel a land invasion. Enver died in 1985 and since then the country has been on a rocky road to democracy.

Communist era personal bunker

We read a few blogs on cycling through the country and found that a lot of people stuck to the coast and found the roads in awful condition with loads of traffic. The few people who cycled in the interior had nothing but good things to say about the riding and the people. We decided to give the place a shot and stick to the mountain roads away from the cities.

Mountain village

Our first full day in the country provided a huge measure of encouragement. We rode through rugged hills up and down again with really light traffic. The roads were really bad, but on a bike they were 100% ride-able and with almost zero traffic, we felt very safe zigzagging all over the place to find a clean line through the potholes. Even though we were on a major national highway, it had the feel of a paved, but rundown Forest Service road. They were narrow and the grades weren’t great, but we only passed a few Mercedes and felt totally relaxed the whole time.

We climbed over the semi infamous Barmash Pass, which was listed at over 1700 meters in our Lonely Planet, but was less than 1200 meters in reality. I think we hit a higher section way before that. The highlights of the Barmash pass section was that it was hot as hell, getting chased by sheep dogs and there wasn’t a store or anywhere to get a cold drink on the main road.

Views worth climbing for

It’s hard to explain why, but the combination of stunning scenery, quiet roads and a feeling of exotic isolation made it one of our all time favorite rides of the whole trip so far.

The only traffic on this highway

After a while we made it to the town of Erseke (Err-Sek). We found an ATM and finally got some Albanian cash. We were shooting to get to Korce for the day, since we knew there were hotels there, but we passed a little wedding/hotel place in town and decided to check it out. It was family owned and had 20 Euro rooms, so we were in. After a few beer Korcas, we made it down to the dining room where we made the usually fruitless effort of telling the waiter Jenny is vegetarian. To our surprise, the girl spoke passing English and totally understood us. From the kitchen came courses of fried zucchini, squash and potato, then cheese, piles of bread and a salad. I got a bunch of fried chicken. When we settled up the bill our whole meal including 4 beers cost less than $15!

We lounged in our room and tried to watch TV, but none of it was in English so we had no idea what was going on. With no wifi, we quickly lost interest in the outside world and fell asleep.

Enver Hoxha

Last day in Greece

Jul4

June 17 – 18, 2013

Distance: 46.5 miles Climbing: 4215.9 ft

After our marathon climbing/cryfest yesterday, we took the day off to rest, resupply and check up on the blog. Greece is pretty much shut down on Sunday so we couldn’t capitalize on the supermarket the day before. Besides a shopping spree at the Lidl, we didn’t leave the room which was just fine with us. There was a cave pretty much right next to the door that was supposed to be pretty cool, but it had a 7 Euro entrance fee and photographs were prohibited, so we boycotted that tourist trap.

The next morning, we woke early and eager to get to Albania, the 10^th country on our trip. We managed to stay off the main highway on good asphalt, so we were having a wonderful morning. We passed by old ladies herding sheep, quaint villages and wonderfully shady forests. We also helped a record 4 turtles and saw an additional 2 hanging out in vegetation on the side of the road.

Goat lady

Turtle close-up

When we reached a larger village about 25 miles into the day, we stopped for cheese pies and to do some grocery shopping. Outside of the market, we meet our first bike tourist in Greece. He was a German who had been studying in Istanbul and was on his way to Vienna to return the bike he had borrowed. Cycle touring is apparently really popular in Europe and we were expecting to meet people on short tours, but he was the first cycle tourist we’ve come across since some Danish people in Turkey. He was pretty cynical about our GPS, and though it has sent us on some wild goose chases, it has been the most indispensable items we’ve taken along besides the bikes themselves . Paper maps can be great especially if they have topographic info, but they vary a lot in quality: in China we couldn’t find anything even remotely accurate, plus maps are expensive: $10-$15 per country adds up, and they don’t tell you where you are right now which is useful if you want to do some creative routing to escape an evil highway etc.

Snail and star plant

The riding seemed to reset after our time in town and the going got tougher. We climbed another big hill with no shade in blazing heat. When planning our trip, our mantra was “to skip winter” after a few rough winters and cold rainy summers in Anchorage. Greece made me realize the wisdom of the “be careful what you wish for” idiom. I longed for it to snow or rain or to just be cloudy, anything to give me a break from the unrelenting sun.

Up yet another hill

Crossing the border was uneventful and easy. After rousing the Greek border police we were stamped out. We stopped in no-man’s land at the duty-free for an ice cream before entering Albania. It is always amazing to us how obvious it is that we were in a new country. The drivers gave us a little more room, honking and waving to us. The first person we came upon was a goat herder who stared at us intently. As we passed we gave him a little wave and his hand shot up instantly as if we activated some mechanical trigger in his arm.

We traveled along a beautiful and inviting river. When I noticed a little road leading down to the water, we immediately veered down to the beach. The water ended up running a little too swiftly for swimming, but it felt amazing to soak our feet in it. There were several large trees perfect for hammocks along the bank. While Chandler read, I ended snoozing for over an hour. When I woke up, I convinced Chandler that we should just camp there and be done with the day. It didn’t take much to talk him into it.

Nighttime river

We set up our tent away from the river, next to a concrete wall on top of sand. We had a few sheep dogs come down and bark at us, but otherwise the night was calm and quiet. We were excited for our first full day in Albania.

Moon

Crying the whole way up

Jul4

June 16, 2013

Distance: 55.7 miles Climbing: 4429.1 ft

With our 50 mile daily goal, we were trying to get up early to take advantage of the cool morning temperatures. After the usual morning routine, we hit the road and I actually had to wear a sweater for the first hour of the day. While the day was slow to warm, when it did get hot, it was almost unbearable.

We had a little excitement right away when Chandler spotted a few turtles in the middle of the road. When we rode up to each turtle, it would usually spot us and hideaway in its shell right in the middle of the road so we had to stop and help. If the turtle didn’t notice us and kept moving, we would just hang out and make sure it got to safety without any cars coming. A couple of times we acted as a temporary roadblock diverting traffic around the turtle, while the drivers just gave us a weird look.

Turtle rescue!

Our destination for the day was Ioannina, which was the last big town we’d hit before crossing into Albania. As usual we stuck to the back roads. Chandler noticed a bit of a shortcut on the GPS which cut out several miles and decided to follow it. The road deteriorated into a gravel path and we resorted to pushing the bikes up the hill. I wasn’t sure we were on the correct path, but thankfully, Chandler’s shortcut did bring us out on the road.

A successful shortcut

The heat was tremendous and the road appeared to go straight up. There was no shade and I was so miserable. Chandler was so far ahead of me, I was sure I would never catch up to him. At the top of the short hill, I was crying and Chandler was waiting off the road under the only tree for the last mile with a giant bottle of Tang he mixed up. When I got close, he ran out of the shade and grabbed my bike so I could get some relief.

After drinking the entire bottle of Tang and an additional liter of water, we were concerned about how much water we were going through. Our shirts were completely saturated with sweat despite the direct sun which usually keeps out backs dry, so we were obviously dumping water almost as quickly as we were drinking it. At the next village, we approached a house with two men drinking beer and eating on the patio. I walked up shaking an empty bottle and asked “nero?” The owner, Dmitrius, came out, spoke great English and filled all our bottles. He was very curious about our journey and we sat in the shade relaxing and chatting. His son had cycled to Iaonnina before so we got some information about how far and how high we had to go. We have many more miles to cover so we had to leave after just a few minutes. Dmitrius asks if he can take our photo, headed into the house and returned with a camera and a bag full of tomatoes and a cucumber for us.

A generous new friend, Dmitirius

Feeling refreshed and grateful for Dmitrius’ generosity, we start up the next mountain. The grade was mellow, but the sun was brutal. There was absolutely no shade and no breeze, so the climbing was hard. Chandler is a much stronger climber than I am and far ahead of me, so I was free to cry without worrying him. I pretty much cried my whole way up the hill. Even though I drank several liters of water, I felt like I was going to pass out from dehydration. On the last bend, I noticed a series of switchbacks leading even higher up the mountain, which was the last straw and I just began sobbing. Just a bit further along, I saw another road actually heading down the mountain, which I hoped was the primary road.

I also noticed Chandler’s bike parked on the side of the road with him clinging to the side of a small rock underneath a tiny bush. The bush produced the smallest amount a shade, but it was enough to cover both of us. When I pulled up to Chan’s bike, he jumped out of the shade and grabbed my bike and again sent me to the shade while he took care of everything. As he made us a bread, oil, tomato and feta snack, he told me that before he saw the bush he actually considered crouching in the miniscule shade next to some beehives, just to get some relief.

No shade here

Feeling much better after our break, we pedaled off under the blazing sun, but this time heading down the hill. Our relief was temporary as we soon began slowly climbing uphill again. We had assumed it was all downhill to Ioannina after we made it over the pass, so we were especially disappointed to be working so hard. Just as I had begun to cry again, we spotted a spring on the side of the road. It may have been a blessed spring as it was right next to a small stone church in the middle of nowhere. We filled all our empty bottles, drank and drank and drank and refilled. We splashed or faces and hair with the cool water. It is really amazing how much better we feel after putting water on our bodies.

One of Greece’s amazing springs

Finally on our last push to town, we started talking about pizza. We decided that we would eat an entire pizza each ourselves. We opted for a route through a farming neighborhood instead of the highway. The road naturally took us over another giant hill. At this point, we just laughed at how ridiculous the day turned out. The last few miles into town are thankfully all downhill.

Once in town, we pull over at the first pizza place. The owners are hanging around outside and watch as we park our bikes, take off helmets and gloves and prepare to sit down. Chan goes to order when the woman says that the place is closed. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back and I started crying again. I was turning into such a baby. I cried the next 3 miles through town when Chandler noticed another pizza place. After confirming with the young guy running the place that the joint was open, we ordered a large margarita pizza each. The pizza was really good, and worth the splurge.

Everything was right in the world again. We found a room no problem right next to some sort of cave and settled in for a relaxing night.

A Few Days Off

the things that we do

Monthly Archives: July 2013