Our first full day's ride...

Landing in Agios Nicholaos (Crete,) we begin our first full day's ride- 26 hilly, beautiful coastal miles... ending in an awesome little camping ground east of Ierapetra. We took a side road through a tinsy town, Vasiliki- try and find that one on the map!, that probably hadn't seen 1985, let alone 2 bike tourists.... one man peered at me with a hand at his brow, as if looking out to sea at a foreign object..I was 3 feet away! ha! Wild morning glories, vineyards, and horned sheep... what a great ride!

A $2 bottle of wine, and a huge dinner topped off the day and we slept like rocks...

Today we are in Ierapetra, futsing around... interneting and being little photographers... the old town is a dream! Narrow cobbled streets, old houses, and plants and flowers hanging everywhere.. we even found where rotary telephones go to die....

The Sacrificial Shoe

.. Next morning, packing up our *units ( pipers new name for our bike/trailer/body combo,) I didn't deem it necessary to strap down my hiking sandals properly, and of course didn't realize one was missing until 8 miles (uphill) and three hours later- DOH! I can feel all the dad's in the world reading this, shaking their heads at my improper strappage.... And you better believe I went looking for that sucker (sans BOB of course) NO DICE! But if I had to sacrafice my Chaco so that the biking Gods would be satiated- so be it! $2.50 thongs work just fine. The bike ride was great though, we passed through the ancient town of Megalohori, passed countless wineries and had a sweet descent into town.

Next stop, Fira- idyllic Greek island town with white washed buildings and colorful accents, built on the side of a cliff, overlooking the Med. From Fira the view of the volcanos caldera is epic and you are pretty much standing on the edge of volcanos mouth. Fira has a sweet open-air theater, but we had a bit of trouble finding it, so no DaVinci Code for us! Our ferry to Crete (Kriti) departed at 4:40 am, so we decided to treat ourselves to an adventurous midnight ride back down the crazy switchback to the port. It was a "white knuckling" experience (for me) to say the very least, and Tim had a poop-eatin' grin, "best ride of my life". A 90lb unit plus body weight, travels really freakin' fast downhill!! But, maybe it just seemed fast because it was pitch black- gotta fix that headlight! The hair pin turns wouldnt come into view until about 20 feet before hand, and since tour travelling at about 20 miles an hour ( at least Tim was ) the turns came up fast!! The farther down the hill that you got the more the Port came into view, and out the side of your tearring eyes you could see the reflections of the boats lights in the water down below. Truely unique.

After riding around so much looking for my shoe earlier, sleeping on the concrete (waiting for the ferry) never felt so good!! (insert shameless Big Agnes sleeping bag plug here) The ferry to Crete was .... interesting; crying Gypsy babies, diesel fumes, and sticky carpet to sleep on- thank god for our... you guessed it, Big Agnes sleep-systems!!

Shaky Beginnings

We last left you in Athens- a rocky start and it still took 4 days to recover my lost bag! Starting out at the hostel with our Greece flags flying and with a nice big send off crew, I fall over on my bike, can't even pedal the damn thing it's so heavy!! "Great, how am I going to get through 2000 miles, let alone, down the block?!?? Tim, could we please not start off going on the super busy, super scary Athens thoughroughfare???" Okay, feeling more confident after some side-street practice, now off to the port of Pireaus!

Greek drivers are crazy. There are no rules. The lines on the road are only suggestions as are the traffic lights. But because of the popularity of motor scooters the drivers out here are constantly on the lookout for slow moving objects...like Tim and Piper!!

Once on the ferry to Santorini, we tucked our bikes next to a big truck, and set up camp on deck. We got some funny looks blowing up our sleeping pads and sliding them into the sleeves of our SUPER AWESOME BIG AGNES SLEEPING BAGS (shameless plug) but we slept like babies on the, otherwise, brutally uncomfy benches, AND awoke to sun rising over the island of Ios.

Rolling off the ferry on Santorini, we look straight up at the swithcback we must climb to get out of the port, at the calderas edge. **Santorini is a volcanic island- it erupted, supposedly burying the lost city of Atlantis- cool** The climb up was actually pretty easy, and we cruised down to a posh little beach town- Kamari... hung out on the charcoal-pebbled beach in sweet (free) loungers and napped..AH...the Mediterranean! Unfortunately, we found out that the camp ground there had been closed for years and had turned into a shady squatters camp, so we had to trudge up a hellish switchback to the nearest town with camping...oops. Our first ridiculously steep climb- 1.5 miles took us about an hour!! The locals were laughing at us, one guy even passed us twice on his moped to see if we were for real!!

But, Perissa (where we did eventually camp) was much more our style- cool backpacker haunt, cheap, lazy-beach atmosphere, surrounded by staggering peaks and turquoise water. That's when it happened.....

Day 2 in Athens

Day 2:
We started the day by trying some Grecian pastries to get us fueled up for touring the Acropolis and ancient ruins. We learned that what looks like a donut is not necessarily a donut, but a honey syrup soaked piece of bread!! Oh Well.

The Acropolis is old. It is old and falling down. It is old and falling down and being rebuilt all at the same time!! The Acropolis is also on the top of a huge limestone hill ( not easy walking when your luggage is still missing and your wearing crocs! ) that must be at least 100 degrees in the sun. Because of this and after we toured the ruins, we walked very slowly through the air conditioned museum that is located at the top of the hill. After a quick lunch under the cyprus trees ( at the bottom of the Acropolis ) we set off for the Temple of Zeus via the historic Plaka District. The Plaka was gorgeous, it sure beat the walk that we took the day we arrived - bums, junkies, homeless dogs, shoe sales men. The Plaka is what you may think of when thinking of Athens. Narrow, colorful streets lined with flowering shrubs and trees, cafes in tight alley ways, small balconies made of rock and twisted metal.

The Temple of Zeus was 104 massive pillars of which only 10 stand and one that blew over in a gale force wind. The ruins were great but we need to brush up on our Greek history because we have no idea how the Ancients built these things because they are ridiculously massive, even by current standards. At the Temple of Zeus you can take photos and sit on benches. What you Cannot do is just about everything else. We witnessed a couple being scolded for taking photos with their hands raised to the sky, and we were scolded twice. Once for sitting with our shoes off and a second time for lying down in the shade of an orange tree. No rest near Zeus!!

After three days Mediterranean fashion still does not cease to amaze us. Men: tight pants in 90 degrees, tight flashy shirts and ( get ready for this ) mullets!!!! Yes, the Mullet has made a comeback in the Mediterranean. Spiked on top and long and greasy in the back. Woah. Women from Greece have breasts and they want you to know about it. They REALLY want you to know about it! And that is about all I noticed about Greek women. Piper noticed the crazy shoe fetishes and designer sunglasses, but I was too distracted by what was in between the glasses and the shoes to notice them.

US- Athens

First part of the trip... adventurous at best...

*Tip- don't fly standby unless you have a change of undies, a toothbrush, and comfy clothes.

Why, you ask? Because flying standby means you have to be flexible enough to fly by the seat of your pants, and change your plans on a whim. In our case, that meant flying to London instead of Frankfurt (couldn't get on the flight,) and then getting a cheap ticket to Athens- scrapping our full price tickets from Frankfurt... That one flight a day thing to Frankfurt can really get ya! BUT, we did get to fly business to Heathrow- ate a four course meal (with champagne,) and slept like babies in the super lux recliners... the flight to Athens was a different story, somewhere between riding a Greek bus and witnessing the decline of fallen Greek beauty queens (the flight attendants.)

Once in Athens, we quickly learned (the hard way) two things: a. that our luggage was still in Chicago (malakas!) and b. that Greek taxi drivers will indeed rip you off (the books weren't lying! malakas!) But, onward we trudged to our hostel- not the fanciest of places, but the staff is the best!

Three days later, here we sit... Tim in clean clothes, bikes put together, and Piper in Tim's clothes... oh yeah, my bag is still in transit!!! Will we ever get out of Athens?!? Piper wasn't feeling too positive, so she cried (break down #1 on day 2- but understandably so.. probably from lack of different undies...malakas!)

Hopefully we'll be able to leave for Santorini tonight!