Greece – A Crisis of Motivation

In the weeks before entering Greece, our motivation began to wane pretty badly.  This post focuses on the things that grated on us over several months, so it reads pretty negative.  Most of days, however, we keep pretty positive, laugh at the weather and enjoy the riding!

After our race out of Albania, narrowly outrunning the ‘Beast from the East’ winter storm that paralyzed the country, we rode across the border into country 13, Greece.  The crisp morning air was warmed by the morning sun over a cloudless sky.  The waters that had flooded roads all along the coast had already receded and by all appearances hadn’t been as severe here as it had been in Albania.  At the border, the guard did a quick cursory check of our passport, lingering a moment on our previous stamps, and admitted us into the country.  At this point, we had nine days left on our Schengen Visa.  We’d been racing against the clock from Iceland to Croatia, trying to keep as much time available for Greece as we could.  The Balkan countries were meant to be a space of time where we could relax a bit without having any challenging deadlines.  This was sort of the case.

Winter burned us out.  And we were lucky.  

As much as we’d like to say cycle touring is a relaxing activity where you can just toddle along at your own pace, for the first 81 days of our trip, we were under pressure.  From Iceland the clock started.   As Canadians we have a paltry 90 days in every 180 day period to visit a 26 country region known as the Schengen Area.  This zone allows for border free travel between countries and is super convenient for your average tourist on a short holiday and EU residents.  For those looking for a longer stay, such as the former right-of-passage 6 month tour of Europe young Canadians used to do, or for slow travellers like cyclists, it’s a royal pain in the ass.   In Iceland we had to race across the country in a little over two weeks to Seydisfjordur to catch a ferry to Denmark.  We rode every day, breaking in our touring legs in crazy headwinds.  At times we were cycling downhill in first gear at 3.5km/hr.  We were blown off our bikes by wind gusts, we pushed our bikes against the wind and we were drenched by heavy rains.  Luckily, we were let off easy most days, by Iceland’s standards anyhow.  We had unseasonable warmth, with daytime highs ranging from +4 to +10 and most of the time we had manageable winds.  We made our ferry and travelled to Denmark.   Our time in international waters counted against our visa. 

In Denmark we ran into another problem.  The push across Iceland had left Elaine with a sore knee that crippled our days down to 40 or 50km a day.   We dealt with this easily during the first few days when the weather was good, but our moods turned when the weather turned sour, soaking us daily.  The pedaling was slow, the tent soaked, our sleeping bags wet and finally, her wet foot rubbing inside of her boot developed an infection on her toe.  We rode into Germany, hopped a train and went to Hamburg for medical attention.  We rested, dried out and tried again.  Her knee hadn’t healed and the rain was relentless in Northern Germany.  We ended up back on a train, this time to Wroclaw, Poland.  We needed to make up miles and time. 

In Wroclaw a physiotherapist worked his magic and fixed the knee problem.  We trained to Krakow, allowing the knee a couple more days on his recommendation.  Back on the pedals with the knee issue solved, we rode to Slovakia and our first snowy passes.  We decided we actually preferred snow to rain.  It’s easier to stay warm when dry than warm when wet.  Slovakia challenged this when, on our last couple days in the country, a frigid ice fog descended on the land and produced the coldest -2C we’ve ever experienced.  It cut through to your bones, and no amount of clothing seemed to bring warmth.  We pedaled on to Hungary, frozen.  

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In Hungary we met another bout of good fortune.  After a really nice Christmas spent in Budapest, we rode out under sunny skies and soaring temperatures.  On December 27^th it was 14C.  Glorious sunshine prevailed every day.  The nights continued to be very cool.  This cold air, meeting the top of our tent and the warmth coming from our bodies inside, produced an ongoing problem on this trip: condensation.  Every morning, no matter the weather, the underside of our tent was soaked, which meant every night we were setting up and sleeping in a wet tent.  It really added to the difficulties because we always felt damp and all our stuff would eventually be slightly damp.  The long winter nights found us cooped up in this damp space for up to 14 hours.  In any case, we kept going and finally exited the Schengen Area on January 1^st.  This left us with 9 days to pedal Greece.

 The Balkan’s were unseasonably warm, a refreshing experience, at least in Croatia and Serbia.  We avoided riding in rain until the last days and the landmine situation in Croatia put us in Guesthouses a few nights in a row.  When we rode into Serbia on January 4^th, it was +18C, 42 degrees warmer than the same day on the previous year.  We took a day off in Bogatic, a small town of no significant appeal, over the Orthodox Christmas.  We had Christmas dinner with the guesthouse owners and got further insight in to the lives of Serbians.  From there we rode straight south to a southeastern crossing into Bosnia.  The good weather began turning cold and wet again, soaking us before rolling into Visegrad.  Winter arrived.  We took a 4 day break here to allow for a forecasted snow storm to blow through and dump 15cm on the town.  We took a high mountain road out, slipping and sliding through the snow on our way to Sarajevo.  A surprise blizzard slammed us on the second day out, plastering us with snow and making for some hazardous riding conditions as we made our way to the next town and a B&B.  Once in Sarajevo, we parked ourselves for 6 days.  It’s amazing how comforting it can be to just sit in one place for even a short amount of time.  The cold snap passed for the most part while we were there.  We pedaled out on roads wet from melting snow, heading for Mostar and on to the Mediterranean. 

Back in Croatia, this time on the coast in Dubrovnik, we rested a couple days before pedaling south towards Montenegro, Albania and Greece.  We got smoked by a severe storm between the Croatian border and Kotor, two days in a row.  In Montenegro we got nailed twice more in two days, the first we spent an hour huddled under a small canopy as sideways rain battered the mountains.  Once in Albania, we saw a nightmare of a storm known as ‘The Beast from the East’ heading our way.  The forecast was bad, heavy snow in the north and east of Albania, torrential rain in the south and west.  Looking at the severity, we opted to not wait it out but instead pedal it out to Sarande, on Albania’s southern coast.  We took main highways; skipping past all the quiet inland roads we’d planned to ride. We got lashed by wind and rain that preceded the storm and we pedaled 100km and did 2,300m of elevation on our final day. We arrived in Sarande just a few hours before the cataclysm hit.  That night the skies lit up with lightning which continued for 15 hours while the roads of Sarande filled with water.  The forecast was correct and the country was paralyzed north and east of us by snow up to 50cm deep.  We allowed a couple days for the flooding to recede south of us, and left for Greece.

Crossing into Greece returned us to the Schengen Area.  The border guard was unconcerned and allowed us to enter without mentioning the days left on our visa.  We rode through sunny orchards and along beautiful, seemingly forgotten, stretches of Mediterranean coast.  Even as the weather improved, I couldn’t shake a nagging voice in my head telling me to go home.  I was tired.  We were both tired.  Our bikes were having problems. They were rusting from regular coatings of road salt and our bottom brackets (the part that spins inside the bike frame as you pedal) were loose and the seals had failed.  Our tent was still getting soaked every night with condensation, so things were still damp.  Every day felt like a routine, and a routine I seemed no longer interested in fulfilling.  Cycle touring had become work, and it was hard to enjoy any aspect of it.  I missed our friends and family, I missed our property and I was beginning to stress about finances.  I’d first broached the subject of going home back in Serbia.  The distances ahead seemed insurmountable, and the weather and routines had begun to take their toll physically and psychologically.  We agreed to wait until Greece and talk about it again there.  Now in Greece we decided that, after flip flopping several times a day, we would head home from Istanbul.   The toughest aspects of the decision were that Turkey was basically where this ride would really begin to get interesting and that in all truth, if we fly the bikes home, it’s unlikely they’d come back anytime soon.  

After making this decision, we ran into a French couple who were cycling from France to Thailand on a Tandem.  We chatted briefly about plans.  We said we’d probably go home from Istanbul and they asked a tough question:  “Why from there?  Why not keep going?  Do you have somewhere to be?” They were simple and valid questions which led to further flip flopping.  Their enthusiasm for the road ahead was infectious and just talking about continuing made us want to press on.  Later on their blog, they would mention the two Canadian’s they ran into who seemed worn out by the weather and noted how unfortunate it would be for them to quit just as the weather is improving.  A few days later, we finally caught up to Elaine’s sister Karen and her boyfriend Jamie who are on a similar path to us.  Just being around friends, family and other like-minded people is such an enthusiasm boost. 

Cycle touring can be lonely business.

I can’t actually imagine riding for this long alone.  Even as a pair, it’s lonely.  Elaine and I spend an insane amount of time in each other’s company.  After six months, we’re basically one person.  We think similar thoughts, all things we talk about are things we both saw or experienced and it becomes harder and harder to find different things to talk about.  It probably sounds worse than it is, we definitely enjoy each other’s company, but it is hard to keep conversation fresh.  Add in six months of language barriers and the same ‘where are you from, where are you going’ conversations and you can see how it begins to feel pretty lonely.  Finding others to chat with becomes a necessity and is a prime source of motivation at this point.  Our time in Athens and on Chios with Karen and Jamie re-ignited our desire to keep riding, at least as far as Cappadocia, Turkey.  We decided we’d reassess there and keep options open for as long as we possibly can.

As we departed Greece, we were slapped with a 4 year ban from the EU Schengen visa zone.  The guard mistakenly included Croatia against our time and refused to hear our protests.  Croatia is not a Schengen country and as Canadians we receive a 60 day travel visa on arrival, indicated by the passport stamp.  He refused to rationalize being stamped out of Hungary and into Croatia.  This left us appearing to be overdue by 14 days.  In reality, we were overdue by just 4 days.  We tried our best to work the ferries in our favour to make it out in time, but a reduced winter schedule prevented this from working out.  The only options that remained to us were to depart 4 days late, or fly from Athens to Turkey.  Flying had its own complications.  We’d need to track down a bike boxes and duffel bags for our gear.  Our bikes also needed parts and service which we weren’t sure would be available in Turkey.  We decided to roll the dice and leave late with properly functioning bicycles.  This bit us in the ass.  I understand it’s our fault for overstaying, however our options were limited.  Due to the winter storm, we couldn’t leave Albania via any other way than through Greece and the reduced winter ferry schedule wasn’t apparent to us until we were already in Greece trying to get out.  Also, had the border guard known his job properly, he might have given us a lighter punishment.  He gave us the maximum he could with no explanation.  Worse, even if he were right, we would have been admitted into the country illegally at the Albanian border, as we only had 9 days remaining on the visa.  We weren’t deported, we left on our own.  We weren’t rude, we tried to explain the Croatia situation and he wouldn’t hear it.  As a comparison to punishments in other countries, a 2 week overstay in the UK would result in a 90 day ban.   It was 7am, the guard didn’t give a shit, and so with our ban in place, we boarded our ferry and left for Turkey.  This also extends beyond the EU since the EU shares it's information in real-time with Canada, USA and the UK.  So if we travel to USA or the UK, our ban from the Schengen Area will probably cause us a lot of of grief.

As I write we’re in Batumi, Georgia.  We cleared Turkey in 35 days, we’ll write about that sooner or later, and plan to continue to Azerbaijan.  We’ve broken the trip down into smaller goals which we’ll pick away at bit by bit.  Motivation continues to waver, but we are determined to overcome the difficulties.  We miss our friends and family, we miss our beautiful piece of land we’re slowly developing and we miss the financial security going to work provides.  That last one is hard to admit to, but we don’t hate our jobs and the longer we’re away from them, the harder it will be to go back.  There’s a certain fear of becoming destitute for an ambitious goal of uncertain reward.  For now though, we just keep it in the back of our minds as we look forward down the road into Asia.  Overall, our attitude is much better now than it was in Greece.  The good weather has made a huge difference for us.

Top of a 2190m pass in Turkey

We don’t know exactly where we’ll call it quits.  We sometimes find ourselves wavering or feeling like we’re pressing on when we don’t really want to.  What we do know is that each time we press through the tough times; we’re rewarded with wonderful experiences further down the road.  The more times we press on through the tough parts, the more sure we’ll be when the time is right to pack up and head home.  In the meantime, we’ll keep pedaling.

Greece Round-Up:

ODO Start: 4167km

ODO Finish: 4860km

Total: 693km
Actual country name: Hellenic   Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία)

Days in country: 14

Nights camped:  8

Nights aboard a ferry: 1

Ferries taken: 5

Km by ferry: 305
Other cycle tourers met on the road:
        - Charlene and Damien, a French couple riding a tandem, France to Thailand
        - Molly and Hayden, a British couple, England to... east?
        - Karen and Jamie! London to... undecided
        - A Swiss couple, Athens to Switzerland, combo cycling/climbing trip

# of times we quit: 1000

#of times we changed our minds about quitting: 1001