The Peloponnese

Slightly green from our bumpy overnight ferry ride (Poseidon had whipped up a storm the previous night which had the Mediterranean unusually choppy), we rolled into Patras, Greece in torrential rain which started two minutes before we disembarked then stopped about five minutes after.
We turned up at our hotel disguised as two drowned rats - we seem to be making a habit of this. After a night in Patras recovering from the ferry ride (and feeling in awe of our ancestors who spent six weeks, or was it longer!!, on a boat to NZ/Australia) we pedalled off toward the mountains of the Peloponnese. The next few days were spent climbing steeply, passing ancient ruins and camping with spectacular views high up in the beautiful mountains. After a few weeks of feeling a bit "cycled out", the ride was stimulating and felt like a perfect last stretch before saying farewell to our steeds.

 

After a series of fine days, we woke up to a drizzly one and didn't pedal far before stopping for refuge in a tiny cafe in a tiny town. There we met the very sweet old lady who ran the cafe and two of its patrons, an outgoing Greek man from a nearby village and a gentle local originally from Albania. On our world map, he showed us with pride where he was from in Albania - Berat. We took note of this since we were planning to go to Albania after ditching the bikes. They were chomping away on walnuts and gave us a pile of them, explaining they were from the local trees. As we were getting ready to head back into the drizzle, the Greek man, George, announced he was going to Tripoli and we were to put our bikes on the back of his ute. We were not sure whether he was going there anyway or taking us specially, but he seemed to have made up his mind so there wasn't any room for argument. The sweet old lady running the cafe brought out a cup of ouzo for the journey amid the flurry of our departure, which I took a tentative sip of before passing the cup to Matthew. The distracted Matthew took a huge gulp thinking it was water and thus began a hilarious 20km ride filled with confused miming as we tried to converse, interrupted by lots of toots by George showing off his amusing cargo to locals. Once there, we wanted to buy lunch for George to say thanks and managed to explain this to him via an interpreter - a lovely English-speaking friend he had called on his cell phone.  After downing far too much souvlaki, feta, bread, chips, wine and who knows what else, George would not let us pay despite our insistence. We came to a mimed agreement that if his teenage sons come to Melbourne one day, we will return his hospitality! Then George whizzed off in his perpetual whirlwind of energy, back to his postman job. We wobbled slowly away to look around Tripoli and  to digest/sober up, wondering how on earth he could drive after all that wine and trying not to think too much about this. We didn't eat again until the following morning.