You caught me naked – Meteora

You caught me naked – Meteora

Good morning, it’s almost afternoon, it’s 12 30 but I waited for the temperature to go up while I was editing a video for next week episode. Leave no trace I would say, but I was about to leave a trace because this morning I was washing the plate and there was no water pressure and then I look out and that pipe burst, it froze last night and it burst this morning. That’s the worst, the worst that can happen when you’re at someone else’s place that you break something or something break and it’s not even your fault, that’s my nightmare. And yeah, then I text the owner Yanis and there is in that box there is a you can cut the the water and then there was a there was another place where you can cut the water for that part and now it’s good. But yeah, let’s keep going, it was a freezing night, the water pipe froze of course and now the sun is warm it’s just the air is very cold. Now I’m trying to find a place where there is no air because it’s really cold but if I’m staying in front of the sun it’s warm. Back at the school, school of Modi I’m glad I had a warm place to stay last night. Now I had to climb back up here but it was worth it. Beautiful valley, very peaceful. Got to the top, here there is a place where you can camp, met an Italian guy, youtuber and now we go down a little bit, it’s ups and downs. Pretty cold going down but look at the view, look at the view. Mucca, ciao Mucca! Those two cows must have escaped somehow. Mucca, ciao Mucca! Go back! I got to the hot springs, now I need to sort out the logistics. I think here there is nobody, I’m gonna jump in naked and nobody should mind, no? Oh, this is what the doctor ordered. I was freezing coming down the mountain, it was so cold today. Thank god there is this spring, I’m gonna stay here a few hours, I’m naked, hopefully nobody minds and here it’s beautiful oh this is so good oh I love it Someone brings me a beer now. Oh man, this is so good. Sunset o’clock. There’s a closed restaurant with a big roof. Big porch, roofing area there. The problem is there are five dogs there. You can see one there. But I tried to approach. These fuckers, they wanted to attack me. Very territorial, stray dogs. I slept there last night. Good morning. It’s cold. It’s very cold. Another freezing night. Despite the thought it was going to be above freezing. No, it was freezing. It was minus one. I’m in the shade. So I want to get going now. What happened last night? After the hot spring, I put back on my clothes, jumped back on the bike and kept going. It was a bit dark. The police caught up with me. They told me to get off the road. I went to the village. I didn’t feel a good vibe in the village. I didn’t find anywhere to spend the night. So basically I just continued. And then I saw this place. There was a nice roof. There were people in the shop. They were closing up the shop. I asked if I could sleep here. And the guys told me yes. That’s that. Let’s keep going. Beautiful mountains. It’s a bit too cold to spend my days on dirt and I just want to keep going. It’s a pity, but yeah, it’s very cold. I keep crossing mountains and valleys. It’s beautiful. I should do dirt, yes I know, but… I just don’t feel it, I don’t feel it. What can you do? I will enjoy a longish descent. Today I climbed from the get-go, I think over 20 km. 20, yeah, about 20 km, a little bit more. Then I did a little descent, but now I think we’re going down much more. But yeah, yesterday, this morning I was starting almost from the sea level. Lavazza Even Greece, it’s beautiful. So much to explore, so cold though. It’s beautiful. I wish I could do dirt but I just don’t feel it. A bit the humidity, the cold, a little bit of mud here and there. Another day is coming to an end, riding dangerously in Greece. Good morning, even last night I found a roof, nice floor and even last night it was freezing, it was minus one. When I checked the weather forecast a few days ago, the temperature was going down and then up, why does it not go up? But obviously I’m moving north and it’s getting colder and colder, so instead of going up it’s going down. What can you do? Another night of mixed feelings because I’m getting a cold, so I couldn’t sleep very well and in Greece for some reason I never slept well. Next to the road, lots of dogs, look at this dog, they kept barking and then at 4am I don’t know if it was 3 or 4 am, there were cars coming here, I was like what the fuck is going on and I discovered that this is a bakery and they gave me some pizza, I already had a little pizza and yeah you can see some pizza there, this is like a pizza, like half of a calzone. Yeah all in all it’s good, but yeah I was glad I found this place and I had a roof. In the city I don’t get very good vibes from these little Greek villages, there was a place I asked if I could camp there and this lady told me no, so I kept going and then I saw this, I was like it was a bit, this road is a bit dangerous at night because they speed, the vehicles go pretty fast and I thought it was a little bit dangerous because I wanted to reach maybe the hills or some warehouse but it was better to stop here and the woman that lives here last night she brought me some bread and some cheese, the cheese was really good, it was like a cured sheep cheese, similar to pecorino, very good. On the road even this morning next to the cotton fields, left and right harvesting cotton right now, look at the machine I’m not too far from Meteora, I’m crossing this little city, very good vibes I have to say as I mentioned a couple of times I didn’t feel good vibes with some villages in Greece, very good vibes from this town no idea what’s the name of this town, very good vibes there’s also a bike lane yeah we’re about 25 28 kilometers from Meteora I arrived to Meteora, now let’s try to get up, go around a bit see if we can do some exploring or not beautiful views but What’s up dude? Here is the trail to walk up there. Should be a better view now. That’s how they get the trash down. Maybe it was woth it getting here even though I’m a bit sick. Everybody was cold in Athens, I knew it. Then the temperature dropped, so one minute you’re cold, the other one you’re sweating, then you’re cold again. But let’s enjoy this and not complain. I’ll take an aspirin later and I’ll be fine Backlit but beautiful, the village is down there. You will need a drone here but it’s in France. I’m gonna cycle up the other hill, it’s getting late though. Let’s see if I can finish the loop before it’s sunset. Nope, actually I’m not going up the other hill, my route is to go down. I’m going down and heading to Thessaloniki. And I need to choose which way, through the mountains or flat. Flat is gonna be boring, a little longer. In the mountains it’s gonna be epic. But it’s gonna rain in a few days. It’s good today and tomorrow and then it starts raining, so I don’t know what to do. I feel sick, I have no motivation to do anything. I just wanna keep going and that’s it. If it wasn’t so cold, I could camp around here Shortcut. Shortcut for the main road, I think. Just following the app. The birds are gathering, the sun is about to rise, and it’s a new day in Greece. This was my stealth camping, pretty good, with the roof a bit miserable because of my cold Last night at 2am I started to hear some droppings of the rain on the metal roof, and I was like no, I need to get out, put the flysheet on because I wasn’t sure if there are some droppings somewhere in the ceiling. But I thought it has to be one cloud that is passing by, because I didn’t see in the weather forecast nothing about rain. And yeah, turns out it was nothing, so I checked my phone, and then I received a message from the host that is supposed to host me in Thessaloniki, saying that they have been issuing some warnings to the population Saturday not to leave the house, because the rain is going to be flooding rain, it’s going to be a super storm. I was like, how is that even possible? Today I checked the weather forecast and it was, yeah, 2-3mm rain, and then now I checked it again last night, so it was 53mm. 53mm is knee high, so this much of rain. So I decided I’m going to do as many kilometers as possible and try to arrive in Thessaloniki in two days instead of three. So I put the alarm very early, and now I’m packing, and before the sunrise I should be on the road. The challenge is, thank God I chose the flat route to Thessaloniki, but the challenge is short days, not enough hours to pedal. I have to do 260km. Sunrise! It’s coming! Hopefully it’s going to warm up this valley. It’s cold, it’s humid. Ah, I hate winter! See how humid it is. There’s a pack of dogs. So much cotton fields. These are gonna be… This one has been just harvested. I don’t know if they will harvest or not. I think some they just leave it because low yield. For some reason or another. You can see cotton all over the street. This is a tractor full of cotton, just harvested. Today is a long time trial. I’ve been going regularly, steady, steady pace that I can keep all day but pushing as fast as possible. I try to stop every now and then to eat some food and I did already 90km and it’s 12.40 If I can do another 60km it would be nice. Let’s see if I can do it then I’m only 100km from Thessaloniki. I can arrive there tomorrow and I don’t get flooded on Saturday. Still rural roads. There’s a toll there. I was like, that’s weird. And I just talked to the people. Pressed for help. And I said, can I go with the bicycle? One guy said, no, wait. You cannot. And then another guy came and said, yes, you can go, it’s free. Whatever, let’s go. 2 o’clock, 110 km. Good progress. I’m aiming to do another 50 km. Let’s see. Look at that. Zip ties. Found some zip ties. I’ll take a few of those. They’re always useful. The sun disappeared behind the mountains. It’s less than 20 minutes. No, 15 minutes to the official sunset time. And I’ve done 151 km. I’m a bit tired. I’ll get to 160 km for sure. Let’s see if I have it in me to do a bit more. Or if I find a nice camping opportunity, I’ll take it.

Cycling the world – Europe: 203 episode
Leaving my Warmshowers cabin behind, just after a frozen water pipe explosion, I cross the mountains and arrive at some hidden hot springs right at sunset. Stripping naked and jumping straight into the warmth is exactly what I needed after that freezing descent. Cycling on into the dark, I finally find a suitable wild camp. The next days are a race against the incoming storm: passing through villages, camping beside a bakery, finally reaching Meteora just to find miserable weather awaiting. With heavy rain coming, I push myself into an exhausting time trial toward Thessaloniki, hoping to beat the storm. Will I make it?

Recorded at the end of November 2024

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