alive and well

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hello friends! sorry it's been so long. i thought you should know we are alive and well. due to unforseen circumstances we have made some major changes to our original trip itinerary. mainly because of busy and dangerous roads and worsening weather conditions, we realized that to continue the expedition as planned would be unenjoyable at best. kayaking would not be possible and biking not for a while, which would mean putting our heads down and hiking main roads military style to meet our goal. we had an awesome time to this point trekking through greece together, making it to the albania border in 4 weeks from our start point, covering about 550km. we had the idea to divide and conquer parts of the remaining distance to the atlantic, hopefully meeting up for the last stretch. we drew straws and dave lost, so he had to continue on walking in albania, while i got to take the ferry from greece to venice, italy, where i would start biking westward. dave wasn't happy, and put up such a fuss that i had to knock him out with a frozen gyro and haul him to albania in a wheelbarrow. i showed the border guards his passport, told them the story, and they agreed with me dumping him on the other side... i think he must have come to by now. haha! in reality, i did take the ferry to venice while dave seemed actually quite keen on venturing on into albania, i'm not sure why exactly. i arrived in venice on my birthday, the 30th of january, so being in italy for the first time was a great present, but finding the place covered in snow wasn't so much. so... next change in plan, i decided to hitch-hike / take the train south to warmer climate. tenting in a frozen field at -7C last night confirmed my choice! i am currently en route to rome and from there i am considering continueing south to sicily, where i hope to finally get a hold of a bike and ride around the island. after that, who knows, but i have some friends i want to meet up with in france and spain and i would still very much like to finish things off with the camino de santiago de campestelo, the 700km walk/pilgrimmage through the north of spain. i'll let dave tell of his adventures in albania. apologies to any of you if we've let you down in anyway by not continueing with the original idea, but we figured no one could really complain unless they'd spent a day in our stinky shoes! adventure isn't really adventure unless it is free to twist and turn with the natural flow of the river it rides on. one of the big things we learned in greece is that some parts of the world (greece for sure) has become so centred on motorized transport, that it has become very unfriendly towards attempts at getting around in a self-propelled manner. not only that, but motorized transport is unfriendly towards itself. we walked by literally hundreds of roadside monuments for people killed in motor vehicle accidents. so though our trip plan has changed a lot, our passion for self-propelled transport and its promotion certainly have not. so please consider the many benefits of using your own two feet, for your own health, safety, for your community and the world at large, when choosing how to get around. with that little plug i'm going to sign off for a bit until i have an update to give of my next self-propelled adventure... if things flow that way 😊 and hopefully we'll be able to get some more photos on here at some point as well. take good care! ciao!
andrew

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Comments

[Christina]

glad all is well!
Hello! Pleased to read that all is fine with you both! What you wrote about Greece is very true, I completely agree with you. Wish you all the best further on, Christina