Loutra Volvis > Kavala > Alexandroupolis 118km, 172km (from prior days: 105km, 49km)

[Originally posted Oct 7, 2014]

Man.  I'm tired.  It's nice feeling really tired.  Looking forward to lying down and just crashing.

Hitchhiking yesterday morning didn't go so well.  To be honest, we didn't really give it much of a chance.  We were staying on a road with pretty minimal traffic for a Monday morning, so we rode the 30 km or so to the main road/highway where we thought we'd have better luck.  During our ride we had a constant sound that can best be described as follows: it's like a rusty trampoline spring combined with a door hinge that hasn't seen WD-40 in 80 years, rhythmically squeaking to the beat of a running horse.  But then we shift gears and the cadence of the squeak changes.  Sometimes it is like listening to a symphony, and when we get sick of one song we let the rear wheel coast for a moment, which resets the freehub pawl and locking scissor teeth and another song begins.  It's been rather humorous, extremetly frustrating and when we get going 30mph an hour the noise becomes so frantic and seems to be gaining enough momentum to cause an explosion of our rear wheel.

So what's the problem? Not exactly sure.  Why not go to a bike mechanic? We've been to three now.  Hopefully Istanbul has the spare part we need.

After we reached the main road we assumed that would be the last 30km we would ride - someone would pick us up and we'd be on our way to Istanbul.  But the rain came out, we abandoned our spot and went for cover.  During our bag of pretzels and two green apples we got to thinking - we've come this far, can't give up now.  So back on our bike.  Some rough map told us we needed to ride 120km (75 miles) a day for the next 5 days and we'd reach Topkapi Palace and the creation of Baklava the same time as our UPS box with our Co-Motion A10 rear hub.  So we got to pedaling.

Getting closer.

Better luck with wild camping last night.  Out on a bluff above the sea overlooking Kavala, Greece.  Very pretty.  A slight pitter patter on my face at 8:40pm (we went to bed super early - it's kind of the way it goes when you're camping) and we put the rain fly on.

It pays to sleep outside.

Today was a long day - 172km - possibly our longest day of the trip.

Our first flat tire - not that cool.

Aegean Sea

We stopped for lunch in Xanthi and came across a stellar bakery.  These folks had this bread business down to a science.  A guy up above making the loaves and they come down on a long wooden board, one guy pulls them off and hits them with some sesame seeds and butter, another guy tosses them into and out of the giant brick oven.  They knew what they were doing, and after striking up a conversation with them, it appears they know what they're doing since 1818.  Quite a long time to have an oven in the family business.  And every day, hundreds of loaves of bread, all for sale for 1€.

Bread.

Camping tonight at Santa Rosa, just outside of Alexandroupolis.  An evening swim in the Aegean Sea and then baklava and gyros - pretty standard really.

An evening swim.

Baklava - with nutella, dark chocolate and pistachio options.

Tomorrow we will enter Turkey.  Kind of crazy.

Via Egnatia - a 2,000 year old road, courtesy of the Romans - maybe Paul trod this path?