This was two days of uninteresting riding. Some of it was through quite under privileged areas, lots of agriculture but generally flat roads with the traffic growing in both volume and impatience as I neared Patras
The highlight was a night camping at the beach beside the taverna, Blue Ionon where I squeezed in a couple of swims and one final crazy-beaitiful Greek sunset.
The camp was free and there were a number of campervans but only a couple of tents. It was a bit sad to leave and head to Patras as I’d been in Greece for six weeks and felt very comfortable there.
As I neared Patras, I was looking for a beach shower and changing room. I wanted to wash the sweat off before boarding the ferry. I also didn’t want to use one to early and get sweaty again. So it was balancing act to solve a first world problem.
I spotted one a couple of kilometres from the port and thought “perfect”. I’ll get into the Speedos, shower then change. After I’d stopped, two cars pulled up beside me and three guys got out of the first car and went and talked to the guys in the other car.
After ten minutes one guy got in the other car and they sped off. For that ten minutes and old guy from the first car seemed interested in my bike and kept staring at it. He moved uncomfortably close and continued to stare but said nothing in response to my greetings. Very strange.
The remaining guy was huge and obese. He put on some running shoes and I thought they’d go walking or something. No sooner had he done that than he took them off, stripped down to his underpants and had a shower. I left immediately, with the old guy’s nose about a metre from my bike, still staring intently and silently at it.
I got some food at a supermarket and went to check in for the ferry. Two New Zealand girls were behind me and wanting to buy tickets on the same ferry to Bari. When they got to the other counter, I heard them ask for a ticket to “Barry”. I had to turn away laughing.
At customs on departure, I got the third degree – rlfor the first time on this trip. I had to take all of my bags off the bike for scanning, then open the frame bag for inspection.
I have two pocket knives bought in Uzbekistan – one for me, one for Timo. They weren’t allowed, so the lady took them and put them in an envelope that would be returned to me on arrival in Bari.
Her inspection of the frame bag was thankfully superficial as she missed the spare bottle of petrol in the top pocket. I had bought it because in Greece, supermarkets sell it as cleaning fluid. It has no additives like the type you put in your car, with the result that there’s less chemicals released, less soot on my stove and it doesn’t get clogged. It’s not available in Italy, but is in France.
The ferry ride was very calm. I managed to commandeer a sofa in the reception lounge like many others. When the ferry stopped in Corfu, a couple wanted me to move up even though there were more than twenty empty, comfortable chairs nearby. I refused, so the lady got her bags, put them on the sofa and pushed them hard up against me. I took that as “If we can’t lie on the sofa, then nor can you”. I ignored her. Other passengers who saw what happened, commented to me about the weird behaviour.
They promptly left for 2-3 hours but one of them came back every half hour and checked that I was still there. At one point she came back, grunted and glared at me. I ignored her again.
I got settled and went to sleep, scrunched up a bit because of her bags. When both finally returned, mumbled for a few minutes and removed their bags – at last. Then they inflated their camping mats and got into their sleeping bags for the night – unbelievable. They had no need of the sofa whatsoever.
Anyway, I had a decent night’s sleep which was unexpected.
