Day 5&6: 11 Italian macho men in a tunnel, and a day of rest

Mytikas – Kastrosikia 74.55km 🚴‍♀️ 4.05.39 ⏱ 18.2km/hr ⬆️ 455m ⬇️ 455m

Yesterday, as the campsite we aimed for was closed, we had decided to stay in an apartment with no other guests but ourselves, a few cats 🐱, and an older Greek man 👴🏼who was the owner. We had a good night sleep and even allowed for a little sleeping in since we had a short day of cycling planned. We left within 45 minutes which is pretty fast ⏱. Most of the time it takes us 1.5 hours to pack all of our stuff and camping gear. Must admit we did not have breakfast but cycled 5km into the little port town of Mytikas for coffee ☕️ and a muffin 🥧. And some freshly bought bread🥖. Also Suuz found dog 🐕 treats at the supermarket and decided to add this to her weapon arsenal to fend off dogs.

The first part on the road was amazing again. Winding roads along the coast. Up and down. With no 🚗 , but lots of white mountain cows 🐮 and sometimes an old ship wreck. Cows have the weird habit to just stand there and stare at you. We said ‘moo’, they stared back, it was all very friendly and polite.

Just after Palairos we were back in the flatland for a bit. Long road straight ahead. Mas got bored 😒. After such a beautiful road with views, climbs, and downhills, a straight flat road just sucks the energy away. But not for long. At some point the perfectly flat road turned into downhill gravel, loose rocks and mud holes 🕳. Mas all happy, Suuz freaked out. It was only for like a kilometer, after that all newly paved again. And hot 🌞. We were both wearing a shirt instead of tank tops due to sun-burned shoulders. We did use generous amounts of sunscreen, but at some point you sweat it all off. 

Anyway, there was no enjoying the sweet downhill on this newly paved road. When we were speeding around a turn a local guard dog 🐕 jumped out onto the road and started chasing Mas. Cause Mas is always faster than Suuz downhill, she was the first to be attacked. Her speed going downhill made the dog rest his case pretty quickly, but then he turned and faced Suuz coming down and so he had another go. Suuz slowed down almost to a halt, started yelling 🤬at the dog and he hid back under the bushes where he came from. Suuz saw her chance and made a ‘run’ for it. As soon as she sped up the dog jumped out again, but this time she was ahead and able to cycle away downhill. This dog thing is really getting annoying. 

The next road we took was a newly constructed highway. Which we had completely to ourselves. Incredible! We were not sure we could take it but some roadworkers 👨🏻‍🏭👨🏼‍🏭 said it was okay and wished us a good trip.

This road took us straight to the tunnel 🚇 all the other cyclists had spoken about. They had told us we would not be allowed to cycle through, but if we asked, our bikes would be put in a van and taken to the other side. In our case, not so much. There was a group of eleven Italian guys 👨🏻👨🏻🧔🏻👨🏼👨🏽👨🏾🧔🏼🧔🏽🧔🏼🧔🏼🧔🏻👨🏼 waiting to cycle through the tunnel. The security guard asked if we belonged to this group. In such cases Mas is generally inclined to say yes, so we had to wait for about 45 minutes with these friendly macho men until the security guards closed down the entire 2km tunnel especially for us. Greek 🇬🇷 hospitality at its best! We cycled through the tunnel with the 🇮🇹 guys and left them behind soon after cause they were too slow.

In some small town a little later we enjoyed a cold fresh fruit smoothie 🍓🍇🍒 before we took the road along the coast passing all these people in beach chairs. Although we were very jealous we knew this would be us as soon as we reached the campground.

Of course some hills awaited us and just before we took the turn to the campground this ‘Keutenberg’ showed up. Not one but at least two. Since our place for the night is at the beach we knew that at some point these steep hills would have to go down. Well, the downhill part was absolutely insane. Extremely steep, with wide ridges you can get your wheels stuck into, and lots of loose stones and holes. Not nice going down, but even worse is the anticipation of having to go back up that road with our 35kg bikes in two days. A thing to worry about later. First we deserve a good day of rest tomorrow. 

Camping Asterios 🏕 was a beautiful find, hidden away underneath lots of green olive trees and with a beautiful view of, and direct access to, the beach 🏖.

After setting up camp, we had dinner at the camping taverna. Spaghetti meatballs with tomato 🍅 sauce 🍝. It wasn’t the greatest but it was good fuel and we were hungry. And the Greek salad 🥗 with bread 🥖 we get every day makes all better anyway 👌🏻. 

Rest day

What to do on a rest day besides baking on the beach 🏖? Go grocery shopping 🛍. Suuz really wants her eggs 🍳. Clean the bikes 🚲. Do laundry. Inspect the route of the next few days. We also inspected the road we have to cycle up again tomorrow. Looks like it should be possible to cycle up except for about a hundred meter stretch. But for sure it’s gonna hurt.

And of course: play games 🎲, read 🗞, swim 🏊‍♂️ , eat. And repeat. At night we had dinner at a beachside restaurant nearby. Mas devoured a humongous grilled fish 🐟 and we tried another local specialty: fried zucchini balls. Pretty tasty. Greek restaurants seem to serve only a limited range of vegetables: cucumber 🥒, tomato 🍅, eggplant 🍆, zucchini, onion, green bell pepper.