Day 7: a spider in my bra and the best swim ever

Kastrosikia – Syvota  69.18km 🚴‍♀️ 4.31.55 ⏱ 15.3km/hr ⬆️ 1050m ⬇️ 1110m

We woke up early after a bad night of sleep. Suuz couldn’t fall asleep cause of a barking Shepherd dog 🐕 (yeah right) and Mas just can’t get comfortable in the tent ⛺️. A bit of a grumpy start, especially knowing we had to get back up that insane road first thing.

We had our own breakfast in the empty campsite restaurant: bread with a bit of mayo, slice of cheese and some eggs 🥚 Suuz had boiled the day before. Everything was closed as it was 7 in the morning, but all of a sudden the camping owner came out in his underwear and gave Suuz a free cup of hot coffee ☕️. If that wasn’t enough, he then offered to give us a ride up the horrible road in his pickup truck! An offer we couldn’t resist. Greek 🇬🇷 people are the best!

We lifted our heavy bikes onto his truck 🚙 and a few minutes and a 1000 thank you’s later we were ready to start our day along the coastal road. The campground owner had advised against taking this road because of the steep ups and downs. Mas was stubborn as always 🤷🏼‍♀️ and decided to take it anyway. About 3km, and half an hour later we decided to go back to the main road because we were so busy avoiding potholes 🕳 and sweating up steep inclines that we couldn’t even enjoy the view. The main road wasn’t busy this early in the morning and was actually really beautiful. At some points it was like we were cycling through a tunnel of flowers 🌺 . Flora and fauna lovers as we are, we didn’t know any of them, of course, but they were still pretty! 

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We still had to climb quite a lot, with a great but way too short downhill once in a while. Somehow downhill time goes so much faster. You cycle up the mountain for an hour and within ten minutes you’re down again. Cause of all the climbing and the 30C temperature 🤒 we were very slow and dripping in sweat. Also, we were absolutely covered in small, little flies. It really bugged us, well Mas mainly.

Finally, we took an exit to go downhill into a popular and very touristy harbor city called Parga. Mas was almost smacked off her bike again by speeding tour buses and beach seeking tourists but luckily she managed to stay on this time. We found a place for lunch by the beach, watching all the pensionada’s taking a dip or getting sun burned. We both had a salad since it was just to hot for anything else. Just before we forked up, Suuz fished a big fat spider 🕷 out of her bra, oh the joy.

We decided to go a bit further than we had planned since it would make things a little easier the next day. It was only 27km extra but with a lot of uphill. We can’t complain about the roads, Greece has been treating us well with insanely beautiful roads, great views, drivers of all kinds literally going out of their way to go around us when they pass, and the surface itself is in pretty good shape as well.

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It was the hottest hours of the day, the sun was burning on our bodies, we were climbing and climbing and had to stop in about every shady place we could find (not so many). When we finally made it all the way up we found this lovely roadside bar called Kantina Meeting, an absolutely haven for cyclists. We ordered a few cold drinks and used all of them to cool off. Mas asked if she could put her espresso freddo in her pants to get a good chill. But she didn’t cause that’s a little too weird. Even for her.

A few more kilometres later we arrived out our destination: a wonderful apartment in fishing 🎣 town Syvota. A great place close to the beach. We were extremely exhausted but went to the beach anyway and had the absolute best swim 🏊‍♂️ ever. That’s what cycling does, at one moment you’ve had it with the heat and the climbs, and the other you’re having the best swim of your life in the cool calm ocean by a beautiful beach. 

Syvota is geared for tourists but there were not nearly as many as in Parga. Sadly enough we were too tired to really enjoy all of it. We had wood fire oven pizza 🍕 for dinner but only managed to eat half. The rest we doggybagged for lunch the next day. The last one in Greece 🇬🇷 ! But first, a well deserved and good sleep 💤 in our air conditioned apartment!