Albania

Albania!!!????......We decided to take the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It wasn't on our original itinerary, but since we'll be cutting out a few countries in South Africa we better make them up somewhere.
Albania has been interesting. It is similar to Morroco, in relation to the poverty, and doesn't feel like a part of the European Union. There is garbage thrown everywhere and the buildings have seen better days.

After 2 weeks of hard cycling we arrived here this afternoon. Tomorrow we will be taking the train to the coast (Durres) for a ferry back to Italy. Albania is still a bit dangerous so we've decided to head back to Bari for a break and then we will continue on our way with another ferry back to Greece. This way our cycling time here is short.

Montenegro

Montenegro was super!! Very scenic and easy to get around. We also ran into some other cyclists from France, who were taking a 1 month holiday from fire-fighting in Paris. There's a picture of them the third photo down.....It's the one where Julia has a big shit-eating grin. Has anybody ever seen her so happy?? If there was a power outage in Calgary and nobody could see, just throw this picture up and those pearly whites will be enough to see Red Deer. I don't know how I ended-up right in the centre of this.....chisled half-nakedness, but the next morning I started doing push-ups.

#11 Bosnia

There's not to much to say about Bosnia except they don't mess around. We ended up just doing a quick side trip to have lunch, but after 40kms and an 1850 metre mountain climb, we decided to spend the night. For lunch I ordered the mixed meat platter and ended up with every animal they had on my plate. I ate so much meat I was sweating protein for 2 days, and everywhere we went people were huge, not overweight, just BIG.

Bosnia:

Big Mountains, Big People and Big Meat Platters......equals no messing around!!

#10 Croatia

Croatia was good times!! We weren't expecting it to be so touristy, but it was nice with lot's of things to see and do. In the small town of Vrsar we decided to do some scuba-diving in the Adriatic Sea. We had an excellent instructor who was very patient with us as we tried to regain our buoyancy. We also met another cyclist, Matt, from Australia who spent a night with us and a day riding. It was good to have him around even if it was just for the day. He was very humorous and witty.

#9 Slovenia

We didn't spend a lot of time in Slovenia, but the people were very friendly. At the first campground we stayed at, we met a German man named Une, who made us feel very important. Steve ate a traditional Serbian dish called Cevapcici, which is hamburger meat rolled into the shape of 'fingers' and served with a red dipping sauce kind of like ketchup; I had Risotto with Scampi. That's as close to Slovenian fare that we got, but the bread was very good!

#8 Italy

Our pictures don't do it justice, but Venice was very romantic. The buildings and canals, the bridges, the scent of pizza in the air...We spent a day wondering up and down the streets of Venice, and the moment that I heard an Italian man singing with accordian accompaniment, I felt like, aha! Italy at last! We didn't splurge and ride a Gondola, but we did watch Gondoliers steer other tourists around for a while. There were a lot of tourists in Venice. Stairs and narrow streets made biking in the main area with our load impossible, so we were forced to become part of the wide-eyed blob. After Venice, who needs the rest of Italy, so Steve and I decided to head North to get a few more countries under our belts.

True love

The best part about Morocco, was the camel trek, despite the huge effort getting to the Sahara. Lucky for me, Steve is such a great guy, since he's already done a couple of camel excursions in India and the Emirates. Nothing says love like sitting on a stinky bus for countless hours in sweltering heat! Looking forward to Italy!

#7 Morocco

Good Times!! A bit crowded, polluted, dirty, aggressive and hard to understand, but all in all good times! We started in Tangier and cycled down to Settat (just North of Merrekesh and the gateway to the Sahara). From there we caught a 12 hour bus to the desert where we rode a camel through the dunes and spent a night underneath the stars. On the way back i suffered from my first case of traveller's sickness.....to be blunt explosive craps and mass puking! I was very sick and had to spend the entire time cramped in the same bus we came in without A/C and +35 celsius weather. Needless to say I threw out my underwear and am dying to get back on my bike.

We're currently in Casablanca and are waiting for our flight to Venice where we will cycle down to Bari and catch a ferry to Greece. I'm feeling much better and looking forward to some spaghetti. I hope all is well with everyone.....until next time!!

Meeting my parents in Ronda, Spain

Meeting up with my parents in Ronda was great! It was good to see them and have time to explore the Ronda area. It's an interesting area with incredible history. During our visit we were able to attend a tour in a prehistoric cave with Neanderthal paintings dating back 30,000 years. We also went to a church that was showing ancient instruments of torture....they asked for our bicyle seats when we're finished. To top off our visit we enjoyed an authentic Flamenco dance show.
In total we spent 4 days together and then returned to our journey into Africa. It was hard saying goodbye again, but there were talks about possibly another meeting somewhere in Brazil!