For 2 nights and 3 days I had the privelage of making my first motorcycle journey to Greece. Jozi and I left Albania at 6am and within 6 hours we arrived in Ioannina, Greece (Northern Greece). Later that day we met up with Chris and Laura Dakas who drove down from Albania later that day with a the medical/dental team from Fresno, California that just finished their days of ministry in Tirane and Sarande. Josif and I camped by lake Ioannina each night.
The next day we made a 3 hour trip to the 'rock forrest' of Meteora. The trip was almost entirely over mountain ranges providing the most excellent twisty roads for improving my motorcylce cornering skills. Meteora is and area in Northern-central Greece where massive rock formations rise to the sky out of no where. Atop these amazing rock formations monks from around the 14th century have built monastaries. These monastaries which used to be accessible only by rope and basket have now had stairways built up to them for tourists. Still to this day some of the monastaries are only accessible by mechanical cable-driven baskets. We returned late that evening and some of us enjoyed a nice walk around the city and a night boat tour around the lake.
The following day (day 3 - our last) we packed up camp, met the team in their vans and headed for the Greek-Albania border. Just before the border we stopped in a small mountain village known as Zagori. Zagori has some great mountains, beautiful valleys and rivers. We enjoyed lunch there before returning to Tirane.
Throughout the entire trip, unbelievable to me, we only covered about 700 miles. Because of road conditions in Albania and mountainous roads in general it seems as if you are driving a lot farther than you actually are.
Here are the pictures from our days of riding:
