Lots has happened since I last wrote, so I'll have to summarize as best as possible. I had a great time exploring the island of Naxos for a week. From there I decided to go next to an island that was conveniently located on the way back to Athens, so I went to the island of Syros for just two nights and a day. I arrived by ferry early in the evening, and bicycled with all of my things up and over the island to the other side, where there was the island's only campground. This wasn't such a bad ride, despite the fact that it was a lot of uphill the first half, as it only took about forty minutes. I made it down to the campground near the beach on the other side and camped there for the night. The next night I did a bit of exploring by bicycle (leaving my tent set up with most of my stuff back at the campground). Basically I just biked north up and over another ridge to another nice little beach. Syros was great, very mellow and low-key, not too touristy, not spectacular scenery but nice enough. Basically it was perfect as a quick stopover for a little change of scene from the busier and more touristy Naxos.
The next day I had to get up early to bicycle back over the island and catch my ferry at 10 am. Things were rather up in the air at that point. I was headed next for the Pelion Peninsula, north of Athens and there was no way to get there without going through Athens, even though I wanted to avoid it (especially considering that it was on fire for a little while). I wasn't exactly sure if I was going to spend that night in Athens. I was hoping that the ferry would get me there early enough that I'd be able to hop on a bus right away, and make it at least partway to my destination, which was about 6 hours by bus in total north of Athens, including a shorter bus ride to get to the smaller village that I was headed for.
The first complication arose when I went to get off the ferry and my bike had a flat tire. And I should mention that the slow leak I'd had on my bike for the past week or so had actually resulted finally in a flat tire the previous day. So that evening, not having the time to try and patch it, I'd replaced the tube with a new tube. So, the new flat was on the brand new tube. The first order of business then was to get that straightened out one way or another, since I didn't know if I might need to do some biking at some point on my way getting to the retreat center, and of course wanted to have the bike in working order.
The other thing was that I had come into a different port from the closer port to Athens of Piraeus, and was a little unsure how long it would take to get there. And, the ferry had been one hour later arriving at Syros, and then had taken longer than I'd expected getting back to the final destination, so I didn't get off that ferry until around 4 in the afternoon. There was a bus going from there into the center of the city, and fortunately I had no problems with the bus driver stowing my bike underneath the bus. On the bus I was then able to figure out where it would be dropping me off, which very conveniently was just a few blocks away from both the hostel I'd stayed at previously, and the bike mechanic that was right nearby.
So, I got off that bus, pumped up the tire just to get me down the street, and headed down to the bike mechanic. By this time it was getting close to 6 pm so I figured I'd be staying in Athens. The mechanic wasn't able to patch that tube for me for some reason (very little English was spoken there) but they were able to install a brand new tube for only about $7, so I went with that. Now I have two tubes with leaks that I'll have to patch at some point. Then I biked over to the hostel, they had room, and so I crashed there for the night.
Next morning I got up early to catch a bus out of Athens heading for Volos, 6th largest city in Greece and the closest large town to the retreat center I was going to on the Pelion Peninsula. Someone from the retreat center had emailed me saying there was a bus leaving Athens at 9:30. Conveniently again, the bus station was just down the street from the hostel.
I arrived at about 9:15 to get on the bus, but that bus was full. The next one was at 11:00. I explained to the ticket person at the counter that I had a bicycle, and they said that wasn't a problem. So around 10:40ish or so they started loading up the bus. As soon as I pointed at the bicycle the man loading the bus made it clear that he was very unhappy about it and, basically, there was no way in hell he was going to load it under the bus. To make a long story short, a commotion ensued, several English-speaking Greek people stepped in to help straighten things out since the man loading the bus spoke no English, and in the end he very relunctantly loaded my bike in and then piled baggage high all over it. Good thing that I was getting off at the final destination.
That bus ended up being late, and so I missed the last bus for the day that was supposed to be taking me from Volos another two hours to the tiny village of Kissos, which was where the retreat center was. To make yet another longish story shorter, through a lucky set of circumstances I ended up running into Jock at the bus station, who is the manager of the retreat center and who I had been emailing with over the past several months. He was there picking someone else up, and had previously offered me a ride, but then was unable to take me with the bicycle. So he told me about another bus that would take me partway to the village of Kissos. And the good thing was that it took me from Volos (which is by the sea) to the top of a mountain in the middle of the Pelion Peninsula, which is high enough that there's a ski resort there; and then from there it would almost all downhill biking for a good 15-20 miles or so going towards the village of Kissos. The thing is, that bus was leaving in 3 minutes. I rushed to the ticket counter, got a ticket and barely got myself and my bicycle onto the bus (this time there was plenty of room for the bike under the bus). I got off at the village of Hania, which was almost exactly at the top of the ridge. From there I started biking downhill, and it took more than an hour of constant biking down, before I finally hit some uphill and had another hour to get to the village of Kissos. I arrived at the retreat center just in time to take a shower and then have dinner.
I'm going to leave it there for now, so that I can save this post before anything happens since this computer is a bit temperamental. If I don't get the chance to write more tonight, then I'll come back later and explain more about the retreat center that I'm at.
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