Darkness. That is the game now; it rules the long nights of waning fall. 0700 to 1800 - these are the hours in which we may bike safely. The rest is darkness, especially for two cyclists with scant gear. True, we have a couple of flashlights, but these are small comfort when, huddled in the relative warmth of the sleeping bag, we clutch them in our hands and try to carve out a sanctuary of light in the middle of the night - which is why, when we can, we now try to find something public and well-lit to spend our evening hours in. Parks, busy streets, squares...
...or this train station where, just last night, we spent a couple of hours drinking and eating and watching movies off the laptop before nodding off in an empty plot of land sandwiched between houses. We head over there in the morning to eat the yoghurt which has by now leaked yoghurt-flavoured water all over IF-bag, creating an unsavoury mess that we attempt to wash away in this small fountain next to the platform. Then the usual packing before we head out across the flat plains towards Larisa. Mountains have become so much a part of the tail end of our trip that we are shocked to see such a wide expanse of level ground. What luxury for two tired cyclists! We happen upon a small town with a pseudo-saloon-style café, so we pop in for coffee and some of the best tiropita we've had...
...and, horror of horrors, realize only then that IF-bag is gone! Where to? Perhaps it fell out of our packs back along the road; in any event, we are just far enough into the day that we have no desire to retrace our steps on the off-chance that we might recover it. Onward to Larisa it is, over mostly flat ground that opens up into gently rolling hills as we near the city. The ride is short by our standards, a smallish 50km jaunt, and so we reach Larisa just after midday. Plenty of time, then, to chill out in another café and continue the long work of writing blog posts. These posts just get longer as we go along; our writing voice becomes more entrenched, our memory keener, and we feel now more than ever that we must get in as much detail as possible so that we might have a reasonably accurate picture of What Exactly It Means To Abandon Everything And Bike Around Europe For Six Months. What did we see? Who did we meet? How does it feel to be lost or tired or hungry or cold? What is the euphoria you feel each time you climb a massive hill? What are these things? How can we put words to them? Most tellingly, there is a clear positive correlation between time spent travelling and blog post length...
...probably because I blather on about trivial matters, like the stuffed peppers we pick up from the supermarket. Hardly home-cooked, but still good enough to sate our cyclist hunger! Next up: find a campsite, the old routine. The best strategy is usually to head just far enough away from the centre that you start to find parks and abandoned buildings - and so, after exiting the main part of the city, we find one site by the ring road that looks promising; there is a section of unused land up against the river. However, it proves difficult to get to, so we instead try our luck over by the stadium...
...and find, much to our delight, that there is a sizeable arterial park right next to it with cycling and equestrian paths - and more than enough semi-hidden spots to pitch without attracting too much attention. Although the cold is not exactly welcome, it does deter most night walkers from venturing too far afield. Having decided upon our campsite, we head across to a small square opposite the stadium itself - more than enough streetlamps to provide adequate light for our evening kitchenry, and a number of nice benches to sit on. There is even a fountain, but a quick inspection reveals that, like many of the fountains around here, it no longer works.
We set to our evening tasks:
0) Get caught up on blog posts. 1) Cook dinner. 2) Fashion a replacement for IF-bag.
Of these, the last is most peculiar: we looked around the supermarket for anything that might do as a bag, but the bag selection was limited to a few small knapsacks. No matter; there is always another way! We have a small sewing kit with some medium-thickness black thread and a section of rope that is now seldom used for clothes-drying, so we grab a couple of cheap pillowcases and sit in the park sewing them into a suitable replacement that we christen PIF-bag (for Purple/Pillowcase Incidental Food bag.)
After that is done, we at last begin cooking the evening meal - and are soon watched by a cluster of children who think it hilarious that two vagrant-looking cyclists should be cooking by stove in the public park. Some time into our preparation, we are approached by a truck driver; the spot, as it turns out, is also a popular ad-hoc truck parking spot for the drivers who come through here on delivery routes. He asks us if we want beer or wine; Valkyrie responds that we wouldn't mind a dram of retsina, at which he starts, exclaims that her pronunciation of "retsina" is very Greek, and bounds off to the local drink kiosk for a couple of bottles that he forks over gratis with a smile. We attempt to explain our trip using all the Greek, general Romance language, and hand-gesturing skill we have. Perhaps he is impressed, for no sooner do we polish off the retsina than he returns with yet more. And we still have a half-finished bottle of wine from the supermarket sitting next to us. It's going to be a very inebriated night...
...but we polish off the second bottle of retsina, finish most of our store-bought wine, and head down to the park to pitch our tent. There is just enough light from the streetlamps on the road above to see by, and the ground is soft enough to peg the fly easily. What more could we ask for? We watch a bit of Legend and are soon fast asleep, our meal of aubergine-onion-mushroom-walnut sauce over rice sitting contentedly in our bellies. Tomorrow we continue up towards Thessaloniki. Two more days now, and then we can finally rest for a bit...