It's that time again! Time for another scintillating travel report from a different continent! You'll laugh (at my grammar), you'll cry (at my jokes), you'll wish you were here too (to kill me)! So, onwards:

Man, I can't get over the weather here in SE Greece! Still sunny, still warm, I'm still in heaven. At least for a little while - word on the street is " a^sf$ ^g$%^$par^% &%s@tg#&^ &*&%hothothot^$^$#% ", which roughly translates as "its unseasonably warm for this time of year and could change any moment". So I'm making the most of it. By riding, you ask? Naah, by laying out on the beach! I rode a total of 3.7 km yesterday, all of it in search of food and ouzo, nothing else. I'll probably pay for it with soggy, numb fingers and toes on my way to Istanbul and beyond, but for now at least, its worth it.

For an exotic adventure, this is pretty tame stuff so far - sort of like bagging a tiger in a 1/4 acre fenced-in enclosure. I ran into a couple of cyclists from Britain a few days ago who were wrapping up 8 months from England to Spain to Norway to here and back. Deeply tanned, with sun-bleached blonde hair, they looked pretty good for 11,000 km of riding. I asked them about their most hair-raising story and the best they could come up with was that her back wheel had been stolen in Seville. Not that they hadn't had fun, mind you. As they said, it didn't make for a great book. I'm beginning to think that adventure is the experience you anticipate eagerly, loathe during, and cherish after you've had it (or lived to tell the tale). Stephan and Konrad, the German Munich-to-Tibet bikers I met earlier, emailed me recently about an encounter with a Turk and a machine gun in their campground. Turns out he was a cop, but no-one knew it at first. Makes for good practice at getting the adrenaline flowing quickly, I suppose.

I've been around the Peloponisos, the southernmost main land mass, for the past week or so. The riding has varied from fast downhill runs at 60+ kph to grueling 1000 meter climbs with vicious headwinds in the little canyons to easy spins along the flat coast, sometimes all in one day. I average 50-60km a day, but range from 30 to 110, depending on my mood and varying desire for hot water and warm sheets, instead of a well-worn sleeping bag. For $7 at most you can camp in a civilized and well-equipped campground or you can opt for a decent hotel room for $20 or less in most places. Staying in a little hotel perched on the side of a mountain (thank you, granny gear!) in Langadia, the receptionist told me when I checked in that I'd have to wait for an hour for warm water. No problem! Out for a long coffee and then back to the room, eagerly anticipating rinsing off the thin layer of salt coating me, I spun the hot tap to 'steam' and sat on the commode (these are REALLY small bathrooms here) while I waited for the water to heat up. And waited. And waited. Until I finally realized that he hadn't mis-spoken, that he really did mean 'warm' water, not hot. And the word 'warm' was really pushing it. I think they were using the mere friction of the water flowing through pipes to warm it up in that place. By the way, have I mentioned that you have to pay over $35 for a hotel room to have the pleasure of toilet paper included? But they ALL have a little uncomfortable-looking bristle brush standing next to the toilet - if that's what you're supposed to use, it would explain the pinched sour faces on some old folks around here. 50 years of that brush would make anyone cranky! (Actually, I'm sure its not used for that - Charmin is readily available in all stores here....:)

I'd been traveling with Roy, the fellow Brit I mentioned from Patras - he and I were following the same route for a few days down the West coast. On our way out of a campsite one morning, he noticed an out-of-true rear wheel that was progressively getting worse. Checking it, we found a split rim! And of course I'd decided to leave at home my portable TIG-welder and rim-machiner! So we parted ways, as it was a Saturday and he wouldn't be able to get parts until Monday earliest, and was then planning on going further south while I headed East. I was pretty bummed - had been really looking forward to traveling with someone for a while - so we made tentative plans to meet again in Athens, as he would be following the same route as me to Istanbul after that.

Olympia was pretty impressive. Excavation of up to 13 feet of dirt starting in the early 1800's revealed an amazing set of ruins. Started in 8BC, the Olympic games were held until 393 AD (400 years!) and attracted up to 150,00 people for the 5 day event. Earthquakes and floods over the centuries made a mess of the whole thing since, but the size of the column sections and sheer area of the whole site was still pretty stunning. And the surrounding area was really beautiful - rolling hills and thick woods. The tourist load during the summer must be pretty impressive also, as it was still quite large in this, the start of the low season. I also checked out the monument to Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the first modern Olympic games in 1986. Supposedly his heart is contained within the monument (ugh!). Next to it is the altar of the Olympic flame, looking rather wet and unlit the day I went. I was expecting it to be blazing merrily away - guess it was still beating around Sydney for the paralympics!

Had to make a stop in Tripoli - its the namesake of my birthplace - but wasn't impressed by much there, apart from the uniformity of the hotel prices. 4 hotels - all at 10,000 Drx for a room - so I just picked the one with the nicest receptionist. I DID miss, however, (and bitterly regret doing so) seeing the new church in nearby Mantineia. Designed and built in 1970-78 by a Greek-American architect, it uses every possible material (marble, stone, brick, wood)in a synthesis of styles (Egyptian, Greek, and Byzantine) and incorporating many sorts of decorations (sculpture, frescoes, stained glass, mosaics, enamels, gold, and silver) to produce what my Michelin guidebook refers to as "a joy to those who appreciate surrealism"! By the way, its dedicated to "the Virgin, the Muses, and Beethoven"! Oh, wouldn't that have been a treat!

Anyway, gotta go. Got a tan to work on!

Mark