ATHENS

Our plans in Peloponnese changed completely for this big natural disaster that Greece has suffered. Esparta, Korinthos, Micenas... they have to wait for another occasion.
We decided to stay in Krestena during the days of the fires to helped our friend Kostas, in case the fire arrived; the fire that is seen in the previous blog entry, it was extinguished, but another one arrived, and stopped just 300 meters from the house, we thought that it would arrive, even we prepared the house for the fire while airplanes and helicopters flew over Krestena throwing water... helicopters evacuating people... firemen, policemen, military, the press!... Krestena was a chaos for a day, the sky was red, yellow, and was raining ash continually. This was the aspect of the sky, in the afternoon in a day without clouds, just smoke...


Finally the fire didn’t arrive to Kostas’ house, but thousands and thousands of hectares were destroyed, and Olympia, two days after to have been there, it was devastated by the fire...

We went directly to Athens; here it was waiting for us a couple of "work" days, we chose Athens to do the preparative of our next phase, Middle East. What more time had taken us, was the Syrian visa, up to three times we had to go, they asked us for a recommendation letter of our embassy; but at the end, there were no problem, we have a month of stay, and it cost 23 € each. Due to our life style (never stop), we spent the time in Athens with a lot of calmness. We went up to the Likavitos hill, with nice views of all the immense city; we also saw the guard of the government with its ridiculous shoes with pompom...


And of course the temple of Zeus, and the Acropolis; it was sad to see the Parthenon in works, but from some years ago it is in repair, because it is in very bad state.

For the people who want to visit Greece, is very important to carry the student card (ISIC), we keep saying it because we have not paid anything, even in the Acropolis.

The exit of Athens was very disappointing, it keeps being impossible to travel by our way in this country. We chose the best place for hitchhike, the Athens exit toll of the highway; probably a 10.000 cars pass in front of us in the 4 hours that we stood there, and no one stop for us. We decided to finish our days in Greece traveling by train, which is not expensive.
In Thessaloniki, we met a great couple, Alexis and Catherina; he has a big dream, which is to travel like us; with them we went around the city seeing many Roman remains; and even we gave our first round by boat of the journey.

GREECE

It was difficult to get out of Macedonia… besides we didn’t know how it works the hitchhike in Greece. The first guy who picks us up was very nice bringing us to Kozani, even when he was going in opposite direction.

The day after we were very lucky, the first car stopped; but only was that, LUCK… because if somebody with tattoos and long hair is thinking to travel all over Greece by hitchhiking... must be crazy... People told us to be careful with the immigrants, but thanks to them we are moving in the country, especially with Albanians. That morning we were totally lost, the roads that we went through, didn’t appear in our map, and we were more and more far of our destination, Meteora.
Another man approach us a little more, in 50 km he smoked half packet of tobacco. And, in our last move to reach Meteora, while María continuo hitchhiking I went to ask something in a shop; in this moment a car stopped, so I run to the car very happy; when the man saw me, he run away very fast!!! Incredible...

Finally we arrived to this wonderful place; Meteora are plenty of very curious stony formations, and with several monasteries in the summits, we pass the night at the top of one of the rocks, with an incredible views, and with the company of strange insects that fed on us during the whole night...

As we didn’t have house to stay for the following night, we decided to travel towards south all that we could, and try to arrive up to Delphi, but... is very complicated to hitchhike here. It was a catastrophic day, hours and hours on road, and in the end, we end up sleeping hidden between a plantations of olive trees and cotton, in a town lost in the map.

We manage to reach Delphi, but it was another long day of hours in road, it was exhausting, so in Delphi we made the decision of take the bus up to Antirrion, something that we didn’t do since we were in Austria. We had a little of everything until we arrived Delphi; the man of the first car said that Jesus had told him to stop for us, because I was not a bad person that would have a gun and could kill him... A Belgium couple brought us to a good place to continuo. And for the following car I sat for a while; it is a good trick, like this the people thought that only Maria is hitchhiking; the man who stopped and brought us call me all the time David of Al-Qaeda… and he looked at me very scary…
We did the obligatory stop in Delphi, a very interesting place full of history, settled on a slope of the Parnassus Mounts.

In Antirrion we spent amazing days with Ioannis, his family and friends. Some days of rest on the beach too, in a place as we like… we were the only foreigners in the small village.
Antirrion is in the end of the bridge that joins the continental land with the Peloponnese. This huge bridge of 3 km it was completed in 2004 when the Olympiad, and although it is very nice, if you are traveling by car it is better to cross with the ferry, because to cross the bridge it cost almost 11 €.

We did a short visit to Nafpaktos, more known as Lepanto; it was here the battle where Cervantes lost an arm.

Ioannis didn’t let us to hitchhike and he brought us by car to Olympia with his cousin Dimitri, during the travel they were telling us things about the Peloponnese, the big island in the south of Greece. On the way we saw fire, we knew that there were some fires in Peloponnese, but we didn’t give it importance at this moment...
Olympia, another very important historical place, the cradle of the Olympic Games. In the area only remains the ruins of what there were gymnasiums, stadiums... and of course the temples of Hera and Zeus. In the museum we found the best preserve remains; the earthquakes had a lot of fault of everything being destroyed. It has to be said that the Greeks care a lot with the students, those that have the ISIC card, free entrance!

In our last stretch up to Krestena where we met up with Kosta, Olympia and their friends; we saw important fires in front of ourselves, and although from his house they are seen about 3 km far, we kept thinking that it would stop soon. That afternoon we went to the beach, and we saw the fires near, the smoke covered the sun leaving a spectacular red sky, but... it is a big tragedy. At the end of the beach we saw the flames how they arrived practically up to the sea, and we decided to run away as all the people who were there. When we arrived home we saw the same beach burning on TV, in the news.

From that moment we followed very near the news and the fire from the balcony. Krestena is in a valley, and that night the summits of the last mountains started to burn; the following day the situation was worse, the fire was at about 2 km far from the house and the people started to be frightened. In the afternoon we returned to the beach of the last days, already burned down; it was very sad to see it, the flames on the side of the road, fallen trees in it, destroyed houses, and of course everything burned, very sad...
Going back home we were really scary, the fire has lowered the mountain, and it is only at 1 km; in front of the flames we saw a small town that was going to be devoured by the fire. In the TV only speak about this; then, almost all the Peloponnese is burning, but also Athens and other places in Greece... We took this photo from the balcony of the house.

MACEDONIA

Towards Greece we crossed this small country, the first stop, it was the capital city, which is very near to the border with Kosovo, where we had to be very cautious, because the cars that stopped to pick us up could be taxis, and of course, one only finds out when is on the half the way…

Skopje, is a small and very quiet city, surrounded of nature; and with a Turkish bazaar, very lively, noisy, and perfect to get lost during hours and hours; which is accessible through the famous “stone bridge”.


In a long way we went to the most known city of Macedonia, Ohrid, protected by the UNESCO, beside the Lake of Ohrid, the oldest in Europe.
During the way we realized the rivalry that exists between the Muslims (Albanian) and the orthodox ones (Macedonian), as we traveled with different people of different religions, and each one talked badly of the others.

Here we met Al, and other "peace-workers", we pointed very well contacting Al, because from his house we had the best views of the city and the lake.


In the old town of Ohrid, there is a big fort surrounded by a wall; next to the monastery people are digging continuously looking for archaeological remains; everything near the edges of the big lake, where we also were swimming.


The last city was Bitola; where we were fortunate of arriving with Gjupco, who works in Italy, and with his girlfriend; they invited us to have a drink in the city and they had a great gesture with us, giving us some money.
Dragan of HC, show us all the city centre and gave us everything that he had. Not only we went to see him playing football, we also took part of it!

Macedonia is the cheapest country that we have found in the travel, now that we are entering in Greece, we are going to have a big surprise…….

BALKANS

On the last days we have made a fast trip by the Balkans, starting by Bosnia and Herzegovina, a surprising country for its nature. After passing through green fields, mountains, rivers, and neglected towns, Sarajevo appears in a big valley at our feet. We used several and different vehicles to arrive here; but the last one was very curious, we were very squeezed in a small truck, and every time that the man changed speeds touched me the leg, and laughing he said me continuously: "I am not gay!".

Our friend from Belgrade, Paris, is helping us a lot looking for friends of him that can host us in some places, the first place was here in Sarajevo, but we didn’t know that his friend was the Pastor of the Evangelist church in Breza (near Sarajevo), Mladen. It was very interesting to know all the people of the church, and their different ideas respect to the rest of Christians as well.
Bosnia is a country of majority Muslims, in Sarajevo what stands out more are the big quantity of mosques, with its towers that are seen from the moment that you arrive. Unfortunately practically everything is in reconstruction after the hard war suffered in the country. The buildings that still withstand are totally perforated, and not only in the capital of the country, even in the smallest town of Bosnia.

At the begging we would spend a pair of days with the people of the church, but they received us so well that we were two days more; in those days they explained us the hard moments lived during the war. We also went with them to a lake to collect some stuff of their camp, and like this we went back to Sarajevo.

Up to Mostar the road goes by valleys and mountains, and the beauty of this country surprise us again. The group of the church went in the same way than us and they brought us to the city, which was totally devastated, and its consequences are seen nowadays everywhere. Apart of the war of Yugoslavia, Bosnia had the conflict of religions; in Mostar, Muslims and Catholics fought each other, in both sides of the river, without mercy. So, this country received the worst part of everything. The historic centre of Mostar is totally restored.

In the following photos are some of the buildings that we have found, mostly in Mostar, and many of them even with the trenches.

During the next days we didn’t have contacts of CS or HC, for that we were finding places to sleep somewhere, and it’s funny, because every day we made plans, and we NEVER slept where we thought. The same day of Mostar we decided to leave in the afternoon and to sleep somewhere on the way to Croatia, but to hitchhike here is not really good, so we went with the first car that stops, even when he wasn’t going to our destination. Again we went back to the Adriatic coast but by the Croatian side, although we spent the night in the only coastal city that Bosnia has; Neum. We pass a very little comfortable night on a beach of rocks, anyway, the view that we had in front of us during the sunset and sunrise, it doesn’t have price. The coast in this side of the Adriatic is formed by big mountains that die directly in the sea, and numerous islands in its crystalline turquoise waters.

When we get up in the morning, the idea was to go to Split, after three hours hitchhiking, we decided to go to Dubrovnik, a little nearer right to the south, it was moments that we needed all the possible patience in our tired bodies.
Dubrovnik is really beautiful, a big fort bathed by the sea, with a whole city inside; the rest of the city extends through the slope of the mountain with roads at different levels; there is not flat space between the sea and the mountain. And again the beach to sleep; well, with the noise of the discos, we couldn’t sleep too much…

Rhumb to the south we keep hitchhiking in this infernal road for the hitchhikers; one guy from Montenegro who came driving nonstop from Germany (18 hr.); takes us up to the border of his country. The idea was to take us further on, but the papers of the car were not in order, and we left him on the border. Again with the patience level at maximum we tried to stop some car to go to Kotor; this time tourists, who usually no stop, pick us up. Thanks to the fact that they were tourists, they chose the longest and prettiest road to reach Kotor, where there is a fort of the style of Dubrovnik, but with a wall and small towers that rise on the slope of the high mountain.




As we don’t have where to sleep, we prefer to keep going, and to know more places... but is being very hard that people pick us up here. It was very sad when we saw other local hitchhikers at our side that were taken in one minute after arriving, we were thinking even in a kind of conspiracy against the foreigners; but always there is somebody in last minute who save us. A man takes us again to the coast, to Budva, a place that keeps being beautiful as all the seaside here; with excessive tourism, but we look for better hotels...

The day after we arrived to Podgorica, the capital city f Montenegro; although it was not our plan to visit the city, the man who brought us made a touristic tour through the centre for us, and left us in route to keep traveling. Three days sleeping somewhere outside is tired, getting up every day at 5:30 in the morning, don’t rest well; that, keeps pressing, but every moment is an adventure, this makes that the tiredness remain to one side and forget it. By truck we went towards the north of the country; if Bosnia liked us for its nature, Montenegro....is wonderful!, we go through mountain roads, beside a small canyon with a river, and arriving so high that we saw big valleys from above.

In route, we choose a town where we can sleep, and with another truck more, we reach Berane with the gaze of all the habitants, if the Montenegrin coast is very touristic, here they are not used to see foreigners, even when we went to the cyber is the revolution among the people! Casually we could talk with a boy about Kosovo, it is an unknown place for us, and we don’t know which are the conditions to be able to travel in our way; well, about what we talked to what we did in the end… is totally different. Going out of Berane, we found a very good place to sleep hide in a field where we said: -here we will sleep all the time we need to make up for the last days; but our dear friend of travel, the rain, woke up us at 4:00 in the morning.

The journey to Kosovo couldn’t be more intense; the idea was to hitchhike to the following city, and to catch a bus to the border, but... we couldn’t be more fortunate, the guy who picks us up, was a policeman of the customs in the border with Kosovo, so we save a lot of time, and besides the guy bought us something for the lunch! With other guys we arrived to Kosovo; officially it belongs to Serbia, but is ruled by its own, even the stamp of the customs is as if Kosovo was an independent country (At the time of this travel it wasn’t independent). Peje is in the plain of the valley, which we see from the mountain as we keep going down. On the way we saw destroyed houses, even small neglected neighborhoods that belonged to the Serbs who have had to run away out here. We have been warned of the danger of Kosovo, and although we didn’t see any danger, (excluding the anti-person mines in the mountains), we decided to search for something safer than the street to sleep. In a Muslim “country”, we went to the Catholic Church to ask the priest for accommodation, in any place that he could. But the guy who did of translator between us, didn’t think twice, -Come to me home! he said. After four days sleeping outside; a bed, a shower, and homemade food... is something that arrives straight from the Heaven. Visar and his family, gave us everything in this day... Respect of the city, the best it’s to get lost through the bazaar of the centre, where the most important mosque of the city is; but apart from that we had an interesting meeting with one of the Spanish troops that works in Kosovo. They told us about what their work consisted (basically same as “civil policeman” in Spain), and about how was Kosovo some years ago, ensuring that the situation now is much better. Probably with the supposed independence that they will get soon, Kosovo keep improving little by little. They were quite glad to speak with Spanish, and they assured that we were the first that they saw here.

Despite of the advises to don’t hitchhike here…we did it, and it’s a great country to do so, here the people who do it, don’t put either the hand or anything, simply they wait on the road (as waiting for the bus), and the people stop to pick them up. And although it is common to do it, seeing two foreigners doing it, surprised to the people a lot, because here there is not tourism.

With the truck of Coca-Cola we reach Pristina, the capital city. On the way, demolished buildings keep being seen, churches... but also some curious traffic signals like this one…

We expected a more destroyed city, and although it is not, is seen a little crushed and old. Visar and Blerton showed us all the city centre; it was very funny when we went to the main and oldest mosque of Pristina (550 years). It was closed, but our friends talked with the gardener, (we don’t know which story they told him), that he was agree to open it for us, but we had to pass a "control" before. The Spanish government is against the independence of Kosovo, so the gardener asked us if Spain had changed opinion, but the definite answer was ours: Were we agree of the independence? If the answer was YES, we could see the mosque; so, YES of course we are!! Although this is our real opinion, after see what we had seen.

The worst thing of Kosovo is that the word “corruption” is in everywhere; EVERYTHING is corrupt; in front of the supposed building of the government (which doesn’t exist), we saw plenty of photos of disappeared people during the war, still with expectation to find somebody.

The night in Pristina was cool, these two guys took us to the Hard Rock (unofficial), and we enjoy a lot listening heavy metal, and metal bands of Kosovo.