August 11, 2012
The fall of Leo the Lamentable: Bitola - Vevi (Greece)
YOU REMEMBER Bitola was the birthplace of Alexander the Great? Well, Vevi, a tiny community across the border, marks the fall of Léo the Lamentable.
There's not a lot in the 15km that separate the last town in Macedonia from a new flag, a new language and a different currency in Greece. Just flat fields in which you never quite recognise the crops. The only remarkable aspect came at the exit from Macedonia, where a peacock and a peahen strolled around the checkpoint with only us thinking it odd.
We set off late this morning after a round of errands and, while I didn't burst into song, I felt not too bad. But then gentle hills arrived and I knew the end was near. I lay on the flat top of a water tank to recover, rode on a further and then conked out on the second steep hill. My innards weren't as right as I'd thought.
I have few qualms about wild camping but my notes said specifically that it was illegal in Greece and that "the police don't joke." And there was nowhere to pitch that wasn't visible, even a few hundred metres from an admittedly quiet road.
"It'd be a mean soul who'd object once they'd heard you were ill, though, wouldn't it?", Steph reasoned. "And especially if the weather turns bad."
Which it did, because a thunderstorm ahead and behind us were close to joining over our heads.
We put up the tent, noticed that a man with bell-tinkling goats took not the least heed of us, and settled down as the first drops fell.
I fell asleep before four and slept for 15 hours.
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