Take a deep breath South America, here we come.Tales from the saddle.: 2 days rolled up into one. Mountains follow us all the way into Greece. 14th country.

Day 1.Korce to Farm Sotira, near Leskovic. 70kms of hell.

Our started with a nice roll out of Korce and into the farmlands of Southern Albania. The weather was fantastic, not a breath of wind and only mountains in front of us. The first part of the morning took us through farmland with a gentle climb to over 1000 metres. The villages as we headed south were further apart than expected and were standing the test to time, just. There was a lot of buildings in a dilapidated state and some I probably would not like to live in.

The people in those remote areas live a simple live, with field of corn and now we’re getting to see more goats, sheep and cattle. Each time we ride past the shepherd would give us a wave whilst tending to his flock. We were riding in some of most incredible scenery so far on tour. We were in the farmlands of Albania but we could see some serious mountains in front of us. We pulled in for morning tea at a nice hotel in the middle of nowhere. We had a cup of tea and ate some jaffa cakes. If you’re ever in this part of the world or Kosovo, you must try jaffa cakes, they are so tasty.

We got back on the bike and the mountains started. We rode up into and past the tree line of pine forests and jagged cliffs. Each time we climbed a mountain of twists an bends we would reach the 1200 metre summit and then go down the other side of more switchbacks but on terrible surface. For the next 40kms we had to go up mountains and descend over rocky, bumpy, dirt, lose gravel roads. It was taking its toll on both of us.

With the trees protecting us for the majority of the 40kms from hell, we still needed to take the breaks to not over cook ourselves. Climbing a 1200 metre mountain is not a problem and that’s how much we climbed today, the problem is climbing 200 metres, descending at a safe pace not to crash and the rolling back up another climb of 200 metres. Time after time we had to climb.

Each time we reach the summit we were rewarded with amazing scenery of pine forests, deep gorges, switchbacks into the distance that no doubts were coming our way real soon. By the time we had covered 73kms it was getting on and we had to stop. We found a nice stop over called ‘Farm Sotira’ about 15kms from Leskovic. We couldn’t get a room, so had to put up the trusty tent. For 4 Euro we have a great site with a swimming pool, nice and shady area and a restaurant we could buy our dinner and breakfast. Whilst dangling the feet in the water we got to meet a Dutch lady by the name Christine. She’s 70 years of age and is cycling on her own through Albania. I have to take my hat to someone her age riding the mountains of Albania. I doubt I’d be able to do it at 70.

NO Wifi at the farm, but I suppose this adds character to the location. At the end of the ride today we showered and discussed how sane we suppose to be, doing the mountains when all the tourists we see say are mad for tackling one the hilliest areas of Eastern Europe.

Tomorrow we’ll head for Leskovic and then into Greece. Considering how tough today’s ride was, it was still just amazing to ride in an area free of tourists, huge hotels, beautiful countryside and lovely Albanian people. We could not want for me on this tour.

Until tomorrow, safe riding.

Day 2. Now for Monday’s ride. Camp Sotira to Kalpaki Greece. 14th country on tour.

I do love sleeping in my tent but I don’t’ like dogs running about my tent at 2.30am and then brushing my tent and nearly causing me to have a coronary. Talk about having the living daylights scared out of you. I yelled at them and they left, but it wasn’t a good feeling.

Breakfast at the camp was some toast smeared with cheese and plum sauce, washed down with a cup of tea. We knew that today’s ride would cause us to do more climbing, and that started as soon as we left the campsite.

The major problem with a lot of the roads in Albania is road conditions are horrendous going down them. We climbed the first mountain that took us over 1000 metres again and then dropped into the town of Leskovic. We purchased some supplies to spend the rest of our Albanian money and then get some directions to the Greece border.

We rode out of town and then commenced the 15km descent into the town of Coscove. This road was on par to some of the mountains trails I've ridden back home. The holes, bumps, gravel, rocks and animals made it the slowest trip down a mountain on tour. You could not take your hands off the brakes for one mountain in fear of going over or over the edge. The scenery was just spectacular as we descended to the valley floor, with sheep mountains either side and a drop off that will cause immediate death with one wrong turn.

The ride from the Coscove to the border was on nice smooth roads for another hour. The border crossing into Greece was straight forward although Peter did have one of his pannier bags inspected for illegal goods. I'm glad they didn't find the performance enhancing drugs we've been on.

The border police told us that we had to climb a 7km mountain before you ride along the ridge and descend into Kalpaki. Kalpaki is amongst more mountains than you can poke a stick at. Even though we've been hammered with mountains everyday, the scenery never fails to disappoint us.