made it... a year later

I’m not one for “repeat-trips”… Day trips to familiar locations, fine, but when given the chance & a few days of freedom to take off, I’d much rather go somewhere new.

Much of the road we covered this weekend was technically road we had travelled before…. to be precise, we did the exact same route a year ago. The difference being, last year we couldn’t see 5 meters in front of us. Same road, completely different experience.

Last year, I remember trudging along at 10km an hour through a snow storm, up a mountain, with roads covered in ice & thinking to myself that I was either going to loose an appendage to frostbite or we’d be run off the road by a truck that wasn’t going to see it.

I remember being so cold I couldn’t think rationally, & Panagiotis stopping on the side of the road after we’d conquered the mountain & saying “You want to take pictures, don’t you!”. In that moment… I wanted to punch him. Clearly, I wasn’t in my right mind. Here was a man though who wasn’t asking me if I would take a few photographs, he was cleverly suggesting that the idea was mine! Begrudgingly, I took some. Granted, only with my phone, truth is, I couldn’t feel my fingers well enough to operate my camera even if I wanted to.

I have to thank him though (although you probably shouldn’t tell him I said that), without him, I wouldn’t have talked myself into taking any photos those whole two weeks.

Secretly, it was the best vacation I’d ever taken, at least up until that point. Sure the batter died on the bike the second day in. Yes, we dropped the bike. Stopped, at a traffic light. There was even a car packed full of people behind us watching in amazement as we toppled over & you could hear Panagiotis saying “oh… OH SHIT!” at he tried to stop the inevitable. Yes, there was a fiery explosion when an encounter with a fireplace went awry & Panagiotis may or may not have lost his eyebrows & a few layers of skin. None of that changes the adventure we had.

Fastforward a year later… & here we are taking the same route, remembering all of these moments in a flash flood of brilliance.. with the added twist that whilst everything looks familiar, none of it looks the same.

Last year, we tried to get down to the lake (Lake Plastira) & were stopped at the dam because the roads were covered in ice & too hazardous to risk. This year, we breezed through. Like I said, I’m not usually one for repeating roads already travelled, but sometimes just because the road is the same, doesn’t mean the journey will be too.