We left Meteora and cycled up the second longest climb of the trip, the Katara Pass. The climb was seemingly never ending, and very steep. It was one of those beautiful days where if the climb didn’t take our breath away, the views would. We ended the climb with our most epic camp spot of the trip with views to die for before descending to the lake in Ioannina and finally crossing the border to Albania.
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Wow that was an insane climb that literally took us all day it’s about 4:30 we just reached the top what an incredible view holy cow Greece it’s amazing we made this week’s ride was from meteora including the rest day there and leaving Greece yeah we spent some time hiking around the monasteries of Meteora and then we spent three very hard but absolutely gorgeous day is getting from Metz ovo to the of a Neum border it’s a tough ride but it was probably one of the most beautiful parts of our entire trip heading out of meteora to matobo justin planned two different routes one went up to 1,200 meters to a highway with a bunch of tunnels and another went way over the top of the mountain up to 1,700 meters after climbing for two and a half hours we arrived at a fork in the road turn right to go up and over the pass or continue straight and get onto the highway unfortunately the highway was marked as an a.1 road which is prohibited for bicycles to ride on but the route up and over the pass to the right said road closed with a giant sign and a mound of dirt in the middle of the road we were left of it confused but luckily there was a group of construction workers on the side of the road that we went up and asked which way we should go on her bicycle they confirmed our suspicions that we were indeed not allowed to ride on the highway and they pointed us up the closed Road up to Qatar Pass there’s a man in the road a very Justin shaped man looks a lot more like fall up here way up at 1600 meters we’ve got 100 more metres to go before we finish this thang lime it’s been absolutely beautiful but it’s a killer what yeah way too long we’ve been climbing all day it’s now four o’clock and we’re still not done but we’re really really close and see the top [Music] there that’s the top of the pass Wow that was an insane climb that literally took us all day it’s about 4:30 we just reached the top what an incredible view holy cow Greece it’s amazing oh man yeah we broke three spokes on the way up though so Justin’s gonna have to fix that but yeah for now we’re just gonna head over the top until we find some water where we can camp we really didn’t want to ride up the whole way at once today but little did we know when we left the town that we ate lunch in there was absolutely nowhere to get water and we can’t camp without water so yeah we pushed on to the top this might actually be our longest climbing day of the trip we’ll have to look at the numbers and see but yeah we made I got a traffic jam riding on a closed Road we really weren’t sure what to expect but we turned right and took our chances the climb up to katara pass was nothing short of stunning on our way up we passed so many great camp spots and unfortunately so little water so we pushed on to the top of the pass stopping two or three times on the way up looking for water at places we thought might have it all to no avail all right we found our camp spot for the night with this epic view behind me this definitely wins as camp site with the best view of the trip for sure this is amazing hopefully it’s not too cold though we only we descended about like 150 meters before we found this spot the camp we finally found water like right on the other side of the mountain crazy how there was absolutely no water for the entire climb after we ate lunch and then we just crest over the pass and there’s beautiful spring mountain water just coming out of the mountain who knows uh yeah we’re gonna set up camp in cook some dinner you good morning we are on our way down from our campsite just above met soba headed down to I wanna it is very brisk up here this morning hence all the jackets but I’m sure these layers will get chat as soon as we go further down yeah still beautiful views this morning can’t beat it [Music] [Music] descending from Qatar Pass was absolutely incredible the first part of the descent down to met Silvo had the most spectacular views I have ever seen we could not stop staring and had our bike actually been able to stop on the steep descent we would have stopped to take a lot more photos while we saw maybe two or three cars on our ride up the past the day before today there was much more traffic coming up from the town of mitzvah including many bike riders and even another bike tourist it turns out that this part of the road was not closed as there was a power station up on top of the mountain as long and hard as the climb up was yesterday the views from our campsite and the descent down the mountain today made it all worth it riding over Katara past Amit Silva was the highlight of our journey so far we have had plenty of long and hard days on our trip so far but none have been as rewarding as riding over Qatar pass Greece is an absolutely stunning country full of incredible views beautiful people and amazing roads for cycling [Music] [Music] [Music] oh yeah you got one more time to go to I wanna wear I don’t know in the middle of it right now just stuff to take a break because our legs are very tired from yesterday but once again can’t beat these views [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] hello I’m Georgia because my wife is way too short we made it so I would Nina is that how you pronounce I wanna impress ya I keep saying I wanna but I’m missing a vowel and an N she’s missing a lot of letters yeah but we made it down to the lake what did you think of the ride today honey the client was too long again we we had a so we had a really nice long descent and then it was followed up right by a 400 meter climb that was steepest again yeah and then a descent down to this lake and I owe a Nina so yeah beautiful views again today I thought it was a nice ride I think we would have thought it was super nice had it not been for our really tired legs from the day before yeah it would have been better if we weren’t already tired yeah but we made it now we can’t bein down here right on the lake shore with no mosquitos yeah you know hopefully it’ll be nice hopefully nobody comes over and kicks us out it’s kind of a public place but uh it was marked on this new app we found or we got told about called Park for night so should be good yo / no problem well can’t see this morning gorgeous there was no beautiful sunrise across Lake just white foggy witness this is gonna be sad a shout and a shell that doesn’t sound – shell once we wrote about ten kilometers away from the lake the fog cleared and revealed another day of absolutely beautiful views for a last day of Ronnie and Greece even though we had already spent a month and a half in this beautiful country I was still so so sad to leave if there’s one thing I know for sure it’s like graceful forever hold a very special place in our hearts [Music]
1 Comment
Amazing! Thanks so much for sharing your journey