Seriously Bad Ass!

Just a short resumee, as I'll be off doing more fantastic things here ;) So I went over to greece to have my salad as announced. Greek salad just tastes best in Greece ;) Getting over the boarder took literally just 5 minutes and getting back was didn't take much longer, except they wanted to see a permit that allows me to drive this bike (as it's registered in the name of my Dad). The next time, I'll just say that they used my second name to register it that happens to be the same name as my Dad.. that should save me some trouble ;)
Somehow it are the same mountains in Greece, but they are covered by a lot of trees, what makes riding in Albania just much more scenic! I was glad to be back!
I stopped in Gyrokaster and checked out the fortress and all the canons it holds (I was excited like a little child, climbing on every rock, sitting behind canons imagining how loud they sound when fired (I'm pacifist!) and descending into each dark space there was. Was drinking beer and going wild with the socialist party (that was crazy!) and met other bikers that totally made my trip in Albania and back home. I got plenty of ideas what to do and it will be BAD ASS! :D I just took a pen and drew some lines across the Albanian map. Turnes out two Italian riders are doing the same, except they pointed out some more things I should do. I'll tag along with them tomorrow, after todays ride was extremely off-road and it came to my mind that having some riding buddies wouldn't be a bad idea. But the bike did fine and so did the driver! The first 20km was mainly in first gear and I got over a lot of rocks and through muddy pot holes. That was fun!! :D no way a car without 4WD could do this. In fact, the bike I'm riding is just perfect (well.. could be a little lighter, but then I couldn't carry so much stuff with me). For the first time I was happy to not have a girlfriend on the back. Really got to some limits during that ride. I'll let the pictures speak, as I couldn't describe it with words.
Just checked in a great place in Berat (Hotel Belgrad Mangaleni). You probably won't make it out here, but it's actually a really nice place and almost makes me want to stay for longer. But as there's plenty of road and adventures ahead, I'll carry on in the morrow.
In the meantime I got to try a lot of tasty food (getting in shape must be postponed to later ;) I had Tatsiki (or Xixiq) what in fact I'm eating right now. It's yoghurt with cucumbers and maybe something more that is eaten with bread as a starter. Tried Musaka (Patao, minced meat, egg plant topped with cheese crust) and tonight it's gonna be Japrag.. if I got it right, it's rice cooked with redwine served in leaves. I'm sampling all the beers of Albania and so far Tirana is my favorite (but I haven't been at Korces brewery, where they make some famous black beer). oh.. and fried mutton cheese is also extremely tasty! :D
I got a lot of stuff with me (as my didgeridoo and juggling toys) that I don't necessarily use every day, but my shaving equipment I'm not missing at all, as my beard is growing nicely. This is part of my roadtrip to let grow my beard so that it depicts the progress of my journey ;)
Okay.. I'm off to squander around in the old town of Berat. So far so good.. and just getting better! ;D

Smooth as Summer Cherries

it was long past time when they finally let us board. I was three times at the terminal and went back to town, because I couldn't stand waiting for so long. I met some interesting people though and when I was back in town, eating my last Pizza in Italy, I realized that I was nervous for that trip. Like people who are experienced actors or magicians but still have stage fever. Well.. it's probably part of the trip, otherwise I wouldn't do it, if it would just be easy. So after all the experience I got along my journeys, I'm still getting excited when I do something new for the first time :)
I made sure that I'm there ahead of time to not miss the boat, but it took them so long to unload that I was waiting another two hours next to the gate while a cold wind was blowing. Finally they had mercy and let me proceed. I passed the police control (without realizing) and the guy was yelling at me. I stopped and he had a quick look at my passport then at my back and then he told me that he was riding bike in Switzerland and named me all the great passes. Instead of checking my luggage, he showed me all the epic roads I have to do in Albania and Montenegro on his smartphone. It was just really cool! Then I got on board, someone tied up my bike and they told me that I can leave the luggage strapped on (I was happy to hear that, as I unloaded it at least 5 times this day.. just to have things in eyesight). I went up to the reception (they have a reception hall on the boat) and they gave me a room with four beds for myself. I was so incredibly tired that I just throw myself on the bed and was falling asleep on the spot). Suddenly there was a knocking in my dream and when it reapeted a couple of times, I realized that they are waking up the people. I just thought they should make another loop, so I can sleep a little longer, but then I had a coffee and met my Albanian friends from last evening again. They are just hilarious! :D ..we had really good laughs about culture and women and what happens when you don't marry them afterward ;) Yes, the people here are totally cool! I paid 20 Euros for an insurance I need, rolled off the boat and since ever then I got all the help I could ever ask for. Hospitality is sacred in this country and people are just so incredibly friendly and helpful. Wether it's English, Italian, French or just hand and feet, they put themselves really into helping you out!!! (one old man was warning me about the dogs by making some barking sounds ;). It's just 12 hours that I arrived here, but I already got some noisy plastic cover fixed, went to see really small ruins (that lies within a miliary compound), found a dead and an alive turtle, saw some snakes (unfortunately rolled one over :( eat clams (and they were SOOOO tasty --> I never had those and I really intended to never eat them, but they were fresh from the see and just very, very tasty!), went to see some more bigger ruins, got plans where to go and what to do and above all: was riding some of the most beautiful roads that I've ever seen!! Albania just TOTALLY ROCKS!!! Now I know why I decided to ride a motorbike down to Albania! I'm so happy I got my own bike down here.. it seems to me that coming to this country without a motorbike is about the same as playing football without a ball ;) The roads are not that bad (well, there are a lot of small roads that I haven't tried). Compared to the Italiens that put roadsigns but don't follow them, they Albanians don't put any signs at all (makes more sense to me than what the Italians do ;)

I heard a lot of good things about Albania, how beautiful it is and how friendly the people are, but what I'm experiencing here just tops it all! I'd wish I have more time to drive around, but I'll try my best to use it as good as I can. Tomorrow I will quickly go to Greece to eat a salad and then come back and stop in an old historical town here in Albania. So much to do and so little time! but I'll take it slowly.. especially on the road where I'm used to people driving on the right side and people driving on the left side, but the concept of driving in the middle of the road is new to me. They just turn over quickly when someone approaches, but as long there's no one else on the road, why not drive in the middle? The weather is just stunningly beautiful and no clouds on the sky whatsoever. The colors goes perfectly with the sea (that is also shaded in different blues) and wonderful beaches (for those who like beaches). Now it's time to go out and have some fun! :D ..man.. I can't believe how wonderful life can be! can it get any better? ..let's try ;) 

ready to set sail!

I'm happy this last night is over. It was.. well.. at least cheap. But I got attacked by hundreds of mosquitos and so much for lazyness to pitch a tent. Next time I will just take the 15 minutes to have a safe shelter and the satisfaction of these little fuckers staying outside and trying to get in (and hopefully die of exhaustion by the attempt) will be reward enough.. and a deep sleep without waking up. I put that mosquito-net over me, but it kept sliding off, what was a surprise by it's size of 1.5 x 2.6m :P so this night's nightmare was that I got attacked by thousands of mosquitos (and it was unfortunately not just a nightmare). I woke up at 2.20AM and was happy when I fell asleep again. Then at 5.20AM it was getting bright and was sick of fencing these buggers off, so I happily packed up and hit the road!
it was a bit overcast in the morning and chilly when I arrived on top of San'Antonio Mountain. But then I rode down and finally the sun hit me. There's not so much to see down here and while clouds were forming up on the hills to my right side, I decided to stick as close to the see and watch the endless blue flat, rippled with white waves. Today I learned two things. First.. Bar is actually not in Albania, but in Montenegro (my geographical knowledge keeps surprising me) and the ship is only departing at 10PM, so it didn't help at all to speed my way up to get to Bari. On the way there I took the superstrada and it felt extremely dangerous. Even if it says "70km/h", you need to drive at least a 100km/h to go with the rest of the traffic and still then the police overtakes you with super speed (no, they didn't have their lights on.. it was just normal driving). So when I figured this all out with the ferries, I decided to drive down a bit further to the next port. I would just have gone to Montenegro and drive down to Albania and back up, but it doesn't change a thing.. all ferries leave at night and there's only one ferry per day. So now I know. The next time this would all be smoother and I would know already the best roads, but the fun thing is to do it for the first time, so this is all part of the experience. Was a lovely ride along the beach and through small villages and towns (with a lot of one-way-signs) and I stopped in "Monopoli" to drink a Cappuccino. Luckily I didn't stop on one of the expensive fields ;) hahaha ;D I always hated this game, but I didn't know they have a town with this name down here. Along the way I saw many tourists and was happy that my journey is not being stuck in a place to visit churches, but that I just can drive and drive and see what lies ahead of me.
Here in Brindisi it was easy to get a ticket.. 47 Euro for me (with cabin) and 20 Euro for the bike. I can embark at 9PM, so I still have 6 hours to kill. I might just go for another little ride or find myself a beach and stare out to the horizon. It's so nice to have time and enjoy life! ..whenever I need a break, I sit in a restaurant and drink a cappuccino. They really know how to prepare it down here and it's super cheap as everybody drinks coffee all day long ;) Finally my hayfever dissappeared as the flora changed a lot the further I got south. Italy is really amazing.. it is so diverse and I understand people who come down here to make holiday. It just seems to be a very long way, if you drive it for the sake of being here and not for the sake of driving down. Finally I got internet and would have time to upload these blogs and some pictures, but now this crappy laptop won't connect. I'm an engineer and I can't fix it and if I learned something about technic in the last 20 years then it is that you should never trust it! ;)

Stranded somewhere in nowhere..

Phew.. today I made at least 400km.. was sitting on the bike for minimum 8 hours and I'm happy I finally arrived somewhere.. well.. somewhere in nowhere. On second thought I should have stayed in Vieste, where there is food, drinks and girls. I could now be even dancing in a Disco after having a big pizza, but no, I'm on the other side of Gargano in an abandoned camping (it will open in 4 days from now). Anyway.. it could all be worse. In the morning, it looked very promising with the weather when I started, but as I got higher in the mountains (1300 m.a.s.l.) I faced a cold wind blowing in my face and an overcast sky that blocked out the sun. I carried on several hours before I yielded and put on some warmer clothes. The drive though was still spectacular and would even be more stunning with nicer weather. Nevertheless I made it pretty far throught the national park "d'abbruzio Lazio" to Iserna (no, I didn't see any bears, even if I was looking everywhere for them). From there I took the "superstrada" (not highway) direction sea, but I soon turned off to choose the small curvy roads. It's just more fun and less traffic and whoever takes it, doesn't speed, because of all the potholes in the road ;) My bike did just fine!
Finally when I reached the sea also the clouds gave in to blue sky. I was like eating fresh fish in a restaurant at the beach but I just got some pasta in a strange place that didn't look open either. I can't tell you how much I hate beach holidays. What possibly can be fun being stuck on a sandy beach (driving a bike along it is a different story though). I was pretty tired when I got there and was happy to get something to eat, so I didn't complain. It took me also a while to find a way to the beach, so I was in no mood to look any further. From there I continued further down to the "Gargano", a route that has been highly recommended to me. After passing a few ugly looking hookers on the way, I finally got some nice views on the open sea while driving a curvy road up the mountains. On the map the name "grotta smeralda" got my attention (sounds like a old pirate hideout ;) and so I set my course for it. Passed the touristy Vieste (where I probably should have stayed) and had some more epic kilometers to drive. Well.. in the meantime I figured out that you can only access this grotto by boat and the boat starts in Vieste (I passed it over an hour ago) and only on Saturdays.. and then it would be one of the touristy things I don't do. But anyway.. as the policemen in Vieste told me that I can camp in Baia de Zagare (what isn't true either, because it fancies only a hotel), I now got stuck in something "..a flores". I was really in no mood to drive any further (will enjoy this road tomorrow) and unloaded my bike and had the beer I wished for so long. Unfortunately the restaurant here is still closed, so I'm not only saving money by camping out wildly, but also save the money to get some proper food (I gladly would pay the couple of Euros to get a decent meal). But no, now I'm feeding on some emergency nut-bars. I hope they will keep my warm during the night. For lazyness I didn't want to pitch my tent, but attached my hamock between two trees with a nice view over the ocean. Turns out it's muuuch to windy to spend a night like this, but fortunately a retired Italian guy let's me sleep on his porch. Ah.. can't wait for it to become morning when I can drive to the next village (10km away) and have a decent breakfast!! But after I had a beer and a shot of home made lemon liquor (really tasty!!), I don't want to drive another meter. So it will be a cheap night (but not so much a fun night). This "promontorie del Gargano" is really a blast for riding motorbike! It's like super duper nice and I was even thinking of doing an extra round tomorrow. But after I had a chat with this nice Italian guy that let me hang out outside of his place, I figured that I can make it to Albania tomorrow and don't need to spend a night in Bari. That's absolutely fine with me as I can use the extra day in Albania and probably will get a nice hotel there (as I'm saving now the money here). It's the second time that people are telling me that there are no mosquitos, but there are! screw you damn little bastards! ..they got me totally off guard, as I don't carry any DEET with me. Well.. maybe I just through that mosquito net over me that I got in the last minute from Ebay. It will anyway be a tough night compared to the last one in that big and comfy bed. ..hmm.. by the way: I had my last smoke 6 days ago and I don't feel any urge to have a spliff whatsoever! pretty cool! :D I'm still looking forward to roll again in Switzerland, but it's not amiss and that's a really good thing! ..I don't have any troubles falling asleep, but I woke up twice last night. Always in the the end of a 4 hour sleep phase when I get back to REM I remember my dreams so vividly, I'm just waking up. I always thought, it's a shame that I don't remember my dreams, but now I'd wish I wouldn't remember them. Twice it was kind of nightmarish, as I had a fight with a good friend and second time I got into a sticky situation that let me wake up with a wierd feeling. let's see what this night will happen.. the wind just picked up a great deal :/ I tell you what.. in my hamock, I'd be blown away by now. I will keep all my clothes on (my sweater is stinky anyway by now, but as there's just me, noone really bothers ;). Maybe the situation I'm in is not exactly what I wished for, but there are alwasy adventages to it. It somehow evens out for more expensive nights and brings my budget back on track and I'll survive anyway. And it's what is traveling is about! I always ventured out without making detailed plans and it always turned out to be a good thing. You need to leave things open in order that the quantum universe can collapse the way it's best for you. If I would have organized everything before hand, I would not just have spent a lot of time, but would have altered the whole trip in a way that seems predictable but it's not anyway. So better give way to the chaotic randomness that makes things so perfect as they are! ;)
I'm having another sip of beer, as beer supposedly has calories too and will keep me warm during the night (as I lack of female company that would to the same but in a more joyful way ;). There's something I noticed today: even the smallest interaction with people can give me so much energy! Sometime after a long ride, freezing my ass off and getting tired, my mood isn't exactly high flying. But then when I stop to ask someone for the way, even if it's only 30 seconds of interaction, it boosts me so much!! it's like I'm connecting with the diviny energy of the whole universe by one friendly person helping me out. Every time I throw myself out there and have faith in the law of attraction, it totally works out! This is an experience you can't possibly make back home, but whenever you dare and let god of the well known structures that you built around you, then universe will take care of you. Most of the people I know, don't even know what I'm talking about, but whoever tried this out knows exactly what I'm talking about. Like this guy here that asked me: "you're alone?" and invited me over. (well.. he asked in Italian and I tried my best to explain myself in the following conversation). I wanted to talk about so much more than just traveling, job and family, but there are limits to what I can express in Italian. After I had a little refreshing course last night, I realized how rusty I am with verbes and tenses. I don't even dare to get back to this stuff like: "sorebbe" as I'm more used to "serian" in Spanish and don't want to mix it up completey.. yes, it's quite different and if it happens that my girlfriend will speak Italian, I will learn it again and otherwise I must get by with whatever crappy mix of Spanish and English that I can provide :P
Weee.. I just found a peach and a yoghurt that I brought along from breakfast. So now I'm pretty confident that I will make it through the night ;) Man.. if tomorrow I arrive in Albania, I hope they have decent hotels (at least 3 stars) with WiFi for an affordable price! ;D Oh boy.. I was sleeping in abandoned houses and creepy churches for long enough. I'm probably getting too old for this type of adventures ;)
so.. it's a quarter past nine and already dark. If not for the porch light, I would be in bed by now and I'll do it anyway.. I will probably wake up at 6.30 and leave the place at 7 sharp. Going for a cappuccino or two in the next village and then maybe even doing some extra turn in the area (for it's so damn beautiful around here) and then checking in the port in Bari to find out when and how and how much. Day by day, step by step.. it's easier than you might think. And yes, compared to what I experienced along the Panamericana and in the Himalayan Mountains, this is just a walk in the park! ;D
be safe out there my friends and my best blessings to you!! it's a pleasure to know you all and it's all of you that make my life so wonderful and worthwile!

Over the Top!

I hoped for WiFi tonight, but as I'm only paying 30 Euro for a giant fairy tale bed, a hot shower and an included breakfast, I'm not complaining. I'm happy I brought this crappy laptop along, so I can write down all the awesome things that keep happening to me! :D
Where should I start? ..maybe with the Cappuccino I had in the morning while sitting down, grabbing a pen and marking the road, I plan to ride today. If there's a definition of freedom, this is it! Fuck yeah! what is greater than hopping on your bike and hitting the road?! I made it from the lake of Bolsena to Terni where I took two consequent wrong turn offs passing a garage. Thinking of it, it was more like two people talking about a car.. not even a workshop. Don't know why I stopped, but I did and asked them about tires. Terni is pretty big and I didn't want to spend half a day looking for new tires, but as it happened, they told me of a tire shop about 300 meters away. So I followed their instructions and ended at a pretty big bike shop. Despite the other guy in Corciano said that it was hard to find a 17" tire for my bike, I had plenty of choice there. So I chose some on-road-off-road Metzler tires that seemed suitable for me. The man in the shop took his bike and drove off.. soon thereafter he returned with two tires on the back. While they borrowed me a bicycle to ride to avenida Roma (300m away ;) and sent someone to accompany me. Turns out the guy lived in Neuchatel for some year, is electrical engineer (and crazy inventor) and some very good company. I would have guessed him 50 something years, but he told me that he's 67 years old. There you go.. when I reach that age, I want to look as fresh as him! :) After eating some yummi food and a good conversation I returned to the shop. They were all quite busy and no one touched my bike yet, but then Mario came back (the chief mechanic as it had the look) and he was working on my bike for about 90 minutes before everything was "pico bello". Well.. the tires I've chosen weren't exactly cheap, but let me tell you something about riding a bike: if you want to save money on brakes and tires, you might as well just jump off a cliff! If you think about.. I bought this bike for 2000 CHF and now I spent 420 Euros on a set of new tires and tubes. I really try to stay on a budget here, but there are some things where I can't make any compromises. There's a good chance I could have made it with my old tires and there's still a small chance I won't even make it with new tires, but to eradicate the percentage inbetween is priceless! In other words.. two new tires: 340 Euros. Not dropping your bike, crushing your kneecap under it or to sliding off a slope: priceless. two new re-enforced tubes: 50 Euros. Not having a flat tire in the most remote  part of Albania: priceless. The 30 Euros for the work is waaaaaay underpaid!! if you ever fixed a tube along the way, you know how how much sweat this will cost you. Not considering that I lack all the tools to do it anyway, it is so fucking hard to break the beat and to get the tire off the rim. Not speaking of that I most of the times punctured the new tube while putting it back on the rim. I was cursing big times and almost freaking out doing this job, so having someone experienced doing it for me with a machine is just PRICELESS!!! Not only he rounded down all the material cost, but he also drawn the perfect trajectory for me to get to Bari. This once more confirms the law of attraction. If you're in need and your heart calls out for it, then the universe will answer. ALWAYS! Not only I didn't get ripped off by these fellow bikers, no I got set up in the perfect way to take the most epic route down through Italy! Turns out this season of the year the days are as followed. First it's still overcast early in the morning but then the sun disperses the clouds and you find blue sky above you. In the afternoon it becomes cloudy again (due to extrem sunshine vaporizing water from the sea) and some raindrops follow when the sun gets low and the temperature cools down (compared to Monsoon and the storms I faced in Costa Rica, it's actually negectable). So I made it from Terni over Rieti to L'Aquila ("eagle" in Italian) and then down over Rocca di Mezzo to Celano. All very, very beautiful roads to drive and very little traffic on it. Being covered up in my awesome heavy-duty gear, I took this with a grin on my face and was shouting out loudly all the pleasure I felt along the way. This is just so FUCKING AWESOME!! :D ..after I licked blood with this trip, believe me, many more will follow. I will ride my lovely bike until it reaches 80 000km and if I have to drive it all the way to China! At the bike shop today I could get a glance of almost every bike that I know (some of them in a pretty used state). There was my BMW 650 GS, Toms Yamaha 660XT, Renzos 990 KTM Adventure, a four-cylindre BMW racing bike, African Twin, all the small off-roaders and a Super Tenere 750 (that has almost twice the power mine got with only 16kg of more weight). Damn.. I should have one of those :P but then I find my bike is suitable enough. You can ride easily with 2500RPM, but if you want to accelerate it needs 3000RPM. While a stronger bike requires less changing of gears, I need to switch down to get through narrow curves.. but whatever, the fun of riding lies in switching gears ;) furthermore the KTM 900 uses about 50% more of gasoline than my bike does. assuming that I make 4000km, I will spend about 350 CHF in gasoline.. so it's about 175 CHF that I save at the cost of having a bit less of power. But let me put it like this.. if you ride a 125ccm, then you might easily reacht 80km/h, but riding a 100km/h is a pain in the ass. if you ride a 660ccm, then a 100km/h is easy, but a 130km/h is a pain in the ass. If you ride a 990 KTM adventure, then a 130km/h is a piece of cake and you can speed up much more than that. But honestly, I don't feel save at a 120km/h and 80km/h just seems fine for me (yes, all the Italians pass me, but they even do if I ride 90km/h when it's supposed to be 80km/h. So long story short: 660ccm is absolutely enough for my style of traveling. I'm sure I could handle a few more horses, but the expect of saving some money by having a low fuel consumption compensates more than enough. One more thing: I really fell in love with my 650 GS Dakar and it undoubtly is very, very comfortable to ride, but there's so much electronic in it, that you need a BMW motorbike dealership to get a proper service for it. KTM and Yamaha is much more wide spread and Yamaha is just much cheaper as KTM and thinking of it, I started riding bike on a 125ccm Yamaha DT and I did the Golden Triangle and Mea Hong Som loop in Thailand on a 250ccm Yamaha as well as ALL of cambodia. So I'm just tending to convert to Yamaha. While KLR is a piece of crap (but cheap) and KTM is luxurious (but expensive), Yamaha might just win my heart ;) Having this bike now, I feel as I could drive around the world once more ;) I as well might, if not the right girl steps into my life.. but let's hope for the later ;)

Just checked in

just about 24 hours have passed and I totally arrived in the traveling mood.. even faster than I expected. So I got up early and was waiting nearly an hour for the bike shop to open. When it finally did, the guy told me the mechanic will show up at 3.30 PM, but when I was waiting outside, I met another dude that told me to check out Assisi (yes, the place where holy Franz comes from ;) So I decided to pay the place a visit to kill the 6 hours until the mechanic would show up and it turned out to be awesome!
Assisi is a city on a hill overlooked by a mountain fortress. Ancient military installations always got my interest, as I just find it extremely fascinating picturing all the wars that have been fought in these places. While churches don't really touch me, forts definitively do! Assisi is similar to Gruyere in Switzerland, except it doesn't feater a H.R. Giger museum. But they have the remnants of holy Francis of Assisi burried deeply in a church. Well.. I still like Giger waaay more, but as I heard of the holy Francis more than twenty years ago, it was pretty cool to pay him finally a visit. If anybody wonders what happened to him, well.. there he is. Assisi itself is though much more awesome than Gruyere. Just stay on the upper level and avoid the souvenir shops and the hordes of tourists swarming on the lower levels. There's at least half a dozen of churches but as I'm not very religous, I didn't feel bad to not enter them all. Bloody wars that have been fought in the past really get to me while prayer is just boring :P ..here in Italy almost every city has some old town and is full of history. I past dozens of places that are built heavily fortified on a hill and by the look of them, I don't wonder why there still there.
So I was walking around in this ancient city on top of a hill and imagined how all this must have been looke a thousand years ago. I'm happy I met this italien girl a few days ago that speaks German, studies history and looks just gorgeous. And best of all: she invited me to Rome, so I will be able to catch up with what happened here the last 2000 years! :)
On the way back I stopped in Perugia and had lunch on the plaza principal before I got back to the main mission of today: fixing my bike.
So I got there half an hour  early and after a cappuccino and some more waiting the machanic finally showed up. His English was pretty good but the only issue was that they were on a tight schedule and had plenty of bikes to fix. I told him that I suspect the temperature sensor or the thermostate, hoping it's not the pump or the piston seal. The guy let the bike run hot and checked the fluid that was dropping out.. then after a few moments of reflecting, he opened the tap of the cooling container and showed it to me. It was pretty worn out and the sealing looked bad. He ran around muttering "tapa.. tapa.. tapa.." and then he picked up a tap from a dissasembled bike and screwed it on my bike. Ta-daa.. the dripping stopped. I couldn't believe it! that was a really simply solution to a problem I thought might cost me a couple of hundreds Euros. This guy is my hero!! not only he's a bad ass dirt bike rider, no he must have pure oil for blood! Despite they were super busy, they changed the cooling fluid (as I poured it a couple of times drinking water) and had a very good look at it in the end. So now I feel the bike is just fine (as it always was, until I tempered with that tap). I even wonder if it was me messing this up when I tried to fill up the cooling fluid in Switzerland, but then he probably would have felt that tap screwed on incorrectly. So I want to believe it was not me but just an old tap that now has been replaced. I bought some chain lube and  a emergency tube-inflation-kit (as the tire is not tubeless after all) and for the work of changing the cooling fluid and checking through my bike he just charged 35 Euro. I wanted to give him a good tip, but he refused. This man undoubtly has incredibly good Karma and I finally know, why I looked so long to find this place and waited all this time to talk to the right person! Only thing that's still not done is my back tyre. Turns out its 17" and there are no Off-Road tires for that size. Even worse.. it's a very uncommon size and hard to find at all (so much for "I will do this later during the trip when it's cheaper" :P ..darn.. I should know by now! Well.. I will try in Bari and then in every major city I come along. It's just.. I should have done it back home when it would have been easier. But anyway.. it should last a bit longer and at least I know now what's the deal about my back tire.
When leaving the shop (it was around 5 pm), I drove to a library and got finally a map of Italy. I opened it and picked a camping ground on a lake about 100km away. I activated the navigation app on my phone and after downloading the maps of Italy, it worked pretty well. So I got to the place where I'm staying now. I'm just incredibly happy and thrilled that my adventure is going so well! :) along the way I hit some rain (I developed an eye for it) and even if sometimes you can just drive through, I prefered to go with option B: make everything water proof (including the driver). This just takes 10 minutes and then I could proably drive through a car wash without getting a drop of water inside ;) It then wasn't too bad actually and after driving over a hill or two I got the sun shining in my face again. It's just awesome when you see the clouds opening up a few kilometers ahead and then you reach that zone. So I drove down to the lake and along the shoreline until I found a camping. Pitched my tent, had some beers, did some artist things and finished it all with a yoga head stand. Now I'm going wrap myself in my sleeping bag and mark the road that I drove and the one that I will take tomorrow on my way down to Bari.
Life is just awesome and this trip is fucking EPIC!!! Love you all and hope you have as much fun as I do! :D

Mamma Mia!

Sometimes I wonder what the hell I was thinking when I decided to drive a motorbike to Albania? But then in the end it always turns out to be a great idea doing such an epic trip. But until the end, there are many obstacles to pass and many decisions to take.
So far it was pretty easy, as a good friend of mine joined in and helped me getting so far (I probably would have even struggled to leave Switzerland as most of the passes were covered with snow and therefore closed. Luckily he called me late night before I the day I started and told me to join in. So I changed my plans for the third time and decided to tail along and it was exactly the boost I needed to start this trip! It's just so much fun having a wingman when heading out for adventure!!
I would have been lost a zillion times without his GPS and after I made him the biker he is, he returned the favor by escorting me all the way to Pisa. Today he ufortunately had to turn around, but I guess someone has to stay in Switzerland and see that things get done, while I'm traveling around the world.
So now I'm facing the state of mind that evey journey begins with: what the hell am I doing here?? It's the absence of safety, friends and a known environment that hits me. In solitude I realize once more how much I appreciate my social life that I have back home. But those who never set sail, will never reach new lands. So it's all part of it and it has always been like this and will always be. It's nice to share laughs and cries and makes it all so much easier. But in any case I always succeeded and I always will. My bike starts overheating when I don't drive (a problem I was struggling with for month on my last trip a couple of years ago) and it's a bad idea to set over to Albania while it's not fixed. So I made my way today to a small town with a Yamaha dealership and I hope that tomorrow Monday early morning these people can fix my bike. Or better said, I hope they can fix it with a reasonable ammount of money in a reasonable time. I also need a new set of tyres as the ones mounted now seem to be pretty old and hard. So yesterday when accellerating in a curve on a wet road, the bike almost slipped. Scary stuff! So whatever new tyres will cost, I will gladly pay the price to feel safe again on the road. I already drove more than 80 000km in 20 different countries and soon it shall be 25. As for the gear I'm ready for battle! lot's of protection against the asphalt, the rain, the cold. In fact all hell could brake loose and I would just smile peacefully in behind my visor. Only the damn pollums are killing me. I don't even know where they come from. Some tree or bush or weed.. just that's blooming right now and that this species also grows down here in Italy. It's just so annoying to have a dripping and still blocked nose with tearing eyes and sneezes that almost blow my helmet off. I hope it's getting better further south. It's a vital part of riding bike to have my helmet open so I can feel the wind and all the smells surrounding me. Only wearing glasses is a must, as some big ass insects are suiciding while I come along. Some are banging really hard against the helmet and by the sound of it, I definitively don't want them smacking onto my eye balls.
While typing these lines I'm eating some original Italien yummi pizza after I took some pictures of that tilted tower in Pisa. Somehow it is already an epic trip, but there's still a long way to go and the adventure didn't even start yet. While driving here, I learned something about Swiss geography and a big deal about Italian geography. Of course I heard of all these places we were riding through, but I never got it straight where they actually lie and how they're connected together. So day by day, ride by ride I start understanding how the world actually looks.
Mostly I'm a low cost traveller, but as Europe isn't exactly cheap, I have to deal with it that getting a bed and a hot shower cuts deep into my budget. Probably have to adapt my budget a little bit, then I can travel easier without thinking too much about money. What is money anyway.. I got plenty of it and as I don't know how long I have to spend it, I shouldn't save it all up until the last moment, but enjoy life to the fullest day by day! Carpe Diem they say and they're damn right about it!
So far I'm fluent with German, English, Spanish, French and I'm trying to improve my Portuguese, but as I'm here in Italy all I speak is a horrible mix of all of them and it probably doesn't make a lot of sense. I actually studied this language for three years in school, but then I converted it to Spanish and since then my Italian never recovered. I'm also afraid to mix Spanish and Italian too much, so I just stuck to Spanish that covers a much bigger part of the world. But now I'm here and I really start liking Italy! Food is incredibly tasty, girls are super sexy and the countryside is just breath taking with all these old castles and monasteries. They even make delicous wine and great beer! I could grow old here, but then I probably wouldn't, because the people here just don't know how to drive. I start wondering if they even have indicaters installed in the cars or if all Italien models come without'em. Luckily I keep my eyes always open and expect every car hitting me, so I'm always a step ahead if they actually try.
Even if I give a crap about fashion, I have to admit that people here are dressed nicely and they are all super friendly (when not sitting behing a steering wheel). As the common man lacks of proper English, I might improve my Italian after all. Tomorrow will be another real life test when explaining the mechanic what's wrong with my bike. Maybe I should just turn it on and let it idle for a while until the cooling liquid vaporizes but I'd rather not let it happen again. Yeah.. I start remember how traveling is. You're never bored as there's always something that has to be taken care off and once everything runs smoothly, there's plenty of things to see and to do. So I shouldn't be too scared of what lies ahead of me. It always turned out to be great in the end. But there's still a long road to go.
time to head back and make some use of my pricy room. I really should bring a chick along to such a trip. Then I wouldn't have to type some dorky lines but instead could go down on someone and have some real fun ;) but yes, I use to say, you can't always have it all at the same time (but you should always aim for it ;). Take this as a good advice from someone who's conquering the world every day anew.