ACT Greece & TET Albania (Part 2/2) OFF-ROAD MOTORCYCLE ADVENTURE: Trails & Tribulations

In the heart of Europe, where the echoes of ancient civilizations still linger, lies a land calling out to the adventurous spirit. This is the backdrop for a 12-day off-road trip through Greece and Albania, where every twist of the throttle leads to new discoveries and unforeseen challenges. As we venture deeper into the wilderness, the terrain grew more treacherous, especially in the wet conditions. Challenging water crossings pushed the limit of our abilities and determination. However, our journey was not without technical difficulties. My KTM grappled with reoccurring issues stemming from the engine control unit, threatening to stall our progress at various points throughout the journey. As we followed the adventure country track through the rugged terrain of Greece, we encountered obstacles that pushed us to our limits. But on the fateful seventh day, we encountered a worse setback. Jochen suffered a severe injury, forcing him to resign from the tour. It was a sobering reminder of the wispy face in pursuit of adventure. Yet, amidst the challenges, there were moments of unparalleled beauty. From the remote places far from civilization to the awe-inspiring Meteora monasteries and the breathtaking Vikos Gorge, the scenery was nothing short of breathtaking. But the journey was far from over. In Albania, we faced the formidable challenge of the Trans-Eurotrail southern section, where the beauty of the landscape was matched only by the difficulty of the terrain. Join us as we delve deeper into the heart of our adventure, filled with new discoveries and unforgettable experiences. This is our off-road adventure through the captivating landscapes of Greece and Albania. In the first six days of our adventure, we faced a series of challenges and breathtaking moments as we journeyed through Greece and Albania. Starting with a tire setback in Munich, we embarked on a scenic route through the Dolomites to Venice, where mechanical issues with my motorcycle foreshadowed future obstacles. The ferry ride to Greece marked the beginning of our off-road expedition, with our first days unfolding through the scenic mountains of the Peloponnese and the Pindos mountain range, where we encountered muddy terrain on our first river crossing. Transitioning into day four, we tackled the rugged terrain of the ACT Greece, facing technical trails and breathtaking vistas. The following days brought us through awe-inspiring mountain ranges and challenging river crossings, with each obstacle fueling our determination to push forward. Despite detours and uncertainties, the beauty of the landscapes and the camaraderie among our group kept us inspired as we ventured deeper into the backcountry. Start of day number four. A bit of a late start because we had breakfast at eight instead of seven as the previous days. We're gonna stop at a supermarket and get some groceries, just some food for a picnic on the way. That worked out pretty well. Now you can see there's a little bit of blue sky. That's the first time we see blue sky. So we'll see what today's gonna bring. We've been pretty lucky the past three days that heavy rain forecast didn't really accumulate to anything until the afternoon. So either it was very close to us getting to our accommodation or right after. It's gonna be a long ride for us because we are extending the trip today and we're not staying at the recommended stop point. We're going to Meteora, where the monasteries are that sit on these rocks, on these rock formations. So we have quite a few more kilometers to go so we can see that. We are so close to it so we didn't want to miss that out. So just when you leave Carpe Nasi you're rewarded with a nice curvy paved section, nice flowing road. We're just really happy to see dry pavement in the morning. Whoa, check this out. Cool bridge. We're gonna find that bridge that we saw in the ACT movie. That was really pretty. Oh, oh, oh, oh. S**t, s**t, s**t. Jochen had a few minutes head start and by the time Sebastian and I caught up to him he was already sitting next to his bike. He had slipped on a small mud section and in this effort to regain his balance his left foot became trapped between his left pannier and the ground resulting in a broken lower leg. The timing of the accident just 45 minutes into the day was both fortunate and unfortunate but we were relatively close to the main road and not hours into the wilderness like in the previous days. It was still a distressing situation. Last night's destination Carpe Nasi was the nearest size of a town where we could find medical help. Yeah, it's not very far. It's just off the pavement and then into the dirt road. It's very close to the main road. Three people including the injured person. Yes. The ambulance and the police arrived promptly about 45 minutes after the call was made. Despite the pain Jochen managed a smile as the medics attended to him. However he was understandably upset with himself for what deemed to be a stupid mistake. One of his requests was to have his motorcycle brought to the hospital unwilling to leave it unattended in the middle of nowhere. The police were incredibly helpful finding a nearby restaurant where I could safely leave my own motorcycle with all my belongings allowing me to ride Jochen's bike to the hospital. The diagnosis confirmed Jochen's fear. A broken lower leg. It was a complicated fracture and my brother a trauma surgeon strongly recommended surgery in Germany. Fortunately we all have insurance policies to cover the trip home for both rider and his motorcycle. Despite this setback Jochen encouraged Sebastian and me to continue our journey along the ACT Greece route. Although our hearts were heavy we honored his wish. With time constraints looming we made the tough decision to deviate from the original plan and find another thrilling off-road track through the mountains. Look at this road. Wow. It's nice. I gotta say I still got the Evenso this morning in my head. It's not a good passenger when you're riding stuff like this. I'm just hoping to shake it off. It's a little wild. So time to eat something. First time without Jochen. We don't have the crow anymore. Nope. What we have is cutting board. We should do it. So we can already see where we're going. Over there. That road. That's where we're gonna head. You can see it on the navigation system. So we have to go around that mountain and then we'll come out over there at some point. We still have 190 kilometers to go. It goes like steep down to the side here. So the Google track is basically just gravel roads the entire time. The Garmin track would have backtraced us to where we started so we didn't want to do that. But I guess we're out here where there aren't any paved roads to the next big city or town. So this is what you get. In a way this is what we came here for so that's good. Depending how quickly we get out of this we'll still be okay with daylight too. We're still okay. So we're about five minutes out from our accommodation tonight. And that's the scenery we're looking at. Absolutely breathtaking. Not sure how close we're gonna get. As darkness descended we made a spontaneous decision to visit the awe-inspiring Meteora site before retiring to our accommodation for the night. As if the Meteora rock formations themselves weren't awe-inspiring enough the sun peeked out from under the clouds one last time casting an ethereal glow over this incredible place in the most stunning sunset. After an eventful day we felt incredibly fortunate to have timed our visit so perfectly granting us a rare chance to witness the Meteora site bathed in such mesmerizing light. The following morning blessed us with the finest weather of the trip thus far granting us another opportunity to view the Meteora site in gentle morning light. This UNESCO World Heritage Site features remarkable monasteries perched atop eroded rock formations. Despite the incredible challenges faced by the monks who built the monasteries during the 15th century they stand as a testament to human ingenuity and perseverance. Today is Saturday a beautiful day 15 degrees in the morning it's shortly after 8 maybe 8 30 already. We're starting our day in Meteora we're so happy to have this beautiful weather. Last night we actually got to see the sunset on one of these sunset viewing points up where you can see the monasteries and today it looks pretty nice too at least the morning we have some cloud cover coming up in the mountains so we don't know what it's going to look like. There's not a big chance of rain today which is great. This is day number five of the ACT track and we took a bit of a detour to get to Meteora and see the monasteries. Now the decision for tomorrow was to either enter the track somewhere in the first quarter probably and just skip the first few kilometers or trace back to the starting point. We have time today and since we missed a few hours last night we're just gonna take the 40 minute ride and get to the entry point of day number five and then it's about a 250 kilometer ride from there. Now the last day of the ACT track day number five has less percentage of off-road but it's longer in track so there's quite a bit of pavement that we can expect but still have some nice off-road tracks so i'm very curious. On our final leg of the official ACT track we rejoined the designated route. I'll bite with a slight detour we took to explore the enchanting Meteora site causing us to miss the off-road trails of this section. Only the first 20 kilometers of the official ACT day five track are indeed off-road tracks and our original plan was to cover this section at the end of day four before heading to Meteora. The remainder of the ACT day five track leads along paved routes all the way to the Vico Scorch. The journey to the next town of Metzolvo boasted winding roads that were a joy to ride although they paled in comparison to the exhilarating off-road tracks of the previous days. A notable highlight along the way was the charming St. Nicholas church nestled in the mountains. We made a brief stop to explore its interior and admire the surroundings before continuing on to Metzolvo. That's quite nice there's a market going on it's a saturday today i think it's saturday so i'm gonna see if we can have coffee it looks like cheese and wines i don't know if they do have coffee. This bustling town serves as a hub for several small villages and settlements in the Pindus region offering us the perfect opportunity to enjoy a coffee and browse the local market. It's quite the happening place here so we had a quick coffee stop and now we're back on our way. In hindsight i'm glad we added the Meteora site to our itinerary as the last 230 out of the 250 kilometers of the ACT day 5 track are all on paved roads. The next 90 kilometers offered little excitement aside from these little turtles which we helped across the road until we arrived at the gateway to the grand finale the majestic Vikas gorge. Next time buddy. Nestled in the Pindus mountains in northwestern Greece the Vikas gorge is one of the most spectacular canyons in Europe. With a depth of about 1000 meters it holds the Guinness world record as the world's deepest gorge relative to its width and is nicknamed the grand canyon of Greece. The ACT Greece is behind us and Sebastian and I have one more day together and we decided to go north into Albania today to follow the southern part of the test track and see how far we get and after that Sebastian has to turn around and catch the ferry from Igoumenitsa as he has to go back to Munich and I'll be heading north sort of slowly making my way back into Berlin again. So it's a beautiful day in Greece. It's 14 degrees out, sunny. It's definitely an interesting route to take us. Okay. Passport okay? Usually I don't have an extra document. Okay. It's okay? Okay, good. Okay, we'll see. Yes. Okay, thank you. Ah, f**k ey, I gave the insurance company extra information. Well, we'll try it now. If not, I'll have to have it photographed. Officially left Greece and now we're traveling into Albania. Unfortunately, I did not get my insurance, international insurance document for my insurance on time. I asked for it twice so I didn't, I didn't get it. Last time I didn't need it in Albania but the Greek custom guard said I may need it. So this is going to be interesting to see if this is going to work out or not. Hello. Do you need me to take the helmet off? Yeah. Welcome to Albania. We made it across the border and now officially are in Albania. This is not a busy border crossing coming from Greece to Albania. So we have a little ways to go until we meet the official Trans Eurotrail which is going to hopefully take us to some off-road tracks. Now I don't know how difficult they are. I was trying to get an idea from just watching a couple YouTube videos from other riders because obviously with these big bikes there are certain parts that are hard or impassable depending on your riding skills and I've had a few of those in the recent years where I had to turn around and I couldn't go. So we'll see what today's track is going to offer especially since we didn't ride a lot of off-road tracks yesterday. We're quite keen getting back into the gravel. And we can tell this road is brand new and it's an absolute pristine tradition here. Yeah. Wow. So welcome to the TET of Albania. We just joined the TET track and this is what it's going to look like probably for a better part of the track. Just missed the TET track. I wasn't paying attention. So I have to sort of retrace our steps to find the track again. There's somewhere I turned off to the left that I missed. Okay now this is where we need to go. So we're still going further up the mountains. We don't have any regular roads on our maps anymore. We're like deep into the countryside. This is the kind of roads to get here. So I had nearly put the issue of the burned fuse for the engine control unit out of my mind as it hadn't resurfaced for the past 1000 kilometers. Yet here it was again. My engine died just as we were attempting to depart from the picturesque spot at the bridge. Little did I realize at that moment that this wouldn't be the final encounter with this problem. And the intervals between failures were getting shorter every time. We were midway through a journey in Albania navigating the southern section of the Trans Euro Trail when a deceivingly slippery patch of the dry tarmac caught me off guard, causing me to lose control of my motorcycle. Negotiating a corner with minimal lean and reduced speed as we sought out a gas station in Corovoda I was taken completely by surprise. Fortunately both the bike and I escaped with only minor scratches from the incident. However our troubles were far from over as we discovered a more pressing issue. The town's fuel shortage. With all the three gas stations depleted, a common occurrence towards the week's end according to the locals, our ability to refuel was severely hampered. This setback would later constrain our options in the off-road sections, leaving us with no option to backtrack but only to forge ahead on our journey. We're taking a little detour from the TET track because in the place we wanted to refuel both gas stations all three actually I think it was out of gas we're afraid range is not going to be enough to go into the mountains and run the risk of not getting gas either because there aren't any big towns and that was a big town so we're trying something else now it's off the beaten path a little bit so we decided to meet the TET track again because we didn't find anything and we're shortcutting through these gravel roads back onto the track so we don't have to take the paved section again the TET track after that small road this is the main road here alongside the mountain at 1100 meters above sea level we arrived at the riverbed riverbed so we're just gonna have a quick peek around the riverbed it's pretty long it's really late i'm out of gas and out of steam so we're not gonna do the whole thing and may not be so advisable with such a large bike because i have no option to turn around because i'm low on gas but we will take a look just a quick look going along this part here see what it looks like but that's a very very short part of it so there's an alternative route from the TET to take you to Gamsch which is a bit longer than what we were going to do and we'll take the gravel road to the main road and then take the main road to Gamsch two and a half hours according to google but you're much more comfortable if i had proper amount of gas in the tank range is dropping really quickly we're not even first quarter through this stuff here 70 check this out wow just a bunch of sand this is big loose rock you can't build a road here without a freaking memorial of some kind that's hilarious as we ventured onto this track in search of the quickest route to the nearest main road we were unprepared for the challenges that lay ahead compounding our concerns our fuel levels were low leaving us with no option to backtrack thus reaching the pinnacle of the track brought us a sense of relief knowing that we had conquered the highest point and the most difficult part so we thought look at these big ruts the downhill section of the track proved to be even more challenging with deep ruts and stretches of mud terrain testing our skills reflecting on the track's condition we realized our fortune in traversing it under mostly dry conditions had it been wet the track would have been nearly impassable i'm stuck in the slimy stuff now are you kidding me holy ---- you're not serious, are you? how do you want to get up here with a motorcycle? a little electrical ktm problem that was just a fuse to put a new one in and it took 10 minutes 10 meters and it blew again i put a new one in just right now bike doesn't start we're in the middle of ******* nowhere after the engine control unit fuse blew for the third time in quick succession i began to worry if i would even make it off the mountain that day especially with the low fuel problem adding to my concerns initially i'd believed this was a problem with the motorcycle itself however i discovered a few weeks later that the relay of my sw motec accessory lights was filled with water causing sporadic electrical failures of my motorcycle having used the accessory lights on my previous two motorcycles it seemed the relay had lost its waterproofing over time so i'm just happy about every whoa every kilometer we're making with this wow look at this so we're almost done with the off-road part this is the main road put a new fuse in hope it's gonna last a bit longer than the last one which was just 10 meters but it's so sporadic that i will uh i'm thinking about going cutting a trip short and taking a ferry back with sebastian tomorrow we got one final look into the mountain range that took us more than two and a half hours to traverse from the time we left the riverbed looking back on the past few days the off-road tracks in albania were the most challenging for we were now set on route to the nearest town of gramsch where we hoped to find accommodation and fuel for the bikes and suddenly the road felt eerily familiar we are on the sh 71 and i remember this road from my very first time here in albania which was just an on-road tour and i took this road it takes almost no traffic we had rescued a few turtles crossing roads in the past days but these guys were taking the cake they must have fallen asleep during the egg in the middle of the only main road in a 25 kilometer radius we made sure to relocate them safely off the side of the road for good karma and continued our way to gramsch we arrived to town with empty fuel tanks and found accommodation near the town square as our journey neared its conclusion our focus shifted to returning to iginomitza to catch the ferry back to italy initially i had planned to extend the adventure by riding north through the balkans with jochen however with jochen retiring early from the tour and the frequency of failures on my motorcycle's engine control unit increasing i made the decision to cut the trip short and return home early with sebastian who's planning to leave early from the tour due to work commitments our dutch guys here have a good one we were just standing here pumping up our tires with a battery-powered pump this nice gentleman is walking on the street there came out of this garage and offered to give us pressured air the gas station didn't have any but this random place does but it was too late we already filled up so full pressure off we go so after quite a few kilometers of just straight road autobahn we met the next largest city not sure how to pronounce it flora so in city traffic kind of keep your eyes peeled here a bit crazy with traffic they've got these speed bumps and people slow down to an absolute halt to go with these speed bumps and after that there's the uh the roundabout like this one here we're back at the sea this is the mediterranean sea first time we're seeing it after we spent some time in the mountains now we'll be going alongside the mediterranean sea for a while until we go back into greece so we made it to the beach and there's a nice beach cafe and this is the view we're getting now we're heading down the coastline of albania all the way to the border of greece so there's this little pass the lugara pass going up to right now some hairpin turns going up a mountain so albania has some fantastic roads this is one of them it's not very high it's a thousand meters right now so we're going the route from north to south which is probably nice coming up too as we were descending down the pass this abandoned structure caught our interest and we had to pull over to take a closer look yeah this abandoned building not sure what this is well it looks cool looks like the beaches are nicer down there too this abandoned site known as the big bunker holds historical significance positioned strategically on the slope of the syrian mountains overlooking the atriotic sea it stands at an elevation exceeding 600 meters providing an ideal vantage point for spotting ships a crumbling three-story building makes up the bunker's main structure on a particular scenic hairpin turn of the road okay so this is definitely too tall for this he just had we saw some rats too we are still at the coastline of albania we just stopped for lunch a short while back met this really interesting guy who's been traveling for almost a year now he's finishing his tour in europe okay guys so this legend here is from brazil traveling the world for one year and that's this bike what's your name pedro nice to meet you now we have about 100 kilometers left until we hit igunomitza and somewhere in between we'll cross the border from albania to greece again this is the tiny ferry that's gonna bring us across the water gap we're in butrint so the southern tip of albania rapapap while castles may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about albania the country boasts its share of impressive fortifications and the alipasha castle is among the finest situated near the unesco world heritage site of butrint alipasha castle is nestled amid picturesque waters accessible only by boat with the assistance of local fishermen inhabited since ancient times butrint has served as a greek colony a roman city and a bishopric through its rich history flourishing under byzantine rule and briefly controlled by the venetians the city eventually fell into decline during the late middle ages due to the formation of marshes in the surrounding area today butrint stands as one of albania's most significant archaeological sites boasting a wealth of cultural historical and natural treasures recognizing its importance butrint was designated a unesco world heritage site in 1992 and later established as a national park in the 2000s and the documents for the bike too yep after crossing the border into greece we had a brief ride to igunumiza where we stayed overnight to catch the early morning ferry thankfully we were able to check in the night before giving us some extra time before boarding the ferry to venice with our motorcycles safely stowed on deck we embarked on the journey back to italy we encountered rain for most of the ride and the last-minute mechanical issue along the way before we reached munich however there was one more important stop we needed to make a surprise visit to see jochen in the hospital so