Surprisingly enough, we haven’t ran into that many other bicycle tourists. In Germany, we saw hundreds of people out for a weekend ride, but it wasn’t until Pisa where we met our first long-distance biker. We pulled up next to him and noticed his freshly-laundered socks strapped on his luggage to dry. We complimented his system (we usually have a couple pairs of underwear flapping in the wind as we bike). Keegan is from California and was biking and wwoofing throughout Europe (“wwoofing” is volunteering on organic farms). He was on his way to a farm, so we unfortunately didn’t get the chance to bike with Keegan.
The next cyclist we met while sitting down eating pitas in Metsovo, Greece. We flagged Wouter down and instantly liked him. He just graduated with a Masters degree in engineering and was celebrating by taking a one year bike trip from Switzerland to China. We biked with Wouter for a few days and were sad when the day came that we had to part ways.
We stayed in Meteora for a few days to hike around the famous monasteries. While we were there we met two couples set out to travel the world. The first couple were Americans. Ashley was a recent graduate of Vanderbilt and had received a 14-month travel fellowship. She and her husband (also newlyweds) are documenting people and their stories via photo and video. Their work is beautiful, so make sure you check out their site: http://www.tell-well.com
Last but not least, we ran into Christian on his bicycle and stopped to say hello to a fellow biker. We learned that he and his wife, Anja, quit their jobs, sold their car, left their house and children (now grown) in pursuit of their dream to travel the world. They hope to take two years to travel the silk road east to China. We met up for drinks, swapped travel stories and found comfort sharing similar beliefs and reasons for traveling. Christian and Anja have a great philosophy and are great people. http://www.nordseehnsucht.de/
Today we arrived in Thessaloniki. We are being hosted by Gael, a Frenchman who cycled around the world from 2006-2009 with Elena. He and Elena were working for Unesco, photographing all of the world heritage sites. Elena is now working on a project in Siberia for national geographic. http://www.common-life.org