Day 103

My blood sugars have been poor and I’ve needed additional insulin. Consistent high blood sugars make my body slow, my mouth dry, and eyes dull. 100 days on the road and my Frio pouches have been looking after my insulin through heatwave and user error. But I know my insulin is slowly denaturing and has lost its potency.

As we lie in bed, the wind sounds like an old motorcycle clattering up the road. It rattles the windows and makes drain covers shake. I fear for our motorcycle covers that have not been clipped down fully.

Today, we travelled from Lamia’s slopes to Athens. We passed wind turbines in full swing, stunning mountain vistas and closer to the city, many, oh so many scooters. These scooters move between cars like water through pipes or wind through crevices. I’m surprised we haven’t witnessed an accident yet… or been victim to one.  Earlier, a man in a shiny black SUV pulled from a side road with no visibility, went through a red light and almost took Wiggy out. Our bikes are over twenty years old, they do not have ABS and do not stop like modern vehicles do. We’ll need to be extra alert here.

Anyway, we’ll be in Athens for over a week; we have errands to run. I’m waiting for an Amazon delivery of additional SSD hard drives, we plan to get new rubber, service our motos, and meet the Hellas Africa Twin Club.

After dropping bags off at our accommodation, by dusk we navigate past apartment-sprawled side streets, over darkening link roads, and amongst the swarms of filtering scooters, to pull up outside Psihogios Tires. The forecourt hosts stacks of used tyres and waiting motos, inside new tyres are mounted high, while work benches, tyre fitting machines, and a large desk fill the floor.

The owner, Andreas, is an exceptionally cool and down-to-earth man who has ridden numerous TTs. A top 20 rider, his many trophies sit gleaming upon the workshop shelves and his gorgeous R6 motorcycle, patterned black and white like a zebra, is sat podium on a workshop bench.

We only know the pleasantries in Greek and Andreas is not fluent in English. So out comes Google Translate to communicate our need for new rubber. At the desk, a middle-aged and balding gent is bent over something, he begins to laugh as Google dictates our message. He straightens up and I notice a half-delaminated scratch card. He is rosy, amicable and speaks fantastic English, he goes on to explain how our message was incorrectly translated. 

With help from the scratch card man, we arrange for new tyres to be ordered. In this time, the scratch card man has won 20 euros! He briefly leaves to convert his prize into 4 new playing cards, which reward him only 10 euros, which he leaves to convert into 2 more playing cards, which reward him 5 euros, which he leaves to convert… Back and forth he traverses, buoyant and friendly all the while. Our planned adventure impresses him and he says he’ll join us when he wins the jackpot.