Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Didim

Today was the first official day of Spring. It was a corker. At midday it was over 20 degrees C! I rolled up my trousers & did without socks, of course there was no need for a jacket. For the first time on the trip there was a very real risk of sunburn.

I felt a bit at a loose end in the morning. I was feeling more than a little worried about the performance of the bike. The day before I'd noticed that the chain had worn much faster than I'd expected & needed changing. Since then the chain skipped a lot, & I thought that I'd left the changing too late & as a result had damaged the cassette. I also managed to lock myself out of the pension I was staying & had an hour & a half to stew over this & its consequences. At the end of it I had myself questioning whether I had it in me to do this trip. Before hitting the road I shortened the chain & the skipping disappeared. Moral of story, I don't know perhaps something like don't think too much.

I had a lovely ride most of the was to Didem. I spent an hour wandering through the ancient Greek city of Priene. It was near the end of a lovely Spring weekday & I had the place to myself, & a few lizards. It had a wonderful setting on a plateau 100m or so above a plain with a mountain sitting behind it. When people lived their the plain would have been the sea. I could have lingered on but were not the day coming towards an end.

I had hoped to also take in Miletos but it was getting too late in the day.

That night I stayed at my friend Carl's parents in Didim. Ann & Graham were great hosts, cooking me dinner (& an English breakfast the following morning - probably the last bacon I'll have for quite a while). They also told me all of Carl's pantomime prowess as a youth.

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