When I had breakfast on day 11, looked for a place to stay for the next night. I prefer staying in bigger cities because i like walking to the store to get food and water. (This eliminates the risk of stuff getting stolen at the parking lot)
I picked Out the city of Corovoda and decided I would find a nice campsite there at my arrival.
I also saw an alternative route on the way. Since the alternative way looked more interesting I decided to take that one.
Also I was not entirely confident in the boyancy of my klr so I figured this part would bei a big challenge as well:
Later i saw that this is actually Just a gute river bed but I did not know this at that point.
I got on my way, rode a few nice trails and some awesome curvy roads.
At lunchtime i stopped at the “Check it Out” location, it was a nice restaurant, so I decided to have lunch there.
While I sat in the shade, eating my salad and drinking my Coke I read about a trail going along the river I was sitting next to. It was a 2 hour walk with some warm pools to bathe in. I however decided to save this for next time as I had already picked my destination for the day.
A while later I was at the point, where the way parted. I went with the alternative route and the trail instantly became ‘Harder’. It was some huge potholes that made up the whole road. Riding them was a real challenge for my already leaking fork seals, so I went slow and enjoyed the view.
Then I arrived at a River Crossing. While I was contemplating on wether to ride through it or not, a big truck arrived and went through the water. Thats when I saw the water was almost 1 meter deep! I decided (because of the thing with the boyancy) to go on the very side of the road. Here, gravel got pushed every time trucks went through the water so it was merely 30cm deep. I went through the crossing and I was very happy I had not tried to go through the deep water.
The trail got a little more relaxed afterwards so I went on and enjoyed the ride, the view and the warm sun.
Slowly but surely the navigation lead me up onto a mountain. After some time the road became more difficult again, until I suddenly was on some brand new road. It had been built to replace the old road, but I did not want to ride that new road. It looked very boring and nothing like I had imagined the ride was going to be like. So I went back a little and looked for the old road. After some time I found it, it was rocky, steep and the Rain had washed away parts of it, just like I had hoped! I rode for quite some time and sometimes I even had to stop and work my way up with the clutch! Then I arrived at a place, where the road had been completely covered with rocks by a landslide! It did not look too bad, so I went on, but it turned out, the rocks were very slippery and my rear wheel dug into the ground. So I pulled at my handlebars and then pushed over and over again and every push I let go of the clutch and gave it some throttle. I worked my way through the field of rocks and did regular pauses to let my engine cool down a bit. I did not want my 30 year old clutch disks to decide now was their time to go!
I went on and downhill into the valley where I met up with the other path and discovered that the riverbed was empty. I crossed the riverbed and went up the hill on the other side… and of course it was not that easy!
I went down into the riverbed and -again- missed the path so I -again- had to work my way through a rockgarden, where my engine guard hit the ground multiple times. THEN I went uphill on the other side and up into the mountains.
The ground turned White after a while of riding normal gravel roads and the terrain became bumpy. I went along a small Canyon that a very narrow and very deep River in the middle. It looked very cool!
After ridimg for a while i arrived at the bigger canyon. The trail became paved Road and curved along one of the Walls of the Canyon. This was very relaxing since i had already ridden for quite some time but the Road turned Back into gravel again pretty quickly, then it lead Up into the Mountains.
At this Point you might Wonder why i went past the destination for the day. And i really don’t know myself, i Just went on when i was in corovode and then later decided to Go until i was in Tepelena. In hindsight, staying in corovode would have been the better choice but i can’t Change it now…
Anyways, the Road went Up into the Mountains, very steep. The ground was slippery because of Lots of small and some bigger Rocks. By the time the sun went down i noticed my mistake, but i was already way up…
I felt a bit Bad when riding past small, old Houses, knowing that i was propably disturbing the people in the small villages. So on the Long Downhill sections i turned my engine Off again and let my Bike Roll.
On the Downhill sections there were also two occasions where my Bike almost slipped away and both occasions i was uncomfortably Close to cliffs of 50 or more meters. So i decided it was time to do the reasonable Thing and call it a day. I looked for a good Hotel in Tepelena and typed it into my navigation.
When i almost was at my Destination i saw some wildfires on a mountain in the distance, but my camera does Not have good Low Light properties so a picture would Not have Not shown anything at all…
At my arrival at the hotel, everything was dark and there was a single Guy sitting in a Chair. When He saw ne approaching however, he turned in every single light in the property, greeted me and was very nice. Sadly however, the Kirchen had already closed and so i settled for Dates and almonds that i had brought myself.