Greece is the word

Cara posted;
Curtis is going to do a Turkey summary post so I'm going to jump ahead a little. 

Arriving on the Island of Chios we talked to some locals about camping options and unfortunatley we would have to go right off the grid to do this.  The tourist trade is pumping at Chios and staying in a hotel isn't an option so we made the decision to leave Chios that same day and head to Athens.  We did have a spare 7 hours so we rode south to a cute little cove town to swim the afternoon away and laugh at the local advertising. 

The ferries allow you to sleep on the deck so armed with our sleeping mats and ready for a night of high seas we sat down to settle in and then we met Evan.  Evan is 22, from Switzerland and just two days away from completing an 8 week tour on his really cool old racer.  He travelled across Austria (through snow), Hungry, Romania, Bulgaria and finished up near the Syrian border in southern Turkey.  He is studying to be a graphic designer and had made this really cool bike bag that I would definatley purchase.  Evan is packed SO light we couldn't beleive it.  One set of clothes, a sleeping bag and thats pretty much it.  Arriving in Athens, Evan showed us the road to Patra and we said our goodbye's and goodlucks.

Riding alongside car's/buses/trucks I was thinking about how different Greece was already compared to Turkey and wondering if the people will be as generous, the food as good, the roads as nice and hoping that paying with euro won't be too expensive.  Soon enough the generous people come out to play, starting with two guys in a petrol station giving us free cokes and patting us on the back, followed by the nicest lady in THE BEST bakery who gave us double what we ordered plus icecreams!  Up the road we met four old greek men playing cards who instructed us to use their private beach to free camp for the night.