After Rosinante got fixed, I visited Athens in mid-May 2022. Like before in Corinth, I just couldn’t pass the Akropolis. And like before, I felt like I’m at the wrong place.
With the Park4Night app, I found a paid parking near a pretty restaurant and right next to the Akropolis. The last time I paid for parking was in Austria but I found the location of that place so cool and wanted to make sure that Rosiante was kind of secure. I think, that I’m not a very anxious person but in the big cities, I’m always a little more defensive. I liked how the parking managers made sure that as many cars as possible go into the parking: they kept the keys for most of the cars and drove them out of the way if someone parked up wanted to leave. It’s been like these games where you are only allowed to push one piece at a time and there is always only one space not occupied.
The Akropolis was nice to visit but for some reason, it didn’t catch me. I have been thinking if the human-made stuff just doesn’t interest me as much as natural phenomena do. But that doesn’t seem to be the case: right now (end of July 2022), I’m writing this post sitting in front of something human-made, that absolutely catches me. You will see in one of the next posts. It’s so awesome!
As I’ve been walking through the cute and lovely alleys in Athens, I found some awesome sculptures made by an artist called Yanni Souvatzoglou. Here, have a look at his stuff. Most of the time, I’m not much into sculptures and paintings, but these ones are still extraordinarily appealing to me. I guess, they are reminding me of my mother and the funny and sometimes crazy stuff she used to put in her garden and house as decorations. Among those things were severed doll heads, a Batman action figure with fluffy angel wings, and a crazy lot more.
What is more, I see them as a great projection of the Buddhist principle of Duhkha and therefore about human existence and life. Here is the Wikipedia article about Dukkha and if you want to get into it, try these magnificent podcast episodes and articles: The Zen Studies Podcast.
About mid of May 2022, it was finally time for one of the things, I had the most respect for: Rosinante needed some repairs.
Her steering had been crooked for some weeks, and I thought, that it was a good idea to look for a car repair in Athens and not in the small villages and towns of Greece. I’m still a lot German and that made me email a couple of car services in advance to make an appointment. Two out of ten answered. One gave me the contact to another guy who may be able to help. But the last one seemed to be competent and friendly. And what is more, he had some time to check Rosinante on the day that worked best for me. So up to that point, everything worked perfectly fine.
After having arrived at the car repair and the first diagnosis, I had built up some trust in Miltos and his two other mechanics (sorry, I forgot about your names, guys). They were very friendly and I had the feeling that they don’t want to charge me for unnecessary things or damage Rosinante. These have been my main concerns. Probably they are for most people traveling by car, I suppose.
To fix the crooked steering, an ordinary steering alignment had to be done. But in advance of that, the potentially worn-down silent blocks of the steering rack should have been exchanged. While we were talking about the necessary steps, I told Miltos about the pretty low level of the engine’s cooling liquid, that I’d recognized some weeks ago and was monitoring since then. After some checks, we found the pump of the cooling liquid to be leaking. And while we kept talking about this issue, we figured out, that the timing belt has to be swapped within the next half a year or about 15.000 km. I thought about it. In the end, I felt that the guys at Cannibals Garage are trustworthy and nice guys and because I didn’t know where I will be in the next 15.000 km or half a year, they ordered the required stuff as well.
I was very happy, that Miltos let me stay/ live in Rosinante at his garage when one spare part got delayed. I liked to watch the different customers come and go and being in the backyard of a not very big street, it was mostly quiet at night. All the time, I had not been very worried about anything regarding the repairs and I’m feeling very good about that.
Miltos has an offroad car as well and I noticed it as soon, as I entered their space. It’s my favorite small-sized offroad car: a Suzuki Jimny. I love this small, light, and very capable Jimnys. If I will one time have gotten rid of a lot of my stuff and comfort demands, a Jimny would be an option. But there is my dream about traveling with a mule as well. Let’s see…
This lightweight Jimny made me think about how heavy Rosinante is, again. She got a special rear suspension that lets her carry 3.5 tons and fully loaded she should be around 3.3 tons at the moment, but that’s still heavy. What is more, because Rosinante is a double cab pickup, the cabin on her back does hang over her truck bed. That means there is more force on her frame. It’s not as much as with the bigger and heavier cabins and the “Das Fernweh Mobil”-cabin is very well-designed and has most of its weight in the front, but it will always be not optimal. The opinions about how bad this is, are ranging from “very bad” to “not bad at all”. Thinking about this stuff, I still have the photos of bent, crooked, and snapped pickup frames in my mind. Seeing Rosinante snap into two is not a pleasant thought.
I thought about the options I had to improve the situation. At that time and even now I’m feeling not ready for the mule, so I put those thoughts aside. In the end, I managed to put the spare wheel (about 60 kg) from the cabin’s roof and the additional water canisters (about 40 kg) from the cabin’s back and side into the pickup cabin. To make it fit, I had to dismantle my enduro bicycle even more, but I’m still thinking that this won’t bother me much: I just don’t use it anymore. With these rearrangements, about 100 kg went off the cabin and found a place that greatly improved the weight distribution. That makes me feel much more confident.
I’m very thankful for Miltos and his friends for being so nice and competent. Of course, I had to pay a decent amount of money for the spare parts and their work, but to me, it felt alright and well earned by them. By the way: for the money I paid, I may have got the timing belt swapped in Germany, but not more.
If you are around Athens and need some car repairs, contact them.
After Cori and I had screamed at the ocean, we found a very special and beautiful beach and decided to live there until she would have to leave Greece and head back to Germany.
The weather got a lot brighter and so did my mind. After days of despair and a lot of negative thoughts, swirling around the same again and again, I did finally find some clearness. It’s been like I was able to feel myself again. And through this, I was able to accept myself and gain back my balance. It felt very relieving and enabled me to describe my feelings and what had been spinning inside of my head for days. And finally, I could start to forgive myself and love again.
We spent some wonderful days at this awesome beach. Rosinante parked right on the beach and behind her, a river went by, took a turn along a magical grotto, and finally found the crystal clear water of the ocean.
After we ran out of gas for cooking, we cooked outside on fire and had the most delicious self-made bread and curry of all time. I don’t know if we would have cooked on the fire when we still had gas, but this way it was just perfect. One day, we hiked along the river, that flows into the sea at this magnificent beach. The hike was super nice and beautiful. You can enter it here.
After some days at this paradise, it was time for us to drive back to the airport in Athens and Cori headed back to Germany.
A part of me had wished, that our shared time would have been more harmonious all the time, but more and more I became thankful for this experience and how we lived through it togehter. In the end, we never blamed each other and were always empathic and loveful.
My key learnings: 🤗 Seeing people, I’m interacting with, as training partners really can help me. All of us seem to be training to live all the time and like in every training, things can get wrong even though they are not intended to. 😇 Seeing things that keep my mind spinning as super important and life-threatening/ changing doesn’t help. In the end, almost everything seems to be very less important and big seen from some distance. 💫 Describing my pure and honest feelings to someone else, without intellectually analyzing and reasoning or explaining their origin, helps me a lot. When I’m really out of balance, it helps me when the other person assures me, that my feelings are not wrong.
In the end, it’s all about remembering that I’m perfectly fine the way I am.
