When you're travelling, you just can’t expect everything to be easy and run smoothly. Otherwise, what the fuck are you going tell your friends, how are you going to make yourself look cool, how are you going to feel like an explorer and a bit of a hero, if everything’s easy? You can't just tell them you went swimming and drank a couple beers more than the usual. They’d be bored to sreams. You need the swear words, the unexpected, brushes with death, the sleepless nights and dangerous animals. Only then they’ll know you really were on the road.
We cycled Calabria from north to south, crossing the mountains and the four natural parks: Pollino, Sila, Serre and Aspromonte. When we finally arrived in Reggio Calabria, we had travelled fivehundredsixtysevenpointtwentysix kilometres on top of tenthousonehundredninety metres of altitude difference, for a total of twenty-seven hours and fifty-eight minutes.
