Alex the Tortoise.

"Alex... Alex..."

Alex knew exactly why his mum was waking him up early today.

"Alex come on!" She whispered excitedly. "Its not even six am and already there's a whole bunch of lizards waiting to watch you!"

Alex slowly poked his head from his shell. He stretched his wrinkly neck until it wrinkled no more, then; smiled, yawned, and laughed all at the same time.
     Today was Alex's 89th birthday. The day he became an adult. Now as it happens, a strange tradition accompanies your 89th birthday in Alex's family- the crossing of the great road. A feat that hadn't been completed since his great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather did it almost 2000 years ago.

 
As Alex waddled out from under the pile of rocks he'd been sharing, with not only his mother and his two sisters, but also a very grumpy snake who secretly loved a cuddle; he felt extremely nervous.
   In fact he couldn't remember ever feeling like this.

He gave his mother a nose nudge, as all tortoises do. Then he scraped his shell against his sister's shell, one at a time, as all tortoises do. Finally he tucked his limbs inside their sockets and rolled right into the snake so he wrapped around Alex. Not as all tortoises do.

It was time to go.

The Greek morning sun felt hot on his head. The gravel at the roadside was sharp under his feet.

"Good luck Alex!" Shouted his mother with that embarrassing enthusiasm mother's have. "Remember, if you think you are too slow, just think of the time you beat Trevor the snail at Chess!"

Alex blushed, then he was off! The smooth asphalt stretched out for a whole 6 metres in front of him. (Which is roughly 320 tortoise miles.)

A cheer went up from the lizards, who had all secretly placed bets on where Alex would perish on the road, then they all went about doing what ever it is lizards do. They would come back at sunset and see if he'd made it, or, who had won the bet...

It was about two hours in when it happened. Alex heard a strange clicking noise first- then heavy breathing, and finally a word he had never heard before. (It was probably a bad word; Alex knew all Tortoise words and Tortoises never swear.)

Then, through the haze of the sun, he saw a skinny human animal riding on the back of a horse, only this horse had no legs, no eyes, and didn't neigh but dinged!

"I'm doomed..." said Alex. He knew that a horse could crush a tortoise in one well placed stamp- and Alex didn't know this type of horse- so he retreated into his shell and waited to die...
   But there was no pain. No shell piercing through tortoise flesh- instead, as Alex re-emerged into the sunshine, there was a white flash from a box in the human animals hand, and all of a sudden he was picked up and was being CARRIED across the road!

"WOOHOO!" hissed Alex- as any tortoise would. "It's me! It's me!" he said as he touched down on the cliff side of the road.

"WHAT IS?!" said the human animal, whose name happened to be Aaron.

"I've fulfilled my family's dream! Many tortoise lives ago my great, great, great, great, great grandfather Cadmus, was crossing this great road when a man picked him up and carried him to the other side!"

"And?" Said Aaron, who was happy for the photograph with a tortoise, but wanted to get up and over the mountains he faced pronto.

"And?! AND?!" Alex fizzed, "AND, that man was Alexander the Great! After whom I am named. Now I will call all my children after you good sir!"

"Wait..." Said Aaron, slightly more intrigued now that history was being discussed. "Alexander the Great was here?" he said with a childish giggle in his voice.

"Of course! This is the famous Via Egnatia, the Way of Egnatius- the road that Alexander marched his army down on his way to Asia, and sadly also the road Darius and Xerxes took to attack Greece, but they weren't good men..."

"That is cool- cheers. Sweet. Enjoy the cliff life turtle dude. I mean, Tortoise... Bye!" Said Aaron, as he put a rock in his bag to remember this place.

"WAIT! Did you know it was when Alexander helped my grandfather, that he became great?"

"Aye right- the historians, and Greeks, and Romans called him that. Not a tortoise."

"No its true!" Pleaded Alex. "GREAT  is one of the oldest words in tortoise speak, that we use when we think someone does something that is nothing but good. One of the soldiers in Alexander's army overheard my grandfather say it and so used it as a nickname for him! It is the little things that make a man Great, Aaron."

Aaron paused. What wise words from a tortoise on his 89th birthday. He thought for a moment. He remembered a few days before, when he was cycling through Turkey, (Because he is riding a bicycle, not a horse with no legs, no eyes and didn't neigh but dinged.) and he was down and out. The wind, the sun, the flies, the dust, the never-ending road that just went up and down- he remembered that. And then he remembered  all the people who sent him lovely messages on the internet to help him through, but then he remembered something else. He turned to face Alex.

"There were six or seven young men hanging off've a tractor the other day. They were driving toward me and look quite scary- but instead they starting clapping and cheering me on as I climbed another hill. I think they're great. "

"If you say they're great, then they're great." Said Alex, happy that Aaron seemed to have forgotten how hot and sweaty and dangerously low on water he was.

Aaron went on, "The Syrian man who invited me on a whiskey tour in Glasgow...The Greek woman who forced me to pour out my water so she could refill it with cold water... The Turkish man who fist-pumped his chest from the third floor of a building site as I cycled past... The hotel owner who gave me a towel for free... The cyclists who helped me when I was lost... The young people in bar Baraki in Sepas who gave me Turkey for my bread, an iced coffee, and cheesy breadsticks...The bartender who gave me a free pint in Thessaloniki..." His list went on, and on, and on. "I think they're all great."

And with a nod, Alex said, "You are right Aaron. The world is full of great people. Alexander was just one of them." And gracefully he popped his legs from his shell, and wandered down the cliff side, content that he had become a grown up Tortoise.

---------------

So that was Alex the Tortoise! Turns out I am actually on the Via Egnatia, the road that ran all the way from Turkey to the Albanian Coast! Who thought drawing straight lines on a map was a bad idea? 

I thought so. I thought I'd be missing all the sites, and I've ended up cruising an infamous Roman road!

I'm in Thessaloniki now. Having a day off to recover from my 730km so far! Then it's only a few days until I pop out into Albania and out of the EU again!

By the way, for any of you who read that and are worried for my sanity, I FORGOT MY IPOD AND CYCLING IS LONELY. And don't worry. If you were actually looking for a daily list of what's happening, that's being handwritten. You can read it when I get home. I got to steer a boat on the Bosphorous... That was... interesting...

Love you all!

 

This is in the Agean sea JUST as the thuderstorm started.

  

 .....

 

Via Egnatia! My route (and Alexander the Great's) to Albania! There are photos of the actual road but I can't work out the Greek word for rotate. So we'll see them later.