After enjoying the beautiful sunrise tucked in the rooftop bed of our Defender, we packed up our home for the last time in Greece and drove into the busy city of Athens, where we had booked an Airbnb apartment for the last few days. We had some final preparation tasks on our Todo-list, before we had to drive the Defender into the container for shipping. At first, a “Lavasz” was desperately needed, so we searched for some carwash places and found one very close by - the guys did a great job, we almost didn’t dare to sit back into the Defender, it was super shiny. The next day, we spent all day in the car repair shop. We just reached our first 5000 kilometers of the trip, it was time to have our baby checked if everything was still fine (breaks, engine oil, air filter, you name it). Additionally, we wanted to get our roof checked. We were a bit worried since we have put a lot of heavy stuff up there such as the toolbox as well as the spare wheel. Of course we knew that it wasn’t the best to have the heavy stuff on the top of the car, but these were the things we didn’t use on a daily basis (or at least we hope so), therefore, it was still very handy to store them up there and have them out of sight. Going on like this driving on worse roads in Africa wasn’t probably the best idea. So we discussed the option to get a spare wheel carrier for the back door. Greece was definitely one of the last chances to find such a carrier. The car repair shop we went to event had one in storage. Unfortunately, it was not a very cheap deal, but after we have called Anna, our mechanic from Switzerland to get a second opinion, we decided to spend the money and move the spare wheel down from the roof. 11 hours (!) later, we got to pick up our baby.
We also got to enjoy beautiful Athens besides all our preparation work for Africa. Of course we went on another Free Walking Tour through the city and learned a lot about its history. We visited many ancient places like theatres, the Olympic Stadium and of course Acropolis. Other than its overwhelming history, Athens also offers amazing restaurants and bars and very friendly people. A guy we met at the car repair shop invited us to his place for a Thanksgiving Dinner Party. Of course we accepted the invitation, it was a lot of fun. In fact, we enjoyed our time in Athens so much, we almost forgot to get our final tasks done, which included:
cleaning all our camping and kitchen tools and store them away in the car safely
writing a packing list with everything that will be in the container (this is necessary for shipping)
deciding what to bring with us for the first weeksin Africa and pack accordingly
driving the Defender to the warehouse where it was stored away into the container
Unfortunately, we weren’t there to see how our home on wheels was stored away in the container, we had to leave earlier to catch our flight. It was such a weird feeling when we drove to the warehouse and handed over the Defender and the keys together with everything we left in it - the Dender really did become our home over the past two months and now the first part of our trip was already coming to an end and we were about to leave Europe. What an amazing time it was and a perfect start into this adventure.
We were off to a very very short visit back home to quickly see our family and friends and enjoy one Raclette and Fondue before we flew to Kenya, where we will have to wait for our Defender until it hopefully arrives safe and sound at Mombasa Port - fingers crossed :)