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Stroming The World - Barcelona To Ulaanbaatar 2013
Hi everyone!!
This summer I will try to get to Mongolia by bike, on my own. I started planning this trip months ago and I created a blog about the project. I have been waiting to have some content published (I did not want to launch an empty blog) and for the trip to be more or less definitive (there was a lot of preparation to do) before telling everybody. So far, everything is going quite well and the departure date still stands: the 25th of June. I am writing to you to tell you a couple of things: Firstly, I have created the blog to share this project with you all, and I would be very pleased if you followed it and it could be of help/inspiration to other travellers. On the lower right corner of the blog there is a tab marked “follow”, you can type your email address there and you will receive updates. Secondly, I would like to ask you a very big favour. This will be a long and I imagine complicated trip, so any help I can get, however small, will be welcome. At the bottom of this message there is a list of all the countries and cities that I will go through. Most are definite destinations, but some others will depend on time, setbacks, etc. If you know anyone in any of those places (city or country), please let them know that I will be passing their way. A telephone number I can call in case of trouble, someone who speaks the local language, a garden where I can set up my tent, a couch to sleep on for a night, a garage where I can work on the bike... all this is priceless once I’m on the road. Forward this message and the links to your friends and anyone you think would be interested in this story. I will try to keep the blog as up to date as possible. I hope you enjoy it! Many, many thanks to all of you! You can find the blog on this address: Stroming The World | 2013 – Barcelona to Ulaanbaatar and back (English) Stroming The World | 2013 – De Barcelona a Ulaanbaatar y de vuelta (Spanish) __________________________________ FRANCE: Narbonne, Montpellier, Grenoble, Strasbourg ITALY: Torino, Milano, Brescia, Padova SLOVENIA Ljubljana, Maribor HUNGARY Budapest, Nyíregyháza UKRAINE Lviv, Kiev, Kharkiv, Luhansk RUSSIA Volgograd, Astrakhan, Barnaul, Irkutsk, Moscow KAZAKHSTAN Atyrau, Aktobe, Aral, Kyzlorda, Shymkent, Almaty, Taldykorgan, Ayagoz, Semey MONGOLIA Tashanta, Olgii, Khvod, Altai, Bayankhongor, Ulaanbaatar, Suhbaatar LATVIA Rezekne LITHUANIA Vilnius POLAND Gdansk, Poznan GERMANY Berlin, Dresden, Nuremberg, Stuttgart |
I am a follower to your site and here to the HUBB....Wish you the best!!
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strom
Great news , congratulation on your decision of travel and bike. take a lot of pictures for the rest of us. 45000 miles on my DL and love the bike reliabilty and fun factor.:scooter:
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Almost a month to go and preparations are going well!
I went for a weekend trip to test all the gear, here's the trip report: :mchappy: It was eight o’clock on Saturday morning, it was pouring with rain and my plan to leave early and spend the day riding was already delayed because I had forgotten the bike’s documents at my parent’s home. Oh, and I did not have a driving license… I live in a flat in the very center of the city and my motorbike sleeps in the street – that is one of the reasons I bought a second hand one and not a brand new top of the range GS – so the logistics of the trip are not easy. I cannot work on the bike there nor, for that matter, walk up and down the stairs of my apartment with all the equipment I need and strap it to the bike one or two things at a time – it might get stolen while I go back up to get the rest. So when I need to service it or install things, as I have been doing these past few months, I use my parent’s place. They live in a nice big house 30 minutes away from my place and have a front yard I can roll the bike into and work in it, so on Friday morning I attached the panniers (which can be locked) at home and then took the tank bag and rack bag down the street and off I went. At my parent’s I removed the top case, which I am not taking on the trip, installed the tire rack I had made the week before, strapped the tires in place, put the bike cover and the food bag inside the tires, strapped the rack bag on top of the tires and attached the jerrycan, chain cleaner, oil and water bottles to the panniers. I ran into the first obstacle right outside my parent’s gate. A new school is being built right across the street, and construction work is almost done, so the enormous crane they were using had to be dismantled, and can guess which day they had picked to do so? That’s right. Friday. When I arrived there was this rather big telescopic crane truck parked in front of the gate, but as they had not started work yet, I was able to ride onto the sidewalk and into the yard. Now, however, they seemed to have finished lunch and got down to it, and the crane had rotated to start lowering the sections of the other crane and its huge counterweights were barely half a meter from the gate. I started work in half an hour, so I had to find a way out of there or I risked a bunch of unhappy students, and they’re not kids but workers from a pharmaceutical company. Fortunately, the counterweights were quite high and there was just enough space under them for me to back the bike out, turn and ride on the sidewalk between the truck and the houses while they were moving. The reason I was going to work with a fully loaded bike was, again, logistics. I work on the outskirts and finish at 10 pm, and on top of that I was spending the night at my girlfriend’s, who also lives away from Barcelona, and hitting the road early on Saturday morning. As I did not want to have to get up at 5 am or set off rather late. This meant taking everything with me on Friday. Well, that would be the first test – leaving the bike out in front of my work and see if anything got stolen. Fortunately, nothing did, not at work and not during the night, and at eight o’clock on Saturday morning I was ready to leave despite the rain… when it dawned on me that the bike’s documents were in the top case in my parent’s garage. Damn. An hour later I was on the motorway, happily leaving the city behind. I had the documents and the rain had stopped, it even looked as if the sun might come out. I had not solved the driving license issue, mind you, but that was something I already knew – I had had the bike for two years, ever since I got my license, but as it was my first license, it was an A2 type, meaning I could only ride bikes up to a certain power. Mine was limited and I wanted to have it derestricted for the trip this summer, so I had taken the course a week before. At the end of the course they took my license and was told I would have the new one in a week… but I didn’t. It looked as if I was going to have to take the risk and go away for the weekend without one. I wanted to test the camping and cooking gear, and the GPS, into which I had programmed the route using BaseCamp, but most importantly, I wanted to see how far I could ride on bad roads before I got tired and whether I would be rested enough to ride back the following day, so I soon left the motorway and headed for smaller roads; just past Igualada I took a smaller road heading for Santa Coloma de Queralt and Poblet. I knew this bit of road, and I knew which way I wanted to go – there are a lot of backroads – so I had programmed several waypoints into the GPS. I was surprised then to find that it did not seem to know exactly where it was going... I have never really liked these devices, and have never owned one until now. I considered I needed one to make the best use of the excellent waypoints Walter Colebatch from HUBB has complied for Northern Asia, but I have always preferred to rely on a good old paper map. I had to stop several times to correct it, selecting the next waypoint manually instead of letting if follow the whole route. I changed some settings and preferences and eventually got it to work. I admit that it was probably my lack of experience with the device that was to blame, but I did not find it intuitive to use at all. On one of the stops I made I put the thermal lining back on the jacket as it was quite cold even if it was not raining. I had stuffed it under the lid of the left side pannier, together with a the pants lining and pair of winter gloves for easy access. They will stay there for the trip. Past Poblet the road began to climb and wind its way to Prades and I was starting to have fun. The bike handled really well despite all the extra bulk, and it did not feel underpowered on the way up. I rode south-east along the Serra del Montsant, enjoying the wonderful views and the empty roads, and on the way down to Falset I spotted a big extension of empty clear land to the left of the road. Thinking it would be a good place to start practising my off-road riding skills, I pulled by and rode into it. The ground was a combination of gravel from the road construction, mud and some small bushes. I rode into it and the front of the bike slid a bit, but unlike the last time I had tried to ride on conditions like this, I relaxed me arm and let it do its thing, opening the throttle slightly to keep it straight. Even fully loaded and on road tires, it behaved well, inspiring confidence. Obviously, I was not going to charge down dirt tracks at 100 km/h as if I was taking part in the Dakar rally, but I felt confident I could travel on dirt roads for longer distances, the plan was to take the trip easy, anyway. http://imageshack.us/a/img248/2595/img5930rp.jpg By midday I rode out onto a main A-road and followed the Ebro river up to Flix and Ascó. The weather had held and by now it was even a bit sunny, so I decided to stop for lunch and see if the old second hand Coleman stove I had bought on-line worked. I found a nice picnic area by the road, sat down on a wooden table, took out the food and the cooking gear and got the stove ready. I poured some fuel in it and following the instructions, I pumped it 20 times, opened the valve and put a match to the burner. Nothing. I pumped a bit more, making sure the I had previously turned the pump handle to the right position, but it still refused to light up. Then I noticed I had some fuel on my hand and quickly put out the match, images of my hand lighting up in flames flashing through my mind. It seemed that fuel was spilling out of the base of the burner assembly, where it attaches to the fuel canister. No warm meal then… I cleaned the spilt fuel, emptied the canister, put everything back on the bike and set off again in search of a place to have lunch, with my mood darkened. To make things worse, just a few kilometres down the road it started to rain. I wanted to find a roadside bar or café where I could eat and keep an eye on the bike, but there did not seem to be any nearby. After about 20 minutes riding I started to be quite hungry and my mood worsened, as it usually does when I have not eaten for a while. With the skies as dark as if it was night, I spotted a camp site by the river and pulled into it. Bingo! They had a small restaurant and sure enough, I could park the bike right in front of it. I got off and went for a meal without bothering to even remove the GPS from its cradle. With my stomach satisfyingly full, rode away and when I was climbing the TV-7411 road past Riba-Roja the sun came out and I enjoyed the beautiful view from the hills overlooking the Ebro river. When I reached the top I saw a dirt road to the right of the road and a sign that read “Civil war fort and trenches”. This area was where one of the worst battles of that time took place – the battle of Ebro – so I decided to visit that and get some more off-road practice. The track was about 2 km long, dry and rock this time, and I was more confident. I rode faster, standing on the pegs, and soon I had got to the end. There was a small car park, although I think a regular saloon might have had some difficulty getting there, and a small marked path leading around a ridge where the trenches and the remains of the fort were. http://imageshack.us/a/img541/6062/img5937y.jpg The trenches were still easy to make out, but there was not much left of the fort, just a couple of concrete walls. http://imageshack.us/a/img708/5941/img5936p.jpg From this position, the troops must have had a great view over the surrounding area and an advantageous position in battle. I found out from the explanation displays that a whole system of trenches and forts had been secretly built in that area to stop the national troops advance, but a lack of coordination and worse, of knowledge of the existence of the system, combined with a very rapid advance from the national troops meant that they were not put to good use. One can only wonder whether things would have been different if they had. When I got back on the bike I decided to test how it felt to ride with music on. I know this is illegal, at least in my country, but I very much doubt anyone cares in the middle of nowhere in Kazakhstan or Mongolia, and it is a good way to ward off boredom in long distances. It was a good moment to test it too, this part of the trip was taking me through some largely unpopulated areas, so the chances of being stopped by the police were minimal. I put the headphones on, turned the music up and rode the track back to the road. The moment was perfect: good music, great views… I got a bit carried away and rode the track faster than on the way there, and it was alright – both me and the bike managed it without any problems. A while later I got to a bigger road and stopped to remove the headphones and sent a message from the SPOT tracker. I had been testing it since I set off from Barcelona, sending check in and personalised messages, as well as tracking the route. I had considered buying a cradle to have it on the handlebars, but it was 20€ and the instructions said it had to be at least 12 inches from another GPS device, and it would have been another thing to remove from the bike every time I stopped, so I simply strapped it to my arm. It is comfortable and it gets signal without problems, so it is staying there. http://imageshack.us/a/img690/7650/img5931x.jpg The road took me through Caspe, Alcañiz and to Calanda, where I turned off again, heading for the Sierra del Maestrazgo in search of smaller roads. This is an area of great natural beauty, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, riding up and down hills, on roads that had more potholes and patches than tarmac, seeing the sun break through the clouds. The GPS seemed to be working better and I switched from the Garmin European maps that came with it to the OSM ones I had downloaded. Both seemed to work fine, but there were roads that simply did not appear on either of them, so to the GPS I was riding off-road. http://imageshack.us/a/img21/8320/img5941vw.jpg After the last such road, I came out onto the N-420 and had to make a decision. There is this small town south of Teruel where I sometimes spend my holidays, and I knew there were a couple of great camping spots. I really wanted to get there, but it was still far, and it was getting late. Not only that, there were menacing clouds in the sky, so I could either press on and try to get there before dark in time to set up camp, or I could try to find a place to sleep where I was. I decided to ride on. The roads were good here, long corners and smooth tarmac that allowed me to make good progress. Once I got there, I had to ride up a dirt track to get to where I wanted to camp. It was not raining when I turned off the road and onto the track, but it seemed it had been raining all day and the ground was muddy. I had a couple of scary moments, when the front wheel found soft mud and skid, but I was able to keep it under control and I got to the top of the hill just as the sun was setting. http://imageshack.us/a/img850/7259/img5943s.jpg It was a fantastic spot, but the ground was rocky and muddy, and there was nowhere to put up the tent, so I rode back down the track – more carefully in the mud this time – and went to see if the second spot was better. It was, a nice field of grass next to a stream. I got there when it was almost dark, and started putting up the tent on the grass. Fortunately it was easy and was quickly done, and by the time it was dark I had already finished and had dinner. What I did not have time to do, though, was clean and grease the chain and write this entry for the blog, I just went straight to bed. http://imageshack.us/a/img818/3659/img5947n.jpg Sleeping well is important when you spend most of your day on the motorbike and have to do the same the following day and the next and the one after that, so I had tried to get a good sleeping system – I bought an ExpedSynMat 7 and a pillow pump. It was fast and easy to inflate, and much more comfortable than anything I had slept on in a tent before. The sleeping bag was a lightweight one from Decathlon – I had considered taking another one I already have that is warm at temperatures below zero, but I thought that I would only encounter those circumstances some night in Mongolia and most of the rest of time it would be rather hot, so I decided not to. However, I took a bivouac sack in case it got cold, and on this occasion, it proved to be useful. I slept in my thermal shirt and pants, and inside the sack, and managed to spend quite a good night, although my nose – I am endowed with quite a big one – stuck out and felt the cold so badly I woke up several times. http://imageshack.us/a/img259/1796/img5944r.jpg It did not rain that night, but in the morning the tent and the bike cover had a fine layer of frozen dew over them, so I had to hang them in the sun while I had breakfast to try and dry them a bit before packing. I got up at sunrise, so I had plenty of time to put everything back on the bike before hitting the road again. It feels great to get up knowing you have the whole day ahead of you, no work, no deadlines, no stress. http://imageshack.us/a/img12/6021/img5949ce.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img17/6483/img5950ks.jpg Knowing that it would be another long day and that my stove did not work, I stopped at the first town I found, walked into a bar and ordered a huge sandwich to get the energy I needed. Happily fed, I started the way back. It was a glorious day, and I headed for the roads that crossed the forests over the hills between the area where I was and Teruel. After about an hour riding through pine trees I arrived in Teruel and seeing that I was making good progress, I decided to take the small roads across the Maestrazgo region instead of taking the more direct way back. By the time I left the area and came down to Mequinenza it was 4 pm and I was starting to get tired of all the shaking and bumping on such bad roads, but I could not be happier. I had some bread and cheese for a late lunch and took the motorway for the last 200 km home. About a hundred kilometres from Barcelona I stopped at a service station and gave the bike a good pressure wash to get rid of all the mud it had accumulated over the weekend. Needless to say, five minutes later the skies opened and there was heavy rain all the way back home. I got to my parent’s at about 7 pm, it was still raining and I had to remove the panniers, the tires and the tire rack from the bike, put the top case back on to go to work on Monday morning and head home, all under the rain. When I finally got home I was exhausted, but happy to see that I was dry in spite of the rain, and more importantly, so was all my luggage. It was a long weekend – 670 km on the way there and 560 km on the way back, most of it on narrow, winding, potholed roads, some of it on dirt tracks and the last bit on the motorway, but it was perfectly doable and the stints I have planned for my trip are shorter than that. The motorbike has performed flawlessly and so has all the gear (except for the stove). I will relocate a couple of things for easier access and buy a few others (clothes line, another towel, a PacSafe net…) but overall the result of the weekend test is very positive. The bike and the equipment are ready, now it is time for me to get ready! I’ll need to work out this last month. |
Hi everybody!
I am now in Budapest, four days into my trip to Mongolia. I have discovered that I have very little time to write, so I prefer to write a proper entry and then paste it on my blog and forums. Here's how the first days went: |
And now, the time has come...
It’s ten minutes to eleven and I’m sitting in a garden in Tiana, 20 minutes away from my flat, which I have already emptied and left this morning, trying to relax and to get some much needed rest before setting off tomorrow morning at seven.
This is it, I realize. I have spent so much time these last weeks lost away in preparations that I had not realised how nervous I was, and it all has hit me today, as I was saying my goodbyes to my flatmate, my parents, my sister, her boyfriend, my grandmother… I am leaving and not coming back for two months. I’ll spend most of my time on the road. I feel sad leaving so many loved people behind, but at the same time I am really excited, looking forward to all the places I will see, people I will meet, problems I will have, experiences I will live. Before hitting the road tomorrow morning, I would like to thank all the people that has been near me this last year. Thank you all for your support, advice, interest, inspiration, help, for patiently listening to me rambling on and on about this trip and for following me on this blog. I will see you on the road. |
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
Day 1 – Tuesday 25th of June – Tiana to Vizille (718 km)
I do not really know whether the answer is there or not, but I have had plenty of time to listen to it (the wind, not the answer). I have set off at eight o’clock this morning, thinking how a few months back I was afraid of being slowly baked on the motorbike wearing the riding gear and how different it has turned out to be. The sky was overcast and it was even a bit chilly. Not enough to justify putting on the thermal lining on the jacket or even wearing anything else than a T-shirt underneath, but cool enough to require a scarf and having the hands a bit cold (I was wearing summer gloves). I had decided that if I was going to stick to my daily budget, I could not afford to pay tolls all the way to Grenoble, so I had planned to take A-roads and B-roads to Montpellier and then, depending on how much time I had left, get on the motorway for the last 300km to get to the campsite I had found before reception closed at 20:30. The motorway from Barcelona follows the coast, but I have not got near the sea until the border with France, and there is where the wind has started. http://imageshack.us/a/img405/4803/tgrw.jpg I know the Mediterranean coast along the north of Catalonia and the south of France is usually very windy, so I was expecting this. What I was not expecting was the wind to still be there once I turned inland, and I was definitely not expecting it to be so strong. I have been told that it gets quite bad on the open spaces of Kazakhstan and Mongolia, so I guess that today has been good training. I thought the only problem today was going to be boredom and fatigue, as it is the longest day of all (720km), but the wind has made it so much harder. It blew constantly and from all directions, creating turbulences all over the screen and the helmet that have almost driven me crazy. I am still wondering how I have not ended up with a splitting headache. Not only that, it was strong and unpredictable enough to throw me off course, and more than once today I have been close to flying off the side of the road, being blown into the path of oncoming vehicles or being blown against the cars to my left on the motorway. But the wind, despite having spent the whole day trying to kill me, has not been the worst part. Pulling out onto the street from the car park and looking back to say goodbye one last time to Nat has been the hardest thing to do. I have taken some long(ish) trips on the bike, some of them for more than a few days, but there was always someone to go back to at the end. At that moment I have finally realized that I’m going to be riding away from home for a long time before turning back. I teach languages, and that means that I spend most of the day talking and listening to people. Very often, just as someone who spends the whole day in front of a computer at work does not want to check his inbox to see that hilarious video you have sent them, when I get home, the last thing I want to do is talk, so I thought that spending some time on my own would be great. Well, it is, and I like it, when I know that at the end of the day I will have someone to tell how great it has been, so today, by lunchtime, I have found myself looking forward to my first couchsurf tomorrow, much more than I thought! I do not mean this as a negative comment about travelling on my own, quite the opposite. I am glad to have realized I feel this way, as I am quite a shy person and I was a bit worried about that getting in the way of the experience, but I see now that I am going to be even more open to meeting new people and sharing the experience. This morning, about an hour after setting off, an elderly man has approached me as I was fuelling the bike in a small town near Olot and made a comment about how much stuff was on the bike. That has quickly turned into an enjoyable conversation about the trip, and the guy working at the petrol station has also joined in. In the afternoon, already well into France, I have stopped to buy some fruit and the same kind of conversation has taken place again with the couple who were selling their stuff by the road. This is a great way of travelling, so different from jumping on a plain and suddenly being in another place. I knew what the French villages on the Pyrenees look like, I knew how the coast of Brittany looked like, I also knew how Paris looked like, but I had no idea what the country really looked like. I had only seen a few parts of it. There is no way we can say ‘yeah, I know Germany, I’ve been in Berlin a few times’ for example. I had driven all across France six times, but even that was on the motorway, 12 hours, non-stop. Today I have seen a completely different country for the first time, and if a country I thought I knew has been such a nice experience, I wonder how the rest is going to be like. http://imageshack.us/a/img69/8889/k97v.jpg I am now typing this on a laptop lying in my tent, in Vizille, near Grenoble. I seem to have found a lovely campsite – in the forest, with great facilities, really cheap, quiet… that is missing the two things I needed the most today: beer and the internet. I have got here relatively early, so I have decided to set up camp, go for a shower, have dinner and then go to the reception bar for a beer and write this post while I drank it seeing the sun set behind the mountains. Wrong timing. This is not a Spanish campsite on the coast. The bar was closed. And a quick expedition into town has been equally fruitless, so I have decided to call it an early night and take the chance to write a good long post about the first day. Good night. |
Technical glitch
I have realised I can simply copy and paste the pictures from the blog, and I don't have time to upload them to Image Shack, so if you want to see them, please visit the blog.
Thanks! |
My quest for a sticker
Day 2 – Wednesday 26th of June – Vizille to Brogliano (580km)
I want to get a sticker from each country I visit. You know, one of those with the initial of the country and/or the flag, to stick at the back of your car. It seems quite an easy thing to find, when you think of how many cars drive around with one or more stuck on their tailgates. Well, it is not, I even had difficulties trying to get my own country’s! I tried petrol stations, car accessories shops, stationer’s, souvenir’s shops… everybody knew exactly what I was talking about, nobody sold them. In the end I was given one bought at a bookshop. It was the same story in France. All across France. I am now in Italy and have left France without being able to get one. Well, at least I am riding through the country again on my way back, I will try again then. Stickers or no stickers aside, today has been a great day. I got up at about 7am, packed everything away and went for breakfast at the campsite’s café. I did not prepare my own breakfast (as is the plan when I camp) for two reasons – one, I still had money left from yesterday’s budget, so I thought I would have a complete breakfast; two – I had forgotten to fill the jerrycan at every single petrol station I had stopped, so I had nothing to cook with. Yes, really clever. With my stomach full and having stopped at a supermarket to get a few things I was missing (mints, bread and extra batteries) and see if I could find a sticker, I started to climb the road that led up to the Col du Lautaret. There was very little traffic aside from some cyclists (quite a lot of them, actually) but they were no problem to pass on the bike. The road wound its way up to the col along deep glacial valleys covered in thick forest and soon I was high enough to start catching some glimpses of snow covered peaks between corners. http://imageshack.us/a/img844/4761/uwwy.jpg As the road climbed higher, the views became more and more breathtaking, and I was busy trying to take it all in and enjoying the road, which was one of the best I have ever ridden. No wonder there were so many other bikers! http://imageshack.us/a/img834/6094/hu58.jpg I stopped at the top of the col to see if they had stickers at the souvenir shops there, but no luck. Going back to the bike I spotted a trio of German bikers on naked Yamahas and went by to have a chat. They were from Frankfurt, and told me they came to the region regularly and had also been to Spain. I asked one of them to take a picture of me and told them about the trip, they were a bit jealous. http://imageshack.us/a/img856/461/y2ic.jpg On the way down I stopped to fill up, and this time I remembered to fill the jerrycan even though today I had a sandwich for lunch and I was spending the night at the house of a couple that I had met through couchsurfing. And I asked about the sticker. No luck again. I rode though Briançon, where they had no stickers either and then into Italy. I had spent all morning in the Alps, a lot longer than I was expecting to, but it was worth every moment; if I wanted to make it to Vicenza at a reasonable time now, I had to take the motorway. And believe me, that is a decision I regret… It was hours of sheer boredom. There was practically no landscape to talk about, only a vast expanse of concrete that took me on a tour of industrial Northern Italy, with hundreds of crazy Italian drivers to keep me entertained, automated toll booths that refused to give you a receipt even if you wanted one and did not display the price and a couple of traffic jams where I had the chance to compare French courtesy to motorbikes – they make room for you to filter through when there is a jam – to the Italian one – basically non-existent, they either can not be bothered to move out of your way or simply swerve onto your path to block you, because if they are not zooming down the motorway, neither should you, damn it. And to cap it all, petrol is a lot more expensive than in France. Well, at least they sold stickers at the first place I asked. By the time I turned off the motorway I only had 20km to go and had paid way more than I had expected, effectively destroying my budget for the day. I made it to Brogliano, where I was staying, in good time, but at a high price. I will have to stick to B-roads all the way to Ljubljana tomorrow and hope the tank lasts to the border. On the plus side, the landscape once I left the motorway was amazing, the sun shining low through the trees on the Northern Italian countryside that I had always imagined: undulating fields of green and gold between low hills, quaint villages and winding roads. And some more crazy drivers. I followed the GPS instructions into the small village of Brogliano, into streets that became narrower and steeper until I came to a point at the end of a steep ramp that looked as if the street split in three driveways and ended there. The GPS, however, insisted that I had to turn left and keep going for about 150m more. Not wanting to ride into anybody’s front garden, I started to maneuver the bike in the narrow space, thinking how ridiculous it would be if my first fall was on a backstreet in rural Italy. When I had managed a quarter of a turn, an old man, who had probably heard the engine revving and was used to finding lost strangers behind his house, waved at me from a window and pointed at the driveway on my left. It turned out it was a street that opened into a bigger one, where I found Mattia, my host, waiting for me. He helped me put the bike in their garage and then introduced me to his couple, Danilo, who was preparing a mouth-watering risotto for dinner. Taking the chance of having some space to work on, I greased the chain and topped the oil and then had a shower and sat down for dinner with them. They were great hosts, and Danilo is an excellent cook – the antipasti, the risotto and the cheese, as well as the home-made red pepper jam made by Mattia were delicious. They told me a bit about their trips and themselves and I showed them the route on an atlas. I borrowed their internet connection to update the blog and get in touch with my next host and went to bed, exhausted but happy. And with a new sticker on my bike. http://imageshack.us/a/img546/6390/sslz.jpg |
Ljubljana and Mikkeller
Day 3 – Thursday 27th of June – Brogliano to Smrjene (555km)
Unlike the first two days, in which I spent the morning on great B-roads and then had to take the motorway in the afternoon to make it on time, with all the boredom and fatigue that means, today has been the other way round. I got up after a great night’s sleep and had breakfast with Danilo (Mattia had already left for work), trying to have a meaningful conversation in my very poor Italian. He gave me some directions to get the most scenic route to Slovenia, I loaded the bike and went off. The first part of the route took me through even more industrial parks and thick, slow moving traffic, but I was able to make good progress thanks to Italian drivers. I must now withdraw my previous comments on Italian drivers, as today they were absolutely wonderful – the moment they saw me coming on their mirrors they moved to the right, making way for me to overtake them without having to move over to the other lane, which meant that I could pass cars anywhere. There’s some road manners Spaniards could learn! Shortly after the road became one of the most beautiful I have ever ridden. All the way no just to Slovenia, but to the very capital, Ljubljana, it was a narrow, winding road with smooth tarmac and beautiful views. I had set off with three (out of five) bars left on the fuel gauge and after seeing how expensive petrol was in Italy I was hoping I could make it to the border and fill up in Slovenia. If I had to, I was even going to use the fuel in the jerrycan. I got near the border at about lunchtime and stopped at a village called Gradisca D’Isonzo for lunch. I found a nice park with a memorial to those who had died in WWI and WWII and sat down to prepare a sandwich. As I was eating there, with those names carved in stone in front of me, it occurred to me what a simplistic view we often get of such conflicts. We tend to think of the war as something with clearly defined sides, the good and the evil, the ‘you are with us or you are against us’ kind of thing some Americans love so much. However, those names belonged to young people from a small village who probably knew nothing about the people they were sent to fight against or the reasons the whole thing had started, they were just told to go there and die for their country. A country. What is that? Riding from one to another, crossing borders the concept becomes blurred, artificial. It is just a random line on a map and it becomes clear that we are all exactly the same, with the same hopes and fears, pastimes, worries, and all those little things that make up moments of happiness in our lives. I shared the last cherries from the box I had bought in France with a homeless guy at the park and headed for the border, the fuel light flashing. I stopped at the first petrol station on the other side and was pleased to see that fuel was much cheaper and they had stickers. I filled up and rode into biker’s paradise. Slovenia is a hilly country and it seems that practically all roads are interesting. http://imageshack.us/a/img202/1927/d84u.jpg When I was planning the trip I sat down at the computer and tried to plan the most scenic routes possible on the software that came with the GPS, BaseCamp. I quickly remembered why I prefer to use good old paper maps. As is often the case with case when there are computers involved, the bloody thing had no logic at all and even though I marked waypoints along the route I wanted to follow, it went back and forth, doubling back and sending me round and round to places I did not want to go. In the end I decide to just get the coordinates for the places I want to finish the day at, set it to avoid toll roads and let it guide me. And boy it works! Yesterday’s route could not have been better if I had plotted it myself on a map – the roads were amazing all the way to Ljubljana. I got there a bit later than I expected and ran into the afternoon rush hour traffic. I had to cross the whole city, as my host’s house was on a hill on the outskirts on the other side. I discovered that it is not a good idea to get into heavy traffic in an unknown city tired after a long day’s ride. Fortunately I made it to the other side without problems and were greeted by my hosts, Metka and Franci, fellow bikers who were delighted to see me and the motorbike. http://imageshack.us/a/img822/4020/fbm6.jpg We started talking about it right on the front door, and Franci commented that I should use a CrampBuster, a plastic thingy that allows you to hold the throttle open without having to grip the handle all the time, so you can rest on long motorway trips. I tried to find one in Barcelona just before leaving, but nobody sold them and it was too late to get one online. He then made a quick phone call to a friend to see if it was possible to get one in the city that day and then gave me his own as a present! http://imageshack.us/a/img7/186/chk6.jpg They took some pictures and showed me my room, which would make a five-star hotel room pale in comparison. Franci works as a translator, but he studied electrical engineering and he really is into domotics. He and Metka bought their house half finished and then he designed a fully intelligent and environmentally friendly house (and wrote the software that controls it himself). It would take pages to describe what the house can do, suffice to say it is mind-blowing. I had a shower, got changed and jumped into the car with Metka, who had already called a friend of hers who spoke some Spanish and was glad to have a chance to practice a bit. On the way to the centre we discovered that we are both beer fans and while we were waiting for her friend Maja to come she took me to a small beer shop that had an amazing selection of beers for connoisseurs. We bought a few for dinner (which she refused to let me pay) and then went for a drink with Maja at one of the terraces by the river. Back at the house, Franci, who had finished work, prepared some traditional pasta and then we had some beers with a couple of their friends, also bikers, who dropped by to say hi. It was such an enjoyable evening, telling travel stories and anecdotes that I totally forgot to write. Oh, and Ljubljana is a beautiful city, by the way. http://imageshack.us/a/img34/8991/c72j.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img59/7052/tyzr.jpg |
Three countries in one day
Day 4 – Friday 28th of June – Smrjene to Budapest (516km)
What a day! One of the things you hear about trips like this is that it is when you start having problems that the real adventure begins. Well, it must sound like some kind of twisted logic, but it is true – I had my first fall today, and despite this, it has been another wonderful day. The fall was not serious, but it was quite embarrassing… I had just left Smrjene and went back into the city to cross it and get on the road to the border following the instructions on the GPS. The traffic was quite heavy again, it was the morning rush hour and I was stopped at a red light behind a panel van that blocked most of my view forward. The light changed and traffic started moving when suddenly the van slammed the brakes and so did I to avoid running into its back. I was just starting to move, so the bike was leaning slightly to one side, not having gained enough speed to stand upright by itself, so when I braked it leaned to far to one side and past that angle, the fall was inevitable. It crashed onto its side in the middle of a fully crowded main street in the city center. I got up, made sure I was OK (I was) and quickly tried to lift the bike to get out of the way, but soon discovered it was too heavy fully loaded to be able to lift it myself. Fortunately, a young guy ran across the street and through the traffic and helped me pick it up. I started it and moved to a bus stop to check for damage. It had landed on the BarkBusters, which did their job very well and protected the clutch handle and on the left pannier, which had a very small scratch. The outer bottle holder had broken free from its lower bolt, but that seemed to be all the damage. I restarted the bike and went on. I have been told that on such long trips, you need some time to get into the rhythm of the whole thing, and I started to find that to be true today. I had a long way to go again, but this time I was not worried about wasting time if I stopped to take a picture of something I liked or took a rest more often. I knew I had all day to get there, and I had to enjoy the road. With this new mindset, I stopped for the first time shortly after leaving the city, and discovered that the left pannier was not closed properly. On closer inspection, I saw that the fall had pushed it into the frame, bending it enough for the shape of the opening to be deformed, so it did not line with the lid any more. http://imageshack.us/a/img62/9435/fujs.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img19/391/do1n.jpg It was quite cloudy and Franci had checked the weather forecast in the morning and told me there was a possibility of rain in Hungary, so I was worried about water getting into my luggage, especially as that pannier contained my camping and sleeping gear. I decided to try to find a repair shop and see if they could bend it back into shape. I got back on the road keeping an eye open and soon spotted what looked like a garage. I rode up to it and when I got off the bike and into it I saw it was a kind of MoT station. As I was already there, I decided to ask where I could find a place to get it fixed, so I approached a man who has coming out with his car documents on his hands. He listened to me and had a looked at the pannier and immediately took his mobile phone out and called a friend who had a body repair shop. Unfortunately, he was not able to reach him, so he took me next door, where there was a car wash. http://imageshack.us/a/img202/5865/zsrc.jpg The guy at the car wash called his colleage, who had a small workshop behind the building, and he came and gestured me to remove the pannier from the bike and give it to him. I did, and ten minutes later he came back with it, straight enough for the lid to fit and close properly. I thanked them profusely and went on. A couple of hours later I found an old workshop by the road that had these photogenic relics outside and I stopped to take some pictures. http://imageshack.us/a/img19/3562/r39g.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img10/2292/tzta.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img708/1826/xbth.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img17/3082/hvyj.jpg The roads were great again, and I was wondering whether petrol would be cheaper in Hungary or in Slovenia when suddenly, coming out of a corner and going up a very steep hill, I came upon a sign that took me by surprise. You can unexpectedly run into people, into trouble, into a lamppost if you are not paying attention, but this was the first time in my life I had run into a country. I had, apparently, come across Austria. http://imageshack.us/a/img30/1892/cr5.JPG When I checked on the map, there seemed to be a fairly straight line from Ljubljana to Budapest, but my GPS had apparently decided that I would like the scenic route better, and I did. It had taken me north, to Graz, and then east over the Orségi Nemzeti natural park and into Hungary. I really enjoyed spending some kilometers in Austria and I took the chance to get yet another sticker and fill the bike up, as petrol was cheaper than even Spain. So much for the biking holiday I someday wanted to take in Italy… at those prices I would much rather tour central Europe! The landscape is better, too. Once I crossed the border everything changed. http://imageshack.us/a/img853/7399/btea.jpg The road was still narrow, but in quite bad condition, and everything had an air less taken care of. I stopped at a petrol station right after the border to change some money for the first time and get yet another sticker. http://imageshack.us/a/img28/9067/kpsu.jpg It had been slightly overcast all day, perfect conditions for riding, no rain, not too hot… but in the afternoon the weather deteriorated and it seemed as if it was going to rain. I kept thinking I should stop and put the waterproof layers on the jacket, but that meant unstrapping the rack pack and my optimistic me kept seeing that the sky was clearer ahead. I had to change from summer to winter gloves, though, because it was getting colder. In the end I made it to Budapest dry and found the place I am going to be staying at for the next couple of nights without problems. If you come to Budapest by motorbike or bicycle, this is the place to stay! I set up camp, borrowed a set of three precision tools (also known as hammers) and spent the afternoon banging the pannier back into shape. But more on that tomorrow, it has been a long ride today, about ten hours, and it is getting very late. http://imageshack.us/a/img401/441/xpfy.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img21/3065/tdi1.jpg |
How can I stop the drinking smiley appearing every time I type the word "beer"?
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Biker Camp
Day 5 – Saturday 29th of June – Budapest (0km)
Biker Camp is, as the name says, a campsite for bikers and cyclists in the center of Budapest. http://imageshack.us/a/img713/2146/2e0e.jpg It was founded by Zsolt Vertessy, a biker himself, who sadly died in an accident in 2004. The place has been run by his widow ever since, and offers a space to camp, toilets and showers, a washing machine, cooking facilities, wifi, tools, a self-service bar and the chance to meet fellow bikers. It is six underground stops from the city centre and is a great place to spend a few days. http://imageshack.us/a/img10/3089/mbo8.jpg I got here at about half past six in the evening and was shown into the camping space by the owner. There is room for about ten or twelve tents plus the bikes, but there was only another tent, which belonged to a Norwegian family who are on a cycling holiday. http://imageshack.us/a/img14/5586/5ssi.jpg I chatted with them over breakfast today and they told me they flew all their gear to Venice and are cycling back home from there, doing from 50 to 60 kilometers a day… with two kids! The youngest is only seven years old. When I think that most people back in Spain say that you can practically do nothing once you have had children… After breakfast I took the underground, which is a couple of streets from the camp and went to explore Budapest. http://imageshack.us/a/img34/6900/cfqz.JPG The city is as beautiful as I expected from the tales of all the people I know who have been here before me, and today the weather was wonderful, which meant that I was a bit too hot at times! http://imageshack.us/a/img33/3128/ejzk.JPG http://imageshack.us/a/img853/4962/bvu1.jpg I spent the whole morning walking around the city, exploring the most popular places and taking lots of pictures, and by lunchtime I went a bit off the tourist trail in search of a good place to eat. I found a small pub where I had a full traditional Hungarian meal for only 11€ - A very spicy paprika sauce to spread on bread, goulash soup, paprika chicken with cream, salad, coffee, traditional Hungarian bread, an enormous apple pie, and a pint of local beer. Delicous! The climb to the citadel was quite hard after that… http://imageshack.us/a/img819/6406/c6oj.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img543/7743/84l1.jpg I was thinking that there were very few tourists in the city, until I reached the top of the hill and ran into an army of Japanese sun-allergic tourists hiding under their umbrellas and huddling together near their respective guides, seemingly afraid of getting very lost if they wandered too far on their own. http://imageshack.us/a/img202/5224/dwo9.jpg After spending some time there and taking some more pictures, I went back down into the center and decided to explore the non touristic neighbourhoods between the centre and the place where I was staying. Not far from where most tourists were, the streets changed quickly and I was in an area of run down buildings with a very high proportion of drunkards, homeless people and very dodgy looking characters. http://imageshack.us/a/img819/6086/pp9l.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img32/8864/odb.JPG I put the camera back into its bad, as it was the only thing giving me away as a tourist, as my clothes are quite simple (I can’t really carry much) and the cropped hair and growing beard seemed to blend in quite well. I stopped at a small fruit shop to get some oranges and apples and then got the underground for the last three stops, because my feet were killing me. I was glad to have spent the day walking for a change, but I would not know what is more tiring… http://imageshack.us/a/img163/485/8zi2.jpg This has been a shorter post than the previous ones, I will let the pictures do the talking here. By the way, since I use a blog, and not a photo album, I will be posting extra pictures on the Facebook page, so if you are interested, you can see them there. http://imageshack.us/a/img34/8611/6nt.JPG http://imageshack.us/a/img31/8559/6vwb.JPG http://imageshack.us/a/img69/9821/7pi9.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img856/343/qowc.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img19/8217/nx4t.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img849/616/clop.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img809/456/vplv.jpg |
Romanian potholes and abandoned petrol stations
Day 6 – Sunday 30th of June – Budapest to Ighiu (536km)
I woke up earlier than I expected today, Hungary is the easternmost country I am travelling through that is still on the same time zone as Spain, and at ten past five in the morning the sun was already shinning. I managed to get some more sleep before getting up and putting everything back on the bike, as I expected today to be quite a hard day – I remembered Romanian roads from a trip there three years ago and they are hard. http://imageshack.us/a/img27/6978/ubgd.jpg I had a coffee while I wrote a quick entry into the camp’s guest book, and then spent some time flicking through its pages and reading a few of the stories there. After a few minutes I was surprised to feel a tear forming in my eyes. There are hundreds of people travelling around the world by all possible means and I had read about some of them on internet forums, but this was different – I was touching the very same pages those people had touched before moving on to their following destinations. http://imageshack.us/a/img21/3332/k6c7.jpg The previous night I had tried to put the coordinates for my next destination on the GPS, only to find that whatever settings, it refused to give me a route. I tried choosing a destination in Hungary, near the border, but the result was still the same. In the end, it only agreed to give me a route to a town near the border and on the motorway, so after leaving Budapest I stopped at the first petrol station I found to pay for a matrika, the vignette that allows you to travel on motorways. I had managed to get through Slovenia, Austria and part of Hungary without paying for one, so I was a bit bummed. It turned out to be quite cheap (I do not know exactly how cheap, I still have not had time to calculate today’s expenses) and in an hour and a half I was at the border, which meant that I had all the afternoon ahead of me to enjoy the Romanian roads. On the trip to Romania three year ago, my friends and I stayed at a place called Terra Mythica, near Alba Iulia. We were not quite sure what kind of place it was, but it was the only thing we could find in the region, so we made a booking. We got there at about 1 am to find it was a sort of summer camp full of children. Against all odds, we had a wonderful time – Dalina, the owner, and some of the stuff joined us after dinner once all the kids were in bed and we had one of the hardest drinking sessions I remember. To cut a long story short, we became good friends and she visited in Barcelona a couple of times, so when I was planning the trip I decided to take a little detour and come back to Ighiu, and I was really looking forward to it. At the Romanian border I was stopped by the police for the first time in my trip, but they only checked my passport and waved me on. I stopped just past the gate at a small shack that changed money and sold road tax, which is compulsory in Romania, whether you take the highway or not (in fact, there is only one highway, between the capital and the coast). I got some leu and discovered that it was not necessary to pay tax for the motorbike, so I rode on happily. http://imageshack.us/a/img199/4437/ltpc.JPG The roads were better than I remembered from the last time I was here, or maybe riding all the way from Spain meant that the transition had been more gradual than getting off a plane and into a van. In any case, I made quick progress and soon realized that it was already well past 2 pm and I still had not had lunch. I started looking for a nice place, but roadside picnic areas or public parks are notoriously difficult to find in rural Romania, and the kilometers went by without a proper place turning up. The clouds were turning a nasty shade of black, and this time there were no clear skies ahead, so it was becoming more and more pressing to stop not just for lunch, but to put the waterproof lining on the suit. Then, as the rain began, I spotted a petrol station. I had not seen one since the border, and even though I still had fuel left, I was starting to worry, so I was glad to find one. As I got closer, however, I saw that it was abandoned. http://imageshack.us/a/img18/7585/edwz.jpg Well, at least it had a rood under which I could get changed and eat something. I performed a little strip-tease to the delight of the lorry drivers passing by and then sat down to eat a kind of Hungarian sausage I had bought earlier and some bread and fruit. http://imageshack.us/a/img11/5338/re2i.jpg The first time we came to Romania, people warned us about stray dogs, apparently there are many of them and they can be dangerous. I was enjoying my sandwich when this fearsome beast appeared: http://imageshack.us/a/img153/3619/m9eg.jpg I swear if I had been doing this trip on a car instead of a motorbike, I would have taken her home. The poor thing was clearly afraid of people, God knows what bad experiences she might have had in the past. I threw her some meat and she ate it from a distance. She stayed there all the time I was at the petrol station, but did not allow me to get closer than a couple of meters, she kept her distance. After saying goodbye, I got on the bike and set off again, happy to see that the rain had stopped. I was soon regretting having put the waterproof lining on, as it was getting hotter, and I was quite sweaty when I stopped for fuel at a petrol station that was quite far removed from the ones I had been using so far. I had to check twice to make sure this one was not abandoned. http://imageshack.us/a/img59/1918/juvy.jpg By mid afternoon, the landscape changed from the flat corn fields I had been seeing from Hungary into hills and valleys covered with forest, and I was soon reunited with that old friend from three years ago – the Romanian pothole. The Romanian pothole is not the kind of broken asphalt or depression on the road we might be used to encountering in Western Europe. This indigenous beast that populates the country roads in large numbers is generally round or ovoid in shape, with sharp, cliff-like edges, and deep enough to swallow the front wheel of the bike. It normally dwells on mountain and forest roads, where the harsher weather has deteriorated the road more, and to make matters worse, they were filled with water, making them more difficult to spot. Needless to say, hitting one would mean, at the very least, a badly damaged front rim and suspension, not to mention risking a very nasty accident. It was cold again, but the weather got better in the afternoon, and as I rode the country roads, avoiding the potholes, I remembered what a great country this was. I got to Ighiu at half past eight, and was delighted to see Dalina again. Things were hectic at the camp, with 70 children to be taken care of, and still fully dressed in riding gear and before I could unload anything from the bike I was sat down at a table for dinner with Dalina and the rest of the staff who, came from places as far apart as California and India. I had a great time, and after dinner, I had a shower, got changed and sat down to write and have a chat with Rushil, who also has a motorbike back in India, and showed me pictures of Khardung la pass, the highest one in the world. If I ever go to India, I will definitely hire a motorbike and ride it! |
The best road… in the woooorld
Day 7 – Monday 1st of July – Transfagarasan Road
There were two reasons I had taken a 1000km-detour on my route – to visit Dalina and to ride this road, one of the most famous in the world. Build by Chauchescu to be able to move troops quickly across the region, it is simply breathtaking. Dalina did not wake me up this morning, but my body is still an hour behind, so at 8:30 I was already up and having breakfast, chatting to her father, who remembered how drunk we got last time and told me, half in English, half in Romanian “tonight, we drink!” I am not going to try and describe the road here, as words would not even come close to what it is. Those of you who watch Top Gear will be familiar with it. I will just post some pictures and, for those petrolheads with enough patience, a video of the whole ride from north to south once I have a connection that is fast enough to upload it. http://imageshack.us/a/img843/2557/fkiu.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img9/8680/voem.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img21/6383/ntsw.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img9/5999/ld0r.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img542/3732/3uiw.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img845/359/1e0t.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img163/1153/dql4.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img833/8133/qlsr.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img543/282/n9xi.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img801/864/nzn9.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img9/512/zqjc.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img7/4548/vd9x.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img22/5540/i3uj.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img834/4143/g6xq.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img850/7982/zc8z.jpg |
Border crossings and police bribes
Day 8 – Tuesday 2nd of July – Ighiu to Lviv (607km)
Having been to Romania instead of heading for Ukraine straight from Hungary meant that I broke one of the rules I had set myself – to spend the night before a major border crossing near the border to get there relatively early in the morning in case there were problems with the paperwork and it took a bit longer than expected. Another consequence of that decision was that instead of going through an international crossing, I had to go through a small rural one, and some of those only allow locals to use it, not international traffic. So, having also broken another rule – to keep journeys shorter the furthest east I went – I set off on a 10-hour ride through a border I was not sure would be open. I got there at about 2 pm, and lucky me, they let me into Ukraine! I was quite nervous about it, I was leaving the EU and I was afraid they would find some kind of problem with my documents or the bike’s, but there were none. The good thing about a small crossing is that there were no long queues, only four cars in front of me, but they still took their own sweet time and I baked under the sun for half an hour. Once into Ukraine, the bad thing about a small crossing became apparent quickly – the road. Remember the Romanian pothole? Well, it is nothing more than a small bump on the road compared to this. Not only were they deep, there were thousands of them, all over the road, meaning that cars and trucks had to swerve around them, using the whole width of the road and often driving on the wrong lane. I had to stand on the footpegs and could only use first and second gear. It was hot, sweaty and dusty. This was the kind of thing that I was expecting in Kazakhstan, not on a road connecting two countries in Europe. It went on for about 50 km, after which the road turned into what I would have described as a bad road in Romania, which was a huge relief after that bit. I am ready to do this sort of stuff, but not as part of 600-kilometer days. http://imageshack.us/a/img571/3408/5bkw.jpg Once I joined the main road coming from Poland things changed, the road became much, much better and I started making progress. I did not ride too fast, as I had heard lots of horror stories about Ukrainian police and how strict they are with foreign drivers, but I still did what I had been doing for the last four or five days and what every other driver on the road was doing – overtake whenever you had space and was safe, regardless of road signs. Well, it is common practice and there is nothing wrong with it, as long as you do not overtake the chief of police from the next village going back home in civilian clothes on his private car. Needless to say, he made sure that his colleagues were waiting for me at the next checkpoint, and as soon as I got there they flagged me down. The policeman spoke no English at all, but he made it clear that I had overtaken on a double line using gestures, and when the chief of police arrived he used the same gestures before driving away again and leaving me in the caring hands of his subordinate. The guy asked for the bike’s papers and then asked if I could speak Portuguese, because apparently he knew someone at the Portuguese consulate and was going to get them on the phone so that they could explain me what I had to do. He handed me his mobile phone and I spoke to a girl who spoke English, who told me that the fine was a hundred euros. Now, I had been given some advice on how to try to deal with police in these countries, but in this case it was obvious that I had broken the law, so there was nothing else to do but to pay. That would put a huge dent on my budget… However, the girl on the phone said that I had two choices – I could get an official written fine and then go all the way to Kiev to pay it before I could get the bike’s papers back, or I could pay there and then, it would be half price and I could go my way. I gave the phone back to the police officer and he gestured me to follow him into a smaller room. We walked in, he sat down and took some official forms, which were the fine, and his mobile phone, put them both on the table and pointed at them. I pointed at the phone, and then he handed me a piece of paper and a pen. I wrote ‘50€’, he nodded and then stood up, lifted the cushion on which he was sitting and pointed under it. I put the money there, he put the cushion back and then he was all smiles, asking about my trip while he walked me back to the bike, telling me to be careful where I parked it in Lviv because it was dangerous and even writing the speed limits on his palm to remind me not to break them. Well, after the money I had saved over the last two days, I was only a few euros out of my daily budget, I had come off lightly and I had had a first hand experience in bribing the Ukrainian police. What a day! After that I still had more than 200 km to get to Lviv, and once I got there, tired and smelly, it was hard work finding the place where I was staying. In the end, Igor, my host, walked out to the street and found me, trying to get directions from three guys who did not seem to understand what I was asking them. He took his car and lead me to a car park a couple of blocks down the street where I could leave the bike for the night. He the took me to his flat, a small apartment in one of those big, gray, crumbling soviet blocks of flats, for the complete Ukrainian experience. He was the most wonderful host, prepared a very nice dinner for me and then we tried to overcome the language barrier and talked about the trip and motorbikes. He told me that he had had one in the past, and that was something we could chat about with very few words, watching the twilight sky from his balcony. http://imageshack.us/a/img534/1428/wy6i.jpg |
Follow that cab!
Day 9 – Wednesday 3rd of July – Lviv to Kiev (557km)
There is a tunnel at the top of the Transfagarasan pass that connects both sides of the mountain. It is not very long, maybe one and a half kilometers, but it is very narrow, with just enough space for two cars, the road surface is broken asphalt almost turned into gravel with the occasional big pothole and it is pitch black, there is not a single light in it. When I rode it two days ago, the fog that covered the top of the mountains had also got into it, so visibility was almost zero. With the screen covered in moist, I had to stand on the footpegs to see over it, and I could see no further than eight or ten meters, the headlights hopelessly trying to pierce the fog. Had you asked me this morning, I would have said that was the most frightening experience I had ever had on the bike, but what I did today was far, far worse. In the morning, Igor took me to an ATM so I could get some local money and then to the bike. I loaded it and checked the oil, a bit worried about a developing leak that I had spotted in Romania. When I started the journey I noticed a bit of oil on the bash plate, but since I had had the valve clearance checked and it was a job that required opening the engine, I thought that it had got dirty then. Just to be sure, I checked again when I got to Budapest, and things seem to be the same. However, once in Romania I noticed that there was a bit more oil, and on closer inspection I discovered that there was oil in the V where the cylinders meet, and it seemed to be coming from somewhere in the back of the front cylinder. http://imageshack.us/a/img585/3001/xvud.jpg I cleaned it to see how long it would take to get dirty again, and today, after two days and about 1,200 km, enough oil has accumulated in the V to leak down the side of the engine. In normal riding conditions, it would take weeks for that much oil to leak, since I barely do more than 20 km a day, but things happen faster on the trip. I cleaned it again near Kiev to check how long it takes this time. The oil level has been descending at a normal rate for the number of kilometers I have been doing, so I do not know how worried I should be. I will be in Volgograd in three days (1,200 more kilometers) and since I need to have the bike serviced there, I will have the leak checked. I hope it does not get any worse before getting there. I said goodbye to Igor, who refused to let me pay for the car park, thanked him for his hospitality, and went across Lviv center to get the road to Kiev. http://imageshack.us/a/img843/4127/cx55.jpg It is a shame I did not have more time to visit the city, as what little I saw from the bike was great. What was not so great was the time it took me to get out of there, through streets clogged with traffic, and cobblestones and tram rails to make things more challenging. http://imageshack.us/a/img201/1363/du9s.jpg Once out of the city the road was good an clear all the way to Kiev. The landscape was beautiful, green fields stretching far, but it was one of the most boring rides so far. After my last experience with the police I was not going to give them a reason to stop me, so I stuck to the speed limit (90), and did not overtake unless it was legal. Since I was the only one following traffic regulations, that meant that I was the slowest thing on the road, and on roads that were mostly straight and smooth, I had to fight hard to stay alert. On the plus side, I managed to get the best fuel economy form the bike ever – 4,1L/100km for the whole journey. http://imageshack.us/a/img9/7030/4zro.jpg As soon as I got to Kiev things changed quickly, little did I know that I was in for a hell of a ride. Luda, my host’s secretary, who speaks some English, had told me to meet her at an underground station on the main road on the city limits, because it would be easier if she showed me the way from there. I was glad she had taken the bother to do so, as navigating big city traffic is usually hard. She got on a cab and told me to follow it. I thought it would not be very far, since she had come to get me, but boy, was I wrong! The cab driver sped off into the afternoon rush hour traffic in 8-lane avenues chocked full of cars, trucks and buses, and I was left to do my best not to lose him. I was determined not to, and that meant sticking to his tail, absolutely no safety distance to speak of, and even so, the moment I left a couple of meters between me and him, somebody would try to get in the gap. And all that at speed well above what you would expect in the city. I could not even check the mirrors, as taking the eyes off the car in front for even half a second might mean an accident. And on top of that, the roads were badly potholed, which meant that the ABS was constantly kicking in, providing some extra scariness tot the whole experience, and obviously, riding so close to the car in front I could not see the potholes in time, so I basically ate them all. After the longest ride of my life, we got to the apartment, on the 14th floor of another soviet-style building, and I was shown into the shower and then sat down for another enormous dinner consisting of the finest traditional Ukranian dishes. Luda made her best to translate for me, and I managed quite a conversation with Sofia, my host. After dinner, a friend of hers told me he would lead me to his car park, where I could securely leave the bike for a couple of days. I followed him, fearing another crazy ride, but by that time the streets had emptied, and it was a lot easier. We left the bike there and he drove me back to the apartment. Sitting on the back of his plush car, I almost dozed off after the adrenalin rush of the afternoon. |
Bitten by radioactive mosquitoes
Day 10 – Thursday 4th of July – Visit to Chernobyl (0km)
It is difficult to describe today’s experience. I was looking forward to it, as it was one of the highlights of the trip, and it has been a very interesting visit, but at the same time it has been a most harrowing experience. Luda took me to the city’s main square, where the tour bus was to pick me up, and once in front of the hotel that was supposed to be the meeting point, she told me she would be there again at 6 in the afternoon to show me the center a bit. I spotted a bus and a couple of people waiting and I asked the last person in the queue, who was the exact double of Hillary Swank. She was from Sweden, and since her boyfriend had decided not to take summer holidays, she was touring Ukraine on her own for a few weeks. We got on the bus and quickly started to talk about travelling, as we shared a taste for unusual destinations and Eastern Europe. The conversation was soon interrupted by the start of a documentary on the disaster, which turned out to be very interesting and much more complete than other things I had seen before. It finished shortly before we reached the first checkpoint. A big area around Chernobyl is still under military control and even though about 170 people, all of them over 70 and retired, have decided to move back to their land, nobody is allowed in or out without going through strict security checks. We got off the bus and after having our passports checked against a list, we walked past the checkpoint and waited for the bus to cross. It was then a short drive to the first and only inhabited town, which hosts about 5,000 people who work in jobs related to security and maintenance of the area. They live and work there for 15 days and then take 15 days off, and have to undergo frequent medical checkups. http://imageshack.us/a/img856/8895/pgew.jpg On the way there, we passed several villages, but the only thing that remained were the road signs, as the military had bulldozed and buried the houses after the disaster and nature had quickly claimed the land back. We had a short stop in the town, where we saw a memorial, a fire station (whose members where the 3rd team to arrive on the site right after the explosion) and some of the vehicles that were used for the cleanup. http://imageshack.us/a/img822/7302/jziv.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img844/6636/qxyg.jpg There used to be a bigger collection of vehicles at a place called vehicle cemetery, but they were deemed too radioactive to be safe and that part of the visit had been cancelled years ago and the vehicles buried. http://imageshack.us/a/img802/9623/ksce.jpg Then we drove through another checkpoint to get into the exclusion zone itself, where no people live, even though lots of them work there. Before reaching the nuclear plant we stopped to see an abandoned kindergarden which, together with a post office that was barely standing among the trees, were the only two buildings remaining of the last village before the plant. http://imageshack.us/a/img543/4865/5g4x.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img201/3097/ug04.jpg Then, as we were driving out of a corner, it came into view into the distance. The high chimney that stood between reactors three and four. We stopped one last time before reaching it, to see the construction site of a couple of cooling towers and reactors five and six, still surrendered by high construction cranes. http://imageshack.us/a/img819/5834/c420.jpg They were never finished. The bus stopped on the road and when we got off to take some pictures, the guide told us not to step off the road and onto the grass, as it was highly contaminated. We got on the bus again for the final short drive that took us next to the sarcophagus that covers reactor number three. The structure looked quite old. It was the first and only of its kind, and its construction had taken several lives. http://imageshack.us/a/img9/3076/q1z6.jpg The people designing it and working to build it had never done anything like it, and nobody had ever worked or trained to work in such conditions. Thousands of people worked to build that sarcophagus, for no more than one minute at a time to avoid the deadly doses of radiation, and even that way, they all suffered horrific consequences. All of those who were there to contain the disaster gave their lives to prevent a much more dramatic outcome, one that might have rendered most of Europe inhabitable. Some of them knew what they were in for, other were sent by their superiors unaware of the great risk they were running, but without them, the tragedy would have been much bigger. From the first firefighters on the site, to the miners who dug a tunnel under the reactor to pour concrete and stop the melting uranium bars from reaching the water below and exploding, from the people who got on the roof of the number three reactor to clean the highly radioactive pieces of graphite with their own hands to the helicopter pilots who flew directly above the radioactive blaze to drop tons and tons of sand and then lead to try and stop the fire. From the people who walked as close as possible to the core of the reactor to get readings to the workers who built the sarcophagus, they are all unsung heroes who saved hundreds of millions of lives and have now been forgotten, left to suffer the terrible consequences their bodies bear for the rest of their lives alone. Near the original sarcophagus that covered reactor number three, a French company were busy at work , building a colossal structure – a new sarcophagus that will cover the old one and ensure safety for a hundred years. Its dimensions are hard to appreciate on the pictures, but the red boxes near the top are shipping containers, which gives an idea of the size. http://imageshack.us/a/img46/3971/83zb.jpg And it still has to grow to be twice as tall and twice as long. It should have been built about ten years ago, as the old one has long exceeded its useful life, but there were no funds for it. It will be finished in 2015. We were told there that we could only take pictures of the reactor and the new sarcophagus, as there were military buildings in the area and we were not allowed to photograph them. In a way, I felt privileged to have had the opportunity to take this tour now, as these visits might have their days counted, at least as they are now. In three years the number three reactor would no longer be visible, buried under its new cover, and the city of Prypyat will have crumbled down and be claimed back by nature. The bus dropped us at what was the main entrance to the city where 50,000 people had lived here at its heyday, all of which were evacuated in two days without being able to take more than a couple of suitcases with them. They were never allowed back to their homes. http://imageshack.us/a/img89/2018/r0qw.jpg Today, it was hard to recognize it as an avenue. Trees and bushes had grown wild on both sides, reducing it to little more than a dirt road across a forest. The buildings have been abandoned ever since the disaster, so most of them have leaking roofs and are in danger of collapsing at any moment. http://imageshack.us/a/img716/694/fxfw.jpg The bus dropped us off at the main square and we started walking into the city, careful not to touch the plants. We went around some of the main buildings at the square and found the amusement park, one of the most unsettling and infamous sights in the city, the ferris wheel still standing, frozen in time. http://imageshack.us/a/img5/6743/jdbo.jpg From there we went across what looked like a forest until the guide stopped in the middle of thick vegetation and announced that we were standing in the football field in the city’s stadium. Coming out of the trees we found the stands, and that was one of the two buildings we were allowed into. http://imageshack.us/a/img534/4600/36fa.jpg The other one was the sports center, with its basketball court and empty swimming pool. It all made for a fascinating visit. http://imageshack.us/a/img689/4162/r247.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img842/1886/7a9b.jpg The bus met us again on another avenue almost turned to a trail and took us out of the exclusion zone and to the canteen in the town where present day workers live. We went through a comprehensive anti-radiation cleansing process consisting on washing our hand with an old chunk of soap and then sat down to enjoy a soviet-style meal. http://imageshack.us/a/img22/3449/5t4x.jpg After eating, we stopped at the main checkpoint and were made to walk through a radiation check machine that looked like the kind of thing you would expect to see in a cold war movie, Then we were let go, clean as a whistle. http://imageshack.us/a/img10/2852/m4j0.jpg On the way there in the morning, there had been an tense silence in the bus, with very little conversation, everybody full of expectation at what they were about to see. On the way back, tension broke, and there was light conversation and jokes. A Dutch teacher who was sitting behind me said that his wife was going to make him throw away all his clothes as soon as he got back to the hotel, and I met an American guy who worked for the CDC who had hundreds of anecdotes to tell about all the places he had been stationed at. Back in Kiev, Luda was waiting for me to show me around the city a bit, as I still had a few hours left. She had brought along a friend who also spoke English, and we went for a bit of sightseeing before heading back home to pack my stuff for the next morning. http://imageshack.us/a/img600/1963/u706.jpg Kiev is an enormous city, an urban sprawl of over 3 million people, far bigger than I had imagined, and it was very obvious that I was missing so many things. I made up my mind to come back and visit it in the future. |
Organic vegetable salads and beehives
Day 11 – Friday 5th of July – Kiev to Rus’ka Lozova (517km)
Today was a quiet and pleasant day. I had a lot less trouble than I expected to get out of Kiev, as the traffic was not bad and I did not have to cross the center again. The only slight problem to report is that I have lost one of the Touratech straps that attach the rack pack to the top of the spare tires, probably when I had already dropped my stuff at Sofia’s apartment and her friend lead me to his car park. Well, I have spare ones, so no big deal. The road was quite passable and despite being a rather long distance, it felt very short, the only problem was the heat. I had removed the waterproof layers and opened all ventilation on the suit, but it was still hot. The water on my plastic bottles was undrinkable, and when I stopped for petrol I bought cold water and poured it into the bottles, but in an hour it was hot again, despite getting air. http://imageshack.us/a/img17/1171/7ols.jpg I made it to the small town near Kharkhov were I was staying by six in the afternoon and called my host, who was still at work. He got there in half an hour, while I took the chance to sit down at the church’s entrance and enjoy a bit of reading for the first time in the journey. Denys arrived and lead me to his house, which was up a narrow dirt track in the village, a bit challenging after a long day’s ride and with the bike fully loaded, but I thought it was good off-road practice. He let me ride the bike into his garden and I had time to clean and grease the chain and check the oil leak – which had not got worse – while he prepared a salad from the vegetables he grew in his enormous back garden. http://imageshack.us/a/img823/2671/m3u1.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img194/5516/wxdd.jpg He also had three beehives where he was producing honey. He was a really nice guy, and after dinner he took me for walk in the forest around the village and told me about the plants and animals that live there. http://imageshack.us/a/img703/5193/lfrx.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img41/5540/2eqh.jpg Back in the house, he showed me some pictures of his holidays in the Altai mountains, in Russia. I will ride through that region before crossing the border into Mongolia, but unfortunately will not have time to visit it properly, and it is a real shame, as the pictures showed a place of the most outstanding natural beauty. We talked about it in Spanish, which felt a bit strange after almost two weeks of using only English everywhere, and I have to say that his language skills were excellent. He had only studied for six months in preparation of a one-month holiday in South America, and his Spanish was perfect. http://imageshack.us/a/img716/9279/e45n.jpg |
Luhansk MC
Day 12 – Saturday 6th of July – Rus’ka Lozova to Luhansk (362km)
Well, another day that was supposed to be short and rather uneventful has turned out to be great. I left Rus’ka Lozova early to try and have some time to visit Luhansk, as Anna, my host, had told me that there were tours of the old industrial parks of the city and I really fancied seeing that. I got to the city quite early and as I was riding in the outskirts, I overtook an MC convoy. They were the first proper motorbikes I had seen in the country, and I was quite surprised to see them. When I stopped at the first traffic lights before entering the city, one of them, who apparently had left the other behind to catch up with me, pulled alongside and asked me where I was coming from. I started to tell him about the trip, but the lights changed and we rode on. Shortly after the rest of them appeared and they made gestures for me to stop by the roadside. Vladimir, their president, spoke English, and they were very interested to see where I was coming from. They told me they had been to a biking event about 100km from the city and asked where I was staying. I showed them the small notebook where I had written the address and phone number of my host, and then the president took out his mobile phone, gave it to one of the club members and told him to call her. They spoke in Russian and then he introduced me to one of his guys, the “Veterinar” , and told me to follow him, because he would show me the way to the center and take me to a place where I could meet Anna. So I rode into the city escorted by the local MC, and once in the center, most of them went their separate ways back home. My guide and another guy, with their respective old ladies, took me to the center, and in about 20 minutes Anna was there. The bikers wished me good luck with the rest of my trip and went home, and I told my host that I needed to drop all my stuff and park the bike securely before visiting the city. It turned out that she lived almost 8km from there, and if she took the bus, she would get to her place later than me on the bike, so this being Ukraine, I sat her on top of the bag and the spare tires and rode through the center like that, no helmet. Once we had parked the bike and I had a chance to have a shower, she took me to visit an important train factory in the city. It is not normally possible to visit, but they were celebrating the city’s industrial day, and a lot of places like that were open to the public. Not an opportunity to miss. The visit was great, we were taken around an enormous soviet-style factory in the late afternoon, the red sun shinning through the warehouses tall windows and making for some very good pictures. http://imageshack.us/a/img809/3968/80pa.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img17/6010/y2a2.jpg After that we went to eat something and then to a bar that served the local beer, which was excellent. It got late, and after such a long I was absolutely exhausted. The prospect of getting up at about 6 in the morning to ride to the border, deal with the crossing into Russia and then ride 400km more to Volgograd looked like the least appealing thing on Earth. On top of that, there was a museum that I really wanted to visit, an old military pilot school that had been turned into an air museum and had a collection of Soviet planes, so I decided to stay an extra day in the city. |
Soviet heavy metal
Day 13 – Sunday 7th of July – Luhansk (0km)
For an airplane geek like me, today was absolute heaven. The place we went to was apparently one of the three best military pilot schools in the old USSR, and the enourmous complex where it was located, on the outskirts of Luhansk, is today partly abandoned, partly inhabited by locals, partly used by the army, partly an air museum. The bus dropped at the main entrance, where an old soviet reactor stood proud to remind people of what the place had been in other times. http://imageshack.us/a/img844/883/pq9r.jpg We went through the gate and I noticed that what must have been the entrance checkpoint had been turned into small shops and kiosks. The blocks of flats that flanked the main avenue were today inhabited by local people who had bought them cheap because they had been built long ago. Further into the complex, the trees and vegetation had grown wilder and from time to time I caught a glimpse of old buildings and warehouses that were part of the pilot school. http://imageshack.us/a/img841/9225/4u69.jpg We were soon walking through overgrowth and half collapsed buildings, and it seemed rather strange that there was a museum somewhere in there, but you need to take into account that Ukraine has not developed a tourist infrastructure in most places. After a while we had got lost, and there was no one to ask. In the end we found some kind of old car park near another block of apartments and Anna asked a guy who was coming out the way to the museum. He sent us along a narrow footpath across a small forest that then turned into fields and we kept walking until I realized that we were on the schools runway. Far to our right we could see the tails of the planes in the museum. I asked Anna what use people made of the runway today, and she told me that a lot of people took their kids there with the family car to teach them how to drive, and there was also people who raced but that from time to time small private planes landed there. I was quite shocked that people were allowed to enter a runway that was sometimes active, and I asked her whether there was some kind of ATC or authority responsible for the place, but she didn’t know. I took a couple of pictures – it is not often that you can simply walk into an active runway – and went to the museum. http://imageshack.us/a/img855/984/aw3m.jpg We had apparently come to the back door, and there was an old guy that took a lot of convincing to let us in through that gate. After assuring him that we were going to go straight to the main entrance and pay, he let us in. Anna asked him about the runway, and he said that they were responsible for the museum, and the military for the radio station next to it, if somebody decided to land their plane on the old runway, it was their responsibility to make sure they didn’t land on anybody. What a crazy country! Once into the museum, I had a wonderful time despite the tremendous heat. There were lots of planes I loved, like an Ilyushin Il-76, a Tupolev Tu-95, a Mig 29, a Sukhoi Su-27, a Beriev Be-12 and many others. The guy from the back gate came back, apparently having decided to make up for his earlier reception, and gave us a thorough explanation of the planes and helicopters there, although it was in Russian… Anna did her best to translate it for me. http://imageshack.us/a/img405/4465/o76z.jpg We came back to the flat to get some food and a badly needed shower, and I finally found a moment to write for the blog. In the evening we went back to the center to see the sunset from a park that overlooked the old part of the city. It was a wonderful last view of Luhansk. Tomorrow I’ll cross into Russia, and I am already nervous again about having to face the fearsome old soviet bureaucracy. |
After reading the posts here I went straight over to your travel blog. Fantastic story, I really enoyed it, thank you!
Oh, and by pure co-incidence, I know the guys driving the Lotus' at Stelvio too, I think one of them may have emailed you for the photo :) |
Three adventure bikers in Volgograd
Day 14 – Monday 8th of July – Luhansk to Volgograd (506km)
No problems at the border crossing today. The Russian bureaucracy at the border was easy, it just took time to fill in all the immigration papers for me and the bike and then I was welcomed into Russia, border guards much nicer than in Ukraine. I rode on decent roads for most of the morning and then stopped at a lay by to eat some fruit for lunch before riding into Volgograd. As I was there, a lorry driver passed by, stopped the truck and reversed back to where I was. In Russian he asked where I was coming from, and when I explained the best I could that I had come from Barcelona and I was going to Mongolia, he was very surprised and wished me luck. A few minutes later, an old man and his son stopped their old Lada, got off, and said something pointing at the bike. From lots of gestures I understood that he also had a bike in the nearby village he was from, and then he took my address notebook, which I had taken out to call my host in Volgograd, and wrote his name and address there, making gestures indicating that I could sleep at his place if I needed to. I had only been in Russia for a few hours, but the people here were the most helpful and welcoming I had seen! A couple of hours later I rode into Volgograd and into a traffic jam, and when I looked down to my GPS I could not believe my eyes – I was already in the city and the thing said that I still had to ride more than 30km to get to my host’s home. After about an hour of more crazy Russian traffic, I got there and discovered that Volgograd is a massive city – it extends for about 80km along both sides of the river Volga, despite only having 1.5 million inhabitants. I stopped the bike in front of my host’s door and waited for someone to come, and I was more than surprised when his girlfriend turned up accompanied by two other couch surfers that were also staying at the flat… and who were also bikers! http://imageshack.us/a/img51/1738/ymge.jpg One of them, Lex, was from Holland and was riding an old Transalp down south into Georgia and then Turkey, and Martin was from the Czech Republic and was riding his GSA more or less along the same route I was doing, the only difference being that he was doing all the Stans, while I was only doing Kazakhstan. Our host’s girlfriend told me to drop my things and have a shower, and then took us for a walk. I did not take my phone or anything else, thinking that we would only be away for a while, but we went on a night tour of the city of Volgograd and were not back in the apartment until well past 2 am. I was shattered, but it had been more than worth it, we visited the city’s memorials of the battle of Stalingrad, and they were a magnificent sight at that time of the night, no heat and no other tourists around. Amazing experience. http://imageshack.us/a/img14/4814/0n2x.jpg |
Russian mechanics
Day 15 – Tuesday 9th of July –Volgograd (0km)
I got up today and sent a message to my contact in the city, Vitali, from the Ferrum MC, who I had found on the HUBB before leaving Barcelona. He told me the address of a bike shop where I could have my bike serviced and the oil leak checked, so I put the address in the GPS and went off, no riding suit on, as it was tremendously hot in the city and I did not fancy negotiating the traffic jams on full riding armour. Lex, the Dutch guy, had left an hour earlier, heading for Astrakhan, where he had already arranged a Couch Surf. Maybe the traffic was better, or maybe I was just getting used to it, but I found the 30km ride to the workshop quite easy. When I got there, I rolled the bike into the forecourt and an enormous Russian guy came out. I told him about Vitali, but he did not seem to know what I was talking about, and he shouted for a girl to come out from inside the workshop. She was Kate, the secretary, and she spoke some English. I told her that I had been told to go there by Vitali, but she did not seem to know who he was either. I got him on the phone and they talked in Russian for a while, then they told me to roll the bike into the shop, and asked me what I needed. I told Kate that I wanted to have the tires I was carrying fitted, replace the spark plugs, the oil, to have the air filter cleaned and the oil leak checked. They told me that there was no problem, and they got started on the regular service while the “master” mechanic, as they called him, was coming. Used to Spanish waiting times at workshops, I thought it would take all day, so I was thinking about getting a bus back to the apartment and come back on the following day to get the bike when the big guy pointed at a comfy leather sofa in the air conditioned back office and said “sit”. I sat there and took out a book. After five minutes of reading I was already bored, so I walked into the office and started talking to Kate. In ten minutes we were sitting at the office’s computer, and she wanted to see all the pictures I had on Facebook from back home. She was really, really nice, and made me feel at home all the time I was there. We talked a lot, she got me some tea, and at lunchtime she even ordered some food we ate together in the office. http://imageshack.us/a/img545/3953/d96e.jpg Shortly before four o’clock, the bike was ready, oil leak repaired and all. It turned out it was a broken chain tensioner seal, and the “master” had just cut a new one and replaced it. All the mechanics and Kate took pictures with me and the bike and wished me good luck, they were all really nice and helpful people. http://imageshack.us/a/img571/7886/dsmz.jpg Back at the apartment, me and Martin went for a swim in the river Volga in the late afternoon, and then had a beer sitting by the river and watching the sunset. It was an amazing moment and it made me think how little I could have imagined I would be here doing this a year ago. Martin is a programmer, and he is working on his laptop while he is travelling. His intention was to stay in the city until Friday, but today he was able to advance some work and he will be joining me on the ride to Astrakhan tomorrow, it will be nice to have some company on the road for a change. At night, Andrey, our host, took us for a traditional Russian version of the Shish Kebab, and I made a new friend. http://imageshack.us/a/img822/7135/9r8s.jpg |
End of part one
Day 16 – Wednesday 10th of July – Volgograd to Astrakhan (425km)
The book I took with me on the trip is ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, by Steinbeck, and riding thorough the barren, almost desert landscape between Volgograd and Astrakhan and seeing the small villages and their wooden houses covered in dust, with haystacks that almost looked as piles of dried mud melting into the landscape, I could not help but think of that story. http://imageshack.us/a/img708/4764/od7u.jpg Seeing such a dry and dusty place and baking in the almost 40ºC heat on the motorbike, it is hard to imagine that temperatures reach -20ºC in winter and snow covers everything. Life here must be very hard. I rode with Martin all the way to Astrakhan, and it was a very nice day. I finally got some pictures and videos of myself and the bike for a change and I also recorded him. http://imageshack.us/a/img41/5305/l5xw.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img855/9052/hpnq.jpg The road was very good and we made it to Astrakhan by four o’clock in the afternoon. The night before I had sent a Couch request to a couple who live in the city, and it turned out that it is the same Couch Lex, the Dutch guy is staying at, so we have met again. Valentin, the guy who is hosting us, had to work today, but there is a very active community of Couch Surfers in the city and they were very excited to know that we were here, so he organized a meeting in the center. He gave us the mobile numbers of a couple of people and told us to go and meet them. We took a 20-minute walk to the center and waited for them at the park. We were about eight people, and other people joined us as we walked across the center and to the river Volga to see the sunset. http://imageshack.us/a/img4/6761/1vj0.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img15/6348/ahlc.jpg It seems that every time I think that a city is going to be boring or uninteresting and I am just going to sleep there and move on, it turns out to be a great place that I regret leaving so quick. Astrakhan is much smaller than Volgograd, and it is the most beautiful city I have seen so far in Russia and Ukraine. Unlike most other cities, it is well taken care of and looks beautiful, the center still has lots of old buildings and traditional wooden houses, and the Kremlin was amazing, even though we could only see the outer walls as it was closed for renovation. http://imageshack.us/a/img822/3748/2cm8.jpg After a long walk we went back to the park where we had met and Martina, a German girl who works for charity and has been living in the city for 10 months, set up a slackline between two trees and we all had a go at it. Quite difficult! Tomorrow Martin and I are heading into Kazahkstan, which means that the easy part of the trip is over. No more beds, no more showers, no more internet. We will ride for about 400km and then camp for the night. After that, we will go our separate ways, me to the North and then the Aral sea, and him into Uzbekistan. I will keep writing, but I do not know when I will have connection to publish posts, probably not before Almaty. These first two weeks have been amazing, I have experiences so many things and met so many people it will still take some time for it all to sink in. Now the difficult part starts. See you soon. |
Camels and oil wells
Day 17 – Thursday 11th of July – Astrakhan to Dossor (455km)
Martin and I set off early this time, and by 8 am we were already on the road, after having stopped to get some juice and pastries for breakfast. We rode out of the city and shortly after came to a big river crossing. I had read on the HUBB that there was no bridge and we would need to keep some rubles before crossing into Kazakhstan to pay for the ferry to cross it. It turned out that there was a bridge, it was one of these pontoon bridges floating on the river and we had to pay 50 rubles to cross it. The surface of the bridge was made of big planks of metal, bent and dented, so it was unbelievably slippery, but we made it to the other side without dropping the bike. From there, it was a short ride to the border, which was surprisingly easy to cross. There was a queue, but we just cut to the front and the guard let us through. We cleared the Russian side without any problem, even though we had not registered with the authorities in the country, and we were not asked for the temporary import papers for the bikes that we had been given when we entered the country from Ukraine. On the Kazak side the borders were friendly and very curious about our trip, it was a shame that we could not take pictures. Using some hand sign language, they told me we could exchange money right there at the customs building, and just across the border there were lots of people also offering to exchange money and sell vehicle insurance. Since my European insurance only covered up until the European part of Russia, I got one which covered me for 20 days for about 27€. http://imageshack.us/a/img14/5451/6iot.jpg The road turned immediately nasty, with lots of potholes that made us ride on the footpegs and we had to be careful not to hit them, as they were deep and with rough edges. An hour or so into the country we stopped for petrol at a small village and from then on the road turned quite better, allowing us to travel at about 80km/h, but still being careful to avoid the occasional deep pothole. We were planning to make it to a town called Dossor, which was about 100km further than I had originally planned to go, but the day had been good and the road was not as bad as we had feared, so we thought we could make it. Shortly before Atyrau we stopped for petrol one last time, as that would be enough to get us there. The landscape in Kazakhstan was quite boring, miles and miles of nothing, just desert, camels and horses and from time to time a village or oil wells. http://imageshack.us/a/img12/4254/87ul.jpg The road after Atyrau was surprisingly good, and we were able to ride fast all the way to Dossor. We stopped for one last time to buy some water and Martin also got a pair of sunglasses he could wear under his goggles, as it was very sunny. As we were getting ready to get back on the bikes, a Belgian guy on a weird bicycle pulled into the petrol station. He was taking part on a race that were riding solar powered bikes from France to Astana, and at that moment he was the leader. http://imageshack.us/a/img818/5230/ol8n.jpg He was into the solar energy business and had designed the bike himself, the told us two of his prototypes were taking part in the race. We wished him luck and warned him about the roads, but he seemed to be confident that the bad roads would not be a problem on his bike. We got to Dossor at about 7 in the evening, and stopped for petrol at a station at the crossroads where we would part ways the following morning, Martin going south to Uzbekistan and me north to Aktobe. We asked the guy at the petrol station where we could camp, and he told us that it would be better to do it behind the building, saying that it would not be safe to camp further outside the town. http://imageshack.us/a/img28/9011/oqbz.jpg Putting up the tents in the wind was quite difficult, and it was unbelievably dusty. In only half an hour the tents were full of desert dust on the inside, and our stuff covered in it. I cooked some risotto on my stove and sat down against the petrol station building to eat it watching the sun set on the desert. http://imageshack.us/a/img202/9451/mdhs.jpg |
Trouble in the desert
Day 18 – Friday 12th of July – Dossor to somewhere in the desert to Astrakhan (655km)
We woke up at sunrise, shortly after 5 in the morning, and by the time we had got the dust off all our stuff and packed the tents, it was already hot. As we were getting ready to leave, we asked the guy at the petrol station about the state of the roads, and he pointed at my route and said “problem, problem”. It seems that the road was in very bad condition, and people went around for 1,500km to avoid the 600km to Aktobe. I had talked to some bikers on the HUBB who had ridden it, and I thought I would take two days and try to make it. I felt quite sad saying goodbye to Martin, it had been three great days riding together, and I would have liked to continue having company. Maybe I should have taken the same route as him through the Stans, I would have had the chance to do the Pamir Highway and the landscape would definitely have been more varied than in Kazakhstan. In any case, it was too late now, I had no visas, so Kazakh desert it was. http://imageshack.us/a/img585/3378/epw3.jpg The road was still good for about 10km north of Dossor, and then it went back to the kind of very potholed asphalt I had found after the border. The bike was shaking so much that I could not see anything on the GPS, so I reached to hold with my left hand for a second to be able to check the distance, when to my horror the whole assembly, GPS and mount came loose and fell. I stopped to see what had happened and after removing the windscreen I discovered the problem. The windscreen is held in place by four screws, and I had replaced the two at the top for longer ones because that was where the GPS mount attached. It seemed that the vibration had made the weight of the whole assembly act as a lever and the screws had loosened and fallen. I put everything back in place, held it with some electrical wire and hoped it would hold. http://imageshack.us/a/img11/2638/u5xu.jpg I rode on and after a while the road became the nightmare I had been warned about. It is relatively easy to ride on dirt or gravel roads, but the problem here is that there had been an asphalted road at some point and now it was gone, leaving just some patches here and there, then disappearing, then reappearing, and it was very hard to try and avoid hitting the rough edges. I made very slow progress, and at one point took one of the paths that trucks had made on the side of the road to avoid it. It was soft sand and in ten minutes, the bike slid at the front and I fell. I was OK, so I removed the tank bag and tried to lift it without removing the rest of luggage. It turned out it is easier on the sand than on asphalt, and I was able to do it on my own. Good thing, because there was nobody else around. I went on, on and off the main road, and about 100km from Dossor I thought I was making decent progress and I would make it to my destination for the day in decent time despite the bad road, when suddenly the bike started handling funny and I had to stop, thinking that I had got a flat tire. I checked, and I was right, the back tire was flat, so I got the compressor out, plugged it and inflated it. Once it was done I started turning it, checking for damage, but I could not see anything despite turning the tire several times. I was starting to wonder how it had gone flat when I saw it – the rim was dented. http://imageshack.us/a/img196/659/yf7l.jpg I had changed the springs on the bike in preparation for the trip, trying to make it a bit more usable off road, but this was still mostly an asphalt and dirt road bike, not a true hardcore endure machine, and the suspension lacked travel compared to a KTM or a BMW and it had bottomed out several times on the harder sections, the rim must have got damaged on one of those occasions. The tire seemed to hold the air, so I weighted my options. I could try and go on to Aktobe, but that was a two day trip on the same kind of roads or worse, and the rim clearly needed repairing or replacing, and that might be hard in Kazakhstan. It seemed that the best option was to head back to Russia, where I had a place to stay and access the internet to arrange for a replacement to be found. I thought about it under the sun for a good while, as that would mean that I could not go back and try this route again, since my Kazak visa only allowed one entry. http://imageshack.us/a/img577/2039/phn1.jpg In the end, I decided to turn back. I started making my way back slowly and carefully, and after ten minutes riding I felt that the tire was flat again. I had not panicked yet, since I had been able to inflate the tire and I thought I could make it back to Russia without much trouble, but when I got the compressor out, plugged it in, flicked the switched and realized to my horror that the thing would not start, I felt panic starting to build up. I was in the middle of nowhere, a hundred kilometers away from the closest city, and I had no way to inflate that tire again. Things were starting to get bad. http://imageshack.us/a/img841/422/wt5l.jpg I thought that I needed to arrange some kind of transport to get the bike to a repair shop, so I stopped a passing van to try and get some help. They were workers from an oil rig, and one of them spoke a little English. He told me that there was no recovery truck anywhere nearby, so there was nothing they could do. He then draw a rudimentary map on my notebook indicating that there was an oil rig or refinery or something like that five or six kilometers down the road and that I should try to make it there and ask for help. I got on the bike and slowly rode in first gear, trying to avoid the roughest parts of the road, but it was impossible not to hit some bad patches from time to time, event riding in first gear. Sweaty and miserable, I made it to the gates of the plant almost an hour later. I called the security guy at the door and tried to explain my problem. We spent at least half an hour with me trying to explain that I needed to get back to Astrakhan and him trying to make me understand that there was no transport to be arranged. The only thing travelling on those roads were oil tankers coming and going from the wells, and it was not possible to put the bike on one of them. Then he asked me if I had dollars, and seemed to indicate that he could fix the wheel. He made some phone calls and then gestured me to take the wheel off the bike, so I took out the tools and got down to it in the scorching heat at the entrance of the plant. http://imageshack.us/a/img809/3263/d86a.jpg Another guy came, apparently a mechanic who worked there, and took the wheel into the plant. He came half an hour later, with the tire inflated but some chunks of lip missing where he had tried to bang it back into shape. I checked it and it seemed to hold the air, so I put it back on the bike, paid them and got back on the road as soon as possible. http://imageshack.us/a/img132/7663/0gdq.jpg I thought that the botch job would not hold for long, and I was already regretting having paid them when I saw a bike approaching o the road. We stopped and it turned out to be a guy called Wesley, from the UK, who was following the same route as me before I broke the rim. He complained about the state of the road (and he was riding a better bike than mine for that kind of stuff) we discovered that we both knew Stephen Stallebrass and we exchanged details. He wished me luck and we parted ways. http://imageshack.us/a/img600/5840/vuan.jpg The botch job got me all the way back to Dossor, where I got some petrol and checked the pressure. I asked several people again, but I got the same answer, no recovery truck, no way to take the bike back into Russia. Seeing that the tire was holding, I decided to try and make it there myself, especially because it was getting darker and the wind was blowing very hard, there was a sandstorm forming. I zigzagged my way out of the petrol station through the queue of huge tankers that were waiting to fill up with diesel in the last town before heading into the desert and into the storm, and started making my way back. The tire held the air well all the way to Atyrau, where I stopped to check the air pressure. It was still OK, so I pushed to the border, hoping to make it to Astrakhan before nighttime. I had avoided the sand storm in Dossor, but the sky was getting dark and there seemed to be heavy rain to my right. It was still very hot, and I did not want to waste time stopping and taking out the waterproof layer for the suit, so I decided to take the risk. About half an hour later the rain started, big drops that soaked me up quickly. Fortunately, it did not last very long, and before getting close to the border I was starting to dry up. I was starting to feel confident that I was going to make it, but then I got to the bad section before the border and hit a couple of potholes; sure enough, the tire went flat again instantly. I limped to a small group of huts by the side of the road, but they did not have a pump. Back on the road, I stopped a couple of Ukrainian tractor heads who connected a hose to the truck’s air system and pumped my tire. I made it to about 10km from the border before it went flat again, and things were getting bad. The sun had set, I was exhausted and the tire did not seem to hold for more than 10km at a time. I limped the last 10 km to the border with a flat tire, and while waiting for the passport and bike papers to be checked, talked to another truck driver who pumped my tire. I was only about 30km from my host’s apartment in Astrakhan, but the tire let go again when I arrived at the pontoon bridge on the river. Crossing it with the bike in perfect conditions was scary, doing it again with a flat tire was absolutely terrifiying. The bike slid all over the place, and more than once I was very close to losing it. Sweaty and shaking, I made it to the other side. I had only 20km to go, and I tried to stop a car to try and plug my compressor into their 12V socket, maybe it was only the socket on my bike that was not working and the compressor itself was ok, but nobody stopped. After a while I saw a petrol station and a girl who had stopped there for petrol let me try in her car. It worked, and that last charge was enough to get me to the apartment, where Lex and and Valentin were waiting for me. It was almost midnight, and never in my life had I been so happy to see somebody. They gave me some dinner, I had a quick shower and just crashed into bed. |
Insurance and SIM cards
Day 19 – Saturday 13th of July –Astrakhan (0km)
Today I spent most of the morning on the phone to my insurer back in Spain, trying to see what options I had and what would be the cheapest solution. In the end they said they could either arrange for the bike to be taken back to Spain or repaired here, but if I chose the second option, I would have to find a place and a replacement part myself. I had been studying my options, and decided that I could not risk another big breakdown like this, but I did not want to cancel the trip, it would be such a pity. I happen to have another rear rim in Barcelona, and the insurance company said they would reimburse the expense of having it shipped to Astrakhan, so I decided to go for that option. After a lot more phone calls and whatsapss, I arranged for my parents to send the rim via UPS or DHL, as both companies have offices in Astrakhan. The problem is that it was Saturday, so everything was closed. We have to wait until Monday get an estimate time of shipping. In the meantime I found a couple of workshops that will replace the rim and when it arrives I just have to call my insurer and they will transport the bike to the workshop I tell them. So I am stuck in Astrakhan, but at least there are very nice CouchSurfers here who will make my time in the city more enjoyable. Once the rim is here, I will be able to see how much time and money I have left and decide how to continue the trip. While I wait, I am trying to find a place to unlock my phone to accept other SIM cards and get a Russian one, since I am now going to be spending most of the reminder of the trip in this country, and roaming calls have cost a fortune so far, but there is nothing to be done until Monday again. In the meantime, I went for a walk and a few beers near the river, and tomorrow I will go for a swim. |
Another swim in the Volga and a tattoo
Day 20 – Sunday 14th of July –Astrakán (0km)
Today I spent the morning updating the blog, counting days and kilometers to see what I can do once the bike is fixed, and I sent an email to Stephen Stallebrass, who did the same route as I am now considering. In the afternoon, Dasha, one of the CouchSurfers from the city took me for a swim in the Volga. We had arranged to meet at a bus stop by the big bridge that crosses the river through an island, which is where the beaches are, and I walked more than 6km in 40ºC heat to get there because I wanted to walk through the center rather than take a bus. http://imageshack.us/a/img850/4136/si5j.jpg The river beach would have been a nice place if it had not been for the fact that there were empty bottles and plastic wrappings everywhere, the Russians can not seem to be able to keep a place other than their own home clean, which is a pity, as it was quite a beautiful place. I went for a swim and then Dasha took out a henna pen and started to practice drawing a tattoo on her leg. She told me that she wanted to make some extra money that summer painting tattoos on people on the beach, and when she was done she asked if she could practice on my arm too, so I got a nice souvenir from Astrakhan. http://imageshack.us/a/img845/9679/qd2u.jpg Back at the apartment I checked my mail and saw that Stephen had replied, with some advice about the route he took. I also tried to find information online to see if I can unlock my phone myself, which might be easier than trying to get some Russians at a phone shop to understand what I need. More news on that tomorrow. |
Good and bad news
Day 21 – Monday 15th of July – Astrakhan (0km)
First of all, the bad news – Today my parents found out that it is not possible to send parcels into Russia, only documents. Fed Ex does send parcels, but with severe weight and value restrictions, and at astronomical prices. So it seemed that it was not possible to get a replacement rim sent from Spain. Plan B it was then. On Saturday, me and Lex had been looking for bikers in the center, as they are always good help, and had found a contact. A guy named Arkan, a real badass by the looks of it, the kind of big Russian guy that never smiled. We got his number and this morning I got Valentin, my host, to call him. He said he would come and have a look, and at lunchtime he turned up in his big black car. He drove us over to the car park where the bike was, barked at the guard to let him drive in and examined the wheel. He said that it could be fixed, and that he would come back the following days with the tools to remove it from the bike. I said I had the tools and could get it out in five minutes, so I did it. Later Valentin told me that they were a bit impressed, as they had thought I was some kind of amateur who had no idea what to do. He put the wheel into the boot and we went off to a really dodgy part of town to find a tire workshop to remove the tire from the rim. After a couple of stops we got it done and then we went to an even rougher part of town in search of a shop were they could repair it, as the one he knew was apparently not able to do it until Wednesday. We eventually found one, but he was not happy about the price they asked nor about the fact that they did not have the equipment to have the wheel balanced once the job was done. I said that I did not mind waiting a bit longer as long as it was done properly, so he took the wheel with him and said that in a couple of days he would have it fixed. So there is the good news. I hope. |
Kustodiev Art Gallery
Day 22 – Tuesday 16th of July – Astrakhan (0km)
Not much to report today, just waiting for news about the rim. To kill some time, I went to visit the Kustodiev Art Gallery, which was quite nice, and then strolled to the city center, read a bit in the park and then found myself a nice café with air conditioning in which to spend the rest of the afternoon reading and enjoying ice tea. |
First news from the wheel
Day 23 – Wednesday 17th of July – Astrakhan (0km)
Today we called Arkan, he said that the wheel is already in the repair shop and it will be ready tomorrow afternoon or Friday morning. As it was quite badly bent not just because of the road in Kazakhstan, but because the mechanic in the oil plant tried to bang it back into shape with a hammer, the result might not be perfect. Let’s see if at least it holds the air well enough to allow me to continue travelling. http://imageshack.us/a/img17/2200/7r05.jpg On the positive side, I discovered why my 12V plug was not working. It is rated at a maximum of 20A, but the guy who installed it had fitted a 10A fuse, which had blown, as the compressor uses 15A. I got news from Martin, from Uzbekistan. Hit a rock on his GS Adventure and bent the front rim as well. A trucker stopped and helped him bang it back into shape. He said it is holding the air, let’s hope he has better luck than me! http://imageshack.us/a/img854/3645/8gs2.jpg |
The rim and a gun
Day 25 – Friday 19th of July – Astrakhan (0km)
Parental advisory – This post might content strong language and references to sex and drugs. This morning at about ten I got great news – Arkan called and said that the rim was already fixed and that he would come over in ten minutes to pick me up and take me to the workshop. Valentin, my host, had been acting as an interpreter all this time, as Arkan did not speak any English at all, but today he had work to do and could not come with us, so he told me to call him if I needed anything. While I was waiting for him, Dasha wrote to me on Facebook and told me that she and her friends were going to go for a swim on the river later in the day, and invited me along. We arranged to meet at half past seven near in the same bus stop as last time. It seemed that after a few really boring days I had some things to do again. I went down to the street and five minutes later Arkan turned up in his black car. We drove to the rough part of town again and he parked in front of a place that looked more like a junk yard than a place that could repair and balance an alloy rim. I was a bit skeptical about the whole thing and how the result would turn out to be, but I had not been able to ask many questions about it due to the language barrier and not wanting to bother my host for translation too much, as I felt I was already abusing his hospitality, having been at his place for a whole week. By now I had learnt that the best thing to do in Russia is just to go with the flow, trust people and let them do their thing, and sure enough, despite the looks of the place, the rim was repaired and it looked very professional. We took it to a tire workshop that did not look much better to have the tire fitted again. The rim problem was finally solved, but I was a bit worried that the tire might be damaged, as I had ridden for long stretches with no air in it and on really bad roads to get back to Astrakhan. Sourcing a new tire might prove to be difficult and I was not looking forward to spending more time stuck here. Fortunately, once the tire was fitted and inflated, the guy in the workshop checked it with water and soap and it did not seem to leak anywhere. He fitted it for free, which was really nice. We took the wheel back to the car park where my bike had been for a week. Having the bike in a car park with 24-hour surveillance might sound as a bit of a luxury for a traveler on a tight budget like me, but it only cost 20 rubles a day, which is less than what you would pay for a bottle of water. Arkan helped me fit the wheel back on the bike and when he saw that the air valve cap was missing, he took one off his own car and gave it to me. He also noticed that my chain protector was not fitted, and I explained that I had lost one of the screws due to the vibrations in Kazakhstan. While I was cleaning and greasing the chain he got Valentin on the the phone, who told me that Arkan had told him to tell me that he would take me to a shop where I could get spare screws to fix it. We got back in the car and he took me not to a shop, but to his own place, where he found a couple of screws that fit and showed me his bike, a Yamaha Fazer 1000. He explained to me that he had had a Honda Fireblade, but had crashed it into the back of a car. I noticed that he had no numberplate on the bike and he told me that it was so that the police could not fine him. Well, rather than explain that, he just made a gesture with his right hand, as if twisting the throttle wide open and said “**** police”. With the screw in my pocket, we got back into his car, and he got back on the phone. I thought he was taking me back to my host’s, but then he handed me the phone again. It was Valentin, who told me that Arkan wanted to take me with him and his kids for a swim. I said I was OK with it, as long as I was back in time to meet Dasha and her friends later. We were driving to the outskirts when we hit a long queue of stopped cars. Without thinking twice, he drove down the street the wrong way and cut to the front of the queue. It turned out it was a level crossing, they are everywhere in Russia and sometimes it takes very long for trains to pass, thus the long queues. We had been waiting for a while, but no trains turned up. Arkan, probably bored of the wait, decided to show me something. He lifted the armrest and took out… a gun. With the two kids in the back seat, who did not seem to be at all surprised. I guess it was not the first time they had seen it. He removed the gun magazine, which was charged with real bullets, removed the bullet from the chamber and gave it to me. It was the first time I had ever held a gun, and I thought that for a first time, it was quite cool that it was an outlaw Russian biker’s gun. I just hoped he did not kill anybody with it before I leave the country, as it now has my prints on it. We finally made it through the crossing and stopped at a small shop to pick up some friends of his – a skinny guy with big tattoos that looked as badass as Arkan, his girlfriend Natasha, in very skimpy clothes and another guy with a stutter and half rotten teeth that made me think of those “Meth? Not even once” memes. http://imageshack.us/a/img545/594/85w8.jpg We went to a beach between a railroad bridge and a dry dock with a rotting ship in it, which might not sound great, but it was much quieter, nicer and cleaner than the beach in the city center. While we were there we talked about the trip and bikes, and compared prices between bikes in Spain, Russia and Georgia, as it turned out that Arkan was not Russian, but from Georgia. Then, best as he could using gestures and drawing in the sand, he explained that he travelled to Germany quite often, apparently on some kind drug-related business, I gathered. The conversation then turned a bit, let’s say uncomfortable. Using gestures and a few English words, they told that Natasha gave great blowjobs – they all seemed to have had a go at that – and then said “tonight, drugs, -Russian word for sex- Natasha” I laughed and played along for a while, but when we were leaving I told them that I was already meeting other people that night, which was true. http://imageshack.us/a/img209/6499/6ls7.jpg We dropped Arkan’s friends back in the shop and on the way back to the center he told me that he was a boxer and also practiced several other martial arts, and pointed at his nose, which had obviously been broken several times. Pointing at his kids and his wedding ring, he indicated that it was a good way to let out steam. He also told me that he used to be into illegal street racing in the past, he had owned an Impreza and an M5, but had given it up when he got married. Back at Valentin’s I thanked him for everything, he had been a really nice guy and had gone out of his way to help me. I packed my things to get ready for departure the following morning and then took one of the Russian microbuses with crazy drivers to the center to meet Dasha, I did not feel like walking almost 7km again. We bought some beer and she took me to a smaller beach on the other side of the island where we had been last time. It was already late, and the sun was setting, it was a beautiful sight, a huge red ball of fire behind the factories on the other side of the river while I was swimming in the cool water. After the sun had set, we got back on the bridge and I discovered that the buses stop running at 9 pm, which meant a long walk back home… But then the guys said that there was no way I was leaving so early, we got a taxi and headed for the place where one of them lived, a really old wooden building dating from before the Russian Revolution. It had veranda overlooking the inner court, and we just sat there in the cool night air having a drink and playing the guitar. It made me think what an amazing experience this trip had been so far, there I was sitting with people I had just met, all of them really nice, offering me their drinks, telling me about the Russian songs they were singing. http://imageshack.us/a/img823/7469/00y1.jpg I left at midnight, as I wanted to get up early the following day for the ride back to Volgograd. It was not especially long and the roads were quite good, but I still did not know how the rim repair would hold, so I wanted to have plenty of time just in case. Dasha walked me home, we exchanged contacts and she wished me good luck with the rest of the trip. |
Decisions, decisions… 80m off the ground
Day 26 – Saturday 20th of July – Astrakhan to Volgograd (450km)
On the road again! It felt so good to be back on the road this morning… The sun was shinning, the bike seemed to work fine and I had found a couch in Volgograd with a guy named Ivan. But before getting to his home, I wanted to make a quick stop at Bike City 34, the workshop where I had had my bike serviced the first last time I was in the city, to see if they could fit a couple of screws to my windshield and GPS support, which was still attached with two pieces of cable. There were menacing clouds ahead, but I made it to the city just after it had rained. Good, but it meant that it was now hot AND damp, not the best conditions to face the city traffic, and even less so with the streets full of puddles hiding the potholes. I met Kate again, who had read about my problems and was very happy to see me again. They had no screws in the workshop, but one of the mechanics took a scooter and went to find some somewhere else, and in the meantime, I bought a couple of summer gloves. Mine had been blown away by a sand storm in Kazakhstan and I had tried to ride from Astrakhan in my winter ones, but it was just too hot and I just rode bare-handed. The mechanic was back soon and they fitted not two, but four screws, using the extra mounting points to change the height of the windshield, so now it was rock solid. I thanked them all and went to meet my host for the night, who lived only a couple of streets away. Ivan was a really nice guy, and we hit it off immediately. I dropped my things at his apartment, had a shower and we quickly discovered that he liked climbing. I told him about vias ferratas and showed him some pictures, and he was really interested in trying it someday. He then called Sasha, a friend of his and said he would take us to see an abandoned factory near his home, another hobby we shared. It turned out to be one of this plants that heated the water for the whole city. Nowadays there are many small ones all over Volgograd, but he told me that in Soviet times they build everthing bigger, and this was supposed to be one of the biggest ones, but it was half completed when the Soviet Union dismembered and it was never finished. All that was left today was an enormous empty building and a 120-metre tall chimney. http://imageshack.us/a/img43/4756/qw3s.jpg This being Russia, the place was wide open and they had only cut the first 6 meters of metal ladder in the chimney to stop people from climbing it, but someone had put a wooden one to reach the first steps, and it was easy to access. Ivan said that he had been to the top many times and that it was safe to climb, so we got on the wooden ladder and started climbing. http://imageshack.us/a/img607/2105/qb8x.jpg I was only wearing shorts and flip flops, and when I got to the metal ladder I saw that it was all bent and rusty, so I had to climb carefully to avoid a nasty cut. As we climbed to the first level of the chimney, the ladder moved and pieces of rust fell, so I started to wonder if it was as safe as Ivan said it was. We made it to the first level, which was about 30 or 40 meters high, and had a walkway all around the chimney. We were already higher than the building around us, and someone had built a wooden structure on the walkway, on the opposite side of the ladder. Ivan told us that some people attached a rope to it and jumped from there. http://imageshack.us/a/img5/8025/tmnx.jpg He convinced us to walk to the next level with a complete walkway, which was three levels up from where we were, the intermediate ones having only small balconies. I was not very sure about it, the ladder looked even worse from there on, but he said that he had done it plenty of times and there was no problem, and I thought that you do not get the chance to do something like that very often, so I decided to keep going. http://imageshack.us/a/img837/8201/7b7i.jpg We stopped for a rest a the next two levels, the views getting more and more spectacular, and then proceeded to the next one. When we get there we were about 80m high, and the sun was setting. We sat down on the walkway and enjoyed the view. http://imageshack.us/a/img600/7727/okzt.jpg It was a good moment to think about the rest of my trip. I could not go back to Kazakhstan because my tourist visa only allowed me one entry, and I had lost a week waiting for the rim to be repaired. On top of that, I had been told to avoid bad roads if I did not want more trouble with the bike. I had realized that despite having changed the springs, the suspension was still too low and it did not have enough travel to handle the worst roads with the bike fully loaded, so if I wanted to go to Ulaanbaatar I would have to do it on good roads. That meant riding through Russia all the way to Irkutsk and then down to Ulaanbaatar. It was a long and possibly boring way, doing 600-800km a day to keep on schedule. When I was planning the trip, Ulaanbaator was not the final destination, it was just the point I had chosen to turn back. The real trip was all that I wanted to see and experience between my home and there, and I thought there was little point in pushing to get there just to say I had been there. Moreover, the first three weeks I had been travelling quite fast, stopping only for one night at most places, and after meeting so many great people I felt I was missing the most important thing in this trip – the trip itself and the people, that is what was important, not the final destination. I had two months to travel, and it did not really matter which way I went. I wanted variety, I did not want to follow a schedule. So I decided that I would head north, take it easier and spend some more time at each place I liked. We headed down again, and I noticed that some of the screws that held the ladder against the chimney were missing. Nice… We made it back on the ground in one piece, and then Ivan and I bought a pizza and he took me to the center, where he and his wife had just opened a hostel, and we had dinner there with a couple from Astrakhan who were going on a hiking tour for a couple of weeks. The following morning I started my new route, destination: Moscow. It was about 1000km, so I had to split that in two. |
Now I finally know why you didn't continue on the Strom.... ;-)
My wife and I are leaving next year for a RTW 2-up on a 1000 V-Strom. |
The longest ride
Day 27 – Sunday 21th of July – Volgograd to Voronezh (783km)
Ivan had told me that the road north to Voronezh was really bad, so it was better to head west and meet the M4, the motorway connecting Moscow to the coast. I took his advice and set off later than I wanted, at about 11, but he was such a nice guy that it was hard to leave… we just kept talking and talking over a delicious breakfast. I rode west for about 350km, the GPS refusing to give me a route to Voronezh, so I thought I would try to reprogram it once I got to the M4. About 80 km from there, though, it just froze, and no matter how many times I restarted it, it refused to show me a map or accept a destination. I stopped to see if I could fix it somehow and to put the waterproof layers on the jacket, as it was getting very cloudy, but I did not manage to get the GPS to work. Quite annoyed, I rode on and it started to pour down. I had thought it would not be very bad, so I had not put the waterproof layer on the trousers, but it was raining hard and it was darker ahead. I was also running out of petrol, so I just stopped at the first petrol station I found and put on the layer. It was already 4 pm, and when I asked the lady there how far it was to Voronezh she said 700km. My heart sank. There was no way I could make it today, but I had made a reservation in a hostel Ivan had recommended, and it was already paid for. With no GPS and no idea how the road ahead would be, I just thought I would ride on and stop for the night in the first motel I found. I looked for accommodation on the GPS and surprise, it worked. It gave me a hostel on the M4, the road I was looking for, and it was not far. Once I found the M4, it turned out to be a dual carriageway, not in great condition, but it enabled me to travel a bit faster, at least. It stopped raining and the sun came up, so my spirits lifted again. I decided to keep going as far as I could and then find another place to spend the night. Soon, I saw a sign that read 440km to Voronezh. I was doing 120-130km/h, so it was doable. I decided to try and get there before nighttime. However, a few kilometers down the road, the dual carriageway vanished, and I run into a nightmare of traffic jam and roadworks. I could not believe that a main road leading to the capital was a crappy two-lane road going through every single village and town on the way. I was already starting to regret having made the decision to take the detour to find the M4, even if the road was bad from Volgograd, at least there would have been no traffic jams and I would have saved almost 400km. A while later though, things changed again. The road went back to a dual carriageway and the GPS miraculously started working again. I think it had been having trouble with the bit that was under construction. It now estimated that I could get there at 10pm, which was not bad. I pushed on and a while later I saw a motorbike coming up behind me. It was a white KTM on Russian plates, and after a while of riding together, the guy signaled to stop at a petro station. I pulled in with him and went over to say hi. He spoke very little English, and told the best he could that he was from Moscow and heading back home. I told him that I was going there too, and spending the night in Voronezh, so he decided to come with me, as he was not going to get home that night. http://imageshack.us/a/img689/6629/dvzr.jpg The road was better and he rode quite fast, riding on the hard shoulder or on the oncoming lane when there were traffic jams, so I thought ‘when in Rome, do as Romans do’, and followed him. We got to the hostel half an hour later, at half past nine, and I was very happy to have a shower and some dinner. http://imageshack.us/a/img163/8430/w9ht.jpg While we were eating, he told me that he was leaving at 4 am the following morning, as he had to be back at work by 9. I was staying for an extra day to have time to catch up with the posts, so he gave me his address and told me that I was going to stay at his place in Moscow and that he would show me around the city. Russian hospitality is amazing! I agreed to meet him in Moscow on Tuesday and went to bed early. |
Blogging in Voronezh
Day 28 – Monday 22th of July – Voronezh (0km)
This morning I walked into the kitchen to find a couple of girls from Moscow who were travelling to Azerbaijan and Georgia. We got talking and one of them told me she was also a biker, she had Triumph back in Moscow. She told me a couple of websites that are very active in the biking community in Russia, one of then to help bikers who have problems on the road, and gave me her number in case I needed anything for the trip. Nice girls. I decided to spend the morning visiting the city and then go back to the hostel in the afternoon and write all the posts I had no written on the previous day. As it always seems to happen, Voronezh was a much nicer city than expected, I wandered around its streets, went down to the river, back to the center, found a place to eat and escape a bit of rain and back to the hostel. http://imageshack.us/a/img543/2875/bzov.jpg When I got to the front door I found a GS with Serbian plates, It was a couple travelling east, with no fixed plans, possibly going as far as Vladivostok. We spend a long time talking bikes and travelling in the kitchen, and they gave me some advice about the route to the NordKapp, as some of their friends had been there. Then they went for a walk and I spent the rest of the evening writing, which took much longer than I thought. |
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The extra power of the 1000 will probably be welcome if you are riding two up, but I have to say that riding with my girlfriend and as much luggage as the bike would take on Alpine mountain passes, the 650 was powerful enough, in spite of what lots of people might say around here. The best thing, however, is reliability - these things are indestructible, I'd take the same bike again if were to do a RTW (albeit with some changes to raise the suspension) |
Russian hospitality
Day 30 – Wednesday 24th of July – Moscow (0km)
I woke up at about 8 am after a very good night’s sleep, and while I was folding the sofa bed back into a sofa, I noticed a delicious smell coming from the kitchen. I walked in to find a wonderful breakfast waiting for me – eggs, sausages, toast, coffee… Ilia told me that he had called his job and taken the day off so that he could show me around Moscow. We talked about our respective jobs over breakfast, and got to know each other a bit better despite the language barrier. I was surprised to find that he was a major with the Russian army, and his job involved security in the city, liaising with the police. His father had also been in the army, as well as his grandfather, who had fought against the Germans in WWII in the Black sea. He showed me his medals. http://imageshack.us/a/img600/2438/75rn.jpg After breakfast we took the bus and then the metro and went to see the VDNKh Park, which used to be a kind of universal exposition but only of the countries that formed the former USSR. The exhibition covers a vast area, and to give you an idea of the size of the city, this was all still in Ilia’s neighbourhood, which was not the center. We walked around the pavilions, drank Kbac, saw a rocket like the one that put Gagarin in orbit, a Yak-42, the fountain representing all the soviet republics and then took a ride on a ferris wheel that presented us with a great view of the area. At the other end of the exhibition we walked past the space museum and the imposing Cosmos hotel, with a statue of Charles DeGaulle in front of it. http://imageshack.us/a/img844/3514/o3og.jpg The underground took us to the center, were we visited the Tretyakov gallery, containing some of Russia’s finest artist’s woks. From there, we took a walk across the Moskva river and I saw the Kremlin for the first time. http://imageshack.us/a/img62/9798/1jrt.jpg There are some cities that are so embedded into popular culture that they somehow become part of a collective subconscious, and when we visit them for the first time, they feel familiar, as if we had been there before. That was the feeling I had when I walked past the Kremlin’s main entrance, around the corner and into the Red Square. My second thought was ‘how did Mathias Rust manage to land a plane here?’ as the square looked smaller than I had imagined. Part of the blame for this impression lay with the fact that there was some kind of religious music concert going on at the square, and they had erected a huge stage that completely ruined the view of the place. Talk about bad luck… http://imageshack.us/a/img27/8740/r4c6.jpg We went for lunch at a place called My-My (pronounced Mu-Mu) which is a Russian fast food chain, and then visited the interior of the Kremlin. On the way back home, Ilia took me on a tour of the most spectacular underground stations in the city, with their great halls, sculptures and lamps. http://imageshack.us/a/img441/8995/xkdl.jpg It had been an exhausting but wonderful day, and I decided to leave straight for St. Petersburg the following morning, as I had seen what I had planned to see in Moscow and I wanted to make sure I had time to complete my route and visit everything I wanted to visit on the way down from the Nordkapp. After dinner, however, Ilia had one more surprise in store for me. He waited until dark, and with no traffic on the streets, he took me on his car for a night tour of the city. It was great, not only because I got to see the main streets, but also because being a passenger meant that I could appreciate what I was seeing. The problem with riding in Russia is that you have to concentrate 100% in what you’re doing. Take your eyes off the road to look at the landscape or a building, you hit a pothole, you fall and you die. Take your eyes off the traffic around you, a huge truck changes lane, crushes you and you die. Take one hand off the handlebar to rest or touch the GPS screen, your front wheel catches a rut, the bike flips and you die. All this means that you really do not have time to see anything else than the road and the traffic for miles and miles, so the night drive across the city was a welcome break. To culminate the drive, Ilia took me to a place in front of the university where bikers meet. Now, if you ever hear that there are a lot of bikers in Moscow and think that it might not be that many, because you do not see a lot on the streets, visit this place. There are hundreds of them, every single night of the week, gathered there. It was getting cold, so we headed back home, sat down and drank some beer that Ilia had bought earlier. I regretted having to leave the following morning, he had been a wonderful guest, but I had a long ride to the next city and an even longer ride to the north. |
Never trust a weatherman
Day 31 – Thursday 25th of July – Moscow to St. Petersburg (708km)
I will get the best thing of the day out first, as it was practically the only good thing that happened today. This morning Ilia let me have a go on his KTM, and I loved it! I have always liked this bike, and I have been seriously considering one when the time comes to replace my V-Strom. I took it for a short spin and it felt great, responsive, powerful, comfortable and the suspension soaked up the potholes with complete ease. Ilia told me that it is so good on bad roads that he does not even bother checking the road ahead, he just goes. He had to go into training today and the shooting range he was going to was on the road to St. Petersburg, so he told me he would ride with me for a while. I was very happy to have him in front of me to navigate the way out of Moscow and out of the heavy traffic surrounding the city. We made a short stop at his wife’s job to say goodbye and take some pictures, and then went on. The traffic was quite bad, but it was to be expected, what I did not expect was the road after I had left Ilia at the crossroads to the shooting range and promised to meet again either in Russia or Barcelona. The road coming from the south was a nice motorway that made the long ride easy, so I was confident that the one connecting the two most important cities in the country would be even better, making light work of the 700km I had ahead of me. I really do not understand what kind of planning goes into Russian roads. Who in their right mind would think it is a good idea to have a two-lane road going through every single city, town and village between Moscow and St. Petesburg? I just could not believe that this was true. It took me forever to cover the first 200km away from the capital, it was an endless traffic jam, with cars and trucks completely stopped at some sections, drivers off chatting patiently to one another. If I had not been on a motorbike, I might still be there. Piece of advice – if you ever come to Russia, use a bike or the train. Do NOT take a car or you will spend your holidays in a traffic jam. Fortunately, half way there the road became a dual carriageway and I was finally able to make some good progress. The problem now, however, was the rain. I had checked the weather forecast before setting off, and it said that it would be cloudy in Moscow and sunny in St. Petersburg. Well, it was not. I do not know if weather forecasting is officially considered a science, but it definitely should not be. Like faith healers, tarot card readers, fortune tellers and economists, meteorologists are a bunch of charlatans that most of the time have no idea what is going on. They might be quite good at studying past weather and drawing statistics, and from time to time they might glance at their fancy radar and tell you where there are clouds and which way the wind is blowing, but accurately predict the weather? No way. A peasant who has spent his whole life sitting outdoors and learning to read the signs might be able to tell you if there is going to be sun or a storm in his area, but someone sitting behind a computer at a desk? Nope. It poured down all the way to St. Petersburg. All 700km. And to make things more interesting, I had completely forgotten a small but important detail – my GPS comes with very good maps for Europe, but not the rest of the world, so when planning the trip I complied and downloaded a map from Open Street Maps that covered the countries I was going to visit outside Europe. I had not included all of Russia, as it was huge and I was only going to travel through certain parts of it, so just outside St. Petersburg, I ran out of map. I had to stop, take out my mobile phone, find the hostel’s address on Google Maps and then memorise the way to get there, as I did not have anywhere to put the phone while riding. Fortunately, the traffic in the city was nowhere near as bad as in Moscow, in fact it was very quiet, and I got to the hostel without any problems. As I have discovered is usual practice in Russia, there was no sign at all indicating where the hostel was, so I just parked the bike in the street and walked up the stairs of the building at number 9, hoping there would be a hostel somewhere. There was, and the girl at reception very kindly walked down to the street with me and showed me a gate leading to an inner court where I could park the bike for the night. http://imageshack.us/a/img801/334/dtl5.jpg The hostel was quite nice, in a very cool old building in the center. The other floors were occupied by a Jazz bar, an independent cinema, a dance school and a roof bar. A good place to stay. It is a shame that it is somewhat spoiled by the staff, the girls were nice enough, but the two guys could not care less about the hosts – they did not show me the facilities, did not give any information about the city or the hostel’s surroundings and were completely ignorant of the hosts. One of them was more interested on playing videogames in the common room computers and playing music until well past 1am and the other in his girlfriend to the point I wondered whether they were two teenagers on holiday at the hostel rather than staff. I went for walk around the area, which looked really nice, and then spent the rest of the evening planning the route ahead and trying to find accommodation in the following cities. http://imageshack.us/a/img560/4305/ng7s.jpg Ah! And I finally found a Russia sticker for the motorbike. |
A drink on the rooftop
I got up late today, I really needed a long sleep after yesterday’s ride, and then I checked my food stash and made a shopping list for the following two weeks, as I will mostly expect to camp in Finland and Norway to keep costs down. I did some shopping, sent a couple of CouchSurf requests and then went out to explore the city.
And what a city! It went straight to the the top of the list of my favourite cities. It is beautiful, absolutely nothing to do with any other city in Russia, with its canals, river, majestic buildings… It is imposing, grand and at the same time welcoming, it combines an air of classicism with an undeniable feeling of cool and trendiness, and people look very central European rather than Russian. I really wish I could spend a few weeks here, as the city is definitely worth it. In the evening I went up to the bar on the roof, which turned out to be a time café, where you pay for the time you spend there rather than the drinks, and you can have as many tea, coffee or lemonade as you want. I sat on a hammock and read my book as the sun set over the roofs of the city, casting a red glow over my drink. You could really tell I am already further north, as the sun set well past half past ten, at there was light until eleven. I will leave you with a few pictures, and check out the Facebook page for the whole album. http://imageshack.us/a/img69/2161/uk55.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img826/1627/7iqk.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img842/2323/wjqs.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img689/4666/02yl.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img542/7770/tj03.jpg |
Thank you for sharing your story :-)
I`m in too :thumbup1: 6 Moths ago i was too in St. Petersburg, nice to remember that time while watching your Pictures! Surfy |
The Hermitage
Day 33 – Saturday 27th of July – St. Petersburg (0km)
Today I spent the whole day at the Hermitage museum. There are lots of things to see and do in St. Petersburg, but I can tell you that if you are an art lover, it is worth paying for a plane ticket and Russian visa only to see this place. They have an amazing collection, and I could have spent another day there. I cannot share any pictures with you because I was not allowed to take any, I am on a tight budget and I preferred to spend my money on an audio guide to make the most of the visit rather than on a photo permit and spend the day like Asian tourists did – racing from one piece of art to another, taking one picture of the painting, another of the label next to it. I wonder if they really appreciated any of the paintings at all or they were just taking trophies to show their friends and relatives back home. Anyway, anything I could tell you about the collection or the building, which itself is more than worth the visit, would be wasted words, as words do not do justice to either, so come and see for yourself. |
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It is indeed a fascinating city, and quite a surprise compared to everything else I had seen in Russia |
No more Russian roads
Day 34 – Sunday 28th of July – St. Petersburg – Joensuu (419km)
And I cannot say I will miss them… A few days ago I was riding to St. Petersburg, a long ride, and I realized that it had been a while since I had had fun on a road. Ever since I went into Ukraine, I had been on main roads, because the back roads were in appalling conditions or simply non-existent. From enjoying wonderful European country roads I had gone to just riding in pretty much a straight line all day, hot, sweaty, eating dust and smoke from trucks, watching out for ruts and potholes… the road had changed from something I had fun on to something to get out of the way before reaching the next destination. I had been doing this for so long I had forgotten that I was supposed to enjoy the ride! Today, the road away from St. Petesburg was a good dual carriageway, and then it turned into a beautiful country road that reminded me of how enjoyable these roads are. The landscape had also changed, and if it were not for the road signs, I would have sworn I was already in Finland, not in Russia. However, this was still Russia, and in Russia you cannot trust a road for long. The minute you think ‘wow, this is a nice one’ and think it is going to stay that way to your destination, it just turns to complete crap. There is no logic to it either, it does not follow province boundaries, proximity to cities or any other rational criteria, it just changes suddenly from motorway to gravel road, to broken asphalt, to no road, to new unpainted asphalt… you never know what is coming next. http://imageshack.us/a/img51/7178/ilvn.jpg In my case, a dusty gravel road for almost 100km. By the time I was near the Finnish border and it was tarmac again, I was white with dust, so I was very, very happy to cross the border. However, I will miss Russia. It has been an amazing experience and the people I have met there have been wonderful. Back in the UE, the road was lovely, smooth, new tarmac. Then something strange happened. The speed limit was 80km/h, and people were sticking to it. No crazy overtaking. Nobody pulling out in front of me, everybody waited patiently on the side before driving onto the road. Speed cameras in every town. And I thought ‘this is boring’. I could not overtake whenever and wherever I felt like it, or go as fast as I would have liked to go on those roads… I suddenly missed Russian craziness! The wonderful landscape, and the fact that I could actually appreciate it because there were no more potholes waiting to kill me more than made up for it, though, and I had a very enjoyable last part of the day until I got to the hostel where I was spending the night. http://imageshack.us/a/img819/2813/y7zw.jpg It was a really nice place, I parked my bike in the back yard, where there was a barbecue and a couple of picnic tables, cooked some food and then sat outside to finish The Grapes of Wrath with a cup of coffee in my hand. http://imageshack.us/a/img713/3913/mg6k.jpg And what a book it was! I had started reading shortly before I entered Russia, and it really got to me. A harrowing story, but definitely worth it. I will leave you with a fragment I read, ironically, shortly after having broken the rim: And his thought and his worry were not any more with rainfall, with wind and dust, with the thrust of crops. Eyes watched the tires, ears listened to the clattering motors, and minds struggled with oil, with gasoline, with the thinning rubber between air and road. Then a broken gear was a tragedy. Then water in the evening was the yearning, and food over the fire. Then health to go on was the need and the strength to go on and the spirit to go on. The wills thrust westward ahead of them, and the fears that had once apprehended drought or flood now lingered with anything that might stop the westward crawling. |
What a great adventure you are having! Love the write up and the pics.
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The only reason why I have the 1000 and not the 650 is that I could buy one with only 25kkm on it for 5000€. Otherwise I would have been going for the 650 for sure, as this one likes fuel. A lot. ;-) |
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The Winter War
Day 35 – Monday 29th of July – Joensuu to 5km north of Ruka (539km)
For the first time since I left Barcelona, I got up this morning, fired up the engine and rode onto the road without a fixed destination nor a number of kilometers to cover for the day. I had been unable to find a cheap hostel anywere, and the couch requests I had sent to Rovaniemi had been declined or gone unanswered, so I had decided to just ride and then find a campsite or somewhere to camp in the wild then I got tired. The previous day I had stopped at a petrol station at the corner of the street where the hostel was and bought a road map. The GPS had been of great help so far, but it had also kept me on main roads, which was fine in Russia, since anything other than main roads would be a nightmare to ride, but now I wanted to explore the back roads, I had to cover about 400km a day to get to the Nordkapp on schedule, which was not much taking into account how good the roads where in Finland, so I wanted to see the road network in detail and pick a route away from the main roads. Shortly after leaving Joensuu I saw that the main road went to the left of a big lake, and there was a smaller road to the right that went closer to the shore, even closer if I took a smaller road branching out of the first one. I went for it, and discovered a wonderful road. http://imageshack.us/a/img689/5092/onqf.jpg It was sunny, the temperature was perfect, the views breathtaking, I had my music on and there was nobody else around. It had been a long time since I had had such a good time on the motorbike, and then the road turned into a gravel road, but not a Russian gravel road, a Finnish one, which are very good, and it was even more fun, riding on the footpegs, kicking up dust at 100km/h. http://imageshack.us/a/img43/6366/8np4.jpg I had started early, as I had got up at about 7 am, impossible to sleep more with the sun shinning as it does so early this far up north, and the first 200km felt more like 20. I stopped for petrol for the first time in Finland, the last fill-up had been in Russia just before the border, and was glad to discover that while it was a bit more expensive than in Spain, the price was still within budget and lower than Italy, the most expensive I had paid so far. I also checked the prices at the petrol station café and they were also very reasonable, I had a menu for 8€. While I was outside the café putting all the gear back on a KTM parked next to me. It was an Adventure S in Dakar colours, in pristine condition. I told the rider ‘nice bike’ and ten seconds later I was back inside, having coffee with him and talking bikes. His name was Sami and he was a photographer from Helsinki. He told me that he was exploring the gravel roads along the border with Russia, and since he was also going north from Kuhmo, where we had stopped, he invited me to join him. As I had plenty of time and no schedule for the day, I was happy to have some company. http://imageshack.us/a/img163/7092/35oj.jpg We rode on back roads for about 100km, but not gravel, since there were no gravel roads near the border in that area, and then we he waved at me to stop. We had just passed a building at a crossroads and he asked me ‘are you interested in history?’ ‘Sure’ I said. It turned out that the building behind us was a museum about the Winter War, and the road to the right, the road that used to lead to Russia where the most important battle had taken place. http://imageshack.us/a/img809/8783/4mus.jpg There were still some pieces of artillery scattered along the road, and Sami gave me a very interesting history lesson. He was very knowledgeable, and he had even used some of the actual artillery guns the Finns had captured from the Russians in that battle during his military service. We rode the gravel road for a while, saw a memorial and then went back to the main road. A while later we came to a crossroads, and we parted out ways, as I wanted to try and go further north before sunset and he was going to get some food in the next big town and then go off road and find a place to camp. He gave me his contact and told me to get in touch when I was in Helsinki. Before leaving, he gave me one last piece of advice: I was soon going to cross into the Lapland region, and he told me that there were a lot of reindeer walking around and it was dangerous to cars and especially motorbikes. I thanked him, and sure enough, about half an hour later I saw the first one, lazily walking down the road. I slowed down and rode past it, but it disappeared into the forest before I could stop to take a picture. After that, I saw dozens of them. At about 7 pm I stopped to buy some food and then started looking for a place to spend the night. There were lakes everywhere, and I fancied camping near the shore and maybe have a swim, and a few miles out of town I saw the entrance to a campsite. I asked and it was only 7€, so I decided to stop there, it would be nice to be able to have a shower. The campsite was just an open grass field by the lake, and you could put your tent wherever you wanted. I camped, and since it was still early, I cleaned and greased the chain, took the panniers off the bike and rearranged my stuff, getting rid of a few things I had not used and was not going to, trying to shed some weight. http://imageshack.us/a/img15/5163/3l4w.jpg I also did some repair work on the straps that held the jerrycan in place. The vibrations had managed to cut one of the two straps and the other one was badly frayed, so I repaired one and reinforced the other with duct tape. http://imageshack.us/a/img12/8232/vkzg.jpg There had only been really bad vibrations in Kazakhstan, so I was surprised to see that the straps had failed. After discovering it when the rim broke, I had secured the jerrycan with some rok straps until I could find a better solution. I had bought the whole thing, jerryan, support and straps from Touratech, and they are supposed to be high quality products for trips just like this. I doubt the straps would have lasted more than a week in Kazakhstan, so it was a disappointment. I took some pictures and they will definitely hear from me when the trip is finished. http://imageshack.us/a/img593/3379/50pm.jpg I cooked dinner on my stove and then sat by the lake before going into the tent to write a bit. It was a magical moment, and I felt relaxed as I had not been for weeks, in complete harmony with myself and my surroundings. This was what I was looking for. Gazing across the lake, with my bike and my tent behind me, I felt I did not need anything else. It was almost midnight when I went into the tent, and there was still enough light to be able to sit outside and read a book without problems. I wondered whether it would get dark at all that night. http://imageshack.us/a/img845/2971/8yom.jpg |
WiFi in the wild
Day 36 – Tuesday 30th of July – 5km north of Ruka to 10km north of Ivalo (429km)
I woke up shortly before 6 am, and even though I took my time to have breakfast and pack everything up, I was on the road fairly early. I had removed the thermal layers from the suit the day before as it was boiling hot, but today the day started cloudy and chilly, so at 10 am, seeing that it was not getting any warmer, I stopped, put them back on and switched to the winter gloves. I had chosen a route close to the border to avoid main roads again, and rode all morning on my own, on narrow deserted country roads that took me through lakes, woods and swamps. The landscape was beautiful, but in the cold gray morning it was also desolate at times, and I could very easily imagine how hard it must have been in winter for the ill-equipped soldiers that had to make their way across these lands. http://imageshack.us/a/img194/8108/v1us.jpg By midday I had covered a lot of distance, and the day had improved a bit. I stopped at a café to have some lunch and had a short chat with two Swiss bikers coming down from Norway. They told me that the weather there had been miserable for the last few weeks. That worried me a little, as I was counting on camping all the way in Finland, Norway and Sweden… Seeing that it was early and I was making very good progress, I started considering the options I had. It was too early to call it a day and stop for the night in Finland, so I could keep going and get as close to the Nordkapp as possible to be there early the following day and camp already on my way down along the Norwegian coast or I could keep going straight north instead of taking the main route to the northeast and then ride along the northern coast of Norway to reach the Nordkapp in the evening in time to see the midnight sun. In the end though, a sharp muscular pain in my chest, possibly from a bad sleeping position the previous night, meant that I decided to get to the last big town in Finland and find a place to sleep. I was going to go a bit further before starting to look for a place, as it was only 6 pm, but then I saw a sign indicating a campsite by a lake, and I had a feeling that it would be a good place. I have always trusted my gut when it comes to finding a good place during the trip and it has normally turned out to be right. This time was no exception. The campsite was more expensive than the previous one – 15€ a night – but the much better facilities made up for the price, especially the fact that despite basically being a forest by a lake, they had wifi, which meant that I could write this post while lying in my sleeping bag. As it was early, I decided to take the evening to relax, and went down to the lake for a swim. The water was crystal clear and very cold, but it felt wonderful. I sat for an hour in the sun, drying off and reading my new book: Fahrenheit 451. http://imageshack.us/a/img89/7707/02da.jpg Just before going to bed I was heading down to the lake again to take some pictures, as the sky was a very nice shade of violet with the midnight sun, when I saw a man arrive on a bicycle and stop next to my tent. I noticed that he had something written on his back, and when I got closer to say hi I saw that it said ’10,000km’. I told him that was the distance I had covered so far on my motorbike, and he told me that he was riding around Scandinavia in 8 weeks, doing as much as 260km a day. Or rather a night, as he preferred to ride nights. Or days, as it never gets dark here. Oh well, it is a bit confusing… I told him where I was going and he recommended a couple of places to see, one further to the east than the Nordkapp, the other, 9km on foot from the Nordkapp, which is the real northernmost point in Europe. It all sounds very tempting, tomorrow I will decide how I plan my route for the day. http://imageshack.us/a/img843/7123/dlnq.jpg |
Tanahorn
Day 37 – Wednesday 31st of July – 10km north of Ivalo to Berlevag to 6km from Bekkarfjord (626km)
I decided that since I still had 12 days to get to Helsinki, and I was probably only going to have the chance to explore this part of the world on a motorbike once in a lifetime, I would take the advice I had been given the day before and make a little detour to visit some places. The first one, and the one that the man I had met the previous night had insisted the most on visiting, was the Tanahorn, a peak on the coast near Berlevag, three big fjords east of the Nordkapp, from which I was told I would have wonderful views if the weather was good. He called it ‘his Nordkapp’, and that was enough to make me want to visit it. My father loves the mountains and everything related to them, and he has a few places he likes to call his own. When he talks about one of those places, I know it is a special place, normally away from what most people visit and of outstanding beauty, so when I heard that man describe it in those words, I could not resist the visit. It took me all morning to ride there, including crossing the border into Norway. Once in fjord land, I had to go a long way north on a road that I would have to undo later, as it did not lead anywhere else, but the views alone were worth the trip. http://imageshack.us/a/img191/2159/fl7k.jpg The road followed the coast near the water, winding its way along the fjord, the day was beautiful and the air cool, it was another road to put down in my book of favourites. Once I got to Berlevag I had to go on for a few kilometers on an unpaved road, and then I saw a couple of parked cars and a sign indicating the path up the hill. I left everything on the bike an started walking dressed in riding gear, as it was a bit cold and since it was only about 3km I did not bother to get changed. http://imageshack.us/a/img27/5895/sl8x.jpg Soon I was sweating despite the cold, and had to take off the jacket an carry it under my arm. The path went up over gentle slopes and soon the Tanahorn came into view. It was a sharp rocky peak that stood out in the distance, with a mound of rocks built on top of it. http://imageshack.us/a/img163/1047/i5an.jpg In about 20 more minutes I reached the top, and the views were more than worth the ride and the walk up there. http://imageshack.us/a/img713/2840/cgzj.jpg The sky was clear, and I had a perfect view of the sea and the surrounding fjords, the cliffs and the rocky slopes going all the way down to the beaches, covered in pieces of wood that the sea had carried from Siberia. It was amazing. http://imageshack.us/a/img560/6515/2296.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img801/373/nsv2.jpg I took out the notebook that was there and left a quick note. Then I sat, relaxed and enjoyed the feeling of the sun on my face for a while before heading back down, as I still had a long way to the Nordkapp and I was not sure I would make it that day. Back on the bike I studied the route on the GPS and hesitated between heading straight to the Nordkapp or going up to the other point between here and there, where there was the northernmost lighthouse in Europe. Trying to make it to the Nordkapp that day would have been too much, so I decided to take it easy and visit the lighthouse. I had to undo a long way, and by the time I was back on the main road, it had already got late and I was quite tired. I started making my way up the road that lead to Mehamn, but I realized I would get there quite late, so I decided to look for a place to set up my tent and spend the night. You can camp anywhere you want in Norway as long as it is more than 150 meters from a house, so it sounds quite easy, but the difficult terrain means that it takes a while to find a good spot. After a while, I found it. It was on a very gentle slope going to the end of a very small fjord, hidden away from the road, with beautiful views and easily accessible on the bike. I rode down and set camp. http://imageshack.us/a/img850/2404/gkyz.jpg However, things started to go wrong soon. When I tried to cook dinner, my stove decided to stop working, so I had to collect wood and make a small fire to be able to have a hot supper. Then, when I went to bed, a very strong wind started. It was not constant, it was just sudden gusts of wind that blew wildly for a few minutes, from a different direction each time. It made the tent flap loudly, and to make matters worse, at about 4 am, I hear a crashing noise outside. I open the tent to discover that the wind had toppled my bike, which was lying on its side. I put it up again, saw that there was no damage done and turned it so that it offered less resistance to the wind. I went back into the tent and tried to get some sleep. |
The Nordkapp
Day 38 – Thursday 1st of August – 6km from Bekkarfjord to Slettnes to the Nordkapp (609km)
The strong wind woke me up at 6 am, and since there was not way I was going to manage to sleep again with that noise, I got up. I crawled out of the tent to find that the bike was on its side again, and this time when I lifted it I saw that the left side front indicator had broken. The front indicators stick out a long way on the V-Strom, they are a really poor piece of design and the first thing that breaks when you drop the bike, but I could not believe that after coming all this way and having survived falls in the Kazak desert, it had to happen here. http://imageshack.us/a/img440/50/8q3j.jpg The wind was so strong that I did not feel very comfortable leaving the bike there while I packed everything and got ready to go, so I folded the tent as fast as I could in the strong wind, strapped everything on and got the hell out of there without even having breakfast. Not that I could mind you, the stove did not work. As soon as I found a more sheltered place, I stopped and taped the pieces of indicator together. The repair seemed to hold, so I thought I would leave it like that instead of trying to find a new one which would probably cost a fortune here. I rode the 100km that I had not finished the previous day and as usually happens, saw plenty of good spots where I could have spent the night if I had gone a bit further. I was running low on petrol, so I checked on the GPS and saw that there was petrol station in Mehamn, the last town before the lighthouse. When I got there, however, the pump was not working, and the man at the petrol station told me that I could either wait until 4 or 5 in the afternoon or go to Kjøllefjord, which meant riding back 13km to the last junction and then 23km to the town. I got there with the last bar on the fuel indicator flashing, praying the petrol station there was open, as the last one was more than 100km south. It was open, and after filling up I rode up again and to Slettnes, where the lighthouse was. http://imageshack.us/a/img5/8117/s0yn.jpg It was 10 am and I was in the middle of nowhere, so there was not a single soul in the lighthouse. This was my own private Nordkapp, away from tourists. The lighthouse itself was made of metal, the only one of its kind in Norway and the northernmost lighthouse in Europe. I took a walk around it and then went to the Nordkapp, which was just across the fjord. I could almost see it in the distance, but getting there by road meant a detour that would take all day. That was not a problem, as my plan was to get there just in time to find a campsite and then ride the last few kilometers to the Nordkapp after dinner, in time to see the midnight sun. On the final 100km, once I was on the road that only led to the Nordkapp I started seeing what I had not seen all morning or the previous day – lots of tourist coaches and bikers. The Nordkapp is on an island, but there was no need to take a ferry, a 6km-long tunnel cut into the rock goes under the sea to connect the island to the mainland. Riding the tunnel was quite an experience, it has a steep gradient that goes down for 3km and then starts going up again for another 3km, like a giant V. Out on the other side, I went past the main town, where the tourist cruises stop, and made my way up the mountain until I came to the Middnatsol Camping, the last one before the Nordkapp. http://imageshack.us/a/img545/4090/uzfx.jpg I stopped, set up the tent and cooked dinner, seeing coaches and bikes go past on the road below. At half past ten, I got on the bike and rode up the last kilometers. It felt strange, I had been on the road for more than a month and now I was finally going to reach the point where I would turn around and start heading home. I was lucky and there was no traffic on that last bit, so I rode slowly and took my time to think about all the things that I had seen and all the people I had met on the road. It had been an intense experience, lots of emotions and kilometers condensed in a few weeks. An experience I would never forget. http://imageshack.us/a/img833/9643/g137.jpg Then, up ahead, I saw it. The Nordkapp. The northernmost point in Europe. I had made it here from the desert in Kazakhstan, in a bike with so many kilometers in it that most people would have sold it long ago, with a back rim that had been repaired by a mechanic in a shed in Russia, with my suit covered in dust, dirt, rain and insects from 12 different countries. http://imageshack.us/a/img22/1496/83br.jpg I paid the toll (yes, you have to pay to get to the Nordkapp, and it is not cheap), parked my V-Strom in a long line of GSs, took out my helmet and gloves and walked to the point where Europe finishes. It was still early, and the sun was hidden behind some low laying clouds floating over the sea, so I took a walk around the complex, visited the museum, the audiovisual show, the King’s View viewpoint and the gift shop, where I bough an overpriced sticker for the bike. http://imageshack.us/a/img17/571/1mnk.jpg At 23:30, I found a spot on the handrails that was free of tourists and waited for the sun to come out below the clouds. It was like a regular sunset, until you realized that unlike regular sunsets, the sun was not just coming down, but also moving from left to right. In fact, it was moving faster laterally than down. At midnight, it skimmed over the horizon and then it started rising again. A new day had begun and I had seen sunset and sunrise in the space of an hour. http://imageshack.us/a/img132/9620/vfpu.jpg |
Rain and fog in the fjords
Day 39 – Friday 2nd of August – Nordkapp to Alteidet (343km)
A few km before the Nordkapp there is a small car park and a path leading away from it. It takes you to Knivskjelodden, which truly is the northernmost point in Europe, but you can only reach it by walking 9km. My plan for the morning was to go there and then take the rest of to ride as far south as I could, but it was not to be. I woke up at 6am to the sound of rain beating on the canvas of my tent, and two thoughts came to my mind. The first one, that I could not hike to Knivskjelodden, as I did not have footwear to walk 18km in wet ground and keep my feet dry, and the second, that I was going to have to fold my tent wet, which I do not like doing at all. I slept a bit more, waiting for the rain to stop, but at 10am it was still raining, so I decided to go. http://imageshack.us/a/img834/9811/fmse.jpg Sometimes you pay a lot of money for something that offers nothing over the competence, such as anything with an “i” in front of its name or a Volkswagen, and sometimes a design is so clever it justifies its price. Happily for me, my tent falls into the second category, and today I discovered that you can unclip and fold the inner part without removing the outer layer or the poles, which means that both you and the part of the tent where you sleep stay dry in the process. Once I had done that and packed all my things under the protection of the outer layer, I folded the rest, put it on the bike and left. It was foggy, rainy and cold, so before setting off I had studied a list of campsites and cabin camps along the route I was going to take to have several posibilites to stop for the night. If the weather improved, I would go further, if it did not, I would just stop and find a place to sleep. http://imageshack.us/a/img22/2424/pb53.jpg Almost 350km later, I was freezing and my supposedly waterproof winter gloves had soaked through. Fortunately I had heated grips on the bike, so I kept my hands warm, although the same could not be said of my feet. The sky was overcast all around and it did not look as if it was going to get any better soon, so I just decided to stop. I checked the map and found a campsite which also had wooden cabins and internet connection, just what I needed to get all my stuff dry, tent included, and spend the afternoon updating the blog. http://imageshack.us/a/img51/643/wuxt.jpg I paid and got the keys to a wooden cabin, hung up my staff all over it and turned up the heating and then went to the kitchen, where for the first time since I had entered Norway I had time to sit down and calculate costs. http://imageshack.us/a/img823/3705/qmff.jpg I was horrified to discover that the country is very expensive, and there is not much I can do to get around that. I can free camp if the weather is good, but petrol and food are still an important expense, and the cabin today and the entrance to the Nordkapp the day before had already put an important dent on my budget. I had no plan other than be in Helsinki by the 12th, where I am meeting my girlfriend to do the last three weeks of the trip together, so I did not know how far south I wanted to go in Norway before crossing into Sweden or Finland. Seeing the prices here, I thought I would ride along the fjords one or two more days and then go back east. |
A house with a view
Day 40 – Saturday 3rd of August – Alteidet to Narvik (427km)
Today I decided I had to keep costs down somehow if I wanted to have money left to enjoy the last part of the trip, so before setting off in the morning I went back into the campsite kitchen to make the best use of the wifi connection I had paid and sent some CouchSurf requests for the next three cities, hoping I would get lucky despite sending them so late. My tent and riding gear had dried overnight, I packed them and spent some time rearranging all the bags on the bike. Ever since Volgograd I had been carrying the old front tire as it provided a useful space to keep the food bags and the bike cover, and support for the big Ortlieb bag with most of my stuff, but it also took up all the space in the rack and the passenger seat, so I got rid of it and now had to find a way to relocate the luggage so that there was space for my girlfriend, and I wanted to experiment with different weight distributions before picking her up. Today I put the bike cover under the Ortlieb bag to prevent it from tearing on the screws of the rack I had built to carry the spare tires and I strapped the food bags on top of each pannier. There was enough space in the passenger seat, plus the food bags seemed to make nice armrests. There was however a problem with that set up, which I discovered a few hours later. The sky was clear and the sun was out, there was no sign of the rain that had made my previous day so miserable. I put some good music on and got on the road to have on of the best riding days so far in the trip. http://imageshack.us/a/img706/9620/pt5h.jpg The landscape changed from the rocky, wind swept low fjords in the Norkapp to higher ones covered in forest at the bottom and with glaciers on the top. It was an amazing sight, and I thought that it was worth riding the coast for a couple days more despite the prices. It was like being in the Alps, only that the valleys were flooded in seawater, the surface completely still, reflecting the mountains and the fishing boats like a mirror. I stopped a couple of times, one for petrol, one for lunch, and met Italian bikers in both stops, a couple riding a Triumph who did not speak any English and then two friends who provided the perfect comparison of the two bikes I might consider as a replacement for my poor V-Strom – one of them was on a GS Adventure, the other on a KTM 990 Adventure. I chatted to the KTM rider, who spoke good English, and told me that the GS was great for long distance riding, it was very comfortable and had excellent range, but was no good on anything other than good dirt roads. The KTM on the other hand had much less range, about 250km only, but was great fun on the road and could cope with anything off it. And it was much cheaper too. http://imageshack.us/a/img844/8145/gvv2.jpg After lunch I noticed that my chain was making a strange noise when I pulled out in first gear, and it was getting slowly worse. I thought that I might have tightened it a bit too much the last time I serviced it a couple of days ago, so I decided to find a spot to check it. I stopped at nice picnic area – there are lots in Norway – and put the bike on the center stand. Or tried to. It was usually difficult with all the luggage on, but now that I had put the weight a bit further to the back to make room in the passenger it was just impossible. I had to take the food bags and the tools off before I managed to get the bike on it. I checked the chain, and it was indeed too tight. Since I was at it and it had rained the previous day, I also cleaned it. When I got back on the road the noise had disappeared. I had checked my phone when I stopped and I had got a reply from a host in Narvik, where I was headed for that night, which was great, I did not think I was going to find a place so late and was already thinking about finding a place to set up camp. I got to Narvik past seven in the evening and found the address, it was a beautiful small house overlooking the fjord. http://imageshack.us/a/img837/4861/b1wq.jpg Alf Tonny, my host, was waiting for me outside, I pulled up the driveway, got my things off the bike and after a quick shower I was sitting with him on the terrace having tea, chatting and enjoying the views. Shortly after, a friend of his dropped by to bring him a new table for the living room, and he joined us. He was quite interested in history too, and we talked about some of the highlights of my trip. Before he went back home I gave him the blog’s address and invited him to visit me in Barcelona. Then we went back inside and another friend of Alf came by with a bottle of wine, and I decided to call it a day on the blog and just relax for a while. http://imageshack.us/a/img7/3536/i14u.jpg |
Nothing is waterproof...
Day 41 – Sunday 4th of August – Narvik to 10 km east of Mo i Rana (445km)
…if it rains hard and long enough. The sound of rain woke me up this morning, as Alf was coming down from his room and we both realized we were a bit hung over. The cup of wine had turned into two bottles that we drank with Bjorn as we enjoyed what they said was a very rare warm night out in the terrace. Wanting to make the best of the good weather, Alf got the barbecue going and we had some midnight grilled meat, which tasted wonderful. Then the wine gave way to home-made spirit, what they call moonshine, and then at about 1 am, as the day was starting again, a fine drizzle started to fall, so we moved the party inside until about 5 am. I had a great time with Alf an Bjorn, and discovered some excellent new music. Alf offered me to stay for one more day, and I was very tempted to do so as the rain was quite hard that morning and I did not fancy another long ride in it, because that would mean having to pay for accommodation at the end of the day to dry all the gear before going on, and prices were just too high. We checked the weather forecast and it seemed that it would not last long, the sun was supposed to come out in the afternoon and there was no rain in Mo i Rana, 400km to the south, so I decided wait for a while and then go. We watched a couple of episodes of a comedy I did not know, called Better Off Ted, which I really liked. I will download it when I get back home. (Do not download things kids, it is illegal, buy the DVDs) At midday I loaded the bike and set off under the rain, expecting it to clear soon. 80km further south, it was still raining hard, and I pictured the weather service offices that morning – two meteorologists sitting in front of a computer, writing the forecast for the day, and one asks the other ‘what do you think the weather is going to be like today?’ and he replies ‘I have absolutely no clue’, so the first one says ‘right, I’ll just put in the sun-cloud-rain icon, one of the three is bound to be right’. So as I came to the first ferry crossing of my trip in Norway I wondered how long I would have to wait under the rain for the ferry to turn up. I was happy to see it coming as I stopped at the ramp behind only two other cars, and I thought that it would not take long. Sure enough, it docked, the cars rolled off and a guy approached us with a credit card terminal in his hand to charge us for the crossing. It was almost 8€ and there was no choice but to pay it, as the road ended there. As he walked to two other cars that had arrived in the meantime, I put on the gloves again, ready to board, but to my dismay, nothing happened. It seemed that the ferry was going to wait until there were enough cars to fill it up before sailing off, and with quite thin traffic that morning, I had to wait for half an hour in the rain. Great. We were finally allowed onto it, and I parked the bike at the front. For safety reasons, passengers were not allowed on the car deck during the crossing, so I went down to the lower deck, were there were some benches and tables, hoping the sea would not be too rough, as I did not like the idea of the bike falling on its side again, especially on the hard metal deck. I walked into the passenger deck with my suit dripping with water and people looking at me with funny faces, found a quiet corner in front of an old lady knitting and had lunch, taking the opportunity of being in a warm, dry place. Just as I finished and packed the food again, people started getting up and going back to their cars, we were on the other side of the fjord. I went up, put on the helmet and the wet gloves again and rode off the ferry. To my surprise, the weather had improved in the 20 minutes the crossing had lasted, it was still very cloudy, but it did no rain anymore. My suit was soaked, but the waterproof layer was doing its job well and I was dry and comfortable, but the same could not be said of my gloves. They were supposed to be waterproof, but in less than an hour the water had soaked through. I turned the heated grips to the max to keep my hands warm and hoped the sun would come out soon. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/89/4y4s.jpg It did not until I was practically done with the day’s riding, past Mo i Rana and near the Swedish border, where I stopped for the night. I only stopped once for fuel and once at the point at which I left the Arctic Circle, where there was a monument and a souvenir shop. I was about to get a wristband, but the print on them was really bad quality and they were ridiculously overpriced, so I just took a few pictures, talked to a guy who was on his way north from Germany on a Harley and rode on. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/836/4dko.jpg I had seen on the map that Sweden was only a few kilometers away from Mo i Rana, so I decided to cross the border and maybe find a campsite instead of camping in the wild, as prices were bound to be more reasonable than in Norway, where you had to pay a minimum of 20€ just to set up the tent, and they charged extra for using the Internet… In the end though, the sun came out and the clouds all but disappeared from the sky, and the area near the border was so nice that I just decided to find a good spot and camp. I found a picnic area that was away from the road, by a small pond, and I set camp there for the night. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/27/1cwb.jpg |
Bye-bye Norway
Day 42 – Monday 5th of August – 10km east of Mo i Rana to Umeå (506km)
I wanted to do a bit of cleaning and greasing on the chain again this morning, as it was still making some noise I did not like, and I thought I would take my time after I woke up. It was cloudy, but there did not seem to be any rain coming, so I packed my stuff first and then did the chain, just in case. It was a wise decision, a while later, while I was having some breakfast, it started to rain. Fortunately this time it did not last long, and a few kilometers later I had to stop to take off some layers as it was getting quite hot. The landscape was beautiful, and since my host in Umeå was working until 5 pm, I took my time to get there, stopping to take some pictures and even taking a little detour to do a bit of offroading and exploring the forest tracks. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/13/hxhj.jpg http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/854/8xe3.jpg http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/194/n8qx.jpg I stopped to have lunch at a very nice picnic area with what might possibly be the cutest toilet I have seen so far on this trip, and at 7 pm I arrived at my destination, after one last stop to fill up the tank and discover that prices were back to reasonable. That is one thing I will not miss about Norway. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/34/e3fy.jpg http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/560/mw4t.jpg Lena, my host, was really nice and we got on well quickly. She offered me some coffee and she recommended some places to visit the following day, as well as a place nearby where I could hire a space to service the motorbike myself and save some money. |
Self Service
Day 43 – Tuesday 6th of August – Umeå (0km)
In the morning I walked to the petrol station where Lena had told me I would probably able to service the motorbike myself to find out whether it was possible and how it worked, I was carrying all the tools and spares I needed except for the oil, since I was originally planning to service the bike myself in the middle of nowhere, and now, despite the fact that it would be easy and convenient to find a workshop, I wanted to do it myself so as to save some much-needed money, but the main problem was to dispose of the used oil properly, I did not want to dump it in the middle of the Swedish countryside. When I got to the petrol station I saw a building with six garage doors behind it, a couple of them open, one with a man pressure washing his car and another with a car on a hydraulic lift and two men working under it, so I thought that must be it. I went into the petrol station to ask and they told me that the garages were rented by the minute, and they had oil disposal facilities, as well as pressure water and air. This was, after all, the country who had given the world Ikea, and DIY is a big thing here. You can rent tools or space to do anything you can imagine yourself. They gave me the keys to number 2, but there was a problem with oil buckets, they were designed to be placed under a car that had been put on a lift, and so there was no way to put one under the bike, and it would be useless to put the bike on a lift as the sump is in the middle longitudinally, not laterally. The young man from the petrol station went off to try and find a solution and shortly after he came back with an old bucket that he cut in half to make it fit under the bike. Nice! http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/46/v1m7.jpg I spend all morning there, as not only did I have to change the oil but also the air filter, and that meant removing the petrol tank. This is one of the things I do not like about the V-Strom and definitely something I will take into account when the time comes to replace it – there is too much plastic on the bike, and it takes forever to remove it when it is time to service it. When I had finished, I cleaned the bike, which I had not done since Astrakhan and the poor thing was covered in several layers of dust, mud, insects and bits of plants. In the end it cost only 88€, including the price of the oil, a set of fuses and a pair of plastic gloves I bought. Not bad. I took the bike back to Lena’s apartment and then went off to visit some of the things she had recommended in the city. Just past the petrol station there was a small hill covered in forest, and she had told me that there was an open air museum with traditional Swedish farmhouses and also Sami camps, which had been taken from all over the country and brought here. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/809/dsy8.jpg It was a very interesting visit, there were traditional farmhouses, barns, stables, storehouses, a windmill and three Sami camps, all original buildings. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/21/tsl0.jpg Explanations were given in three languages, including English, and there was also a very clever system of audio guides. From time to time you could find a round metal device mounted on a pole with a handle that you had to crank for about 20 seconds; that generated enough electricity for the device to play an explanation. No electrical wiring needed, no batteries to be charged, no audio sets that might get stolen, no staff to distribute them. Very practical for an outdoor exhibit. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/163/iqmw.jpg After that I walked down into town and wandered around until I found the river, and by the river, the modern arts museum which Lena had also recommended. It was a new building, very Scandinavian in style – wood and glass on the outside, white walls and open spaces on the inside, very nice. There were six floors and as with the open air museum on the hill, everything was free. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/543/rhi5.jpg When I was about to finish the last floor, Lena sent me a text message inviting me to a concert that was going to take place that evening on the beach. It sounded like a great plan, so I went back to the apartment, where I met a colleague of hers from Umeå University, a woman from Colombia who had been living in Sweden for more than 20 years and was working in the Spanish department. She drove us to the beach where the concert was taking place, and we found a nice spot to lay down some blankets and sit on the sand. There was quite a lot of people of all ages, sitting on blankets or on picnic chairs, and the atmosphere was very nice. It was a sort of music festival, and we saw several bands with styles ranging from folk to jazz, including rock music and covers. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/59/vo76.jpg We got back home at about 11 pm, and had a coffee before going to bed. The coffee turned into a long conversation about politics, clichés, the EU, teaching, and all other kinds of interesting matters, and we ended up going to bed quite late. As Lena had to work early the following day, we said goodbye before going to bed and I thanked her for her hospitality. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/35/n2h1.jpg In the end I had decided to go down the Swedish cost to Stockholm and cross into Finland from there for several reasons – it was not as expensive as I thought, and I could still travel within budget, I had been told that the landscape on the coast was very nice, and I wanted to have some days to have the chain checked at a bike workshop, as it was still making some noise despite my cleaning and greasing it regularly. |
Rain and earplugs
Day 44 – Wednesday 7th of August – Umeå to Tronboholmen (370km)
I have come to the conclusion that it only rains when I decide to camp. Today I just rode until I got tired and the looked for a campsite; I would have free camped, but I had not had time to look at my stove and I wanted to have something hot for dinner, so after less than 400km I stopped. It seems that I am getting tired faster after so long on the road. I followed indications to a campsite by a lake, the place looked quite nice, the price was reasonable and they had wifi in the bar, so I decided to spend the night there. I set up the tent and then went for swim in the lake, as the afternoon was warm and sunny, and sure enough, after spending ten minutes in the water, black clouds came out of nowhere, there was lightning and rolling thunder and started to pour down. I retreated into my tent and spent about an hour reading, waiting for the storm to pass. Once it was over, I had a shower and then, fancying a cold beer while I updated the blog, went to the bar. When I got there I saw that they were setting up a small stage for a concert and the entrance to the bar from the campsite was blocked by a metal fence. I walked around to the main entrance and when I tried to get into the bar, they told me I had to pay 100 kr for the entrance. Well, that was wonderful, I was not going to spend that money, and that meant that I was not getting part of the services I had paid for, which was annoying. I cooked dinner and then sat down to write for a while before getting into the tent early, I did not want to get up late the following day as I would try to find a place to service the bike before going to the hostel I had booked. I was in the tent, watching a film when I heard some noise outside. I was alone in the tent area, far from the cabins and the campervans, so I was expecting to be able to get some good sleep. I peered outside the tent and saw, to my horror, a coach unloading teenagers carrying tents and guitars. By the time I had finished watching the film, they had a fire going and where singing, so there was no sleeping for me… Fortunately, I had brought some earplugs, I put them on and they made a world of difference. |
hahaha.... you should have joined them... :-)
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Unexpected expenses
Day 45 – Thursday 8th of August – Tronboholmen to Stockholm (370km)
As I was falling asleep the previous night, hearing the faint sound of singing teenagers through the earplugs, I thought that I would get up early, pack things and then fire up the engine and let it run for a while, just to wake them up before leaving. When I woke up it was raining again, so I had to wait and wait until it stopped at about 10 am and when I stepped out of the tent, there was no trace of the teenagers. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/826/34g4.jpg I got the tent dry enough to pack it and left for Stockholm after programming in the GPS the addresses of two bike shops that were listed as Suzuki dealers. I got to the first one, which was on my way into the city, at about 3 pm, it was an enormous place, with lots of other brands as well as Suzuki. I walked into the workshop and told the guy there about the noise the chain was making, and after checking it he said that it was completely worn and needed replacing. I had also decided to replace the back tire, it still had some thread on it, but definitely not enough to last all the way back to Barcelona, and even less so with a passenger. They checked and they had a Metzeler in stock, as well as a chain and sprockets kit for the V-Strom, which meant that I could get everything done before heading to Helsinki. I told them I would come back the following morning to get it done, but the mechanic said he would be too busy and told me to come back in an hour and a half, so I went to the hostel, dropped my bags, met a Canadian guy called Andrew who was staying in my room and rode back to the workshop. I have now ridden in lots of different countries, and if you asked me about the best and the worst drivers, I could probably give you a pretty accurate answer, albeit probably a surprising one. I was expecting Swedish drivers to be one of the best, but it turns out they are not. Sure, they obey traffic signs and they stick to the speed limits as if their lives depended on them but that does not make them safe drivers. If I had to choose the best drivers of all I have seen, that would be the Italians. Now, this might surprise a lot of people, but let me explain. It is true that Italians drive fast, very fast, and also aggressively, but contrary to what most people believe, it is not speed that is dangerous. In good roads, with good weather and a good car, you can go fast and it is perfectly safe. No, it is not the speed that is important to safety, what really is important is being aware of what is happening around your car. All around it, in front, sides and back, and the Italians do, they know what is going on around their cars and drive accordingly. Swedes, however, do not. They keep their eyes straight ahead, too busy reading speed limit signs and talking on their mobile phones to notice anything around them, happily sitting in the middle or outer lane while there are faster cars behind them, causing tremendous traffic jams in the way into the capital. To make matters worse, by the time they were done with my bike and it was time to go back to the hostel, it was pouring down again, and I got there with suit completely wet, dripping all over the place. The whole thing had cost quite a lot of money, but it had to be done… Now the bike was ready for the last part of the trip. |
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Crafoord Place
Day 46 – Friday 9th of August – Stockholm (0km)
Crooford Place is the name of the hostel I was staying in, and it was the best hostel I had found on this trip. It was the last floor in a building that used to be a hospital, the other floors having been taken by an IT college from Stockholm University and a secondary school, so the place and the facilities it offered were more or less in line with many other hostels, what made my stay there so enjoyable was the people I met there. Andrew, the Canadian guy I mentioned on the last post, was really nice and before I left in the morning to explore the city, we agreed to meet at the hostel later that evening and go for a beer. I did some food shopping for the next few days and then took the underground to the docks to find out where the ferry terminal was and what I had to do to get my motorbike on board. The previous night I had bought a ticket online for Sunday, but all I got was a reference number, no instructions whatsoever, so I wanted to get that sorted out as the ferry was leaving at 7 am and boarding was at 6 am and I did not want to be riding around so early without knowing where I had to go. Once I had got all the information from a very nice lady at the terminal, I headed to Gamla Stan, the island where the old part of town is, and spent the whole morning walking around and taking pictures, getting lost in its streets. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/59/f9ug.jpg http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/401/c8a2.jpg After that, I crossed into a smaller island that used to be the base of the navy and today has been reconverted for city use. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/197/2fyx.jpg On the other side of the island there lots of historical ships that had been bought and restored by private owners and were part of a conservation society. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/24/axot.jpg The day was quite cloudy and it drizzled from time to time, so by mid-afternoon I decided to get back to the hostel and see if I could get the laundry done. The day before I had met Andrés, a Colombian guy who was part of the staff. He had originally gone to Spain, where he had worked at Sony for several years until the crisis hit and he was made redundant. I was very surprised to find out that he had been living in Santa Coloma, where I had lived for many years before leaving my parent’s home, and that he was able to speak very good Catalan. He was a really nice guy and told me that there was a laundry about ten streets from there that cost 150 kr, but he would do my laundry in the washing machine they had in the staff living quarters. While the laundry was getting done, Andrew came back to the hostel and told me that he had recruited more people to go out that night, some British girls that had just finished highschool and where travelling around Northern Europe. Back in the room we shared with four other people it had stopped raining and the sun had come out, and we saw that there was a ladder right outside our window, so we decided to explore where that lead. I was no longer in Russia, where Health and Safety is virtually non-existent, but in the extensive set of rules we had been told when we got to the hostel there was nothing against climbing to the roof, so we went for it. The ladder went up a couple of meters and then connected to a narrow metal walkway that went up to the roof pinnacle. The sun was hiding behind the buildings and we had a beautiful view of the whole city, we just sat down for a while and enjoyed the moment. Back into the hostel, we chatted to other hosts and met a 17-year old boy from London who was on an Interrail trip, a French jewellery designer, a couple of Italians, a couple of Dutchmen, the girls from London, and two Russian girls, all really nice and easy-going people, the kind that make the hostelling experience so nice. At night we took the underground and went on a mission to find a bar with cheap beer, no easy task in Stockholm, but in the end we managed to find a decent place where we stayed until they closed down, a bit too early, as we were having good fun. We decided to walk back to the hostel to save the underground ticket, one of the girls had a sore foot, but she had had enough beer to decide that walking back was a good idea. |
Swedish BBQ
Day 47 – Saturday 10th of August – Stockholm (0km)
One curious thing I noticed for the first time when I was living in the UK and that has been confirmed the further east and north I have been on this trip, is that in countries with bad or cold weather, people know how to make the most of sunny days much better than we do in Spain. We probably just take the good weather for granted and if we do not do something outdoors today, there will be plenty of time tomorrow or the next day, and it will surely be sunny. In cold countries, a sunny day, the summer, are an event, and you do not just let it escape. So today, Andrés, the Colombian guy, had organized a barbecue for everybody in the hostel, which was very nice, as it was a very good way to help everybody there to socialize. The day was just glorious, and I spent all of it walking around the city before going back and doing some shopping with Andrew. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/812/jodi.jpg We got burgers, hot dogs and beer, and when we came back to the hostel Andrés already had the grill going and people were gathering in the terrace. Everybody brought their own food and most people had something to share, Cedric, the French guy, had prepared a Thai soup that was delicious, and the Dutch guys had a bucket of ice-cream for dessert. We had a great time and stayed out there until well after dark, when it started to get a bit cold and we moved the party indoors. By then most people had left to the center, as it was Saturday, and I spend a bit longer with Andrés and a couple of other guys in the kitchen before calling it a night, I had to wake up at 5 am to get the ferry the following morning. |
The Baltic Princess
Day 48 – Sunday 11th of August – Stockholm to Turku (247km – by ferry)
I had barely slept 4 hours by the time the alarm clock rang at 5 am, but I had 11 hours of ferry crossing ahead of me, so I thought that aside from catching up on the blog, I would also catch up on some sleep. I finished packing the few things I had not packed the night before as quietly as I could to try not to wake anybody up and as I was gathering my things, I found a very nice goodbye note from Andrew. There was nobody awake in the hostel, so I had a cup of coffee on my own in the kitchen and then rode the bike on deserted streets to the ferry terminal, ready to board the Baltic Princess just past 6 am. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/843/vadz.jpg The sun was already up and there were no clouds in the sky, the perfect day to spend on the deck of a ship. The good thing about being on a motorbike is that they board you first, so I had barely got to the queue when I was told to skip to the front next to a Russian biker, and we were among the first vehicles on board. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/801/lxnh.jpg I left the motorbike a bit worried about it falling over if the sea was rough and went up to find a good place to seat. To my dismay, there was no sitting area, and as I had booked no cabin, it meant that I was not going to get any sleep. The only place where I could seat was the top deck, but fortunately the weather was very good, so it was not a problem. At 7:10, right on time, the ship started to move and we started the 11-hour crossing. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/837/xnmx.jpg One hour into it I was already tremendously bored, and wondered what on Earth people found so great about going on a cruise. Writing for the blog and reading my book killed a few hours, but in the end what really saved me was discovering that there was WiFi connection, a very poor one, but enough to connect to Whatsapp and be able to catch up my loved ones. Spending the day on the road or socializing with people in hostel or hosts from CouchSurf does not leave much time left to chat with people online. By noon, the ferry called at Aland, a big island between Sweden and Finland, and from the top deck I heard the rumbling sound of Harleys. I got up to see what was waiting to board and saw a big group of bikes on the harbor. It was the Turku MC, who had spent the weekend in Aland and were heading back home. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/824/nzti.jpg The rest of the day went by faster than I expected, and by the time the ship was approaching Helsinki, I was surprised to have had such a nice time on board. The sea had been very calm, so I did not get any motion sickness, despite the fact that I spent a lot of time staring at the computer screen, and we had not spent that much time in the open sea anyways, about two thirds of the trip had been among small islands on the coasts of Sweden, Aland and Finland. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/600/e8gf.jpg Half an hour before docking all drivers were called down to the car deck, and when the doors started to open, about 40 Harleys started their engines at the same time. The resulting thunder reverberated in the cavernous car deck, setting off the alarms of every single car sitting there, it was madness. I got to the hostel in only ten minutes, and since it was already late and Turku was a small residential city, with not much to see, had a shower and just went to bed, happy to think that the following afternoon I would be picking up my girlfriend from Helsinki airport. |
A happy reunion
Day 49 – Monday 12th of August – Turku to Helsinki (302km)
There were only 155km, not 302 between my hostel in Turku and the one we had booked in Helsinki, but I had to check out from the former at 10 am and could not check in in the latter until 3 pm. Rather than get there three hours early and have to wait at the door or a café nearby, as I was not going to go sightseeing around the city in full motorbike gear, I decided to take the scenic route and follow all the smallest roads I could find along the coast. The problem was that it was raining very hard, but once you are wet, it does not matter whether you spend one or three extra hours on the road, so I went for it. Luckily, the rain stopped in about an hour, just as I left the main road and started following a smaller one down to the coast. I took what was called The King’s Road, an old mailing road from the 14th Century that went from Bergen, in Norway, to Vyborg, in Russia. The sun came out, the roads were dry and I found a gorgeous route along the coast that more than made up for the morning rain. If any of the bikers reading this are planning to travel to Finland one day, make sure you visit this bit of road. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/513/fnoa.jpg I got to Helsinki at 3 pm sharp, and checked in at the hostel. They had an underground car park that cost 17€ a day, but the very, very nice girl at reception told me that since it was a motorbike, I could park it anywhere close to a wall as long as it did not take space in car lots and gave me the keys. My girlfriend’s flight was landing at 5 pm, so I had just the time to do some shopping for dinner and find a place to exchange money – some of the borders I had crossed had no exchange offices, on other occasions I was too much in a hurry to look for one, and I had accumulated currency from Romania, Russia, Kazakhstan and Norway I needed to change, as well as some US dollars I was carrying in case of an emergency that I was no longer going to need. I was surprised to find that once I had exchanged all that back to euros, I had a nice extra bit of money I was not counting on. At half past five, I got to the airport and found my girlfriend already waiting for me. It had been a month and a half since I had last seen her, and although travelling alone had not meant being lonely, as I had met a lot of wonderful people on my way, I had missed her a lot, and I was very happy that my change of route after the incident with the rim meant that we could get to spend more time together on holiday than we had originally thought. My trip so far had been quite an adventure, but I would not really call it a holiday, as it had been physically and mentally exhausting, and I had the feeling that now my real holidays were about to begin. She had been in Helsinki twice already, so for the rest of my day she was my guide, and we visited the old part of town, which was beautiful. It was not raining, but the city had that very special light you only get to see when the sky is covered in really dark clouds but the sun has already started to go down and it shines under the clouds, lighting everything against the dark sky. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/196/m110.jpg Back in the hostel, we redistributed all the luggage to make the best of the available space to get ready to hit the road for the last part of my trip – the following day we were going to take the ferry and cross to Tallinn, Estonia, to visit the Baltic States. |
Rain in the Baltic
Day 50 – Tuesday 13th of August – Helsinki to Tallinn (86km – by ferry)
This was going to be my girlfriend’s first long trip on the motorbike, or for that matter, her very first trip on a motorbike, and crossing Europe from north to south was quite a bit like throwing her at the deep end of the pool with no warning. It was going to be a make or break trip, so I was hoping for good weather, even though I was not exactly optimistic about the dark clouds we had seen the day before. Sure enough, as we rode out of the hostel and into heavy traffic, it started to rain. There was a huge traffic jam on the way to the ferry terminal, and what had to be a ten-minute ride was taking so long that I was afraid we would miss the ferry. If I had been in Russia, I would just have ridden onto the pavement and to hell with it, but we were in law-abiding Finland and there was no space to filter between cars, so I just had to inch forward patiently just like everybody else. In the end we made it to the terminal just in time to board and park the bike in front of a lorry. The rain was getting heavier and this crossing was on open sea, unlike the one from Stockholm, so I asked for some straps and tied the bike down just in case. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/823/x2f3.jpg By the time we got to the top deck and the ferry was leaving, the rain was pouring down and there was a gale force wind. Fortunately, this ship had a bigger covered area on the top deck, so we were sheltered from the rain despite not having a cabin. In less than three hours we were riding off the ferry in lighter rain and quickly found the hostel in Tallinn, right in front of one of the gates in the old town walls.There was parking space right on the door, and as it was just the bike, they did not charge us for it. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/837/d0f6.jpg We dropped our bags and just as the rain had stopped, went to explore the old town. Unlike other European cities which are popular tourist destinations, I did not know anybody who had been here before, so I did not know what to expect of the city nor the country. Being an ex-soviet republic, I was expecting something quite gray, Russian-style, but it turned out to be a beautiful, city – the old town was charming, narrow winding medieval streets on a hill with views to a nice, modern, taken care of city. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/21/3o75.jpg We spent the afternoon walking around and then headed for a pub to have a pint of the local black beer, which was delicious. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/690/d2wx.jpg Before going back to the hostel, we did some shopping (including superglue to repair my sandals) and then looked for a cheap place to have dinner out. This was a luxury I had not been able to afford since Russia, since prices in Scandinavian countries were ridiculously high, so it was a pleasure to find a cozy place where we had dumplings, salad, chicken Kiev, a pint of beer and dessert for 7€. I love Eastern Europe. |
A nasty surprise
Day 51 – Wednesday 14th of August – Tallinn to Riga (315km)
In more than a month and a half I had parked my bike in lots of different places, from car parks with 24h surveillance to alleys in Russia to the desert in Kazakhstan, and never had a single problem; it was back in the EU, and because of a stupid oversight, that I had something stolen for the first time. It had been raining, I was tired and looking forward to a warm, dry room… I could give lots of excuses, but there is no escaping that it was my fault that I put the padlocks on the panniers when we got to Tallinn but forgot to check whether they were locked, and they were not. When we walked out of the hostel with our bags today to get ready to get on the bike, someone had taken the inner bag from the right side pannier. It contained the toolkit, the air compressor for the tires, the 12v chargers for the laptop and the camera, the broken petrol stove, as well as assorted bits and pieces such as rags, plastic bags, some ROK straps… nothing that was not easily replaceable, but all the same annoying to have stolen. We took it the best way possible, determined not to let it spoil our holidays, and on the way to Riga I bought some basic tools on a petrol station. The day was cloudy, and the rain came and went all the way to our hostel in Latvia’s capital, an old building near the train station on the limit of the old town that looked like a classic New York tenement building out of an old police thriller. Despite the looks of the place, there were several IT companies based on the building, and the car park in the inner court where we were told to park the bike had CCTV surveillance, which was reassuring after the events of the previous night. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/268/43nn.jpg The impression I got from Riga when compared to Tallinn was a bit like comparing Brugge and Gant in Belgium. The former was a quaint place, all old streets and buildings, perfectly maintained or restored, spotlessly clean streets, almost as if it had been built as a tourist attraction, lacking a bit in real life in its streets, while the latter was a more lively place, also old and historical, but with real people and real life in it. We tried something called Black Balsam, a very strong herbal liquor, in a terrace where there was a swing band playing live, which later on gave way to a group playing jazz, pop and rock covers, with a singer who had a velvety voice that was perfect to make that place and moment one of those memories that you treasure back home, years later. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/853/2yig.jpg Since replacing the tools had put a dent in my budget, that night we had a pizza back at the hostel and went to bed early. The following day we had a short ride to Vilnius, less than 300km, which would be a nice change from the long rides I had been doing for most of the summer. |
French wine in the garden
Day 52 – Thursday 15th of August – Riga to Vilnius (315km)
The weather was gradually getting better as we made our way south to the last of the Baltic republics, Lithuania, but there was still some rain before we got to Vilnius. The outskirts of the city and the roads looked a bit more like what I had come to expect from a country that had been on the other side of the iron curtain, but the city itself was modern and big, bigger than Tallinn and Riga, or at least it seemed to be bigger. Like in Astrakhan, several old, traditional wooden buildings had survived in the center, and our hostel was one of them, or rather several of them – reception and some of the rooms were in the main building, and other rooms, including ours, were in older wooden buildings. We were able to park the bike in the courtyard, away from the street. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/197/2y17.jpg Vilnius was probably my favourite of the three cities we had visited, as it combined what I had liked of the other two in the right measures – the old town was quaint and charming, but not artificially so, it was a lively place, with lots of very appealing little wine bars with terraces on narrow, cobbled alleys, it had big parks, tree-covered hills and a river and a canal flowing along the borders of the old town. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/853/dnim.jpg We visited all of it, found a place where we had wonderful traditional Lithuanian food for lunch and on the way back to the hostel bought a bottle of white French wine that we drank in the hostel’s garden as it was getting dark. |
Polish trucks
Day 53 – Friday 16th of August – Vilnius to Warsaw (477km)
Maybe it was because the travelling was taking its toll on me, but today was one of the worst days of riding so far, and it should not objectively have been so. We got off to a great start – it was not raining anymore, temperatures were up and the sun was shining. The road out of Lithuania and into Poland took us through deep forests, so the landscape was great, and the road itself in very good condition, but the moment we crossed the border the day quickly changed for the worse. The landscape was still beautiful and the road was good, the problem is that I would not call it a road, it was rather a 400-kilometer long truck maneuver yard. I had never seen so many trucks on the road, not even in Russia, it seemed that 90% of the Polish population were truck drivers, and being stuck behind them was horrible. It was the same story on the oncoming lane, so I could not overtake them, I had to ride behind them, paying attention to keeping a safe gap, which meant not enjoying any of the landscape, while they lumbered at a snail’s pace down the road, belching black smoke into my face, and worst of all, since a truck has even worse aerodynamics than a brick, I had to suffer being buffeted about in the turbulence they generated. Getting to Warsaw was a horrible ride, so I was very glad to find that there was no rush hour traffic and it was very easy to get to the hostel in spite of the size of the city. It had been a long day, and by the time we had unloaded and had a shower, it was starting to get dark, so we did not really have much time to visit the city, and I must say it was a real pity. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/541/hyrb.jpg Here was another city we were not expecting much from, since any Pole you talked to recommended visiting Krakow and skipping Warsaw, but while it may not have the old town charm of other European cities, it is still a vibrant place, with lots to offer, and I regretted not having a couple of days to try some of the bars and restaurants in the area where the hostel was located. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/41/btuo.jpg The hostel itself was really nice, and when we came back to it after having had a wonderful traditional Polish dinner in the center, we found the girl from the night shift having a cigarette out on the street; she asked whether we were the ones travelling by bike (it was parked on the front door) and said that she had been looking at all the country stickers. We chatted a bit with her, and she said that it was really nice to see couples who had the thirst for adventure to go on such trips. |
A new shirt
Day 54 – Saturday 17th of August – Warsaw to Krakow (297km)
Maybe the road from Vilnius to Warsaw was part of some main route linking western Europe to the Baltic countries and from there Scandinavia via ferry, but the fact is that from Warsaw to Krakow the traffic was a lot lighter and we got there without anything to report except for a long queue at the entrance of the city caused by some road works that cut traffic on one lane, and that was quickly dealt with via some Russian-style riding on the hard shoulder to cut to the front. The hostel was right on the old town and the manager let us take the bike through the doorway and into the backyard of the building, where I had space to clean and grease the chain. Squeezing it through the doorway meant I had to remove both aluminum panniers, but it was much better than leaving it on the street. After that we went out to visit the old town and the market square, and seeing that there were sales on one of my favourite clothes shops, I took the chance to get a new shirt, as the clothes I had brought with me on the trip were not really suited to walk around cities or go out for a beer at night, since I had originally planned to visit less populated areas. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/17/qwqz.jpg I had been in Krakow a long time ago, fresh from my first year at university and still very green at travelling, and it was curious to see how different I saw things with a lot more experience in my backpack. When I was first here I saw a city that was very different from what I knew in Europe, a bit intimidating, and especially around the train station area, not very safe. It was Eastern Europe before the UE, the Euro, we were much less connected than now, no mobiles, no internet… Coming back after having been to Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan and having found them to be perfectly safe and nice countries to visit, Krakow felt Western European a city as any. The market square was as beautiful as I remembered, albeit with a lot more people visiting it, and there were a lot more trendy bars and restaurants in the back streets. Being Saturday, we went out for dinner to a nice restaurant, but it was different from the time when my two friends and I were the only tourists having dinner in a restaurant in the market square. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/703/q0mf.jpg Back at the hostel, I went to check the bike and saw that it had company – there was another V-Strom parked next to it with Italian plates. I imagined that the rider or riders were also staying at our hostel, but we were only staying there for a night and we did not meet them. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/836/sx3x.jpg |
A ride-through country
Day 55 – Sunday 18th of August – Krakow to Budapest (393km)
Poor Slovakia. It is a beautiful country, with some of the best roads and landscapes I have seen on this trip, but it only gets a few lines and some pictures that do not do it any justice at all. Our next stop was Budapest, which meant that we were going to cross Slovakia from north to south to get there but we would not spend a night in the country, so everything we saw was from the road. It made a great impression, the road was really enjoyable and there was very little traffic, so we had a great time riding through it. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/46/z7du.jpg Also, I would like to congratulate the driver of a dark gray Suzuki Gran Vitara for his excellent driving manners. I was going to say ’99.9% of drivers…’ and most people who know me would think I am exaggerating, as I usually do, but if you take into account that I have been driving or riding for 15 years and have only seen two drivers behave like this, maybe even 99.9% is too low a figure. Anyway, 99.9% of drivers can drive fast on a straight line, any idiot can drive a modern car fast in straight line – they just have to put their foot down and the car goes, not much more to it. However, the moment they see a corner approaching, they slow down to an irritating crawl, apparently thinking that their 60.000-thousand euro Audis equipped with a whole alphabet of safety acronyms are going to suddenly decide to fly off the road and send them and their beloved families through the gates of hell engulfed in a fire ball if they take the corner at anything other than walking pace. These are the most annoying people you can find on the road, as you are trapped behind them, suffering their total lack of driving skills, but the moment the road becomes straight and you have a chance to overtake them, the very limited part of their brains related to driving that controls their right foot makes the connection ‘straight line – safe’ and they floor it and disappear until they find the next corner. There is an extremely rare type of driver, however, that is aware that there are other people using the road, people who might want to travel faster than them on corners, and who tries to be as little of an annoyance as possible, This driver will go around corners at a reasonable speed in order not to make much of a nuisance of himself, but come a straight bit of road, he will slow down to let you pass. So thanks very much whoever was driving that Suzuki, and if there were more drivers like you in the world, the roads would be a much nicer place. We stopped a few times in Slovakia for petrol, some food, an ice-cream, the country sticker, etc. and made it to Budapest in the early evening. We went back to that wonderful place that is BikerCamp, and before putting up the tent or even thinking about doing some shopping for dinner, I had a shower and we sat down to chat with some Italian bikers and enjoy a few beers. Unfortunately, this meant that by the time we thought about the shopping, the supermarket was closed, so we had to go to one of those 24h grocery stores that always seem to have a few dodgy characters at the door drinking beer 24/7. Once we had filled the basket and were going to pay, they told us that they did not accept credit cards, and we did not have any local currency, so we had to leave the food there, find an ATM and then go back, all with an empty stomach and five beers affecting our reasoning ability. In the end we managed to cook a meal that properly restored our energy (bacon, lots of bacon), and then went back to the beer and the interesting conversation. |
A well deserved break
Day 56 – Monday 19th of August – Budapest (0km)
I had already visited Budapest at the beginning of my trip, so now that I was back in the city there was only one thing I wanted to do, one thing I had not had time to do on my previous stay in the city – go to one of the city’s bath, and spend the day doing nothing but relaxing. Well, there were in fact a couple of other things I wanted to do, but in the end only managed to do one of them. I needed to replace the rear brake pads and to tighten the chain, and I had been waiting to get to BikerCamp to do so, as there is space to work and you can borrow tools (which I no longer had after Tallinn…). Sleeping in a tent means that you wake up with the sun, so I was up early and had time to do that in the morning. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/823/2lot.jpg The second thing I wanted to do was find a motorbike shop to buy a kidney belt, as my back was starting to feel the time on the road and I could no longer ride +200km non-stop, but this proved to be impossible. It was a national holiday and there was also a folk festival going on in the city, so everything but a few supermarkets was closed. Instead of going shopping we went for a walk in the city, but we could not go up to the citadelle, as there was the folk festival going on and we had to buy a ticket. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/822/ps6x.jpg It was a bit of a relief, mind you, as it was way to hot to walk all the way up. We had lunch and then splashed out on a wonderful frapuccino before heading for the baths. There were several places to chose from, and in the end we settled for the Gellert baths, which were popular, in a very interesting building and had been recommended by a friend. The place was enormous, with several indoor and outdoor swimming and bathing pools, and after being kicked out from the indoor swimming pool for not wearing a cap, we went to the outdoor thermal bathing pool. The water was at a very pleasant 36ºC and there were water jets where I could massage my sore back, so we spent the rest of the day there, just relaxing, until it was closing time. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/822/hs81.jpg By the time we left the place it was already dark, and the air was cool, so we decided to walk back to the camp instead of taking the metro. It had been one of the best days of the whole trip. We did some shopping on our way and after dinner we found a hostel for our next destination – Belgrade. I was very excited about the following day, we were going to be out of the EU again and into a part of Europe that I had never seen before. |
Heat, misery and grime
Day 57 – Tuesday 20th of August – Budapest to Belgrade (379km)
It was a long way from Budapest to Belgrade, so we had decided to take the motorway. I had ridden most of that road on my way to Romania, and since it was about 500km to Ighiu and I wanted to take mountain roads once on the Romanian side, I had also taken the motorway and paid for a matrika, the vignette that allows you to use it. As this time we were trying to save as much money as possible, I decided to risk it and not pay for it. In any case, we had come all the way across Poland and the northern part of Hungary without getting one and nobody had stopped us (motorbikes were exempt from road tax in Slovakia). The ride to the border was quick and uneventful, at a point there were a few drops of rain, but seeing that it was sunny ahead I did not stop to put the rain gear on, and in a couple of hours we were at the border. I had crossed 9 borders without stopping since leaving Russia and was getting used to the convenience of travelling within the EU, so I had almost forgotten the hassle of waiting for your passport and the bike’s documents to be checked while sitting in the sun in full riding gear. Fortunately, it did not take long, and we were handed back the stamped passports and a leaflet warning about police corruption with a hotline number to call in case we were stopped and had problems with the local police. Nice welcome. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/703/5nh1.jpg I had learned to trust first impressions when crossing into a new country based on lots of factors – landscape, border guards, drivers’ behavior, and gut feeling in general, and I got the impression that Serbia was a country that I was not going to enjoy much. We stopped for petrol and a couple of coffees at the first service station we found, and a man driving a BMW came over to say hello. He was from Liverpool, and was travelling to Bulgaria for the holiday with his wife, who was from there, and his mother-in-law. He was very enthusiastic about our trip and wished us the best of luck. For most of the ride to Belgrade, the landscape were flat, dull, sun-scorched fields, and the boredom was only momentarily broken by the occasional bit of road under maintenance. We stopped for one last break in another service station, where I bought a country sticker and had a chat with three boys who worked there, who also asked about the trip and said half jokingly half seriously that it would not be a good idea to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia with a Serbian sticker on the bike. By the time we got to Belgrade the sun was a dull shade of gray, and it was unbearably hot, which did not help much with the first impression I got from the city. Things got a lot worse when, right after crossing a bridge over the Danube, the GPS said that we were only a few meters from the hostel. We were on a five-lane street, three lanes going up and two going down, with very narrow sidewalks, lined with tall buildings covered in thick dark grey soot from the traffic fumes, with absolutely nowhere to stop and no way of taking a U-turn to reach the hostel front door, which was on the opposite side of the street. The only thing I could do was to ride on and look for a place to turn around. If you are planning to visit Belgrade by car or motorbike, don’t. Seriously. It is much worse than anything I saw in Russia or Ukraine. At least there, you could get around the traffic and pretty much do anything you needed to do to get to your destination – U-turns, riding on the pavement, parking anywhere – but Belgrade was full of traffic, there were traffic cops everywhere handing out fines to drivers who stopped anywhere that was not allowed, and it was not allowed virtually everywhere in the center. To make matters worse, there was no logic at all to the streets layout, and it was impossible to navigate your way back to a certain point once you had ridden past it, everything was no way, no turning, no stopping, no parking, no entrance, pedestrian area, dead ends… It was a nightmare. It took us a very long time to find a way to get back to the hostel street the right way, and when we managed to do it, I just put the motorbike on the pavement, effectively blocking people’s way and only inches away from speeding buses. Nat when to check we had got the correct address – in true Soviet style, there was no sign anywhere indicating there was a hostel there – and I prayed that no cop would decide to fine me in the meantime. She came back with bad news – there was nowhere to park the motorbike nearby. There was a shopping center, but it was on the other side of the river, and the girl at reception had no idea whether we could leave the bike there overnight. Hot, irritated and tired, I unloaded the bike while the buses charged down the street and then programmed the GPS to find the nearest car park. At that point I did not care how much it might cost to leave the bike there for the night. It indicated that there was one on the street just behind the building, but it took me a long time again to find a way to access that street. I finally made it to a multi-storey car park which did not seem to have much in the way of surveillance, made sure everything lockable was locked and chained it to a column. I got back to the hostel sweaty, tired, and with a deep dislike for the city. After a cold shower we went out for the rest of the afternoon and evening to visit the city, but I came to the conclusion that it had nothing to offer that justified the misery of riding or driving into it. And that is the first time on this trip I have felt this way. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/839/zlrq.jpg |
What a difference a day makes
Day 58 – Wednesday 21st of August – Belgrade to Sarajevo (388km)
388 kilometers. It is not that much when compared to other days. I had been riding long enough and found roads that were bad enough to know that I could not afford to be too optimistic when calculating distance and time, but I was confident that we could make it to Sarajevo in good time to visit the city. It is a place with a history that is harrowing yet strangely fascinating at the same time, and I was very much looking forward to see with my own eyes a city I had read so much about. Alas, it was not to be. I had already mentioned that among the things that we got stolen in Tallinn were the chargers for the camera. I had three batteries and along the trip had discovered that they lasted much, much longer than I thought, but the previous day the last of them was running low, so I was about to be left without a camera for one of the most interesting parts of the trip. After checking out we tried to get to a part of the center where the guy who ran the hostel had told us we might find a shop that sold what we needed, but as it was to be expected, it was impossible on the bike. We gave up and decided to leave as it was already getting late. Right after crossing the bridge, we saw the shopping center the girl at reception had mentioned the day before, so we decided to stop and have one last go at finding a charger. There was only one electronics shop and I was told that the only two things I could do was to try and Google the Serbian distributor for Canon or go to a shop in the center where I could… wait for it… get a charger made. Resigned to not having a camera for the time being, and seeing that it was almost midday, I decided to leave. Getting out of Belgrade turned out to be as much of a nightmare as getting in, and we lost a lot of time. Once on the open road, things were not much better, there was not a lot of traffic, but Serbians take things very easy behind the wheel, and nobody was in much of a hurry to overtake the trucks, so we made slow progress for the first 150km, until we got to a crossroads where I stopped for fuel and then, following the petrol station staff’s advice on which route had less traffic, took a smaller road to the border. We went to several small cities and villages that looked more as if they belonged in Siberia than in Europe, and the only interesting bit of road came when we finally got to the kind of hills I had been expecting to find in this country, already near the border. I had a bit fun there, but the day was cloudy and I was too cold and tired to really enjoy it, and Nat was freezing. To make things worse, a few kilometers from the border we missed a turning that was not as obvious as it should have been for a road leading to a major international border crossing, since I was concentrating on safely passing an idiot on a silver Polo that had been slowing down a line of ten cars and as we got to an uphill section with a passing lane, had suddenly decided he wanted to drive much faster. As a result of that, we drove for several kilometers the wrong way before finding a place to stop, check the paper map against the GPS, find out where we were and ride back to the crossroads. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/585/wj0s.jpg By the time we got to the border it was already late, we had more than 150km to get to Sarajevo and we were both cold and tired. However, just as crossing from Hungary into Serbia the vibes I got from the new country changed, things changed again riding into Bosnia and Herzegovina, and this time for the better, despite the looks of the border on the Bosnian side, which was nothing more than a few metal sheds. We met a couple of Germans riding on a GS650 and chatted to them while waiting to cross the border, which always makes you feel better on the road, then the sun came out and the Bosnian border guard came back with our passports, gave us a friendly smile and waved us past the boom and into a gorgeous landscape. The road from the border was simply amazing – it followed a canyon on the river Drina and I immediately fell in love with the place. After a while we got away from the river and climbed into a landscape of rolling hills. This was the last new country I was going to visit in this trip, and it went to the top of my Most Beautiful European Countries together with Romania. We stopped one last time for petrol and when Nat went to pay and buy a country sticker she was greeted with lots of friendly questions about the trip, the guys at the petrol station had seen all the other stickers on the panniers and wanted to know if she had been to all those countries. I rode to Sarajevo in the sunset, waving back at little kids in small villages that made gestures for us to rev up the bike. A gentle twist of the throttle provoked wide smiles. We got to Sarajevo as it was getting dark, and I was pleased to see that it was a lot more relaxed than Belgrade regarding traffic. While the streets were busy with traffic, drivers did not seem to be at all stressed, and there were cars and bikes parked everywhere and not a single traffic cop in sight. I immediately found the looks of the city fascinating, it had a mix of Muslim and Western cultures I had not seen anywhere else in Europe, and I had not been stopped for more than five minutes before people offered help with directions. Nat went to check us in at the hostel and then came back with a woman who barely spoke any English at all, who gestured me to follow her on the bike and then set off with Nat on foot at a very brisk pace. I turned the motorbike around on the pavement, started it and rode the wrong way down the street, which did not seem to bother anybody else, not pedestrians nor drivers. I followed her across a small square, a couple of streets and a bridge, while she stopped the traffic with more determination than many traffic wardens I have seen. We eventually got to a small house and she gestured me to ride around the back, where I found a garage door that she opened from the inside to allow me to ride me ride the bike into a backyard and park it right under the window of what was going to be our bedroom for the night. It had been quite a day, and Nat was exhausted and so cold that she just collapsed on the carpet and covered herself in several blankets while I went out to find some take away food that I could take back to the hostel to have for dinner before going to bed. The hostel was by the river in the old town, so I just walked out the door, crossed the river and found a pedestrian street that was so lively with cafés, restaurants and bars that the only thing I could do was go back to the hostel, get Nat up from the carpet and go out for dinner. |
Sarajevo
Day 59 – Thursday 22st of August – Sarajevo (0km)
The previous day we got to Sarajevo late, tired and cold, and I had resigned myself to not having time to visit the city, even though I really wanted to, so it was not very difficult to come to the decision of staying for an extra day while we were having dinner. The following morning we told the woman who ran the guest house where we were staying and she said there was no problem. We went to visit the city I so much wanted to see and I was not disappointed; the good first impressions I had got the day before and I quickly fell in love with the place – the looks, the history, the people, the atmosphere… it worked its magic on me in a matter of minutes and I was hooked and determined to go back some day in the future and spend a holiday discovering the country. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/843/61ix.jpg We visited the Old Town, a permanent exhibition about the Srebenica massacre, the Martyr’s Memorial Cementery, some of the bridges over the Milijacka river… http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/844/27jk.jpg Seeing how lively the city was, it was hard to imagine that not that long ago, between 1992 and 1995, the city had suffered the longest siege in modern war history, a siege that put its inhabitants under constant fear for their lives, living day in, day out under artillery and sniper’s fire from the Serbian troops in the hills surrounding the city. There are still scars if you look for them, virtually all buildings in the city suffered damaged during that period and the repairs are visible on some of them, while other still wear the scars left by the siege clearly on their walls. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/593/cslx.jpg The woman who owned the guest house where we were staying, Nadia, told us she had lost seven members of her family during the siege, but that previous to the war, all cultures had peacefully coexisted in city for ages and, according to her, all the hatred that sparked the war was caused solely by politicians. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/585/c4l0.jpg In the afternoon we walked up a hill to see the city in the evening light, and found a viewing point in an old fortress overlooking the city where several locals had gathered to see the sunset. We spent some time there and on the way down, a kitten coming out from a nearby house drew our attention. I stopped and it came straight to me, which is unusual for most cats. It was one of those very rare cats that behave more like a dog, and it let us pick it up and stroke her, for it was a her. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/833/8y6b.jpg We took her for a walk with us, and she was as happy as a kitten can be, purring loudly all the time. We called here Sara, for Sarajevo, and even toyed with the idea of staying in the city an extra day to get the proper paperwork done and take her with us back to Barcelona, but she was clean and well taken care of, it was clear that she lived in the house she had jumped out of, so in the end we let her go back to her owner. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/594/prta.jpg We had dinner out that night too, and after that we went for a beer and sat down at a place with shisha pipes, where we spent a long time laughing and thinking about the last ride the following day, after which we would finally stop and rest for a few days. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/513/33wd.jpg |
The Mostar bridge
Day 60 – Friday 23rd of August – Sarajevo to Omis (290km)
It was not a long way to Croatia, but we set off early because we wanted to stop and visit Mostar and its famous bridge and also because we had not booked anywhere to stay in Croatia, the plan was to get to the coast and then ride north until we found a place we liked and try to find an apartment or a room there, as there is a lot of offer and it should not be difficult to find something. Riding out of Sarajevo we discovered that it is a much bigger city than we had imagined when we were visiting the center, it extended to the south before turning into suburbs and industrial areas and then the hills closed around us again and we were on twisty roads, enjoying the nice weather. After a while the road wound its way into a canyon following a river that further down flowed under the bridge in Mostar. The scenery was amazing, a winding road along an emerald river with majestic grey-white cliffs on both sides. When the canyon finally opened into a wider valley we found the town, or rather city. It was bigger than I thought, in fact it is the fifht biggest city in the country, and as usual, we rode through some uninteresting suburbs before finding the old town. We rode down a cobbled street following the signs that pointed towards the Stari Most until we came to a point where we could not ride any further. I was turning the bike around to go back up the street and find a place to park when a boy gestured me to ride onto a bar’s terrace where there were already four motorbikes parked. It seems the owner of the bar, seeing the country was a popular destination for riders, had smelled business and decided to use the terrace as parking space. We left the bike in the shade and under the eye of the barman for a couple of Euros (that price was for the whole day if we had wanted to stay) and walked a few meters down the street to find the bridge. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/835/l90t.jpg The first impression was that it was a very crowded tourist spot, there were a lot of people standing on the bridge, so many in fact that it was difficult to make our way onto it, but then we saw the reason so many people had congregated at the same time on the bridge itself and on both banks – a young man in swimming trunks was getting ready to jump off into the ice cold river below. He dosed himself with cold water from a hose to get ready, stepped over the railings, clapped his hands a few times to get everybody cheering and flexed his legs as silence fell over the crowd watching. Then he jumped up and forward, spreading his arms like wings and arching his back as he stood in the air for a fraction of a second before plunging into the river more than 20 meters below. It seems that it is traditional for young men to dive from the bridge into the river, there are formal competitions organized every summer, a diving club in a house by the bridge, and it dates all the way back to the bridge’s construction, in the 16th century. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/560/qfgg.jpg We visited the rest of the old town, including an exhibition with photographs of the city before, during and after the war, and a video of the destruction of the bridge. During the Bosnian war, the town saw fighting between the army of Bosnia I Herzegovina and the Croatian army on one side, and the Yugoslav’s People Army. The Croatian army bombed and destroyed the bridge claiming that it was of strategic importance, although the action is mostly considered to be an act against Bosnian cultural heritage. After the war it was reconstructed and it stands as a symbol of the union between cultures in the country. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...0/545/eiru.jpg We left the town under the intense summer heat and stopped one last time before crossing the border to spend what we had left of Bosnian money on petrol and a bottle of water; we had some lunch sitting in the shade of some trees by the petrol station and then rode to the border. The crossing was the easiest one I had done outside the EU – I handed the guard the passports, and the moment she saw they were EU passports she waved us through. After a short ride we finally saw the sea, and started making our way up the coast. We had decided to skip Dubrovnik, as it meant riding almost 90km south and then back up again, I had already seen the city and it was swarming with tourists this time of the year, as all Mediterranean cruises call on its port. Instead, we decided to try and get as close as possible to Split. By late afternoon we had made it to Omis, a beautiful fishing town a few kilometers from Split and once a pirate haven, where we tried to find accommodation. The idea was to try and rent a room in the center, so we could walk back to bed if we went out for dinner or for a beer, but all the places where we asked were out of our budget. In the end we rode for just a couple of kilometers out of town and found an apartment with a view to the sea, two minutes away from the beach on foot and with internet connection at a very reasonable price, so we took it for four nights. http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/39/tix3.jpg |
Rocky beaches and seafood
Day 61 – Saturday 24th of August – Omis (0km)
We got up very late, happy not to have to wake up to sound of the alarm clock at 7 am for another day of riding, and spent the day doing what I had come to Croatia to do – nothing. We took the sleeping mats and our books and headed down to the beach. We were in an area just two kilometers from Omis, with a lot of apartments, and we were a bit afraid that the beach might be too crowded, as beaches are somewhat hard to find in Croatia, most of the coast are just jagged rocks where it is very hard to take a swim, but it was a very nice surprise to find that there was a lot less people than we had feared and the atmosphere was very quiet and relaxed. We laid down our mats and spent the whole day sunbathing, reading and swimming in the crystal clear waters of the Adriatic Sea. In the evening we rode to the center to find a place to have a seafood dinner. I had spent one of the best holidays of my life in Croatia years back, and one of the things I remembered most fondly was having such a meal in Omis. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps19452298.jpg We found a nice restaurant in a narrow street in the old town, and enjoyed a huge platter of fresh seafood and fish. After that we bought a couple of ice creams and then walked up a steep narrow path cut into the rock to the town’s fortress, where a concert was just finishing. It was already dark and there was a beautiful view of the city from the top. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps1161ca6a.jpg Riding back to the apartment, I remembered how, when I was preparing the trip and seeing that I had no budget left for a pair of extra spotlights for the motorbike, I had told myself that I would not ride at night, and here I was, not only riding at night, but riding in shorts, flip-flops, a short-sleeved shirt and a passenger. After so many days of stifling heat and freezing cold in the bulky riding suit, feeling the warm sea breeze on my arms and legs was a wonderful sensation. |
Surprising beauty
Day 62 – Sunday 25th of August – Omis to Split to Omis (50km)
Expectations are usually a bad thing, especially when travelling. When we are told again and again how beautiful a place is, our expectations are set quite high, and more often than not once we actually lay eyes in the actual place, we feel if not disappointed, at least a bit underwhelmed. ‘It looks like Bellvitge’* Nat remarked as we were riding into Split in the early afternoon after having spent another morning relaxing on the beach. And right she was. Years earlier that had been my exact same impression when we were driving through the outskirts of the city, even though in our case we had zero expectations as nobody had ever told us anything about it. It has to be said then, that when a place is so truly beautiful that it still manages to impress the visitor despite all the hype, it must be something special, and Split is undoubtedly one of those places. The fact that you have to drive through such grey and dull suburbs to get to the center only adds to the surprise. The old town was built on the ruins of the Diocletian palace which itself was a huge complex, and it is a unique and impressive sight. It is still quite touristy, mind you, but not as much as Dubrovnik, there are less cruises calling there and it is mostly local tourism. We enjoyed a long walk in the center and went down to the ferry terminal to enquire about the prices and schedule of the ships going to Brac and Hvar, the two islands in front of the city, which were one of the things I had missed on my previous trip and which I really wanted to see. Prices turned out to be quite reasonable, so we decided to go back the following morning and visit them. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps4ebe905d.jpg |
Run for the ferry!
Day 63 – Monday 26th of August – Omis to Hvar to Omis (199km – 150 by ferry)
We did not get up exactly early, I will give you that. By the time we got to the ferry terminal in Split it was almost 11 am and we were not very confident about being able to catch the ferry leaving at that time. I stopped the motorbike on the taxi rank in front of the ticket offices, right under the nose of four traffic wardens ushering cars onto the ferry boarding area and making sure nobody stopped there, but they did not seem to mind me. Nat went to get the tickets and she came back running, saying they had told her we still could make it onto the 11 am ferry if we hurried. I rode onto the boarding yard and up to the man checking the tickets. There was a queue of cars boarding, but when I asked him if we were on time, he asked whether we had tickets and when we said we did he just pointed at the ferry’s ramp and said ‘bye-bye’. I rode straight onto the car deck, jumping ahead of all the cars that had not boarded yet, but nobody seemed to care, that is another of the nice things of riding a bike. We parked it on one side, the crew strapped it down for the crossing, and we walked up to the top deck as the ferry started slowly moving away from the city. It was a gorgeous day and the city looked amazing from the sea. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps8fab42f5.jpg There were several ships connecting the islands to the mainland, but the ferry only went to either Brac or Hvar, so we had had to choose. We had been told that the nicest one was Hvar, and also the one with the best beaches but once there it was hard work finding one, as the coast was mostly rocks. The landscape was beautiful, though, very small towns with stone houses, a very narrow road that went up and down hills and valleys and the island had very little population and even less tourists. We stopped at a small town with a quiet pebble beach and sunbathed for a while and went for a swim. The water was quite different there, it was open sea and you could tell that there was no longer the protection of the islands in front of the coast. The waves were higher and the color was no longer crystal clear, but a darker shade, due to the seaweed that was stirred from the bottom. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps4b3d8b57.jpg We stayed in the same town after the swim and had fish for lunch at a restaurant with a lovely terrace by the beach before heading to the town of Hvar, where we visited the fortress on top of the hill and enjoyed the views from there. After that we rode to the highest peak in the island, where there was an observatory, I imagine that out in the sea and with so little population, the night view of the sky must be amazing from that point. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps8bd66096.jpg It was getting dark, so we started heading for the other two main towns in the island, but after seeing that there was not much to see after dark in the first of them, we decided to head back to Stari Grad, where the ferry terminal was, and try to catch the 8:30 ferry, as there was not another one (the last one, in fact) until almost midnight. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps33e01bdc.jpg By the time we made it to the docks it was a few minutes past departure time, but the ferry was still there with the doors open and two of the crew members were standing there. A couple of cars were still boarding, so I rode directly to them and asked whether we could get tickets on board. They shook their heads and pointed toward the terminal building, indicating that we should buy them there. I rode across the yard and Nat ran to the offices while I waited outside on the bike. There was one last vehicle that still had not boarded, about twenty meters from where I had stopped on the opposite end of the yard from the ship. It was a knackered old blue van with a couple of men that looked like a mix of old hippies and gypsies, and by the looks of it, it was them the ferry was waiting for when we had arrived. An old woman on crutches approached them, she had gone to the building to get the tickets, but when they tried to start the van, the engine would not fire up. They tried again and again, but it was not working. While they were trying to get the van started, the old woman stared to slowly make her way across the yard with the tickets in her hand; Nat was not back with our tickets yet and the two men decided to push the van into the ferry and at that moment a weird race started that looked like something out of a Cohen brothers film. The woman was limping two thirds of the way across the yard, the men had already pushed the van about a third of the way and out of the corner of my eye I saw Nat come out of the offices with our tickets in her hand and start to run towards the bike. She gave the tickets, which I put directly in my mouth while I fired up the engine and she jumped on the back. I revved the engine up and shot across the yard just as the old woman was handing the tickets to the crew and the two men were approaching the ramp with the van. I stopped right in front of them, handed the crew our tickets – bite marks included – and rode onboard a half-empty ferry which started closing the doors right behind us as the gypsies finished rolling the van onto the deck. By that time it was pitch black out at sea, and as I had imagined earlier that evening on the observatory on the hill, the night sky was spectacular, thousands of stars twinkling above our heads as we made it back to the mainland. |
Relativity
Day 64 – Tuesday 27th of August – Omis to Ljubljana (577km)
Some days seem to have less than 24 hours, some others much more than that. I guess it depends on where you are, what you are doing and who you are sharing the day with. Today was one of those days that seem to have 36 or more hours, not because it felt long, but because by the end of it, chilling out with a cup of wine in my hand, it was hard to believe that we had time to fit so many things in only one day. To start with, this was one of the long days on the motorbike. I had long forgotten my self-imposed 300km a day limit and was used to riding longer than that, but Nat, who was on her first motorbike trip ever, had insisted on not exceeding that distance. However, much as we wanted to ride easy and have time to visit things, real life was waiting for us back home, and we had a schedule to keep. That meant that if we still wanted to have some time to enjoy the Alps, we had to leave Croatia today and make it to Ljubljana in one day. I wanted to follow a straight line, both to do less kilometers and to enjoy better landscape, but the GPS said it would take all day and having seen the roads in the Istria Peninsula a few years ago, I did not have any reason to doubt it. Taking main roads and motorways cut the journey down to seven hours, but added over 100km to it, as we had to go all the way to Zagreb. It was a long detour, and I was afraid so many kilometers on motorways would be boring, but in the end we decided to go for it. We set off relatively early, feeling a bit sorry to leave the comfort of the apartment and the lazy days on the beach behind, but looking forward to being in the mountains again. The motorway had been extended since the last time I was here, and we did not have to spend too long on the coast road to get to it. It was a beautiful day, but there were some thick gray clouds lurking behind the mountains, right where we were headed. Seeing that, I left with the rain gear on, but had to remove it at the first fuel stop, as it was baking hot. As I was sitting by the bike in my underwear, another couple pulled up on a Yamaha – they were from Slovenia, and were also heading back home after a two-week trip around the Balkans. We chatted about Serbia and Bosnia I Herzegovina and they recommended visiting Albania and Macedonia as well. More countries on the ‘to visit’ list! http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps14788509.jpg We spent the rest of the journey to Zagreb playing the game of trying to stay ahead of the rain, trying to read the weather and putting on and taking off the rain gear when we stopped for fuel or a rest, not wanting to make extra stops. We were relatively lucky and escaped the worst of it, although there was a moment in which heavy rain caught us unprepared and I just went for it, seeing that the sky was clear ahead. Fortunately, it did not last for long and we dried up fast. We stopped for the last cup of coffee on the border with Slovenia, having ridden around Zagreb on the ring road. I had already seen the city, but it is a shame we did not have time to spend a night there so Nat could see it as well. We bought the only vignette I had paid for in the whole trip so that we could use the motorway all the way to the capital, and a couple of hours later, in heavy rain and rush hour, we arrived in Ljubljana. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...pse0ceea60.jpg The hostel looked like a 90s teenage sitcom set (think Parker Lewis Can’t Lose) and was a bit far from the center, but it was nice enough and there was space to park the bike on the driveway. As we were only going to be there for a night, we had gone for the cheapest option and booked a shared room. It was still early, the rain had stopped and we had a couple of hours until dark, so we dropped our bags and then took a long walk to the city center. Nat loved the city, and to me it felt somewhat special to be back here for the second time. I had arrived in Ljubljana on my third day on the road only, all my gear new and shiny, and here I was again, after thousands of miles. We wandered around, enjoying the lively streets, and when it got dark we sat in one of the bars lining the river and had some wine. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps97a879c5.jpg The rain came back while we were there, but it stopped for long enough to allow us to get back to the hostel on foot. We went to bed late, looking forward to getting to the Alps the following morning. |
A Spritz in Cortina
Day 65 – Wednesday 28th of August – Ljubljana to Cortina d’Ampezzo (296km)
I was very excited to be riding back to Alps and the prospect of spending a bit longer there riding some of the best roads in Europe, since my first taste on the way east had been all too short, but I felt a pang of regret as we rode out of Ljubljana. Slovenia is a beautiful country and there are lots of things we were leaving behind undiscovered – Predjama castle and its cave, the Triglav mountains, Ljubljana itself, where I could easily have spent a couple more days… It is definitely a place where I could spend my entire holidays. My biggest regret, however, was not having had the chance to meet Metka and Franci again, my hosts on my first visit to the city. Our improvised travel schedule meant that we were not sure when we would be in the there, and it had been very difficult to find and internet connection on the days leading up to our arrival in the city, so I could not get in touch in time to confirm whether they would be there or on holidays, and on top of that we only spent a night before moving on. On the way to the border we stopped to visit Bled castle, built on a cliff overlooking the lake that bears the same name. It was a wonderful place, it is a shame that we lost too much time trying to get in and out of the town because of the traffic jams caused by the huge trucks trying to make their way through the old center. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps3d6efec9.jpg My first language is Catalan, and as Nat and I had been following a route that took us away from Europe’s main tourist centers, we had grown used to being able to have conversations about pretty much anything without having to worry about the people around us understanding what we were talking about, since there was very little chance of bumping into fellow countrymen. However, walking down the path that lead from the castle door back to the car park, we were having a lively chat over a, let’s call it “interesting topic”, when we came across a group of tourists on their way up. Right in the climax of the conversation, one of them said ‘bon dia!’ in a jokingly tone and we both stopped talking abruptly before bursting into laughter. Well, it goes to show that we are everywhere indeed. We rejoined the motorway for a while before turning left into a smaller road following the Belca river in order to avoid paying again to use Austrian roads. It would take a little longer to get to the Italian border, but it was worth it – we rode around the north face of the Triglav mountains and the scenery was breathtaking. Unfortunately the rain caught up with us right on the border, so we had to make an emergency stop to put on the waterproof gear. Once in Italy though, the rain stopped quickly, so we decided to take the chance to stop for a lunch and a rest just in case the weather turned nasty again later. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps141585a6.jpg Fortunately, it did not, and we enjoyed the ride along the river Fella; there was a motorway, but we had time to spare and decided to take the SS13, which was much nicer. As we got closer to Tolmezzo things turned rather boring, we went through an industrial area and then took a stretch of rather dull road, but soon enough we got to the Dolomiti area and took much nicer roads leading to Cortina. The scenery in this area was simply breathtaking. I could have spent weeks just riding this roads again and again, not to mention climbing on the numerous via ferrata there are everywhere here or just hiking. It is a wonderful place and I am a hundred per cent sure that sometime in the future I will be back here. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps295c54a0.jpg We got to Cortina and started looking for a place to sleep. Since hotels were horribly expensive and there were no hostels, we decided to look for a campsite. However, I was rather tired – the last bit on the mountain roads had been fun but exhausting- the whole trying to find a place to sleep was getting frustrating and on top of that I suddenly had a bad case of hay fever that left me sneezing like crazy and unable to think clearly. We found a couple of campsites, but they were not exactly cheap, I needed a good rest and a hot shower and Nat was feeling quite cold after crossing the mountains. In the end, given the small difference in price between getting a plot to set up the tent and renting the small room in the reception building and enjoying a proper bed and a shower, we decided to go for the second option. Once we had already paid for it and were waiting to get the keys, the guy told us that his sister had already rented the room and had not updated that into the system, so he made a couple of phone calls and pointed us in the direction of a nice little house halfway up a grassy hill where an old lady rented a room, and told us he had arranged for us to stay there for the same price. Once we had settled down at Ms. Maria’s place, I had a quick shower and we went out to finish the day with a Spritz in a nice bar in the center of Cortina. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps55032cee.jpg |
The Stelvio
Day 66 – Thursday 29th of August – Cortina d’Ampezzo to Sta. Maria (237km)
Those of you who are Top Gear fans will remember that Clarkson and company declared the Stelvio pass the best road ‘in the wooooorld’ until they discovered the Transfagarasan road on their visit to Romania. I had the privilege of riding that road almost two months ago and I completely agree with them – it is an amazing ride and a must for any bikers riding Europe. Today, however, our route back home was going to take us across the Stelvio and I was eager to see how it compared with the Transfagarasan and whether it deserved that second place. I was very excited at the prospect of riding another legendary road, what I did not know was that the two days it would take us to get to Interlaken were going to be a feast of absolutely marvelous mountain passes that would make it very difficult to come to a conclusion and chose the best one. I had bought a good old paper map of the Alps in Slovenia which had a lovely level of detail, and we were going to use that to navigate for the next few days, using the GPS only as extra help to get from one waypoint to the other and programming it on the way, as I did not want to depend on whatever route it might decide from A to B and miss on some great roads. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...psa0aac974.jpg We rode out of Cortina under a glorious blue sky, my allergy all but gone, and were soon climbing a pass called Di Sella. The tarmac was in excellent condition, there was not much traffic aside from other bikes and the road wound its way up the pass through lush fields of green, a combination of fast corners at the bottom and hairpins at the top. It was here that I saw for the first time that Italians number the corners on their mountain passes, so can count how many you have to go. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps8a2886f4.jpg We stopped at the top of the pass, where there were hundreds of cars parked. It was clear that it was the starting point of many hiking and climbing routes, and the place was crowded. Luckily, we were able to just park the bike next to a couple of GSs right by the road and decided to take a short walk up the mountain to enjoy the views. Nat was feeling a bit cold after the ride in the morning air, but a brisk hike up a mountain trail dressed in bike gear soon warmed us up. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps76df9cc2.jpg After taking a few pictures we got back on the bike and rode down the other side, which turned out to be even better. Rides like this put all other roads in perspective, and once we were down from the mountain pass and going to Bolzano, what might have been a decent road felt like the dullest thing in the world. We went past the city, took a short stretch of free motorway to Merano and then got back on a B-road again, heading for the Stelvio. There were about 50km to the point where the road leading up the pass started, and the traffic was quite heavy. To make matters worse, there were not many overtaking opportunities, at least not legal overtaking, so I was starting to worry. We passed several trucks easily, but what I did not like was the fact that there were quite a lot of motorhomes on the road. I assumed that trucks had no reason to take the Stelvio, but I was afraid that the tourists crawling along on their motorhomes might want to visit it, thus completely ruining the experience for all the enthusiasts riding bikes or driving sports cars that might end up stuck behind them, chugging up the road at 20km/h. Overtaking as many as I could on those last 50km before the Stelvio, I could not help but to agree with Mr. Clarkson. A truck might be slow, but at least it is performing a service to society, a caravan is just a moving obstacle on the road driven by someone who is too good to sleep on a tent but too mean to pay for a hotel. And not even that, those things, especially motorhomes are expensive, why not just buy a decent car, enjoy a good drive and spend the difference in a hotel!? Anyway, by the time we got to the junction, we had left all of them behind, and we had a clear road ahead of us. After passing a couple of towns I was very pleased to see signs limiting the length and weight of the vehicles allowed up the pass, which meant that there would be no caravans, motorhomes or tourist coaches blocking our way. Great! I dropped a couple of gears and leaped for the first serious corner. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...psa248edac.jpg What a ride! This was a very different place from the Transfagarasan – one hairpin after the other, I had to take them in first gear, using the whole width of the road to carry enough inertia to keep the bike from falling over or stalling. Remember, this was no sports bike, but a fully loaded adventure tourer with two people on it. In spite of that, it performed admirably, roaring its way up the road and, surprisingly, keeping up with much more powerful machinery. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps4bbc5ffb.jpg Nat did a beautiful co-piloting job, looking up the road as we approached each corner and letting me know if the way was clear for me to use all the available tarmac, and the odd slow car was quickly overtaken between hairpins. Oh, and talking about slow cars, I felt really, really sorry for a convoy of gorgeous Lotus Elises that spent the last part of the way up helplessly stuck behind a RAV4 driven at 10km/h by a family of tourists who looked absolutely terrified at the corners. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...psc7f4389b.jpg There were hundreds of bikers at the top of the pass, and while the GS seemed to be the machine of choice (there are thousands of these things everywhere!) people had ridden up here in all kinds of things, including an old woman on a classic Vespa. I bought a Stelvio pass sticker to put on the bike and then sat down to have a rest and ponder whether this was better than the Transfagarasan or not. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps62df6d2c.jpg The landscape was no doubt amazing, high rocky mountains covered in snow, deep valleys, lush pine forests at the bottom… but the corners were too tight for my taste, at least on the eastern side, which meant that the riding was less enjoyable than in the Romanian road, which had faster corners. This was all first and second gear. Of course the Stelvio is a well-known name for riders in Europe, and there is something magic to it, but that fame has a price, which brings me to the second reason why I prefer the Transfagarasan. Unlike the Transfagarasan, the Stelvio attracts a lot of people, which is OK as far as bikes and sports cars go, but there are also a lot of people driving very slowly on it, which spoils the experience if you are stuck behind one of them for a while. Finally it also suffers from the same problem that affects all great driving roads in Western Europe – cyclists. Hundreds of them, fantasizing they are wearing the maglia azzurra in the Giro. There is virtually no traffic on the Transfagarasan other than a few enthusiasts, and that is reason enough for me to agree with the boys from Top Gear and rate it above the Stelvio. Which does not mean I think it is the greatest road ever… To be completely fair, I have to confess that we did not ride down the other side of the Stelvio, so my impressions might be incomplete. We were heading for the Davos area, so once at the top, we took a smaller road that went down the northern side. It was great – no traffic, faster corners, beautiful scenery, and it even had a bit of adventure riding factor, as halfway down the tarmac disappeared and it became a dirt track for the rest of the ride. It was quite funny to see the faces of some guys on sports bikes and a couple on a Porsche trying to make their way up the pass! Once in the valley we started looking for a campsite, but there was only one in the area and it did not look very nice. Add to that that the night was going to be quite cold up there and we decided to ride to the next town and try to find a room to rent or some kind of B&B. The town was called Santa Maria, and it did have a hotel and a youth hostel, but to our dismay the hostel was booked full and the hotel was way too expensive. We were standing by the bike in the center of the town, tired and cold, not very happy at the prospect of having to spend all evening trying to find accommodation when a huge truck came along and started to very slowly negotiate the narrow space between two old buildings. Its flanks were literally only a couple of inches from the walls on each side, and as we were watching the show I hear a voice say ‘cool, uh?’ We turned around and saw a woman contemplating the scene next to us. We got chatting about it and she told us that it was a daily thing, there were big truck passing through the old town quite often. She then saw the bike and asked ‘are you looking for a room?’ It turned out she lived in a big old house round the corner and she had done up a room in the ground floor to rent to tourists. She made us a very good deal, so we parked the bike in her garden and spent the night there. It was much, much better than we could have hoped for. The room was big and cosy, the bathroom was almost as big as the room and best of all… the floor was heated. It was better than many hotels I have stayed in. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps058690ff.jpg |
Mountain passes
Day 67 – Friday 30th of August – Sta. Maria to Interlaken (305km)
I said in my last post that I agreed with Top Gear’s conclusion saying the Transfagarasan road was better than the Stelvio pass, but that did not mean that it was the road I enjoyed most in my trip. That honor will have to go to the journey we did today on our way from Sta. Maria to Interlaken, which took us across no less than five passes. We started climbing the first one right after leaving Sta. Maria, it was the Ofenpass, and at that time in the morning there was no other traffic on the road. It might not have been as visually spectacular as the Stelvio, but as a road to enjoy on a motorbike it was perfect. Fast corners, nice landscape, Swiss-quality tarmac… roads do not much better than this. We made it to the other side with the tank almost empty, so we stopped at a petrol station in the first town we found. There were quite a lot of bikes queuing there, and it seemed that there was nobody in charge of the pumps or in the register, we had to use a credit card or bank notes to pay for the petrol. Several bikers, including ourselves, tried putting different cards into the machine, which rejected them all, and it would not take anybody’s bank notes either. Frustrated and practically running on fumes, we went on, hoping to find another petrol station before turning right for the next pass, which was quite near. I programmed the GPS to look for one – this is one of the most useful you can do with it – and it led us to one a few meters from the start of the road up the pass. With the tank full, we started climbing the next pass, the Albulapass, which took us to the Chur area. From there on the road was a tad more monotonous, nice and widing, through beautiful landscape, but without the excitement or views of the passes and with a lot more traffic, as it was a main road. The longuish ride to the next three passes before Interlaken was made a bit more entertaining by a long caravan of classic cars we met, closed by a black Ferrari 575 which provided an excellent soundtrack to go with the views. We stopped before starting to climb the following pass, the Oberalpass, and I had a can of energy drink to keep me going, as it was turning out to be quite a long day. It was sunny and warm, the roads were excellent and we were not going to cover a lot of kilometres to Interlaken, but riding on such fun roads was exhausting and we had three more passes to go. Shortly after the Oberalpass we started climbing the Furkapass and the Grimselpass, which were one right after the other. On the way up the first one we saw some thick black smoke coming up from the bottom of the deep valley. We stopped to take some pictures a few corners further up the road and saw it was an old steam train painfully making its way up the valley. It was progressing very slowly, belching out a thick column of smoke. We stopped for lunch at the top of the pass and saw it again nearing the entrance of the tunnel that would take it to the other side of the mountain, far below us. I had been thinking that it had to be a great experience to ride those mountain railways in an old tourist steam train, but seeing how much smoke the engine was making as it entered the tunnel I thought it would not be so much fun for the passengers to breathe soot for the length of the tunnel. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...psf67a5d27.jpg We had lunch on a grassy knoll overlooking the road, admiring all the exotic metal driving past on both directions – you name it, we saw it. From the usual selection of Ferraris, Porsches and Lamborghinis to Lotuses, Caterhams, TVRs, and some kit cars I was not able to identify. As for the motorbikes, there were hundreds of GSs, you would think they are cheap to buy, seeing how many populate the roads all over Europe! The road took us down a deep valley where we saw an old train station where the line coming from the valley ended and passengers switched to the old steam trains for the reminder of the way up. The road down from the top of the Furkapass kept crossing the train line, and once at the bottom it almost immediately started climbing again for the Grimselpass, the last one before Interlaken. From the beginning of the last section of the Furkapass we got a privileged view encompassing the railway going down to the bottom of the valley, the station, the road up the next pass and even a glimpse of the lake at the top of it, all in glorious late afternoon light. We went past another lake on the way down from the Furkapass, on a road that offered yet more gorgeous views for what was the last bit of our ride in the heart of the Alps. After all these marvellous rides, I can come to my own personal conclusion and choose the road traversing the Furkapass and the Grimselpass as the best road I have ever ridden. I am aware that I missed other great names, such as the St. Gothardo pass or the St. Bernardino pass, but we just did not have the time to properly explore the area. Well, that will be the excuse to come back here in the future. We stopped in a town called Innertkirchen to do some shopping for dinner and then rode the last few kilometres to Interlaken, where it did not take us long to find a great campsite right by the canal connecting both lakes, within walking distance from the city center. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps22e283d4.jpg |
It would have been easier to walk up the Jungfrau
Day 68 – Saturday 31st of August – Interlaken (0km)
The number one tourist attraction in Interlaken is the Jungfrau. The tallest peak in the region, it stands 4,158m above sea level, and about 600m below that there is an observation center that offers visitors a unique view of the surrounding peaks and that glacier that extends at its feet. What makes this place special, aside from the fact that it is the highest building in Europe, is that tourists do not need to climb up the mountain to get to it, there is a railway that reaches as far up as 3,454m, travelling inside the mountain to Jungfraujoch station, an underground complex that would not look out of place in a Bond movie. From there, a short elevator ride takes people to the observation center. It is an astonishing place and one definitely worth visiting, but there are a couple of things to take into account before deciding to go there. First, it is not cheap. A return ticket will set you back just over 160€. Second, the weather is very changeable at that height, which means that you may end up paying a small fortune just for a fancy train ride and get zero visibility once you are at the top. I had already been there years ago (it cost about 60€ then, which was still expensive for a student on an Interrail trip), so we decided to do something different with our last day before heading home. The campsite rented kayaks, something I had never tried before, and we thought it would be a great idea to explore the lake. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps017c91c5.jpg We were given a couple of life vests, a water-proof barrel to keep our stuff dry and were told to keep close to the left shore as the various ships and boats we would be sharing the waters with were not very considerate towards tourists drifting onto their paths. We dragged the kayak to the cannal, launched it into the water, strapped the barrel onto it and then managed to sit in the thing without tipping over, which I considered a great success already. We pushed ourselves away from the shore and started paddling up the canal leading into the big lake. We had decided to go for a tandem kayak, as we thought it would be funnier than getting individual ones, but it soon became clear it had been a mistake. With zero experience, the damn thing was impossible to keep straight. We tried to coordinate the paddling, but it was hopeless, we were just wandering from left to right, from right to left, all the time trying to keep away from passing boats. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps290a59e0.jpg Every time we got the thing going straight for a few metres, either Nat or I would paddle to fast once or twice, or even just give a small push with the paddle on the wrong side, and the kayak would start turning fast to the wrong direction. After some exhausting experimentation, we discovered that if only one of us paddled it was quite easy to go on a straight line, and I also discovered that Nat paddled harder on her left side, meaning that left to paddle alone, she would go round in big clockwise circles. We also discovered that we had both been trying to paddle and steer the boat, while the right thing to do is have the person sitting at the front just paddle and the one at the back paddle and steer. Having learnt the lesson and having had to stand a few condescending smiles from other more experienced kayakers sailing past and from people watching from the shore and enjoying the show, we managed to make some progress and started to enjoy the scenery. The shores of the lake were lined with quaint wooden houses half-hidden in the trees, and most of them had a jetty and a boat. It was a beautiful day and there were a lot of people sunbathing by the shore or diving into the lake from their back gardens. After a couple of hours we made it to a public swimming area with a floating platform and decided it was a good place to go for a swim before heading back. The water was quite cold, but it was a pleasure to swim in such crystalline waters. On our way back we kept the kayak heading straight and true, like real pros, and we made good progress, which was all the more surprising when after about an hour we realized how far we still had to go. We had the feeling that we had not gone very far from the campsite to the swimming platform – true, we had taken a couple of hours to get there, but we had been going on a very erratic line, struggling to go straight – and now we were becoming aware how how much distance we had covered, which made us feel kind of proud. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps1790d1c0.jpg We took a few pictures before handing the kayak back and then went for a walk in Interlaken for the rest of the afternoon. In the center we saw a convoy of old Nissan Skylines that were taking part on a rally going from Kuwait to Morocco via Europe – it looked as if they were having great fun! http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...pse074d4cd.jpg http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps886347b4.jpg http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...pse074d4cd.jpg We bought some food and a couple of beers for dinner and headed back to the campsite to sort out all the gear and decide which things would stay on the bike and which things Nat would take on the plane. As we were packing I realized that was it – the journey was coming to an end. Nat had originally planned to join me only for the Swiss leg of the trip because I thought I would be back in Europe much later than I was and not wanting to do so many kilometers on her first trip on a motorbike, she had decided to fly back to Barcelona, so I was going to take her to Geneva the following morning. In the end though, my change of plans meant that she had joined me in Helsinki and we had travelled for about 4,400km on the bike together. Not bad, taking into account that she did not have proper riding gear and had to wear several layers of clothes and a waterproof jacket underneath a summer riding jacket I had lent her, as well as a pair of hiking boots that were not exactly waterproof. She was very, very brave. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...psee183cb0.jpg |
The beginning of the end
Day 69 – Sunday 1st of September – Interlaken to Geneve to St. Thomé (559km)
Today the long way home started. We packed up and tried to get an early start, as I wanted to cover as much distance as possible after dropping Nat at Geneva airport in order to avoid a long ride the following day, as I did not want to take the motorway on my last day on the road. We decided to avoid the motorway going to Bern and cut across the mountains on road 11, which took us to Aigle, and from there we rode along Lake Lehman’s southern bank to Geneva. It was a beautiful morning and the traffic was quite light, allowing us to enjoy our last few hours together on this trip. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps4aaba557.jpg We made it to Geneva airport in good time, and kissed goodbye in front of the terminal. I looked down at my GPS and instead of entering the coordinates for my next destination as I had been doing for more than two months, I pressed “home”. Set to avoid motorways and toll roads, it showed I had a long way to go, but I had two days ahead of me. I waved goodbye and rode off. Having Nat with me for so long had been a very pleasant surprise, and I felt a bit lonely as I hit the road out of Geneva. I was running low on fuel, but I thought that I would stop to fill up once I was out of the city. It turned out to be a mistake. I rode for a long while without seeing a petrol station, and I was getting a bit nervous – the tank was practically empty, and I did not have any fuel in the jerrycan, I had put what was in it into the tank once I was back in Europe, thinking I would have no problems here. I set the GPS to find a petrol station even if it meant leaving the road I was travelling on, and it sent me into a sleepy French town where I found a deserted supermarket petrol station after some backstreet riding. Luckily enough, the pump accepted my credit card and I was able to fill up. However, when I got back on the bike I saw that the GPS was now giving me a much longer route back home than before. I tried to reprogram it, but then it said that the route was too long and it was not able to calculate it. I rode out of the town in the general direction I knew I had to go, hoping I would be able to program it further along. It was hopeless, it refused to give me a way back that was not on the motorway. I did not have a paper map, and navigating French back roads can be a nightmare if you do not know where you are going. By early evening I was too tired to travel like that and decided to take the motorway, go as far as I could that day and then find a campsite. I made it past Montélimar, where I stopped once again for petrol. I checked the GPS and voilà! There was a campsite just 12 km from where I was. I was not expecting anything great, just somewhere to spend the night, but the area around the campsite was quite beautiful, and once more, I regretted not having enough time to see a bit more. It was almost dark by the time I had finished setting up the tent, so I ordered a beer at the bar, had some dinner and went to bed. |
Home
Day 70 – Monday 2nd of September – St. Thomé to Barcelona (611km)
I could have left the campsite without paying. I got up early, but I did not think it was so early that both the reception and the bar would still be closed. I imagined it was because we were already starting the low season, at least judging by the atmosphere in the place. There was an air of post-summer melancholy to it, there were only a few caravans left, scattered amongst the trees here and there in the vast camping ground, no kids playing around, no cars full of holidaymakers coming and going. Even the air felt colder than on the first mornings of my trip, but maybe that was just because it was early morning and my mind was playing tricks. Be as it may, my feelings were overcome by the looks of the place and I felt melancholy creep into my soul. I knew every little gesture that would follow that day would be the last one – packing the bike, rolling out onto the road, smelling the fresh morning air riding country roads, looking for a place to have breakfast, stopping later in the morning to take off a layer of clothes as the day would grow hotter, finding a petrol station, looking for a place for lunch, stopping to check the GPS for more scenic routes if I was making good progress… The door to the reception/bar area was open, but there was only a young girl there cleaning and getting things ready to open the place later. When I told her I was leaving and I wanted to pay she told me that reception was not open yet, nor was the bar, which meant that if I was to wait, I had to do so with an empty stomach, which I did not want to do. I gave her the money for the night, told her I had spent the night in plot 83 and asked her to give the money to whoever was in charge. Motorbikes have a discount on French motorways, and as I had decided that I did not want to enter my country through the motorway along the coast, but through the Pyrenees, I took the motorway for the first part of my way back home. Shortly after I got back onto the autoroute, I stopped for breakfast at one of those great French service stations and was soon reunited with my old friend, the wind. I had sat out on the terrace of the restaurant to enjoy my breakfast in the sun, but once I had finished my sandwich and juice, I was only able to enjoy a few sips of coffee before the wind blew away the plastic cup. Well, at least it did not blow it onto me… I had not had such strong winds since the start of the trip except for the beginning of that sand storm in Kazakhstan which blew away my leather gloves. A few hours of fighting the wind on the motorway later, I found myself thinking that after all the weather conditions I had ridden through, I was surprised that this was the one I was hating the most. The strong winds were made even worse by the turbulence created by trucks and vans, and I got so sick of it that in the end I turned off the motorway much earlier than I had planned to and went back to country roads, as I would me more sheltered from the wind there and travelling slower would mean less turbulence from other traffic. It was not much better… France is a great country with many things to see but unfortunately, most of those things are not in central France. I rode through miles and miles of small sleepy towns, fields, some industrial areas, more fields and more sleepy towns, still accompanied by the wind and having to endure hundreds of old people trundling along those country roads on their Citroën Berlingos at 20km/h. If you go to France as a tourist, there are wonderful things to see. In my case, I was going on a very long tour starting in Barcelona, which meant that France was a country I had to ride through before I got to the interesting bits. If I ever do something like this again, I think I will just take a ferry to Italy and then to the Balkans and just bypass it. I finally made it to Perpignan, where I wanted to turn west and head for the Pyrenees. It was already lunchtime, so by the time I had left the big town and the industrial parks that surrounded it behind I started looking for a place to eat. I wanted to find a nice small town restaurant and enjoy one last meal on the road, but it was not to be. I wonder if it was a national holiday or the French simply do not like to work on Mondays, but I did not manage to find a single thing open in the towns and villages I rode through. I also needed to fill up again, so I was heading to a supermarket petrol station I had found on the GPS, and since I had not seen an open restaurant or bar, I thought I would buy something there and just find a nice spot by the road now that I was closer to the mountains. That option was quickly discarded as I rode onto the supermarket car park. Not a soul in sight, all shutters down and only a couple of credit card-operated petrol pumps in the scorching sun to greet me. I filled up, and as I was still wearing the inner lining in the jacket and pants –it was cold in the morning- I started to take them off without even pushing the bike away from the pump. Sure enough, as I was in the middle of my striptease, not one, but three cars, a motorbike and a guy on foot carrying a jerrycan turned up to use the damn pump. Where did they come from!? I had ridden across the whole town and it was completely deserted! I moved the bike away and finished changing clothes while a middle-aged mademoiselle tested the other four people’s patience by taking her own sweet time to figure out how to use her card to pay for the petrol. I rode on trying to find somewhere to eat, and in the end had to give up and stop at the only place I found open. A McDonald’s restaurant. Yes. A McDonald’s burger. In France. On my last day. I could not believe it either. At least the day got better once I rode past Prades and up the N116 heading for the border. I had been on that road countless times coming from my side of the border, as I normally go skiing in that area, and it is an amazing road, but I had never been any further than Mont-Louis. On clear days you can look down the valley from there and see the sea in the distance, and I had always wanted to do that last part of the road leading down to Perpignan. What a road and what a way to get back to my country! I rode up the winding road all the way to the part I already knew, enjoying the beautiful afternoon and the stunning landscape that these old familiar mountains offer. Down in La Cerdanya, I crossed one last border and finally entered my dear home land. As I said, I usually come up to this area to go skiing in winter or hiking in summer. Coming from Barcelona, there is a tunnel that gets you here faster, but you have to pay a toll to use it and it is not cheap. However, most people, myself included, prefer to take that route than the mountain pass above, as it takes too long and is tiresome to drive it. It had been quite a while since the last time I took the pass, and I had forgotten what a great road it is. Since it was a Monday, there was nobody on the road and I had it all to myself. I had a blast riding up to La Collada, taking the engine to the red line with every gear change, leaning into corners enjoying the perfect tarmac, the flowing road and the breathtaking scenery. I stopped at the top of the pass and as I took in the views I thought that there was no better way back home. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps9dd768a0.jpg It is funny how travelling such long distances puts things in perspective. When I come here, the journey home at the end of the day usually feels long, you are near the border, in the mountains, a long way from Barcelona. When I got back on the motorbike I saw that the GPS indicated I had 140km to my flat. All throughout the trip, when I saw that I had 150-100km to get to my destination on the GPS I had the feeling that I had already made it and that I only had to ride the last few km into town and find the place where I was going to spend the night. I laughed and took the first corner down that familiar road. I made it to Barcelona very quickly and run into the late afternoon rush hour. My motorbike and my riding suit were covered in dirt, dust and insects from the last 14 countries, my face was unshaven and sunburned and I had a stupidly big grin on my face. People looked at me in traffic lights as if I had got lost on my way to Dakar. I took the Gran Via to get to the center, and there is a big elevated roundabout where it meets the Diagonal. The sun was already low when I rode up onto it, bathing the city in a warm orange glow. I stood on the footpegs, looked at the sun going down beyond the Sagrada Familia, closed my eyes for a second and thought ‘I’m home’. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps8c29c2af.jpg |
Well, that's it. As it happens, today is my birthday, I feel it's a happy coincidence that I finish posting this report now.
I am glad you've liked it, and I hope it inspires more people to hit the road, as many reports I read here did to me. There's a few things left over on the blog and I'll keep posting as I complete that. In the meantime, have fun, ride safe and thanks for reading this! See you around! |
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