Balkan Borders

I spent just two nights in Graz, but eked out the company from my host Max and his friend who rode with me the first day onward to Maribor. It was good to share, briefly, the student life with Max; late nights and conversational days. Slovenia, in two nights, also passed too quickly. The highlight was an epic electrical storm which trapped me transfixed (and quite scared actually) in some kind of large bus shelter for the night. I watched dozing 'til dawn. Late morning I was woken by Camille from France, evidently excited to meet another tramp. Camille also quit his job (and, he confided not a little triumphantly, his girlfriend) to walk from the Southern tip of Spain to Istanbul. We talked together a couple of miles and he oohlala'd at the weight of my bicycle until I pointed out that, unlike his backpack, my bike carries me... (mais oui! mais oui!) We had bread and cheese and chocolate banana sweets to celebrate our folly and then it was all backslaps and bonhomie: adieu! bon voyage! Nice guy. I dithered at the border not wanting to leave.

Camille

  Last night in a Croatian meadow I found eight or nine hours unbroken sleep. Amazing what a little REM does for the constitution; this morning brought epiphanies of ease, confidence, cheer. I breezed through procrastinated bicycle ablutions (flossing sprockets, exfoliating rims, moisturising the saddle - my own are much more haphazard) and even did some rare limbering. Today has been a simple joy of thoughtless pedalling and everything for its own sake. I've been enjoying getting into a camping routine. It takes a few days, a certain exposure to the outdoors for that creeping accumulation of feral habits to become shameless (washing in fountains, not alighting the bicycle to pee, a fruit tea bag in the pasta dregs etcetera).

 

 

 Stopping for borek and cherry strudel in Vukovar I had a long chat with the identical twin restauranteurs whose names I should've asked. They told me about the 1991 siege and  massacre which the town is famous for, and their own leaving aspirations - Canada (oddly enough I thought). I asked what the war was all about. There's a stupid question! Although I'm curious now to ask a Serb (maybe best not). I feel quite warm towards the Balkan people already. I'm not sure 'they' like being lumped together like that, all considered, but they're friendly, keen to help and talk - taking time to understand and be understood.

Vukovar

Vukovar

Tonight I'm in what looks like a half built wooden bar before a lawn to the river. There is an electric light and nobody else. The sign said free camping but I shant pitch my tent; the roof and floor look sound enough. Since Maribor I've been heading South East, skirting the Hungarian border through Slovenia and Croatia. Tomorrow I'll enter Serbia. From Belgrade I'll hang a right, back West to Sarajevo. I'm a litte sad to see so little of Slovenian mountains; to miss the Croatian beaches. But Bosnia has mountains, too, and Albanian beaches will be less crowded. And it'll be good to see Jack in Belgrade; there's purpose in visiting.

Belgrade: Cycling City