Day 9

That rain with tiny drops totally loves to follow us as we ride our bikes, it probably thought we shouldn’t spend this day without it. It had been raining all night and the sky was covered in grey clouds and it looked like there won’t be a miracle today either. All this on top of insecurity regarding our accomodation, since we originally wanted to camp under the walls of Nedec castle, at the shores of a lake. Forecasts told us that we should wait a lot more for the afforementioned miracle so we had to cook up plans B, C and D. Zsolt and Seres went away early in the morning to find us some covered place where we could sleep. Meanwhile Paul prepared a royal breakfast for us. Borat and his assistant (Metz and Wilson) fixed one of our cars (the wonderpolo), the one that found a manhole cover (girl!) too likeable and drove over it. All this unbeknownst to the biker team, they slept fast. By the time they all woke up Zsolt arrived back with great news: we’ll be sleeping in a dry and warm place yet another night! In our ourneys we always find nice and helpful people who allow that miracle to happen. This time on our list came a Slovak hunter who happened to have a property close to the Polish border with a villa, a huge garden, and what’s more important: a HUUUUUUge COVERED sports field where we could lay down to sleep tonight.

Before falling asleep though we must mention the greatest heroes of the day, the 13 guys who with all the rain decided to jump on their bikes and fight their way through today’s kilometers, the fierce serpentine roads that run along the Tatra mountains. Their recollections regarding the heroic deed contained mostly the following imagery: wind so strong that it was actually more difficult biking downhill than up, being frozen on their bikes (a momentary condition, everyone had some hot tea!) and meeting another team of cyclists who not unlike us, were’t scared by a bit of rain.

So what happened to the other 26 people? Not for the first time and probably neither the last time in our expedition’s history, they had to grudgingly get into the cars. We don’t like to do this, but reaching our target in good health, safely and joyfully comes first for everyone, in only two (!!!) nights we’ll be rolling in Krakow.

Paul and the mobile kitchen got a day off today. We ate our dinner in the hunter’s “restaurant”, everything-mixed-in Slovakian (though we suspect rather Polish) soup and meat with potatoes as a second course.

Everyone had at least one hot shower, our wet clothes are drying, we inaugurated the sports field and our beds are made and ready.

We hope to have a rainless border crossing tomorrow and that we can discover the Polish landscape while riding our bikes. Kasina-Wielka and the wooden cabins are waiting for us, no improvising this time.

Messages

E. Dávid: First of all I am grateful to be here which is after all your merit. I’m doing great, I met many new people and I don’t want it to end! Bálint: Rommá áztunk, de jó volt!

Tulit Tamás: I played some great tennis J

J. Gergő: I love kittens!

V. Réka: Porque.

Eszti: I feel great, I only hope that the Sun’s rays will smile on us. One must always be optimistic. ^_^

Misi: I think this was the most difficult day in our expedition. First, we biked in the rain but we enjoyed it. When we arrived, I inflated my mattress and it deflated. I inflated it up again and it exploded. BUT...  Berci had an extra mattress, I’ll use that from now on. It was an awesome day !!! :D