The night had been very cold, especially after a long day on the bike. By the end of the night, I found it hard to stay warm.
To warm up, I had breakfast in the nearby barn which had a kitchen down in the basement. It also had a bathtub and a whirlpool and I was contemplating to trying out either of these.
As I was finishing my blog and my Quaker Oats, James came by who helped with running the campground together with his wife.
He was was a cancer survivor in his sixties and also a road cyclist back in Ontario where they lived most of the year. He had worked as a mechanic for VW for 20 years. So we had a lot of interesting topics to talk about.
We chatted for about an hour before we finally touched upon the Covid topic and he unveiled his set of conspiracy theories about everything that was currently ongoing in the world. “I just like to look at facts and take my own conclusions” he said.
By that time, I had heard enough different versions of these “theories” in Canada, so I was not fully surprised.
He was a thoughtful and likable guy … so this time, rather than excusing myself I engaged in the discussion and challenged his conclusions.
Our discussion lasted several hours. It was good fun since he could actually hold a debate.
In his version, the world was run by the IMF and the World Economic Forum. When I shared with him that I used to work for the WEF as a coach and explained how that organization worked on the inside, he was caught by surprise and his energy changed a bit.
Part of his sources told him also that there was no real war in Ukraine but that it was all part of a front. That was the time when I lost my patience and became a bit more “energetic” in my argumentation.
I had travelled to Kyiv in March of this year during a Russian offensive and spent the night in the bomb shelter. I had seen the scars of the war in Irpin and Bucha.
Neglecting the suffering of thousands of people was nothing that I was willing to tolerate anymore.
We managed to end our discussion in good terms but he refused to take a picture with me because I had “ties to the WEF”. I found that partly amusing but also a bit odd.
“You have left me more optimistic but you also chattered my world” he said at the end.
As we were parting ways, I offered him to send him an article I had written about my trip to Ukraine. He said “Why would I read that? Well, because you like facts” I replied.
After this interesting morning, I took a nap, packed up my gear and cycled to the ferry harbor in North Sidney. Interestingly this Sidney, the former capital of Nova Scotia, was founded in 1855, 3 years before the Sidney in Australia.
Boarding the huge ferry took me forever since I had to wait in the same line with cars and trucks.
At 5:30pm we finally took off with direction Newfoundland and I had an early dinner.
I was very much looking forward to this last part of my journey.