Distance: 116km
Elevation: 223m
The night had been cold again. When I woke up around 6:30 am it was still 5 degrees. Two women were working the field right in front of my tent while I was making breakfast and going through my morning routine.
I packed up and was in the saddle by 8:45 a.m. They say that headwinds build character. Well, this day was a lot about character building.
As of this day, I was now heading more South than East. The wind came mostly from South-West. Since there were no trees, there was also nothing to cover me from the wind.
Although Romania is part of the EU, this country seemed more foreign to me than e.g. Serbia which is not in the EU. I was thinking a lot about my unconscious bias here. What were the reasons?
Firstly, the region of Romania I am in, is still very much underdeveloped in terms of infrastructure. You see impoverished housings, collapsed buildings, wild garbage dumps, and people riding in donkey carts. I wanted to pay in one shop along the road and I was officially the first one to pay with credit card.
Also, some people have a very dark skin with dark eyes. Furthermore, I have overheard people yelling at each other in the streets. This reminded me of my team in Egypt earlier this year.
When people see me on the road, they don’t greet me or smile.
But the worst is the driving here. I feel very unsafe on these roads. People speed and take unnecessary risks at my expense. It is almost as bad as in Italy. The roads here are normally straight lines without any sholders.
And yet, you see crosses by the roads for people who have died here.
And yet, I had also very positive encounters by the road. At one stop, Valentin came by and chatted me up in German. He had been working in Germany for 15 years, helping to build and renovate houses. No, he was working here as a craftsman. He proudly showed me some pictures of his work.
In between projects, he was also helping to take care of elderly people. He found this the hardest part.
His wife was working in Germany in a hotel in the Palatine region, which is not far away from my home. They would see each other every 3 months for 2 months, then she would return.
Each of them made around 2.000€ per months, sometimes more. That sounded like a lot of money to me. He agreed that they were doing well. But they were also working hard, also renovating their old house in parallel.
And everything was getting more expensive in Romania as the economy was growing. That had also been my observation. Despite the bad infrastructure, which I had experienced, grocery goods were almost as expensive as in Germany.
As I was getting closer to the border with Serbia, I came upon an optician. Since my glasses had fallen down a couple of days ago, I went in trying to get them fixed. I could see immediately that Anna, the shop owner, was not from around here. She simply looked more sophisticated. After a quick negotiation, we settled on conversing in French.
While she had been born in this village, she had moved to Paris when she was 18 years old. Now she was back since a couple of years. What a cultural difference this must have been for her.
She asked me about my thoughts on Romania. I tried to express my observations with the limited French that was available to me. She confirmed my feelings basically.
Within a couple of minutes, my glasses were good as new. Anna did not want any money for her service. What a nice gesture of generosity.
I went on to the border and crossed over into Serbia. By 3pm, I had reached Vrsac, a pretty town with old churches, parks and pretty city houses. This was only 20km from the Romanian border and it felt like a totally different world.
I found a nice restaurant and had a large salad with chicken. Oh, this was delicious. I had a quick call home where some friends had gathered to help Carolin prepare stuffed vine leaves for Tabea’s birthday picnic the next day.
I had only 30km more to go to Bela Krkva, where I had booked myself an apartment. Two nights near downtown for just 40€. It felt like a piece of cake.
I took a shortcut following a footpath across fields for about 10km. Cycling there was mostly good fun until it was not. Half way through, Rosinante and I got stuck in a hollow. I took me a lot to get her out again. We were all muddy. It was a miracle that her gears were still working.
Shortly before I reached my destination, I had the chance to clean her up at a gas station that was offering a water hose to their clients.
Arouind 7pm, I was greeted by my host and shown around in my little place that felt like a palace to me.
After washing pretty much all my clothes, I was sitting in front of the door watching the evening sky and the upcoming storm.
What a great day it had been again.