Teal fence, a bench, and some shade... lunch!
Day 41: Always learning... Always moving...
Tuesday August 6 - Day 41 - 62miles - Total 1602miles
After the issue we had with finding our bikes out on the front porch yesterday morning, last night we brought them up to our room. We used the skills we learned in Paris to be able to fit the bikes in tiny commie elevator by balancing them on their back tires one at a time.
We brought them down the same way this morning, loaded up them up, and prepared for our excursion into the Romanian countryside... In preparation, we asked the receptionist (who had dealt with us all day yesterday) how to say the 4 key terms in Romanian.
Hello: Salute (Buna...)
Goodbye: Larevedera
Please: Terrog
Thank you: Multzulmesc
Most of which came in handy today several times. We used "Mutlzumesc" in the little shop where we picked up our cold water for the bottles and for the "fridge" and we learned another word from the formerly gruff (but now softened by Andrea's attempt at Romanian) shop keeper "cuplicherri" which we think/hope means "you're welcome".
Quick note: Not sure if we have yet explained what the "fridge" is... Normally, when we get an extra bottle of water, we strap it on to the back of Andrea's bike under the sarong. It usually warms up pretty quickly under the hot sun, but we didn't really know what else to do. A few days ago, however, Stefan put a frozen bottle of water :::inside::: one of his panniers rather than putting it on the outside like us. The bottle was still partially frozen by the end of the day, after a long hard uphill in the sun! It was heaven to drink ice cold water rather than tea-hot water at the top of a hill. We have now redistributed the stuff in Andrea's back panniers to make room for at least one 1.5L cold water bottle. We are using our foam flip-flops as insulation.This set up is also good for keeping grapes and cheese (and chocolate) cool for lunch. We are always learning on the road.
A few things we noticed yesterday but are more concrete once you see them two days in a row:
If you make eye contact with a woman (at least this always happened to Andrea) you will get the ubiquitous bitchy Romanian stare. This is a disconcerting and unexpected aggressive behavior, especially after the smiles we got in Serbia. This ended up only being the case in the city, but it was very prevalent there.
We have now started to come across beggars, who you can tell from a long way away. They will stand uncomfortably close to you by gelato stands and other shop windows waiting for you to get change and then ask for it.
We have also started to see the many street dogs and cats around. They all seem to have their own territory like under a certain table, in one rest stop, or at a specific restaurant. They beg and chase but are rather scared of our loaded bikes. I can imagine that we look like a fairly large vehicle to them.
We headed out of town on a fairly busy road but then cut off on the 56A. The 56A was still busier than we would have hoped, but less busy than before. We cycled to Hinova (which is just a speck on the map) which was just before the first of 3 ripples in the flatlands... There were street dogs at every lay-by sleeping in the shade of concrete slab tables. At this point, we have not seen ANY Eurovelo signage (the bike route that we know we are following... since this is the only road you can follow). No signage is a huge contrast to Serbia where they almost over signed the country.
We are getting stared at a lot... more than normal... but we will get back to staring later in the post...
Today was a very hot day... VERY HOT DAY!!!! So we stopped whenever we saw a gas station ( which was not frequently but enough to keep us in the shade for a little bit). At the first gas station stop, Andrea braved the first entrance to use the facilities but when she came out there was a little old lady trying to use the cappuccino machine. She immediately started asking Andrea for help, since she is younger and looked like she belonged and would understand a frantic grandma with 2 lei and a need for caffeine... but when Andrea looked a bit scared and confused the grandma slowed down long enough for Andrea to say... "Sorry. I don't understand"... at which point the English speaking gas attendant chuckled behind the counter and came over to help the grandma and relieve Andrea of her responsibility to Granny V...
We had a narrow shoulder on the road almost all day which we haven't had since Slovakia and the road surface was pretty new. We were making pretty good time so we stopped for lunch in the shade at noon on a little bench in front of a teal green wall in Recea. Now, realize that this was the first shade we had seen in about 10 miles... So we snagged that little wooden bench with both cheeks. But the little wooden bench was outside of a house... so we probably broke some type of Romanian etiquette by sitting there... which we realized when the old man of the house to the right came home on his ancient pedal driven moped and then came back out to check on us and just stood there for a while... then old lady on the left came out and did the same thing... then 2 little kids came out of the second house to the left and walked past us... then an older kid came by and checked us out... last but not least Mama came out and walked past us as well... only the little kids made eye contact... smiled and ran away giggling... like little kids... While eating our pre made subs for lunch (and being the center of attention for an entire family compound) we got squawked at by a parrot sounding bird that we could not identify... All in all, it was a strange stop but effective in getting us hydrated and fed...
A little later on, we had our second gas station stop of the day, which got us some cold water and some shade. We actually saw bags of ice... though we could not fit them on the bikes... sad...
At this point, rolling through some very small and rural towns, we were really getting stared at... I mean BIG TIME! There seems to be a culture of sitting on the little bench outside your house and watching the world go by... and we were definitely the most interesting thing rolling by... So we started saying "Hello" to all the Romanians on the street... this got us a variety of reactions, both verbal and nonverbal but mostly they were positive. We got "Drum Bun!", "Salute!", "Hola", "...unintelligible Romanian greeting...", Two hands in the air, One handed wave, whistles, shouts, group greetings, offers of services, offers of melons, grins, scowls, confused looks, and a few people just looked away... We said hello to everyone! The people sitting by the side of the road, other people on bicycles, even people in their horse/donkey carts. The people in the donkey carts were the best.
Then we hit the second ripple in the land of the day, which wasn't too bad. We call these hills ripples because they bump out of the flat land all in the same orientation. You can see one coming a long way off and it just looks like a ripple in the land. After the second ripple, we started to find cold fountains on the side of the road! Our favorite! AWESOME! One of them had watermelons cooling in it and a lady (who was selling the watermelons) who laughed at us when we put our cold wet headbands back on and shrieked a little bit from the cold. I am glad we are so entertaining... :)
We thought we bypassed the 3rd ripple of the day, but skirted the bottom of it until the very last mile of the day... or so we thought... then we had to climb a very steep but very short hill to the top to Cetate... where we thought there was supposed to have a hotel/campsite called Angel Park. But when we got in to "town" there were no signs for any place to stay and we didn't fancy going back downhill to the port to find this theoretical place to stay, especially if we would then have to climb back up and out tomorrow. We asked at a local shop, but they said that there were no places to stay in town. There were places, however, in Calafat (14 miles away). So we pressed on, hoping we would find something along the way in Maglavit (not 14 miles away).
On the road, Andrea took picture of old man on bike with hay piled high on the back - he smiled for us and we pressed on. We reached Hurnia (between Cetate and Maglavit) and we took a break in the shade of a shop that was closed. We sat on the stoop and ate our hot grapes and party mix to boost our energy. It didn't seem like there was anything there. But then the old man with the bike full of hay showed up as we were taking our break. We offered him some of our snacks but he refused, not because he wasn't hungry but for the fact that he didn't have any teeth. He wanted another picture taken with Bruce and we "chatted" for a while. He pointed to the place across the street from our rest place a couple of times... it kind of looked like it could be a place to stay, so Andrea went over to ask. It was not a hotel, however, it turned out to be a cafe/bar with absolutely no signage to tell you that it was. We figured out that it was the open gate that showed it must be public accessible. The wonderful people inside and gave us free coffee, soda, and air conditioning and for about a half an hour, we watched Mr Bean on the TV. They would not let us pay.
We thought that the owner had called an English speaker who was supposed to be coming to talk with us (since the only conversation we had with the owner and his wife were about paying for the drinks and that there are places to stay in Calafat), but the only person who came was a workman who downed his beer in 15 seconds and left... We also left at 5:30 (when no English speaker appeared) to head towards Calafat because that is where 2 sets of people have now said we would find accommodation so far...
A few more miles down the road we stopped in Maglavit at a little corner shop/bar to get water and ask about accommodation. The lady who owned the shop was very nice and helpful and got all the surly men on her porch to help us as well. What we got out of the conversation was "there is no accommodation in the area until Calafat" and "you two are nuts for cycling to Istanbul in this heat on your honeymoon (luna de miele)". Of course this was all translated through body gestures, language similarities, smiles and laughter. Another reaction of note was when we asked about camping "kemping" in the area, this put a surlier look on the surliest of the surly men's faces. He then told us in-no-uncertain-Romainian-terms that camping is a bad idea! Even though he said it in full Romanian without much gesturing, it didn't need much translation. There would be no camping tonight... Thank you surly man...
Now, with multiple independent sources confirming the existence of hotels in Calafat (and the nonexistence of accommodation anywhere else) we pushed on the last 10 miles into town. The reason we were so hesitant to go all the way into town was because it would take away the possibility to take a shortcut Bruce had found that cut 9miles off of tomorrow's total. At the turn off (right where the shortcut would have started and where we needed to turn onto the road to Calafat) the road surface degraded and the shoulder went away... Later workmen at the side of the road showed why, this road is now under construction to be widened and repaved. When we got into Calafat, we saw all new construction because of the big new bridge to Bulgaria (which we aren't taking). At this point, we not only got the widest shoulder of the day but then we even got a separated pedestrian way up over the fly over! Not a bad way to enter town! Unlike most places, it wasn't hard to find our way into town and right on the road in we found Hotel Amphitheater (Amfiteatru). They had a room with air conditioning, a big bathroom, and a pool! Best of all, it was RIGHT THERE! It was a little pricey but at this point it was almost 7:30pm and we were pretty beat from the heat and the length of our day.
After showering and rinsing out our cycle clothes, we had dinner in town, found the local grocery store, and then fixed the chain on Bruce's bike, which was really starting to sag. But that was a nice easy fix due to our very well made Thorn Nomad bikes with an eccentric bracket.
We noticed a dark green Santos tandem bike where we put our bikes for the night. It also has the Rolhoff gearing. It was pretty sweet. We were also looking at Santos when we were choosing bikes for this trip. We haven't met the people who a pedaling this monster but maybe we will meet them tomorrow on the road.
Always learning... always moving...
The World is Ours!
Tuesday August 6 - Day 41 - 62miles - Total 1602miles
After the issue we had with finding our bikes out on the front porch yesterday morning, last night we brought them up to our room. We used the skills we learned in Paris to be able to fit the bikes in tiny commie elevator by balancing them on their back tires one at a time.
We brought them down the same way this morning, loaded up them up, and prepared for our excursion into the Romanian countryside... In preparation, we asked the receptionist (who had dealt with us all day yesterday) how to say the 4 key terms in Romanian.
Hello: Salute (Buna...)
Goodbye: Larevedera
Please: Terrog
Thank you: Multzulmesc
Most of which came in handy today several times. We used "Mutlzumesc" in the little shop where we picked up our cold water for the bottles and for the "fridge" and we learned another word from the formerly gruff (but now softened by Andrea's attempt at Romanian) shop keeper "cuplicherri" which we think/hope means "you're welcome".
Quick note: Not sure if we have yet explained what the "fridge" is... Normally, when we get an extra bottle of water, we strap it on to the back of Andrea's bike under the sarong. It usually warms up pretty quickly under the hot sun, but we didn't really know what else to do. A few days ago, however, Stefan put a frozen bottle of water :::inside::: one of his panniers rather than putting it on the outside like us. The bottle was still partially frozen by the end of the day, after a long hard uphill in the sun! It was heaven to drink ice cold water rather than tea-hot water at the top of a hill. We have now redistributed the stuff in Andrea's back panniers to make room for at least one 1.5L cold water bottle. We are using our foam flip-flops as insulation.This set up is also good for keeping grapes and cheese (and chocolate) cool for lunch. We are always learning on the road.
A few things we noticed yesterday but are more concrete once you see them two days in a row:
If you make eye contact with a woman (at least this always happened to Andrea) you will get the ubiquitous bitchy Romanian stare. This is a disconcerting and unexpected aggressive behavior, especially after the smiles we got in Serbia. This ended up only being the case in the city, but it was very prevalent there.
We have now started to come across beggars, who you can tell from a long way away. They will stand uncomfortably close to you by gelato stands and other shop windows waiting for you to get change and then ask for it.
We have also started to see the many street dogs and cats around. They all seem to have their own territory like under a certain table, in one rest stop, or at a specific restaurant. They beg and chase but are rather scared of our loaded bikes. I can imagine that we look like a fairly large vehicle to them.
We headed out of town on a fairly busy road but then cut off on the 56A. The 56A was still busier than we would have hoped, but less busy than before. We cycled to Hinova (which is just a speck on the map) which was just before the first of 3 ripples in the flatlands... There were street dogs at every lay-by sleeping in the shade of concrete slab tables. At this point, we have not seen ANY Eurovelo signage (the bike route that we know we are following... since this is the only road you can follow). No signage is a huge contrast to Serbia where they almost over signed the country.
We are getting stared at a lot... more than normal... but we will get back to staring later in the post...
Today was a very hot day... VERY HOT DAY!!!! So we stopped whenever we saw a gas station ( which was not frequently but enough to keep us in the shade for a little bit). At the first gas station stop, Andrea braved the first entrance to use the facilities but when she came out there was a little old lady trying to use the cappuccino machine. She immediately started asking Andrea for help, since she is younger and looked like she belonged and would understand a frantic grandma with 2 lei and a need for caffeine... but when Andrea looked a bit scared and confused the grandma slowed down long enough for Andrea to say... "Sorry. I don't understand"... at which point the English speaking gas attendant chuckled behind the counter and came over to help the grandma and relieve Andrea of her responsibility to Granny V...
We had a narrow shoulder on the road almost all day which we haven't had since Slovakia and the road surface was pretty new. We were making pretty good time so we stopped for lunch in the shade at noon on a little bench in front of a teal green wall in Recea. Now, realize that this was the first shade we had seen in about 10 miles... So we snagged that little wooden bench with both cheeks. But the little wooden bench was outside of a house... so we probably broke some type of Romanian etiquette by sitting there... which we realized when the old man of the house to the right came home on his ancient pedal driven moped and then came back out to check on us and just stood there for a while... then old lady on the left came out and did the same thing... then 2 little kids came out of the second house to the left and walked past us... then an older kid came by and checked us out... last but not least Mama came out and walked past us as well... only the little kids made eye contact... smiled and ran away giggling... like little kids... While eating our pre made subs for lunch (and being the center of attention for an entire family compound) we got squawked at by a parrot sounding bird that we could not identify... All in all, it was a strange stop but effective in getting us hydrated and fed...
A little later on, we had our second gas station stop of the day, which got us some cold water and some shade. We actually saw bags of ice... though we could not fit them on the bikes... sad...
At this point, rolling through some very small and rural towns, we were really getting stared at... I mean BIG TIME! There seems to be a culture of sitting on the little bench outside your house and watching the world go by... and we were definitely the most interesting thing rolling by... So we started saying "Hello" to all the Romanians on the street... this got us a variety of reactions, both verbal and nonverbal but mostly they were positive. We got "Drum Bun!", "Salute!", "Hola", "...unintelligible Romanian greeting...", Two hands in the air, One handed wave, whistles, shouts, group greetings, offers of services, offers of melons, grins, scowls, confused looks, and a few people just looked away... We said hello to everyone! The people sitting by the side of the road, other people on bicycles, even people in their horse/donkey carts. The people in the donkey carts were the best.
Then we hit the second ripple in the land of the day, which wasn't too bad. We call these hills ripples because they bump out of the flat land all in the same orientation. You can see one coming a long way off and it just looks like a ripple in the land. After the second ripple, we started to find cold fountains on the side of the road! Our favorite! AWESOME! One of them had watermelons cooling in it and a lady (who was selling the watermelons) who laughed at us when we put our cold wet headbands back on and shrieked a little bit from the cold. I am glad we are so entertaining... :)
We thought we bypassed the 3rd ripple of the day, but skirted the bottom of it until the very last mile of the day... or so we thought... then we had to climb a very steep but very short hill to the top to Cetate... where we thought there was supposed to have a hotel/campsite called Angel Park. But when we got in to "town" there were no signs for any place to stay and we didn't fancy going back downhill to the port to find this theoretical place to stay, especially if we would then have to climb back up and out tomorrow. We asked at a local shop, but they said that there were no places to stay in town. There were places, however, in Calafat (14 miles away). So we pressed on, hoping we would find something along the way in Maglavit (not 14 miles away).
On the road, Andrea took picture of old man on bike with hay piled high on the back - he smiled for us and we pressed on. We reached Hurnia (between Cetate and Maglavit) and we took a break in the shade of a shop that was closed. We sat on the stoop and ate our hot grapes and party mix to boost our energy. It didn't seem like there was anything there. But then the old man with the bike full of hay showed up as we were taking our break. We offered him some of our snacks but he refused, not because he wasn't hungry but for the fact that he didn't have any teeth. He wanted another picture taken with Bruce and we "chatted" for a while. He pointed to the place across the street from our rest place a couple of times... it kind of looked like it could be a place to stay, so Andrea went over to ask. It was not a hotel, however, it turned out to be a cafe/bar with absolutely no signage to tell you that it was. We figured out that it was the open gate that showed it must be public accessible. The wonderful people inside and gave us free coffee, soda, and air conditioning and for about a half an hour, we watched Mr Bean on the TV. They would not let us pay.
We thought that the owner had called an English speaker who was supposed to be coming to talk with us (since the only conversation we had with the owner and his wife were about paying for the drinks and that there are places to stay in Calafat), but the only person who came was a workman who downed his beer in 15 seconds and left... We also left at 5:30 (when no English speaker appeared) to head towards Calafat because that is where 2 sets of people have now said we would find accommodation so far...
A few more miles down the road we stopped in Maglavit at a little corner shop/bar to get water and ask about accommodation. The lady who owned the shop was very nice and helpful and got all the surly men on her porch to help us as well. What we got out of the conversation was "there is no accommodation in the area until Calafat" and "you two are nuts for cycling to Istanbul in this heat on your honeymoon (luna de miele)". Of course this was all translated through body gestures, language similarities, smiles and laughter. Another reaction of note was when we asked about camping "kemping" in the area, this put a surlier look on the surliest of the surly men's faces. He then told us in-no-uncertain-Romainian-terms that camping is a bad idea! Even though he said it in full Romanian without much gesturing, it didn't need much translation. There would be no camping tonight... Thank you surly man...
Now, with multiple independent sources confirming the existence of hotels in Calafat (and the nonexistence of accommodation anywhere else) we pushed on the last 10 miles into town. The reason we were so hesitant to go all the way into town was because it would take away the possibility to take a shortcut Bruce had found that cut 9miles off of tomorrow's total. At the turn off (right where the shortcut would have started and where we needed to turn onto the road to Calafat) the road surface degraded and the shoulder went away... Later workmen at the side of the road showed why, this road is now under construction to be widened and repaved. When we got into Calafat, we saw all new construction because of the big new bridge to Bulgaria (which we aren't taking). At this point, we not only got the widest shoulder of the day but then we even got a separated pedestrian way up over the fly over! Not a bad way to enter town! Unlike most places, it wasn't hard to find our way into town and right on the road in we found Hotel Amphitheater (Amfiteatru). They had a room with air conditioning, a big bathroom, and a pool! Best of all, it was RIGHT THERE! It was a little pricey but at this point it was almost 7:30pm and we were pretty beat from the heat and the length of our day.
After showering and rinsing out our cycle clothes, we had dinner in town, found the local grocery store, and then fixed the chain on Bruce's bike, which was really starting to sag. But that was a nice easy fix due to our very well made Thorn Nomad bikes with an eccentric bracket.
We noticed a dark green Santos tandem bike where we put our bikes for the night. It also has the Rolhoff gearing. It was pretty sweet. We were also looking at Santos when we were choosing bikes for this trip. We haven't met the people who a pedaling this monster but maybe we will meet them tomorrow on the road.
Always learning... always moving...
The World is Ours!
and we thought we were loaded down...
Bruce made a friend!
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