The journey to Basel was way easier than the arduous
nature biking from the day before. In fact, I think that yesterday was the
most difficult day. Steep hills, off-roads, constant ups and downs were too
much for me, even though I thought that I am getting pretty fit. Today
was fortunately as most other days – more or less flat on paved roads.
I thought I could reach Basel early in the afternoon, but my tiredness
and incredible heat held me from riding faster. Eventually, I arrived
firstly at 7 pm. I was also to find out that my couchsurfing plans for
Basel did not work out. My request was denied because the host was allegedly
ill. On the one hand, it was a good thing because I did not have to rush
anywhere, on the other; I had nowhere to recharge my laptop and cell phone
batteries. My next bigger stopover was planned after 5 days; therefore, it was
vitally important for me to have everything fully charged and that takes ages. Hence
I had to stay in McDonald until they closed, for the night pull back
somewhere outside the city and the next day come back to do the sightseeing. I was simply left with no other option.
It proved to be quite a challenge because the bike routes are perplexing even
during the day, not mentioning what one could expect during the night. I went
astray many times, swore great many times, and rode many a mile. I built my
tent somewhere in a village behind Basel and was glad to finally go to sleep.
...
As I wil have mentioned, that morning, I had to wake
up earlier to do some sightseeing in Basel and to buy a Swiss knife. Both of
these missions became fruitless because knives were too expensive and the other
side of the city did not have much to offer. I totally squandered the whole
morning! I should have rather gone away earlier... . At least, I managed to buy some food for the
day. I visited a small Turkish shop as those I know fairly well in Vienna. I
bought Turkish bread, cookies and a sweet bar. For 6 Euros, what
a rip off, but I did not care because I needed something to eat.
Besides that Turkish bread was actually quite delicious.
In the afternoon, I passed the three country bridge in
Basel. That was the beginning of my long staying in France. I totally forgot
that I had better brush up my French so I changed my philosophy audiobooks for
language audio courses. The first bigger city I visited in France was Mulhouse.
After having been disappointed with sightseeing in Basel, I did not expect
much. It was maybe better so because the city surprised me nicely with its
natural, French style charm. You could clearly see that you entered another
country even though it is said that Alsace is kind of a mixture between the
German and French culture. However, I did not have much time for both sightseeing
and recharging my devices; therefore, I tried to ask with my funny French a
guide in the city cathedral if I could leave my belongings there. He was quite
nice and said that it would be no problem so I took the most of the situation
and pulled out my laptop and a back-up battery, too, and disappeared between he
could raise any objections.
As usually, after finishing with the sights,
I started looking for the McDonald's or an internet café, but
I did not find any. At least I did some shopping in an air
conditioned shopping mall which was quite a relief after having been
exposed to scorching temperatures for the whole day. The best moment was
gulping down 1.5 l cold cherry Coke that I bought in the nearby
supermarket. I gulped it down within 5 minutes and I cannot remember
deriving such a delight from drinking soda. I did my sightseeing, but
around 5 pm it was the high time to go. At the beginning I was quite lazy,
but the 3-hour break fulfilled its purpose. I rode like frenzy 45 km with
almost no brake (just to take some interesting pictures and to drink
a little). I do not know where all the energy came from, but
I felt so great! It was like if I were Forest Gump, like ride, Marek,
ride. I got tired firstly after the 40th km when my energy started to fade
away. It was quite interesting to see how long it takes to restore energy after
eating some sweets. In my case, it was about 5 minutes when a few cookies
made a miracle. Seriously, I would like to know how it was possible
that I could ride so long without a break. Was it the super-sweet Turkish
bar, those Turkish cookies or the Coke? Assuming the energetic value of all of
them, probably they all count for my bike rush. In the evening I took
green salad for a change to prove (myself) that I do not eat junk
food only.
For the sake of biking.
You might be biking on a long road that becomes
dull after some time, go through firstly fascinating afterwards from your point
of view just another typical villages, see thousands of sunrises and sunsets
and pass the river from one side to the other for another countless times. Yet,
travelling is not just about what you see, but what you think about it – as
your minds wanders, you se things from a different perspectives and
broaden your view. That is what travelling is about. Biking, as well as walking
or jogging is very good for that because you do not need to concentrate much on
your riding, it goes by itself. Supposing that there are are not many
challenges on the road, you can zone out and take your mind for a ride, too.
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