The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway. ~Henry Boye
Damn, it is not as easy with the internet connection
as I had originally thought. It takes ages to load a complicated webpage
as Couchsurfing.org is so it takes a lot of time and effort to arrange
something. I hope I manage to find a host in Dijon; I would
really appreciate having a shower after a week or so. And I also hope
that the host will not get scared away by my shabby appearance, though. Right
now it is morning; I am enjoying some great sweet French stuff and will
try to reach Dijon by 8 pm. That means officially 122 km, but I am
estimating 140 for real due to my infamous map inconsistencies. So far
I have done 45 and now it is actually the brunch time. The reason why
I have breakfast so late is that I met a French veteran cyclist
(82 years old) and I just did not want to look like a loser that
I cannot keep up with him and talk around a little. He might have had
a road bike and no luggage, but there is no point in seeking excuses
supposing that he was almost 4 times older than me. What a paragon of an
active pensioner! I wish I were also bursting with energy in the
later age as he was! The road is nicely flat and paved once again which allowed
me to move pretty fast.
Afternoon
Today it was once again a big pursuit to get on
time for my couchsurfing randez-vous in Dijon. However, this time, nothing was
set for sure. The couch, Estelle, told me that she is busy, but she might be
able to help me out in case I do not find anyone else. I tried to
connect to the couchsurfing website for several times, but it was futile. Next
time I will know that this kind of things must be arranged in advance with
some decent internet connection. I had kind of known that, but the
situation, as usually, did not leave me much place and time for that. Not
mentioning that I have included the wrong date on the couchsurfing website
and instead of coming the next day, I was coming one day earlier.
I had no idea how it would turn out, but I decided to carry on with
my plans as if everything was just alright.
Speaking about the roads, I think I had overpraised
them because after my lunch break there was a nasty surprise awaiting me.
On the cycle map the road was marked a little bit differently, but
I did not think that it would be such a polar opposite to a normal
road. Well, that one was also “a normal road“ provided that you have a hammer,
a tank or any heavy agriculture machinery. I would actually call this road
a paradise for an adrenaline-boosted MTB biker, but it was definitely not
a normal road for casual cyclist with heavy luggage as me. It is
a miracle that my luggage did not fall apart as I crashed several
times. This highway to hell continued for about 10 km and I had to choose
between pestilent mosquitoes and risking a challenging ride on the
destroyed forest lane in utmost heat. Finally, when I thought that this
would never end, I ran into a normal road and there was
a glimmer of hope once again that I could make it on time. At that
point, I was still not able to connect to the internet and I managed that
only after 8 pm in the evening when I wrote an overly optimistic message to
my supposed host that I am near Dijon, and actually, I mixed the
dates and would be coming tonight. I was counting my chances and did not
really believe that Estelle would read my message before it gets dark and thus
almost impossible to find the correct way to her place of which address, by the
way, I did not have, either. I parked my bike in a private lake area
about 10 km from Dijon at 9 pm and my hope started to fade away. I was
innerly preparing for staying at that place overnight and visiting Dijon the
next day.. When I lost the last flicker of hope, I opened
a bottle of wine that was meant as a present for Estelle and had my
dinner that consisted of biscuits because I had nothing else besides my
iron ration of power bars. Then, quite suddenly, Estelle called me back and
said that it would be possible to come over at her place. The idea of
a decent night sleep, having charged my laptop and cellphone batteries and
meeting another couchhost sparked hopes in me to such an extent that
I rode like crazy through the lake labyrinth which had, not surprisingly,
a simillar terrain as the awful road to Dijon. Until I got out of
there, I happened to lose two of my T-shirts, but fortunately nothing
indispansable. I rashed into the city with a snippet of information
about the address and 10% of battery on my GPS. Had my cell phone gone flat,
I would have been totally screwed, but fortunately, I managed to
locate her address on the map and then get there. On the way I encountered
several adventurous moments such as not respecting traffic rules, passing
a super narrow bridge from which either I or my bike could easily
fall into the river from 5 meters (I would have taken a picture of that had it
not been so dark and my battery had not been so flat.). I also made use of
my French and mixed numbers cinquinte with quanze (15 and 50) which made
looking for the right house in the dark very interesting. In the end,
I arrived happily at her place and was welcomed wholeheartedly
despite the late hour. It is hard to believe how much I am thankful for
having a shower and charging my devices. It looks like I totally
overreact by such things, but truly, no-one who has not experienced a week in
soaring heat without shower can understand that.
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