In the morning I could finally wash my clothes and my
luggage that was still awfully dirty from the unmitigated chocolate spread
disaster. It took me almost a half an hour to deal with it, but I was glad that
now I had finally enough water to do so. Afterwards, I took a morning bath in
the river, but unfortunately my new Splash shower gel was splashed away and I
lost it before I could finally make some use of it. I also bought some instant
coffee. Having been quite disappointed that the French apparently do not know
ice coffee (it was nowhere to be found even in big supermarkets), I decided to
sack it up and make my own. It might not be as good as the tasty sweetened
stuff from Lidl, but it fulfills its purpose.
I thought that I was having a déjà vu during my
morning ride. In fact, it was not a déjà vu, but the same road. I inadvertently
got confused with bike marks and did a little 20 km circle. It was
inconvenient, but not as disastrous as it would have been back in Austria with
my excruciating knee pain.
The route was also very nice today, it led through
many cute villages, and at the border of one village I even had a chance to
spot Gypsies, Genes du Voyage, how
they call them here in France. They were camping in high grass in their
careworn caravans – I think I enjoyed a much better comfort last night.
On the Veloroute sur la Loire, there are plenty of
various castles. Even to such an extent that it leaves you over- or underwhelmed,
thinking like “yeah, another castle, whatever”. I think that every small town
has a castle, or maybe even every village. Some of them are spectacular, other
less, but still, there are simply too many of them and it is not fun anymore.
In my town, we also used to have a magnificent castle; until a small guy with a
big hat, bigger head and even bigger greed for power called Napoleon came to
our place and blew it up on his retreat. Maybe as an act of revenge, I should
blow up one French castle as well, but I am afraid that it would not make much
difference because giving the sheer quantity of French castles; it would be
like holding a candle to the sun.
In the evening I was heading to Angers, but the way
there took me longer than I expected. The road itself was also getting worse
and in the dawn I lost my way several times again. However, that was still
nothing compared to the challenge that was expecting me. My GPS navigated me
somewhere totally offroad and when I checked it more thoroughly, I could not
believe my eyes: the route was supposed to go through a lake. I was like wtf,
come on, you must be kidding me! Am I supposed to fly over the water, or what?!
Later, after I calmed down a little, I found a chain on the shore from which
one end was fixed in the ground and the other pointed to the water. I took the
chain and started pulling. In the dark, I had the same scary feeling as Harry
Potter in the sixth book, when he arrived with Dumbledore to destroy a horcrux
– there was a small flatboat coming to me out of the evening mist far from distance.
On the movie it might not look very dark and misty, but I did have this
impression because I still had my dirty sunglasses on :P Well, having a boat
was a good thing, the bad one, however, was the fact that the boat could not be
anchored. Probably it was not meant for one person with another luggage such as
my heavy bike. I could easily hop on the board, but as soon as I did it, the
boat bounced back from the shore. This was quite bad because either I, or the
bike could get on the board. I had to solve this logical puzzle by an
improvised knot I did from the chain and later on had difficulties to loosen.
It was really a sense of adventure to push my bike hardly to the boat with the
sincere hope that it would not end up in the lake. In the end I made it, but I
bumped my leg by my strenuous effort to do everything right. The feeling was
like now or neverJ. Getting
off the boat was equally adventurous, but a little bit easier. Then I had to
ride through dark forrest roads until I reached the city. I desperately needed
to charge my batteries again and I was set to go to the McDonald. The only
problem was that by the time I finally arrived there, it was only few minutes
before closing. Still, it helped me a little because I had to recharge my cell phone
at least a little to have a chance to send my GPS location back home and take a
few pictures the next day. Talking about McDonald, it is interesting how this
gigantic chain accustoms to the local cuisine. In France, you can get a small
McBaguette with Dijon mustard, but when I say small, I really mean it! I paid
almost 2 € for a miniscule piece of bread with something inside for 2, maybe 3
bites. Well, whatever, I still take my McDonald visits as the opportunity to go
online and have my batteries charged a little, and any little snack I buy I
take as a little bonus to these services that I need the most.
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