25.- 30.05.2012 Pozarevac - Nis - Border Bulgaria 322 km

 

Olli:

Actually it hadn't been our plan at all to stay that long in Serbia. So now we headed for Nis in order to get our wheels and rims checked once more. When we left Pozarevac it was just slightly drizzling and wasn't even that cold any more.  The whole first day back on track we cycled south with the wind, always following the river Morava, increasing the distance between us and the Danube, as suddenly a female voice loudly cheered us with the words "Bravo, Bravo". We immediately turned on our heels to find the place, where the voice had come from, to ask for water on the one hand, because our supply was running low, and to have a closer look at 2 old VW Bugs, on the other hand, which I had seen parked in the yard.

Ruska, a funny and very likeable older lady, was sitting on her patio with a broken leg. She was so happy about our visit that she immediately offered us Turkish coffee and lemonade. She especially admired Sonja's white teeth and was laughing and talking nonstop and though she only spoke Serbian, we got along very well. In the blink of an eye one hour had passed and since it was already 5 p.m. we asked for permission to camp in Ruska's garden. After some communication difficulties she finally offered us the garage because she was afraid that it would be too cold outside for Sonja ... only too well that my body and its temperature are not important at all :). We also had to promise to visit her again on our way back to stay with her for a few days.

But it even got  better. We just were about to spread our plastic tarp in Ruska's garage, when we were suddenly greeted with a friendly "Servus". Without us knowing, Ruska had made a phone call earlier to friends from Austria, Gordana and Zivotije, which were spending their holidays in the neighboring village, their former home. Without further ado they invited us to their home where we got dinner, homemade vanilla cookies for dessert, a hot shower and even a very comfy bed :). And all that just because we had asked for water.

After the delicious breakfast served by Gordana the next morning we went off towards Nis, which we finally reached two days and another Turkish coffee with cake invitation later. Once arrived we indulged in a cup of coffee while checking out if we could find a host over Couchsurfing. As it was Sunday the bike shop unfortunately wasn't open. After half an hour of searching we received an invitation from Maria, about which we were exceptionally happy since it had started raining cats and dogs in the meantime.

For dinner we prepared our famous and much-loved vegetarian pizza for Maria and her friend Doriane. We immediately liked Maria which is why we agreed to stay one day longer. When we went to the bike shop Planet Bike we met mechanic Bane who took care of our bicycles. It was a great atmosphere in the workshop since every one wanted to have a ride with our bikes because they had never seen such long distance vehicles before. For practice I did almost all the work myself under Bane's expert guidance. After finishing we had to promise the team to put a nice picture of their store on our website. As reward the whole service was for free. In the evening Maria prepared a Serbian specialty for us: pita filled with spinach and cheese and pita filled with apples and cinnamon. Yummy! Afterwards a friend introduced us to Serbian folk dances.

After saying goodbye to Maria, we decided against heading for Sofia (on this way there are several, for cyclists very dangerous, tunnels according to the locals) but for the longer route back to the Danube. The road went mostly uphill and we climbed from 160 to 750 meters, which made our lowland muscles ache quite a bit. When we reached the top of the final climb, it started pouring down so heavily that the temperature suddenly dropped from 32 down to 12°C.  Fortunately our clothes dried quite quickly thanks to the airstream during our descent. We pitched our tent behind a cherry orchard where a shepherd came visiting us with his flock later that evening. As we explained to him that we had cycled all the way from Germany he laughed out loud and could not believe it. As we were just about to leave the next morning we met the landlord who was very surprised about seeing us with our 2 heavily loaded bikes coming out of his cherry trees, probably wondering what we were doing there according to his confused facial expression. After a brief explanation he started to laugh and wished us a good journey.

Briefly before reaching the border we exchanged our last money for food in a town called Zajecar and spent our lunch break in front of the local police station. I needed to take a leak so urgently that I went straight into the police station, explained my situation, whereupon a nice officer hauled me off to the toilet .. hehe .. The police, to protect and to serve :)

Conclusion:

We liked Serbia very much. Furthermore we were very impressed and surprised by this country either positively and negatively. What stroke us positively was the enormous hospitality and helpfulness of the Serbs, who always provided us with water, invited us for coffee or to stay the night and guided us. Linguistically we had no problems especially with the younger Serbs since most of them speak very good English. Drawbacks were on the other hand our various encounters with wild dogs which chased us loudly yapping again and again. In addition, in some places cities and nature unfortunately are abuzz with garbage. What frightened us was that some people here live or rather have to live in houses that would apply as unfinished or uninhabitable in Germany and drive cars which would never pass a technical inspection in our country.

 

<- previous report   ---   next report ->

7237 km Guestbook