Day 9 Transfargarsan
Of course, nervous like always and additionally nervous because of the mountain ahead of me, I woke up before my early alarm could do its job. And I clearly could see that I tended to procrastinate to avoid the inevitable, so I took over control and finally I left the pension at 6:05.
Some early dogs made my departure more interesting as the street slowly approached the Valley that was the entrance to the real mountain road. Soon the fog turned to rain and when I changed to poncho it stopped. Then for a while I cycled only in my shirt but finally from about 9 to 14 it rained more or less heavily.
After 150 meters in altitude (10%) I was slightly optimistic that I can do it and even more after 500 (1/3), but still nervous, as I couldn’t guess how the weather would change, especially at 2000m and as I couldn’t know if I would get weak. To make it short I got weak at the last ~5km, but at the same time knowing that it was almost done, was big comfort. On the street you could read marks at 20,10,5 and 1 km, finally 500, 300, 200 and 100m.
The view was really great, even with rain and fog and many people in coming or overtaking cars pointed their mobile phones at me and some cheered and also some motorcyclists waved. I can say there were moments, when this not only way pleasant but gave new motivation.
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Finally, I came to the top and there was a market. At the end there was an inviting umbrella, so I made a stop, first bought cheese and grapes, which was great, but then saw glasses with fancy kind of cream in it. With gestures I showed that I wanted to eat/drink it and the lady said yes! and I bought a glass. But I got my disappointment immediately as it was mere sugar with colour, like the cover of some cakes. (Later I have been told this is really eaten on bread. Well, because of biking I can eat a lot and in the next pension I combined it with the cheese and ate it also pure to get rid of it.)
But first I had to get down! It started with a long tunnel and after this I was really feeling cold as too long I had been standing eating in wet shoes. So, I grabbed those arm warmers that I had prepared for that and tried to get down fast. The Gopro didn’t work anymore, so I just looked at the again great scenery, btw also the spot tracker was low of battery as something with the light dynamo that should power it was wrong. I remember that for a long time a red light on the small batterie of it didn’t flash, but I didn’t pay attention until now and “now” was too late.
It was great to feel the air getting warmer with every loss of elevation and finally I could take off first the poncho, later the jacket+armwamers, then the long bike trousers and the last section I was riding as if there never would have been any rain or coldness. But those 65km were really hard again, as it was a lot of up and down and I could feel the first 30km of ONLY going up
When I was going up, a couple on bikes without bags came down and they only had short bike trousers and a rain cover. You could see that they suffered! And when I went down a lady came up, like me with a fully packed bike and good rain protection.
All in all you got the feeling of a special atmosphere on that street as many people stopped their cars to look at the mountains or wild rivers and taking pictures. Most of them were also driving attentively.
Now I have 10 days left to reach Burgas, but it is “only” 450km! Even if I say I want to be there 1-2 days earlier to cut videos etc I should do only 60km every day. I’ll try my best!
30.7.2019 Only 80km
I nearly slept until 6:30 and lazily prepared departure, so it was 8:30 when I left. Not bad for the beginning. Then I made a stop to collect some nice apples, and while eating one I slowly went on. But then A group of 4 bikers passed by, I swallowed down the apple and my plan of slow-go and caught up with them. They were 2 young couples from Poland and also had done the Transfargasan they day before and where on their way to Odessa. The guy at the end of the group also told me that they normally ask people if they can set up their tents in the garden and so far no one refused. Impressed, I put it on my to-do-list…
(On this list there are also some photos I want to take and only one I did today: thoses little houses in all variations, with doors sometimes showing what I call Paganism in Christianity)
For me it was hard to refuse the challenge to go with their speed, but there was no use in it and I also was not sure if they were interested in my companionship as they seemed pretty concentrated on cycling. So I said good bye and fell back into my original speed.
In the next city, Arges I found a good place for break and breakfast. I enjoyed both, still busy with my nuts-dried fruits
the pic is taken from a clip
-chocolate mixture but much tastier with one of those apples.
And so the time and kilometres went on and I reached Pitesti. I asked Garmin if it could show me a camping site and it said “Yes!”. But in the end, it seemed to be embarrassed as it showed me to go in a direction, just to tell then, that this is wrong and after playing this game for 10min, it was clear that the camping site just was a park, nothing else… By that I had lost my original route and struggled to find it in this crowded city. Except for the heat this was no big problem as I had done as many kilometres as were reserved for this day and therefore there was no need to catch up with any schedule. When I again was outside the city I tried to find a place for wild camping, but it was hard, too much civilisation. And all of a sudden, a heavy rain started. I found shelter under the umbrella of a man selling watermelons (I would like to eat one, but they are too big!) and asked him where to find a place for the night. (Not really asking, just showing the translation on the phone). He pointed in a direction, 2km on the left side, called Komet. It was off my route and it was off my intention to do wild camping or ask someone if I can set up my tent, but these were kind of nice weather projects and still I have a year left to improve.
So I am again in a pension, downloading pics&vids from camera, editing, writing, uploading, eating, thinking.