Reflections

After about 3 weeks of travelling, time has come for some reflections.

There is only one way for me to reflect about this travel: Compare it to the only other big journey I’ve done: My travel to Santiago de Compostela. 

There I walked alone, here I cycled alone.

So what’s the difference?

It is huge!

From the point of view of effort, it is more or less the same. At first view!

I spend about 6 hours a day cycling. But, as I make a lot of breaks, (Especially between 2 and 4 p.m, due to the heat.) the time I spend on my bike is about 10 hours a day. Or, to say it clearly, I cycle  the whole day! Usually I finish around 6-7 pm. When I was walking, my days finisher between 3-4 p.m.

From the healthy point of view walking was harder; I had huge blisters from the first to the last day. A bad tendonitis almost obliged me to abandon; only a cortison injection allowed me to finish.

Here, excepting my knees problems (Mainly on days with big elevation differences) I am fine, no muscular problems, no blisters, tired in the evening, but not too much)

Cycling is too fast! So far I am quite disappointed. Of course, I met some interesting people,  but by far not as many as I expected. While on foot, every encounter was an event, I always stopped, talked to people. Here it is different. Either I cannot, or do not want to stop. As a cyclist, I am of course interested to meet other cyclists. But there are only a few. But then, when we meet, we cannot talk a lot, we have to be careful, watch the traffic. It is hard to cycle together, speed differences are too important.

And this is all the difference!

It is only while walking, where I experienced total freedom; I could let my mind fly away, didn’t have to watch for anything. I was  singing all the time, stopped wherever I wanted, mostly on beautiful places.

Here, I have to watch my back-mirror all the time, looking for the big truck who is going to kick me over. My stops look more than pit-stops, than romantic places. So, instead of enjoying a break on a romantic place, I rather have a Coke with fuel perfume on some unpleasant petrol station.

Well, in about 2 days, I will leave the Croatian coast road.

Hopefully, my encounters will get more interesting

Rupi and Katarina, cycling through Dalmatia