Pedaling
below zero can be fun. Our hands are still warm inside poguis, covered only with
thin wool fingerless gloves. Our feet do what they can with three pairs of
socks on, and our thermal pants and winter coat are still waiting to be used in
the saddlebags. At night, the solution to our warmth is to put a summer
sleeping bag within a spring one. The tent also isolates us from the outside.
Under our fabric covered roof the temperature is always above zero. Sometimes
in the middle of the night we have to take off layers of clothing. So far so
good, but there is a name that is always repeated in the mouths of those that
we meet along the way; when a wind has a name (like our old friends, the Boreas
and the Mistral) it is worthy of being taken into consideration, but in the
case of the Bura, it should also have surnames. A native of Russia, it extends
its icy breath throughout Europe, covering the continent with a white blanket.
When you reach the Croatian coast, the cold air mass collides with the Velebit,
and runs downhill and when it is exceeded, it rides the coast with fury. Frane
told us that a few years ago the Bura, with hurricane force, came with gusts of
over 200 km per hour, and on that occasion he had seen a woman flying through
the streets of Split. Inland, the Siberian cold makes the Croatian valleys a
continuation of the steppe. When we go through Gospić we will be lucky to see
the mercury above zero, but Danka told us that a few winters ago, in the same
place, the temperature reached 29 degrees below zero in the same season.
 |
| Frozen. |
