GOATS ARE ATTRACTED BY THE HILLS

    There's no better break to work on a goat farm with only one goat. Four months after we left home, with over 5,000 miles on their backs, it does not hurt to park the bike for a while. If the bike can also relax in Katrien's stables, much better. We find this Slovak Paradise through an Internet page called Workaway, which brings together volunteers with people who need help with different kinds of work, (which may be teaching English to the family, making beds in a hotel on the beach, taking care of the dogs on holiday or even building a house). The volunteer does not receive any financial compensation, but in exchange usually receives food and shelter. Therefore, it is a great opportunity to learn things along the way and feel useful for the first time in a long time.

The Family.

RAINIER THE SUMMER

Lately, wherever we go, everyone tells us that this weather is not normal, whether it´s the sweltering heat (southern France), torrential rains (Switzerland) or the summer cold (Germany). Our days are dominated by the wettest summer in recent times, it may be something due to climate change. During phases of optimism we feel fortunate to live this sudden European monsoon, which does not allow the surrounding nature to yellow even it wants to. The sight of green hills is everywhere in Central Europe, even now that it is time to gather the wheat. However, optimism has its limits: hail, soaked sleeping bags, windstorms, slugs smashed inside our shoes and overflowing rivers are not so much fun when you suffer them in person.

BOHEMIAN DAYS

At last we go back to the mountains after a few days that seem eternal in Germany following the course of the Isar River (I don't wish my enemies any harm, but hopefully one day they'll waste their holidays touring the Isarradweg). The Czech Republic has a lot to offer, so over the next few weeks we'll make several silly detours like the ones that have characterized our trip just to enjoy the scenery and villages with epic-sounding names. We enter the Czech Republic through the Šumava National Park in the region of Bohemia. Two benches on the road and a small sign mark one of the many invisible boundaries which divide Europe. In the map case in the bag hanging from the handlebar there are a few basic words and phrases in Czech.

 

 

AND WHY THEY GO TO MALLORCA

We spend a couple of days in Austria and after thinking about cycling round the whole country, we end up changing your mind. We are attracted by its mountains, its villages and its history, but we do not feel comfortable with the people. It's been very little time to generalize, but the faces we see in the squares, streets and roads are of sad people, and rarely do they greet us. At one point we crossed the Rhine on a Sunday looking for an open supermarket in Switzerland and we did not go back into Austria, dazzled again with the Swiss unexpected sympathy.

GRUYERE CHEESE HAS NO HOLES

We joked about a bee sting a week ago. What we did not know then (but soon discovered) is that I'm allergic to the toxin injected with its sting, and Switzerland is not a bad place to get the news. Fortunately, we are in good hands. Geraldine takes me to the hospital when my hand begins to swell more than normal and something starts to go wrong in my throat. When the doctor asks me if my voice has changed after the sting, I did not imagine that an affirmative answer would mean a night in the Intensive Care Unit. The nurse, from Cadiz, explains that it is normal that the first bee sting is annoying but not dangerous, but this was already the second, and anaphylaxis occurs in a biphasic manner; that is, I could have an allergic reaction once I started feeling better, so it would be better to spend the night in the hospital, plugged into several machines to control oxygen, heart rate, stress and temperature. Around midnight he asks me if I have had dinner, and returns with a huge dinner while causing envy in the room.

ROUTE BARRÉE

We didn´t even have to go through Grenoble, but a friend of Sylvain's is a bike mechanic and he can help out with some questions, so we finally decided to spend the night here. But what was to be just one night turns into a week. I´ve been having problems with my knees for kilometers and with the climb to the Vercors, they eventually give up.The pain is intense and I can hardly walk.. We rest a couple of days with the hope that things will magically improve but the miracle does not happen this time. So  we have to resort to that which is paid in the hope of not having to use it: we took out medical insurance before leaving. After a bit of running around, it eventually works fast and the next day. first thing in the morning we have an appointment with the doctor. After a brief exploration I am diagnosed with what he tells me half of the skiers who go to his surgery in winter: condromalacy or  rotulian syndrome. In medical terms it means an inflammation of the cartilage beneath the kneecap. In layman's terms, it's a knee pain of unknown origin and of uncertain cure. The x-rays that are taken the same afternoon confirm that it is nothing serious, but the doctor recommends that I begin physical therapy immediately. The problem is to decide who pays for it. It's Friday and until Monday Mapfre doctors will not issue the verdict. Meanwhile, a lot of Voltaren (which, of course, does nothing). In the house where we are staying they say and repeat that we can stay there as long as needed, but the doctor has said that I´ll need at least 20 sessions of physical therapy so things don´t look good. Days pass and the pain Increases. When we are told how the insurance works, Gabriel's (our host) girlfriend, recommends that we leave aside conventional medicine and  visit a friend of hers, an osteopath, who lives in her village. With nothing to lose, we take the bus and within an hour the miracle man is relocating both joints. After a comprehensive inspection of body posture, he realizes that the problem Is that I have deviated the meniscus, so he twists both knees until relocated. Sounds painful. It is. But as the pain ceases after the aggressive treatment, the left knee is completely healed and the right will take a few days to be in perfect condition. Also, being friends Salome does not charge me for the appointment. One more angel to add to the list of wonderful people we meet along the way.

We let my knees rest one more day and on Sunday, we start off in a good storm. I feel so strong that we decide to cross into Switzerland through the Alps, through Chamonix.. We want to dedicate the route to our companions from “Slow Ciclando” who had to change their route to protect Alessandra´s knees.. In addition, choosing this direction we can go to visit Maki, Sylvain´s wife,  who is spending a few days in Mègeve to help open a new Japanese restaurant.

When we were in Grenoble we spent a long time checking out routes, maps and information to plan the best option, trying to pamper my knees and at the same time enjoy the climb. But these days, two French words are burned into our memories: Route Barrée, which means road closed. Oh, friends! It's summer and that means reasphalting. Finally, we do nothing more than 5% of what we had planned, climbing impossible mountain passes, disastrous roads, excessive slopes. What I still do not understand is how we like to suffer so much.

On the way, we stop at mountain shops (around here there are a few) seeking a liquid for waterproofing the tent, that lately even though it doesn´t leak, puddles form  on the ground. Poor us, we didn´t know what was awaiting us. After Chamonix, we find a fantastic place for camping in a forest with a green path a view of Mont Blanc, showing all its beauty shamelessly on a completely clear day. We take advantage of the good afternoon to waterproof everything we can from the store. The label on the product says it's organic, but that does not mean it's not toxic. At night, the first symptoms begin. Gabi has a tummy ache and slight nausea. But I get straight to the point and start to vomit, which will continue throughout  the morning of  the next day. My body does not even admit water, and we still have two mountain passes ahead,1,500 meters each, to cross into Switzerland.

At noon I drag the bike as best I can to the next town and try to hitchhike. Half an hour later without anybody having taken pity on us, we decide to go a little more and try our luck at the edge of town, but just move a few meters when the occupants of a van shout at us from a gas station. They're half crazy Poles who have seen us down below asking for help, and now they offer to take us to Poland itself. For a moment we think about accepting the offer, but we agree to let them leave us in Switzerland. They tell us that they are going to stop in Lausanne, which is since we are expected in Vevey, a few kilometers from the city. We pass it, but we think the Poles are looking for a motorway exit. They find it, but continue on, so we start to see  signs to Freiburg, where they would supposedly stop also, we tell them to leave us off anywhere, we are already 40 kilometers from where we should be.

At last we agree and retrace our steps by bike what we had done by van. But it´s worth it as Luc and Val´s family await us, having just returned just three weeks ago from their own world tour and they are still “landing”. I dare to have some food for dinner for the first time all day, and the liquers that they take out for dessert kill any foreign body that was left on my  insides.

The next day we top the foolishness of the week and return almost to the same point where we left the Poles to meet some other friends of Sylvain´s (yes, again Sylvain) in Romont. We decide not to take the same road where we have been and follow the cycle route number 9, which crosses Switzerland through the lake area from west to east. We fear the worst when Luke tells us, very seriously: "I have followed cycling routes in more than thirty countries and I can assure you that in Switzerland it is impossible to get lost." 10 miles from his house, again a sign that says: "Route barrée". We take a detour, where we get excited with a long descent and then we to realize we we've lost sight of Route 9. guess it has merit. Anyway, we continue along the road, which in this country is a delight: the people are extremely polite and drivers are extremely respectful. And the happier I am, when most I'm enjoying the health of my knees, the beauty of the landscape and my recovered stomach...  a bee stings me on a finger of my right hand, so I write this post with nine fingers and a sausage. I hope our luck gets better!

COUNTRY OF GOD

We've come a whopping two miles since we left  Avignon until we make our first stop. It has finally happened: the valve chamber Gabi broke the day after buying the bike, can finally last no more and breaks. And it does so at noon, in a place without shade and with considerable wind. We are delighted with the tires we have, Schwalbe Marathon Mondial, but we do not like it so much when we have to replace the inner tubes. So, we spent some time wrestling with them until they allow us to fix them. This Is the foreshadowing of an exciting day that awaits us. We  have also made a new friend; called Mistral, a distant relative of our Cierzo which we hadn´t missed at all. We need to focus our best to balance on the bike. No wonder the wind drives people crazy it doesn´t leave you alone with your own thoughts, let alone talk to your partner. On one occasion, the wind throws us into the middle of the road and a car beeps at us. What do they think, we've done it by choice? The Mistral will still blow for four days more on the purple lavender fields all around.

Overall, in southeastern France education and respect from the drivers leave much to be desired. For some time we have got used to the fact that the safety distance is narrower and the cars don´t usually slow down much. But In this region several vehicles have passed us, practically hitting us, a couple of them even intentionally, and until we reach the La Drôme  region no car will slow down  and wait for the best time to pass us To get there we have to climb two mountain passes on the same day, the highest of 186 meters. As we move away from the Rhone and get back into the mountains, everything changes: the people, the landscape, the mood and intensity of the wind. We visit Grignan and its medieval castle and ride along the Ouile and Eygues rivers, through the beautiful gorges de St. May. When we reach the village of Remuzat kilometers vertically line the valley: it is the pre-Alpine region. When designing the route from the couch at home, we did it thinking of great rivers and avoid the steeper areas. And now we ask the reader to google search what we're talking about going towards Mont Blanc. Precisely in one of these rivers we stop for lunch and have a swim in our birthday suits. While we are enjoying some delicious macaroni with sautéed onions and peppers a huge stray dog ​​approaches  us and keeps us company throughout the afternoon. When we are thinking of adoptng Austin, the animal decides to help finish the bread and find some more interesting non-vegetarian company.

We climb a real hill, one of 1,000 meters but is so easy that in many of the sections we use the medium chainring. On the other side of the mountain we stay in a town called Recoubeau-Jansac, in a region with a funny name: Pays Diois. It´s  impossible not to name a place with a more divine name. English speakers have it worse, as the capital city of the region is Die, which results in macabre puns. The country reminds us of the Baztán valley. It is an area in the middle of the mountains, where the inhabitants have developed a tendency to personal consumption. The produce is locally grown, mostly organic, and they have developed many projects in sustainable agriculture and permaculture. Funny how the bike world is often linked to the "bio-world"; along the way we have found many long distance cyclists part of this movement, vegans or vegetarians who practice yoga and who use natural medicine. One is Sylvain, who welcomes us to Recoubeau for a few days. He will be our host and our guru in God's country. He came here a few years ago, after a worldwide tour by bike with a friend from 2006 to 2009, visiting more than 40 countries along the way. He earned languages, medicine, carpentry, masonry, mechanics (which added to his knowledge as an engineer) and that has permitted him to build to build his own house. With him rest is not synonymous with wasting time. We will visit some friends of his, also worldwide cyclists,that decided that they could no longer live in the house they  had rented, but neither move far from their farm, so they came up with a solution that was supposed to be temporary: build a yurt (traditional Mongolian nomadic housing) next to an ecological cabin for his goats. And what was going to be a tempory solution until they found something better,  turned out to be something that has been running for  three years with no sign of change anytime soon. At night he takes us to an underground location where his friend is showing a documentary filmed  last summer, a comparison between organic farms in France and Romania. At one point in the documentary a Romanian  farmer regrets that agriculture has become a business, he cannot understand how a food industry can work like a plastic factory; it also bothers him that families spend such a small percentage of their budget on food, when there can be nothing more important. We can spend 300 euros on an iphone, but then buy cheap food (I'm not even talking about junk food or precooked) without worrying about pesticides and GMOs that are killing us slowly, and with a good conscience about the exploitation of people and animals, with the consequent collapse of the home economy. In Lidl, chocolate is cheaper.

At night, Sylvain has two surprises for us: first, he´s contacted some friends, a family living in Switzerland, travelling cyclists who await us in their house; on the other hand, he´s made plans with another traveler friend to spend the next two days in the mountains. Not much to think about, we put the bikes and panniers in the van and go up the pass on four wheels that we were  we were going to do on two.

In Chichiliane we switch bikes for a backpack and climb to Plateau de Vercors, up to 2,000 meters. From there we enjoy the beautiful views of the Alps, we see chamois and marmots, and  our wish to see the Mont Blanc grows even more. We sleep in the shelter next to the passage of L'Aiguille, where a score of heroes of the Resistance tried in vain to stop the advance of the Germans during World War II.

When we are in Grenoble, in a house thanks to Sylvain´s contacts, we lear bit more about this war, but the memory of the Great War, known as the World War I, impresses us even more. Not only Because of the absurdity of the conflict, but also in every town  we have passed through we have been seeing signs of the missing and deceased, lists of names: sometimes that exceed the actual number of houses in the village, and they give an idea of the dimension of the conflict. The trenches of the Somme and Verdun mercilessly engulfed the poor wretches who were sent to defend the front. The carnage ended in a million and a half dead (the number of injuries, amputees and mental problems is even higher) on the French side. Chilling to think that the Great War did not skew as many lives as the religious wars between 1562 and 1598 which killed a tenth of France´s population, with two million dead. Too much blood for such a beautiful place.