August 19, 2022 to August 21, 2022
To Košice and Hungary
19th
I rented some equipment and headed out to climb the via ferrata in the gorge nearby, after following the green markings as instructed, I realised I had walked a whole hour passed the turning so spend 2 extra hours than planned wandering around the beautiful national park. Finally made it to the climb and had fun climbing up the waterfall and through the gorge.
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Was pretty worn out on what was meant to be a short climb but got back on my bike and carried on down the hill. The descent wasn’t too fun, I once again found the track deteriorated into singletrack with tight switchbacks and massive hand cramps from constantly squeezing the breaks, I fell off a couple of times too so got pretty frustrated. Really want to change out my handlebars if I am going to keep doing off road tracks.
Was so happy to find a beautiful cycle path at the bottom of the hill and rode though to Spiska Nova Ves.
Not too far out the city were a few gypsy village, the contrast in the developed houses in the city to the slums was crazy and I felt like I was cycling through Mexico.
In between me and Kosice was only 100Km but 1700m of steep and mostly off road climbing. I decided to get one of the 3 hills out the way in the evening and camped at the top in a field next to the road. The gypsy village was nearby and it sounded so lively into the night.
20th
Happy I climbed the other hill yesterday as the one in the morning was awful, Komoot said 25% at some points which I think was accurate and it was all loose gravel and dust so I could get no traction. I pushed most of the way and it took well over 2 hours. Rested at the top and after another sketchy decent and a couple more falls I made it to tarmac and passed through this lovely mountain village. It felt pretty special being here as it was so out of the way and is one of the places that you'd only pass through on a bike tour.
The other two hills weren't as bad but I still had to push at points. I definitely earnt the long descent into Kosice along the Cyclepath. Noticed the leaves were already falling and the forests turning orange, it looked beautiful but was also a sign that winter will probably come sooner than I think and I should make my way down south at some point. Arrived in Kocise and saw this mountain bike event at the bottom, realised this was where Matej was and met him here. I contacted him a couple of days ago and he let me stay with him and his wife Natalia and their baby, Felix. Had a lovely evening together, getting to know eachother and playing with Felix.
21st
Twas the lords day so decided no cycling today and headed into the city to look around. Was attracted to the eastern music and smell of incense and found myself in a Turkish/Balkan restaurant where I ate a delicious meal. Very excited to get to the Balkans and eventually Turkey but this wont be for a while. The waiter was from Macedonia and gave me some great places to go to and foods to try whilst I am there. Spent a while doing some planning for the future and trying to figure out what I am going to do over the winter. Places I am currently considering are southern Turkey, Cypress, Lebanon, Israel. Found loads of jobs that are construction related so this will also be good experience for me.
Re-joined Matej and his family later on and spent a lot of time playing with Felix who was finally starting to warm to me. Borrowed their laptop and set up to catch up with yet another weeks journalling, how time flies... Having an actual keyboard makes such a difference, I really hate typing this on my phone (hence the neglect most the time).
22nd
The bearings in my cheap pedals had worn out by this point so 4 shops later I found some new durable (hopefully) pedals, some shorts to replace my ripped ones and even a Micky mouse hat! Also took a long detour to decathlon to buy some gas for my stove but they had none in stock, was left on the wrong side of town and had to join a busy dual carriageway to get onto the cyclepath, very stressful...
Saw a huge storm approaching so preemptively found a bus stop to hide under
Later I met friendly lady on the Hungary border who gave me fresh food from her garden for dinner and let me stay in her barn for the night.
23rd
Set myself a challenge to ride though Hungary in a day (140km).
Proceeded to have a great day filled with friendly encounters with people using Google translate and picking a sickly amount of fruit
Decided to stop just before the border in the end as it was getting late and the other side didn't seem too nice to camp.
Rode into a nearby town and asked a family outside for water. Straight away they invited me in and fed me a delicious meal! We spoke for a while about our countries and they gave me a bag of food too for the next day.
Pitched my tent in an orchard just in time before a huge thunderstorm drenched the land.
Today's ride: 280 km (174 miles)
Total: 10,090 km (6,266 miles)
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