Day 67: Rutki to Jekabpils

September 6, 2024

Wicked Winds

“She gave me apples from her garden,” Patrick says catching up with Rachel about the cook coming out after we left. She had also spoken to Patrick in German.

We learned that our room rate of $45 also included breakfast, served from 7:30 onward. So we get up at seven and haul our gear down to the first floor where our bikes were locked in the mudroom. We pack-up and push over to the restaurant right on time. A nice buffet breakfast is spread out and we take our pick from eggs, yoghurt, waffles, pancakes, sausages and so on. Too bad, for some reason we don’t seem to be able to eat large amounts of food so early in the morning.

As we get on the road just before eight the wind is already blowing and again straight from the direction we need to go in. The nice dry and stable weather we’ve been having comes at a cost: headwinds. Fortunately the road meanders quite a bit, and the trees give us some shelter as well. Traffic again is heavier than we like it, and every time we pass a junction we hope it will take most of the traffic with it, but it seems most drivers are headed to where we are going. With a few exceptions the trucks and cars are courteous and give us good space, or brake and wait behind us when there is oncoming traffic.

Commemorates the history of Inns in the area. We stopped because who can resist a picture of a stone with a beer mug.

What a big portion of the road today looked like....until we went away from the river and past farms.

We pass a small town, but find no coffee. Instead we sit in the town park and eat some pastries we carried and have the milk we had bought for breakfast and did not need this morning. A little further we do pass a café that has just opened (the lady is still adjusting the bricks that hold open the steel door) so we stop for some latte’s.

As we cycled through Jaunjelgava, street sweepers were out in full force all through the town.

"Does that look like a bakery?" Patrick checks it out but it's not.

We stop to find bread, and pass on the coffee

How about this for a insta-hot faucet. No gfci needed either.....

"Is this the fancy coffee where I raise my little pinkie?" Patrick asks. It was one of the best cups we've had in Latvia.

Caffeine always helps, but the next section is particularly hard. We lose the trees for a while and fight a stiffening headwind across large open fields. Then the road leaves the river valley for a bit and we deal with a couple of moderate hills. After all this, the last bit into Jekabpils gets easier, first we enter a forest that pretty much eliminates the wind, then at the town of Sale, a nice new bikepath takes us all the way into town. The road splits, one direction each, a block apart. We ride through town to a grocery store, then backtrack to our hotel.

We get off the bikepath to get around the workers. The path is so new, they are filling the edges with dirt.

It is one of those no-reception self-check-in places with a code for the parking lot, a code for the main door and a code for our room. All these were email to us, so good thing that thanks to Bjorn in Stockholm we have data on our Swedish phone number.

Ninety kilometers is a long day for us, but we have the “handicap accessible room” which means we can roll our bikes right in. After showers and a rest break we walk into the center to have Kebab’s for dinner. We saw a nice orthodox church on our way into town and walk over there to check it out. The courtyard is open and we can even enter the church while chanting is going on. It is part of a male monastery.

Today's ride: 90 km (56 miles)
Total: 3,379 km (2,098 miles)

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