August 11, 2013
Cherno part one: Without the byl
The next day I was in the town of Varberg looking for somewhere to get water. As with most Swedish towns that I had been through, there was a large, mostly empty square in the centre and everything looked very clean and nice. In this square I saw another cyclist on a bike tour. At least, I thought he was probably on a bike tour. He was certainly on a bike. And he had a large rucksack on his back and two things that could pass for panniers stuck to the back of the bike. He had a large pair of headphones around his neck and on his head he wore his cap back to front. I looked at him as he cycled up to a pretty girl to ask for directions and thought, 'now there goes a cycle tourist. Not one who plans and prepares and has at least tried to get the right gear, one who just gets on a bike and goes.' I wanted to go and say hello but he was a little far away and the girl had already pointed him the way but she was wearing a long fashionable scarf and as he began to cycle the scarf caught on his handlebars and almost dragged the poor girl with him. This was my first sighting of Cherno.
I still needed water and after following the signs for the WC and finding it closed I headed for the information centre, which rather brilliantly was open on a Sunday. I was happy to see the mystery cyclist standing outside. He introduced himself as Cherno (in his own words "Like Chernobyl but without the byl") and we got talking. He was a fantastic guy, full of enthusiasm and positivity, and he was going the same way as me. His brother lives in Oslo and so Cherno decided one day to ride his bike there to see him. He straight away suggested that we ride together and I was delighted.
Not five kilometres out of Varberg and I was starting to wonder about my decision. Cherno's bike was making some rather interesting creaking noises and to further add to my concerns, his tire rather quickly deflated. We stopped for him to mend the puncture while I fretted about losing time. My schedule did not allow for much lost time. His attempt at mending the puncture was at least somewhat comical. I helped him out and he loaded the bike back up and we were on our way. His set-up was delightfully amateur. The panniers were eight euros from Aldi and stuck out diagonally and awkwardly on either side. He told me that the clips had broken the first time he used them and he now held them on with a caribiner. He took his backpack off and bungeed it to the top of the rack, stuffing various other items that wouldn't fit in the bags under the bungee cords. As I soon found out, it was not wise to cycle behind Cherno, for these items were liable to frequently come loose and shoot off behind him like missiles. Bread, water bottles and bananas were among the things that came flying towards me. Me cycling in front didn't help much, as Cherno soon came up to me and said "I need to stop and buy more bananas, I seem to have lost mine somewhere."
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But cycling with Cherno was really great. Most of the time we were on cycle paths or quiet roads and we could cycle next to each other and talk. He told me great stories, like the time that he was cycling in China and 'accidently' cycled over a high mountain pass without any food or water because he 'didn't know it was there.' He was wonderfully eccentric and was not at all shy to talk to anyone. For example, we were taking a break outside a supermarket in a small town and a group of kids arrived on motor scooters and we were trying to guess how old they were. Cherno just walked right up to them and asked without hesitation. It was this confidence that allowed him to go up to people in towns and ask to sleep in their homes. Seriously. In Varberg he had been staying with an African man who fed him chicken. It was like couchsurfing but without the hassle of pre-organising. He just went up to people and asked straight out. I wondered if this had ever got Cherno into trouble.
"Yeah" he said, starting one of his tremendous stories which I will try to retell to you now. It involved him asking a guy in the street in Germany, who agreed to host him, telling him that he would be back soon to let him in and to watch out for Nazis. This strange warning did not put off dear faithful Cherno who waited patiently and was let in to what turned out to basically be a crack house. Obviously deciding that the floor of a crack house was still better than his cheap and not-very-waterproof tent, Cherno stayed, somehow falling asleep despite the constant visitors who came and took drugs while listening to trance music right next to him. And then at about four in the morning he was woken up by some banging at the door. One of the occupants of the house came to him and said "watch out man, there are Nazis at the door. If they get in here, they are going to kill you!" Luckily for Cherno, they did not get in, and he survived to tell the tale.
And now he wanted to do it all again tonight in Gothenburg. It was certainly not something I had ever done before (apart from one night in Guatemala but that's another story) Sure, I was happy to ask people to camp in their yard, but to sleep in their house? A complete stranger? Well, I was going to have to go along with this guy, just for kicks and to see what might happen. "Okay," I agreed, "but lets ask some beautiful blonde girls okay?"
"Definitely" he agreed.
We arrived in Gothernburg just as it was getting dark and Cherno asked around for the student area, reasonably assuming that students would be more willing to host complete strangers. I wanted to ask if there were any known crack houses in the student area but my companion was already cycling off in the direction which was up quite a big hill.
Cherno raced up the hill and I got caught up at some lights and by the time I got to the top he was talking with two Indian guys. As I cycled over to them I heard one of the Indian guys saying "Yes okay, why not?"
So that was how we found our place to stay in Gothenburg. The two Indian guys were conviniently both called Nikhil, wich was great because I was tired and not in the mood for trying to remember more than one name. They lived in student halls and rather brilliantly both had spare mattresses in their rooms. We had some nice chats, some nice food, I took a nice shower. The hospitality of the Nikhils was just enough to make up for not spending the night with beautiful blonde girls as per our agreement which must have momentarily slipped Cherno's mind as he cycled up that hill. Nikhil was particularly interested in my journey and seemed inspired by it. Nikhil was less interested but I think his English wasn't as good and he was tired and probably wasn't expecting to play host, so I can forgive him. So we slept well that night, but I told Cherno that I really needed to be in Oslo in three days and that I thought I would need to cycle about 130km per day to make it (although I had done 136km that day, he had started at midday and only done 86km which was about his average) To my surprise he agreed and said he wanted to come with me and so we made plans to keep on rolling the next morning.
Today's ride: 136 km (84 miles)
Total: 2,351 km (1,460 miles)
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