November 6, 2013
Four countries, no passport, one day: The rain in Switzerland falls mainly on the cyclist
The last of my four counties in one day was Switzerland, home of chocolate, watches and the bank accounts of more criminals than you can shake a chocolate watch at. I finally took a bridge across the Rhine and across the border late in the day, cycled away from the river, saw that the next route I wanted to take appeared to be going uphill and, worried there would be nowhere to camp, doubled back towards the river where I set up my tent in the woods there. It rained all night again, meaning I got almost no sleep, and then continued all morning. It was heavy, depressing rain.
On a more positive note, as I was cycling away from the Rhine I realised that the smaller river and the valley that I was now following was not going steeply uphill. In fact it wasn't going uphill at all. I looked at the river next to me, which I had assumed was flowing down from the mountains into the Rhine. I saw that it was flowing the wrong way. Well, obviously it wasn't flowing uphill, but it was flowing away from the Rhine. I calculated that the water must therefore flow down through this valley to a lake, then keep going downhill to Lake Zurich, and then flow down from there to Lake Contance. In other words, instead of having to cycle up through the mountains as I thought, I was going to be able to cycle along a gentle downhill or flat route the whole way. This was a delightful revelation that would have filled me with a lot more joy had I not been soaked and frozen to the bone and actually quite in the mood for an uphill to warm me up.
I stopped outside some kind of factory where there were some benches underneath an overpass of some sort where I could shelter out of the rain, and where I sat and ate some grapes. One of the workers, a man of about thirty-five with curly black hair, came out of the door of the factory and waved me over. He seemed to want me to go inside to warm up. I wasn't really interested because there was no point as it was still raining hard and I would just get wet again as soon as I left. But the man came over to me and introduced himself as Juan, speaking to me in German. He made sign language that I should come inside where there was a big heater I could dry myself and all my clothes on. I stood firm and refused and tried to tell him it was still raining and I would just get wet again. He told me there was a train to Zurich in twenty minutes. Then he asked if I wanted a hot chocolate and ran inside to get one. 'Nice these Swiss people,' I thought to myself.
Juan came back with the hot chocolate and I drank it quite happily while he tried to force me inside again. I asked him where he was from and he told me he was from Spain. 'Oh! That'll be why you're called Juan, of course!' We then continued to try and have a conversation with him speaking German and me speaking English for quite some considerable time longer until finally the cogs in my brain clicked into gear with a slow clicking noise 'Juan is from Spain,' a voice in my head reminded me, 'his first language is Spanish. You can also speak some Spanish. You should communicate in Spanish!' I looked at my new friend and held up my hand to interrupt his Germanic ramblings. "Hablas espanol?" I asked the Spanish man. He looked at me like I was very strange.
After that I gave in to Juan and followed him into his factory, leaving my bike unattended outside and hoping that it would get stolen so that I could take the train. He led me to a big heater where strips of plastic were being fed in on a hanging conveyor belt thing to be dried and insisted that I remove my jacket and hoody and shoes and put them in there to dry. It was very nice to stand by that heater, and very nice that my things got a little bit dry, and very nice to meet such a nice Spaniard. It was, however, a complete waste of time because five minutes after I left the factory and continued cycling on my unstolen bike everything was as cold and wet as before.
I continued on paved bicycle paths past a big lake, at which point I finally realised that I had actually cycled this way before (I was having a slow day okay?) I had cycled this way in reverse on my way to Liechtenstein the previous summer, although it had looked very different in the warm sunshine than it now did in the pouring rain. But beyond the lake and at about one in the afternoon the rain finally ceased and I was able to stop and dry my things on a fence during a brief period of sunshine. I found an internet connection in a library, (where it was thankfully free as I had no Swiss money) and confirmed the time of arrival of the illustrious Dr Dave into Zurich airport the next morning. I was very much looking forward to seeing the Doc again.
I watched the sun set over Lake Zurich, the bicycle route frustratingly climbing high on the hills above it instead of following the lake shore, but finally I arrived into the city after dark. I had been to Zurich once before several years earlier, and I remembered that I had rather liked it then. This, I feel, says a lot about how I had changed over the years, for on this second visit I felt something more like revulsion at the place. I locked my bike up and walked around the narrow streets, filled with art galleries and fancy restaurants. Everyone was well dressed and seemed to be playing a part. I looked through restaurant windows at business people in suits, in smart dress, eating steak and sipping fine wine. Everything was clean and neat and perfect. Too perfect. So perfect it was ugly. It was utterly lacking in soul, it had no charm, no character. Ragged and dirty, I did not belong here. I was out of place. I turned and ran and never looked back.
05/11/13 - 95km (7km in Switzerland)
06/11/13 - 108km
Today's ride: 115 km (71 miles)
Total: 9,304 km (5,778 miles)
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