Sad to leave Negotin, such a lovely place, managed by Malisha.
I am still undecided about taking the EV13 through Macedonia and Bulgaria with its huge mountain ranges, although it does look spectacular. Its not so much the climing and descents, it is just the lack of support in case something goes wrong with the bike. I check in to confirm that Turkey is still a red country as far as Covid is concerned, but I have a month or so for things to change. The whole Covid pandemic really seems so remote and far away from me right now, and I realise that I have really disconnected from my normal, everyday life and that is amazing.
I have decided to push on through to Knjazevac via Zajecar in one go, around 100KM and my suspicions that it would be preferable to take route 35 from Zajecar rather than the more scenic and unpaved route were confirmed by Bart. The line between joy and despair is always paved, I have come to find. On my exit from the town, I spied Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in a garden. In fact, most of the gardens had various gnomes and colourful fun statues.
It was a lot more climby on the way to Zajecar and not a lot to look at. I whiled away a couple of hours listening to episodes of Ladies who London with Alex and Emily, learning all about the sumptuary laws at the Tudor court and the rather over-the-top Kimpton Fitzroy Hotel (formerly Hotel Russell) in London with its fabulously ornate Pyrenean marble staircase and interiors that replicated those on board the Titanic, back in the day.
I came across more huge dogs, but these were all kept behind closed gates, presumably for security. As I passed one house, an enormous roar and the swhoosh of metallic buzzing slammed across a huge courtyard and as I turned back to look, a dog as big as a horse was straining against its leash, attached to a zipline. I don't see any potential thief walking out of there alive, to be honest.
The route here was both monotonuous and devoid of any places to buy food, which luckily I had been warned about so I brought some sandwiches and my newest favourite snake, almonds. They are super good for you and it can be hard to find nutritions food. I think I may have already mentioned it elsewhere in this blog, but this journey is all about food, making sure you eat healthily as you go. Every meal you have, you think back to what you have previously eaten for at least two meals. Whilst it is not the main topic of thought, it is always uppermost in your mind.
The road quality here was not great - just imagine how bad the scenic route would have been - and after a particularly rough patch, my chain came off. Unfortuntaly it got all mangled up and took me half an hour to set it right. I did wonder what I would do right out there on my own if I couldn't fix it, but it was only a chain, but it was great once I finally got it back on and working. An old guy watched me from his porch a short distance away as I wrestled with it.
Hands covered in oil and grease, I stopped off at a local service station when I got to Zajecar and stocked up on water and apples. The continuing 40KM route to Knjazevac was a doddle. Straint,easy and now paved
although tons of roadworks and red lights which I sailed through. Nothing to see here at all, just boring but at least it was easy. Things improved scenically when an offical looking guy in a car directed me to an alternative paved path away from the main road. Turned out he was border control and I saw him a couple of times as I made my way, he always blinked his lights at me in recognition. A nice moment of connection and heightend my good mood.
The town seemed lovely and after I settled into my hotel, I called Bart who was nearby and we met up for a bite to eat. We were both quite knackered and went our seperate ways straight after, arranging to meet up to cycle together onto Bulgaria the next day. He definitely doesn't want to do the EV13 hilly route; he has a lot more stuff with him for a start but then again he is going onto Iran as well and it will be colder when he is there. And cycling in lycra is not really on in a place like that anyway.
Made some videos for the schoolkids and passed out. So so tired.
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