I just can’t manage to become more relaxed, to take things as they are. The taste of life is not as easy. I have only myself to blame for all the dark thoughts during our journey. What a bummer, I would like to blame someone else. The weather, for example. Yes, it’s a struggle with me and all that out there.
Klaus is not so prone to these bad situations, to the things that don’t go so smoothly. He is exposed to exactly the same situations, but doesn’t let them drag him down like that.
But it’s going on inside me. I know that self-pity doesn’t help and the knowledge that others feel the same way doesn’t help either. Knowing that I have so many great friends who would support me when nothing else works is incredibly inspiring and one of the reasons why I actually enjoy working on getting out of these lows. Ignoring it is actually not a solution, because we will have these kinds of situations again and again throughout our journey (dangerous roads, heat or cold, lack of water, a lot of misery (whether, human or animal), defects in our equipment, dirt and of course dealing with our relationship.
With each low, and some lows are really deep, I recognise them earlier and can tackle them faster. For example, I only occupy myself with the beautiful moments of the day so that I don’t lose sight of them. Or I tell Klaus about how I’m doing and he’s not a “it’ll be okay” or “don’t be like that” kind of person.
But I can also write about the taste of life.
Cycling is a wonderful vehicle to get the thoughts flowing and so on days like this, it’s best to get on the bicycle as soon as possible.
Nature is not as romantic as we imagine it to be. YES, it is colourful, alive and can even smell wonderful. But do you remember your last picnic? Ants? Grass mites? Insects? What was the temperature like? Was the grass still wet? Was it really as romantic as paintings, photos and films show us?
The next morning
When we wake up in the morning, the first thing we look at is the tent. How wet is it, how long will it take to dry? Or will the weather be such that we can dry it later? The sleeping bags are clammy and also desperately need sun. So out of the “feathers”, into the salty and clammy clothes of the last few days. Roll the sleeping mats, pack the pillows, stuff the sleeping bags away. If necessary, pre-dry the tent with a cloth. Klaus fetches the bags from the forerun and hangs some of them on the bicycles. Then coffee is made and usually there is some oat with fresh fruits. We quickly plan the route, take down the tent and stow everything on the bikes. One last check and we’re off. We’re on the bikes by 8am, having got up at 6am. Yes, of course there was a bit of washing with a wet papercloth soaked in water and teeth brushing too. A mini look in the bicycle mirror, a search for a suitable nature toilet and now we can finally get going.
We stop to drink. After 25 km at the latest, we should have refilled our water bottles. We already need about 4 litres of water per person per day. Most of the time we pick up a loaf of bread and 2-3 tomatoes somewhere and fruit again for the following morning. Chips and cola are small rewards. I have to slowly give up chocolate now. It won’t make it through the day in this heat.
I put sun cream on my arms and legs and on my face in between.
It’s starting to get tough. We rarely find a good place for lunch. The sun is up there in the sky and there are few shady spots along the roadside. So we simply take a shady spot. It doesn’t matter if there is rubbish lying around, trucks racing past, barking dogs bothering us.
Noodles with tomatoes, beans or whatever else was available in tins. We have discovered eggs for us on this Tripps. Then it can happen that we munch on a whole jar of pickles. We mainly rinse with cold water the dishes, so we don’t throw the water away, but drink it. We do this with the coffee cups, the cereal and our lunch bowls.
In the evening, we often don’t feel like preparing some food. Then we have dry bread with an egg and Majonaise or something, plus chips and lots of coke.
Since that’s what a day looks like for us when it comes to food, it’s perhaps understandable that we enjoy every change so much that you have to endure posts about ice cream and pizza 🙂 For us something so wonderful, it can happen that I even eat 2 ice creams at once.
The taste of life is sometimes exhausting
One of us feels tired at some point, whether physically or mentally, and it’s time to decide when to look for a place to sleep, to put up the tent.
Some of them we took because nothing else worked, but some were also a gift and we simply had to realise much more quickly that this was perhaps one of the perfect moments and… enjoy it.
We then put up the tent, take the bags off the bikes. I take care of the interior, Klaus takes care of the bikes. We wash ourselves as best we can and hopefully find the next suitable natural toilet and crawl into our sleeping bags. And the next night begins with dreams full of the events of the last few days.
And while I’m writing this, this cute little lady showed up, to pick up some hugs.
She knows how to live the moment. And the other little one, the small turtle just needed some small hand to get save over the street for its next good taste of life 🙂
