Aug. 30: From the shallow Danube to the edge of the gorge

[ES]
Last night I finally slept - like really slept. It was a joy to not wake up at 1am and stay up for hours due to jet lag. I guess that is what a fully-loaded, lots of gravel 68 miles of pedaling can do for you! We woke up to the far off sound of dredging on the shallow Danube and a delicious breakfast of toasted bread, kaymak, jam, sheep cheese, yogurt, eggs and a nibble of cured meat.

Our bicycle-themed guest house.

We headed out for a final stretch of embankment riding on route to a ferry across the Danube. While some sections of the embankment have been well graded this morning we were on a bit of a rough track but very well grazed by the sheep we encountered along the route.

We arrived at the ferry location well before the next ferry departure which would take us back to the south bank of the Danube. We found a little food establishment and had coffee,
coke (always delightfully refreshing for a stop while biking) and a snack. Fortunately in Serbia it is common to hang out for hours at a cafe with your friends while only ordering a small coffee. The shady atmosphere was the perfect respite from the sun as we waited for the ferry.

In preparing for the trip we relied a lot on google earth and offline mapping programs. If you zoom into this area of Serbia on satellite view you will see an agricultural area with pronounced strips of land. I was interested to see what this looked like on the ground. The land ownership in the US, particularly the West, is based on the somewhat arbitrary 40 acre square. Sure it’s a section - of township, range and section, surveying metrics to pinpoint ones place on the earth. But the square for land ownership need not be the end all be all. It appears here in this flat part of Serbia that at least management (and likely ownership) is by long rectangles. There will be a strip of corn then a strip planted with a cover crop and so on.

Today just after disembarking the ferry and riding through agricultural lands Erin said, “Can you smell that?” And of course my hyposmia (I just had to look up that word) did not let me notice the skunkiness in the air. Turns out we were riding past hemp fields (in long strips of course). Such a useful, varied plant.

You have to cross train.

The cycling has been varied, challenging at times and glorious, and we’ve gotten a good arm workout too with all the bumpy embankment riding. We have not seen nearly as many touring cyclists as we expected being on the famed eurovelo 6...today we saw just two others. Both of our systems are a bit out of wack - either too much pork or too much yogurt trying to keep up our internal flora. But likely because of all the new foods, a new place and exhausting our energies. Tonight we had muesli and yogurt and Serbian beer for dinner at our comfy apartment outside Golubac. We noted it was our first meal in a couple days without meat. As we wind down for (hopefully) sleep I am thankful for all the experiences Serbia has given us so far and look forward to the gorge on the Danube tomorrow.

Greeters at our guesthouse.