Arrival at the Black Sea

Like every morning, our Suunto arm computers wake us up at six o’clock. Although I’m dog-tired, I use the early hour for my back exercises, as I do every day. Then we crawl out of the tent, set up camp, have breakfast and load up our bikes. We hug Nicko and Marianna goodbye and thank them once again for the pleasant place to sleep. Then we let the tires circle over the village road until we hit the asphalt strip. We are immediately greeted by a 200-meter hill. Our leg muscles barely have a chance to get a shock before they have to make the pedal crank rotate like crazy. To prevent us from becoming too euphoric, a slight headwind slows down the following descent. Then it goes up again. After a good 20 kilometers, we rush down the hill to the town of Mihail. The rural tranquillity is over. Too bad. We stop at the first beautiful terrace pub and have our second breakfast. We lean the bikes against a railing and keep an eye on them during breakfast. Young people often stop to marvel at the strange-looking Ortlieb bags with tires. We never take our eyes off our valuable possessions for a second. It would not be easy for a thief to jump onto one of the trestles and make a quick getaway. But better safe than sorry. After refreshments, we continue through the city. As Mihail has a military airport, loud screeching fighter planes thunder over our heads. Cars honk and stink. Welcome back to the civilization of humans. At the end of the town, we are spat back onto the E 60. And now it starts again, the race in chaos. Thank goodness the road is four-lane and there are none of the crash barriers that are so bad for us. According to the map, we only have to cover 10 kilometers on this arterial road before we are allowed to turn off towards Mamaia shortly before Constanta. In a good mood, we are not far from a major stage destination, the Black Sea, and we rush over the tar with a strong crosswind. The unpleasant smell of faeces sometimes wafts around our noses. Roadkill lines the path. Dogs, cats, a bat, lizards and snakes ferment in the sun. Plastic is incinerated. The horrible smell reminds me of the terrible poison dioxin (polychlorinated hydrocarbon), which is also produced by incomplete incineration of plastic. It looks like the Romanian state has lost the battle against the gigantic army of plastic bottles. As a result, small piles of garbage are soon burning everywhere, in front of many houses and in the fields, polluting the air. I’m just thinking about how to solve the garbage problem when suddenly two large dogs shoot out of a factory site. They are definitely big dogs, too big for my taste. With deep barks, they fly towards me at a crazy speed. I don’t even need to give my leg muscles a command as they work mightily to get my bike up to top speed. The dogs notice my attempt to run away and cheekily and intelligently make their way across the factory premises. A hole in the fence spits them out. I race past and… “Eh! Eh! Eeeeee! You little shits! I showed you!” I celebrate and let my vehicle coast back to normal speed. Only now does Tanja come to mind. “Oh dear. The dogs,” it shoots through my head and I turn around. Because of my adrenaline rush, I catapulted my Roadtrain far forward. Tanja is lagging far behind. As the dogs make their way back to their beloved factory, they discover Tanja. At that moment, a policeman gets out of his car and shouts at the guys. They tuck tail and troll. Tanja passes by unmolested. We were lucky. The E 60 is getting even wider. In front of us, the gray blocks of Constanta tower up into the smoke-filled sky. A large sign points to the border town of Tulcea and the seaside resort of Mamaia. “We have to turn off up ahead!” I shout. “Okay!” I hear from behind me. Trucks and cars now roar past us from all directions. We’re right in the middle of it again. Our senses are heightened and our bodies are supplied with enough adrenaline. “Your turn!” I shout through the tense situation as if doped up. “Yes! All right!” replies my wife. In the rearview mirror, I see her pull her head down and hit the pedals hard. It looks like a little racing roll. Suddenly I have to laugh heartily in the middle of the intersection. Situation comedy. We stretch our arm to the left, pulling into the left lane with the traffic. Then we stop in the center of the hustle and bustle until the oncoming traffic leaves us a gap to turn off. “Now!” I yell and we let the cranks spin at crazy speed. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” I shout and we are on the right side. “It was like a commando operation,” laughs Tanja as she comes to a halt on the hard shoulder next to me.

A few hundred meters further on, we find ourselves back on a smaller road. Traffic has calmed down accordingly. A strong headwind blows against us from the coast. After five kilometers, a blue stripe appears out of nowhere. The Black Sea. “Hooray! There it is!” I shout joyfully and pull over. The moment is overwhelming. We actually made it as far as the Black Sea. From Lake Constance to here, mostly along the Danube. What an exciting trip. Although our speedometer only shows 3360 kilometers, it was a gigantic journey, especially for me. Highs and lows, endless culture, indescribable landscapes, euphoria, new, unknown things, hospitality through Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia and Romania and then the accident. Shortly before the stage finish. My God, what a journey. I stand there and look at the blue stripe. A few more kilometers separate us and a destination has been realized. It almost came close. Our life project “the great journey” was on the brink. OP. one year of rehab and now it has finally gone on. Successful with a lot of joy, will, health and confidence. Man, life is good. Hooray! We get back on our riese und müller, which have rolled us here so reliably. We drive through the harbor town of Navodari. Another one of these uglinesses. Black smoke and chimneys dominate the picture. We cross a mighty bridge and then follow the coastal road. A town sign shows us that we have reached the seaside resort of Mamaia. The shock is great when we come across heavy building work. Everywhere people are baking, tearing up roads and building houses. The air here is also saturated with dust and dirt. “That looks terrible. And this is supposed to be a seaside resort? To me, it’s more like a mega construction site by the sea,” I grumble. There’s no doubt that we imagined our arrival by the sea to be different. Almost all hotels and tourist hotels are under construction or renovation. In the middle of it all, there are a few vacation accommodations that are not being worked on. “Vacation on the building site,” I tease. Then the Constanza sign. As Constanta has over 350,000 inhabitants, we don’t really want to go any further. Vacations in a big city are not our thing either. We actually wanted to stay here for a few days. I urgently need to write down our experiences of the trip so far and publish them on our website and thought I would have the peace and quiet and the ambience for this work here. But as it stands, it doesn’t look good.

We decide not to be put off by the town sign and cycle on towards Constanza. All of a sudden, the construction work is finished. The vacation spot you were looking for appears as if from nowhere. Some of the hotels make a rather run-down impression, as we know it in a former Eastern bloc country, but at least they are there. The first tourists scurry around in their colorful clothes, swimming trunks, bikinis, slippers and thick sunglasses. We with our bikes in the middle of it all. Our mood rises again. We ask for a room in the first hotel bunkers. “100 to 150 euros per night,” we hear and the mood sinks again. “I’m exhausted and need something to eat,” I complain. I visit other hotels in search of a restaurant. “We’re sorry. We don’t have any rooms available. We’re fully booked,” says the lady at reception. “Completely booked up? How can that be? You have at least 200 rooms in this huge hotel, don’t you?” I wonder and ask. “Yes, but the skin season starts soon. If you don’t have a reservation, I can’t help you,” I hear. I shake my head. I’m standing around a bit embarrassed and only now realize that I must stand out like a parrot in the Antarctic. With my tight-fitting, colorful cycling clothes, which don’t smell good due to all the sweating, I feel like a foreign body here. Dejected, I head for the hotel opposite. “Sorry, fully booked”, I hear and after checking out about 10 or 15 such bunkers, I crawl on my gums to Tanja, completely depressed. Tanja now takes command. She realized that there wasn’t much left to do with me.

Rancid mood

We find a fast food shed. We lean our bikes against the fence and eat fast food behind our gills. Terrible but it works. “I’ll go and try my luck,” says Tanja. “Okay,” I reply tiredly. “Take good care of the bikes,” she calls and hurries off. Now I’m sitting here in my sweaty cycling clothes under a blue plastic roof where the sun doesn’t come through but the heat does. I feel cooked like a rancid old chicken from minute to minute. But it’s not just my body that feels rancid, my mind does too. Bad atmosphere, far too bad for my taste. “You want to buy a souvenir?” a souvenir seller approaches me. Startled, I open my tired eyes, look the man with his wood carving in the face and say as kindly as possible; “No thank you.” “Are you from Germany?” the man now wants to communicate. “Yes.” “Look at that. It’s beautiful. Buy it. Very cheap,” he rejoices and holds the large wooden plate right under my nose. “No thanks.” The man looks at his prey writhing in the chair, completely exhausted, and takes another swing. “Bad deal today. Special price for you.” “Thank you. See those bikes there? Those are ours. I can’t transport your beautiful bowl,” I explain, hoping for peace and quiet. “Bad day today. Buy me a beer?” “Right, bad day today. I’m not buying you a beer,” I reply with a serious face. The man remains standing next to me for a while. Seems to consider whether his prey is not prey and comes to the decision to troll. Moments later, he is sitting at the next table drinking beer with a colleague. Both of them are now watching me incessantly. “Oh man, what have I done to deserve this?” I mumble into my beard. The heat under the roof is almost unbearable. After half an hour of suffering, I come up with the glorious idea of taking off my shoes and shirt. “Much better. It’s strange why it sometimes takes so long to come up with good ideas.” My head falls onto my shoulders from tiredness. The two souvenir sellers are still watching me. “What do they see in me? Just don’t fall asleep. Maybe they’ve noticed how tired I am. Our bikes would then be easy prey. Oh man, I’m tired.” My head falls forward again. Startled, I pick him up. “Just a microsleep. Lucky you.” I get up, go to the counter and order a cup of coffee. The drink doesn’t really help. Not strong enough. Go back to the Dresen and buy a Coke against my convictions. “Sometimes Coke is also a medicine,” my father often says. Well, in this case he may be right. I shove the sugar concoction down my throat. It seems to be working. My eyes have remained open for the last few minutes. My observers seem to have noticed this too. They get up and scamper off. “That’s good. Where’s Tanja? Oh man, I’m tired. And it’s hot here. Hotter than is good. Such a horrible blue roof. Whoever invented something like this should be punished,” I keep thinking.

“Hello my darling! Are you okay?” asks Tanja when she finally reappears after 11/2 hours. “Better not ask,” I reply. She brings good news and has found what she was looking for. “The hotel and especially the staff are really nice. There’s a terrace where you can write, our room has a sea view and we’re allowed to put the bikes in the cleaning room,” she reports. We immediately set off to find the Hotel Pelikan. It is indeed a beautiful room, and not just by Romanian standards. On the fourth floor, we have a wonderful view of the long-awaited Black Sea. There is a well-functioning air conditioning system, a wonderful chair, a balcony and all this at a fair price. Everything I need for my work. After a long shower, we walk a few hundred meters along the beach. Hunger soon drives us to a beach restaurant. Now we’ve actually done it. There is no doubt that we are by the sea. The waves are crashing, the food tastes great and we love each other and life. What more could a person want?

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