Below zero

At 8:00 a.m. we are sitting in the hotel’s small breakfast room. As all the food here is also heated in the microwave, we eat cold blinis and cold porridge. Then we carry our equipment from the room into the elevator, take everything down to the ground floor, angle our bikes out of the tiny luggage compartment and load them up. The weather is bad as usual. “Will it go on?” ask a couple of pastors from Germany that we met yesterday. “Yes.” “And where to?” one of the 15-strong delegation wants to know. Our next stop will be Krasnoyarsk,” I say, shivering a little at the moment when it’s only 2 degrees. “Krasnoyarsk? We’re going there too.” “Well, you’ll be faster than us. If everything goes according to plan, we’ll need five to six days,” I explain. “Ha, ha, we’re already in Irkutsk,” we hear. “Oh, by the way. I own two of your books. I’ve already read Trans-East Expedition Stage 1 and only started the second volume a few days ago. I actually wanted to take it with me on our trip, but in the end a book by Peter Scholl-Latour ended up in my luggage.” “Unbelievable. It’s never happened to me before to meet a reader of our books while traveling. And in Siberia to boot! Fantastic. I hope you like it?” I ask enthusiastically. “But yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have started reading the second stage. Of course I want to know what happens next,” explains the likeable priest called Jörg.

Before we get on our sumo bikes, the German clergy photograph the rare sight of German cyclists in Siberia. “Have a good trip. And don’t freeze to death!” they call after us and wave. “Have a good trip too!” we reply. As soon as the evangelical servants of God have disappeared from our field of vision, the street rises up. We pedal up a hill, our pulse racing through our veins and we suddenly feel warm. I now wear a short-sleeved thermal undershirt, a cycling shirt, a fleece shirt and a thin windstopper jacket on top. So I’m pleasantly warm. When we reach the outskirts of the city half an hour later, I start to freeze. “My clothes are all wet with sweat. Let’s stop for a moment. I need to put something on,” I say and slip into another fleece jacket. “You’d better put your overshoes on too. It looks like rain,” I ask Tanja to prevent the coming wetness. Now dressed like Michelin men, we leave the university town behind us. The hills ahead keep our blood circulation going. Although my shirts are soaked with sweat to wring them out, I’m still warm. Because of the constant ups and downs, we only make progress at an average speed of around 13 km/h.

The cloud cover above our heads sticks directly to the ground in some parts of the country. We slowly cycle into the foggy mass and are drenched with even more moisture, only to be spat out again by the gray eminence. “If it goes on like this, I’ll grow gills!” I shout, panting up a mountain. Tanja does not answer. Her breath appears as white clouds that she puffs into the cold autumn day. The road is bordered on the left and right by woods and occasionally by fields. Almost all of the cultivated areas have been harvested. Haystacks stand uncoordinated on a wide expanse of grass. Sometimes we see an old Tracktor bumping across one of the farmlands. Then the black and white spotted trunks of the endless birch forests press against the edge of the road again. But spruces, pines, larches and firs, tree species with a great ability to adapt to frost and cold, also line our road to the east. “Are these already the forests of the taiga?” asks Tanja with interest because she loves trees more than anything. “I think so,” I reply, stopped in my tracks. Tanja’s question caught my attention and I take a look at the wet forest. Its deep, soon black-green color attracts my full attention. Because of the low floating clouds and light rain, the largest contiguous coniferous forest area on earth seems eerie to me. “Are there already bears here? Will they come as far as the road?” I ask myself, thinking about the night ahead, which we will certainly have to spend in the tent. A bird makes me look up with interest. Something has startled him. I try to follow him with my gaze, but a deep hole in the asphalt demands my concentration. On the map in front of me in my handlebar bag, you can see how the strip of asphalt we are riding on is just a very thin, narrow path winding through an endless wilderness. To the left and right of it, for thousands of kilometers, there are only forests and partly still undeveloped areas that are only interrupted by vast stretches of huge marshland. Even now, at this moment, swampy land lines the tarred strip. Again and again we pedal our bikes over bridges. Rivers of clear water ripple below us.

Because of the dreary mood and the soon incessant rainfall, I don’t get to take many photos. Firstly, I lack the motivation, secondly, the camera gets wet and thirdly, the inadequate lighting conditions mean that I can hardly take any usable photos. My thoughts begin to take on a life of their own. They can no longer be controlled and are increasingly downright unpleasant. In some moments I even forget what I have learned on my travels so far, I lose my composure, the wisdom to live in the moment, the confidence, the joy of being on the road. “Why are we actually doing this? What’s the point? If we carry on like this, we’ll catch pneumonia or kidney infection,” my brain torments me. “What a fucking downpour! Man oh man, this Siberia really has it all. So the travel reports are true after all. It is indeed a tough country to travel in. “Don’t freeze to death! It happens faster than you think! You don’t even realize it and suddenly it’s too late,” people have often warned us. And now? Now it’s still quite warm here in comparison. The thermometer hasn’t even reached the zero degree mark yet and yet we are starting to suffer more and more from the temperatures. How is this supposed to go on? Perhaps we should leave it alone for this year in Krasnoyarsk? No, I want to make it to Irkutsk. Right? Does that make sense?”

“Let it flow. Live in the moment and don’t worry so much,” Mother Earth chimes into my soliloquy again. “That’s easy for you to say. How am I supposed to control my thoughts? They keep going off on their own. They literally gallop away from me.” “You can stop them.” “But how?” “Trust, that’s the magic word. Just have faith in yourself, in your decision-making power, your will. Have confidence and don’t tense up all the time.” “But how am I supposed to have confidence in my decision-making power? I just don’t know how to decide.” “That’s why you shouldn’t worry so much at the moment. That’s what I mean by trust. It’s not the right time to make a decision yet. You’ll see if the weather puts an end to it or some other event announces the end of this leg of the journey.” “Hm, but I don’t want another event to end this leg of the journey. I’m not in the mood for pain. I’ve already had that. I don’t need any more. It’s out of my future life,” I rebel. “Nobody says that an expedition or whatever you are doing in life is only ended by negative events. This thought is negative and has nothing to do with the world around you. It only arises in your brain because you are constantly feeding it with food. If you have faith in me, Mother Earth or All That Is, if you have faith in yourself, negative energies will not gather around you. You don’t know what the future holds. None of you humans know today what will happen to you tomorrow. Where the path of life will wind. What forms it will take. What unforeseen surprises lie in store. Once you have understood this, you will not have any useless thoughts and will know when to make decisions. This is about listening to me, or to your inner voice. By which I mean that you fine-tune your senses to feel us and your entire environment. To understand the language we speak.” “What do you mean by we?” “Well, for example, your surroundings or the nature that surrounds you. Wind, sun, rain, clouds. Everything has a language. Sometimes the voice is even quieter and rarer than the communication we have from time to time. You no longer question that either. I have already explained everything I am telling you many times. It doesn’t matter if you keep suppressing these facts. We will talk about it so often until you understand it from the heart.

Apart from that, I must also praise you. You have already become much better than you were years ago. Your constant mental training has helped to keep most negative thoughts away from you. That’s to your credit. And you can see that it works. You’ve noticed how many times you’ve been helped on this journey alone. This only happens because you are riding a positive wave. Because you are surfing a positive wave. Everything you send out comes back. That is a law. If your thoughts are positive, you will reap positive things. The people you meet are nothing other than your own reflection. They reflect your energy. As I mentioned yesterday, I haven’t had to get in touch with you directly in recent months. At least not like now. So let your legs spin and move your bike up the mountains and free yourself from the negative thoughts because they are a waste of time.” “I’m trying. But what if I make the wrong decision despite everything? What if we’re standing in the middle of the Siberian pampas and are surprised by 20 degrees below zero?” I ask, still a little uncertain, but the pleasant voice of Mother Earth no longer answers.

We reach a service station in the early afternoon. “Is there a café here?” I ask. “Yes, at the back of the building,” replies the petrol station attendant and shows us the way. We place our load on wheels against the window so that we can observe it from the inside and enter an unheated grocery store. There are a few tables in an adjoining room where we are allowed to sit down. “Kuschet jeßt?” (Is there anything to eat?) I ask. “Not much,” replies the store owner. We drink a few cups of hot tea to warm our chilled bodies. Then we pour hot water on the instant noodles that are sold here.

“Can we find a gastiniza on this route?” I ask the gas station attendant later. “Njet”, (No) the next one should only be in the city of Mariinsk,” he explains. “How far is Mariinsk?” asks Tanja. “Another 150 kilometers.” “That means spending the night in a tent.” “Yes.” “Never mind,” I hear and am glad that Tanja accepts the weather as it is.

We don’t talk much on the rest of the journey. We are too busy with ourselves. Tanja has had some knee problems since today, and my right knee is also making itself known. Maybe it’s the humidity? Or should I adjust the height of our saddles? Only rarely does a poor village appear at the side of the road. The houses are mostly made of logs. Gray roofs sit like windswept caps on walls that have also been gnawed away by the ravages of time. Many of the huts have already collapsed. Only a few people can be seen on the muddy village street. “Denis?” Yes?” “We should find a place to camp for the night in good time!” shouts Tanja. Although my body is in a rhythmic rut at the moment and I’d like to reel off a few more kilometers, she’s right. “There’s a dirt track leading off the road up ahead. We’ll use it to get into the forest,” I decide. As soon as we’re on the dirt track, we sink into the mud. We have to dismount and push our bikes through puddles of muddy ground. The bikes, luggage and trailers are immediately splattered with mud. Because the narrow path is also on a kind of small embankment with swampy land gnawing at it, it is impossible for us to leave it via an overly steep embankment to reach the forest. “Wrong decision,” I say, which is why we turn back to continue our journey on the asphalt strip. Just a few kilometers further on, we discover another unpaved path that leads off the road. As we are on the ridge of a mountain range, the path does not lead through boggy land. Nevertheless, it is very damp. Tall grass grows along the path, which first leads us through a dense forest. “Wow, this is exhausting,” I pant, pushing my heavily loaded sumo bike with trailer over the ground covered in tall grass. Only a tire track tells us that this dirt track is used from time to time. “Probably by the farmer who lives somewhere back there,” I guess. Suddenly, the green branches above our heads open up and the forest has released us onto a harvested meadow. A few haystacks are rotting away, waiting to be rescued into the dry. Suddenly the trail turns left. We go straight ahead to make sure we don’t have any uninvited guests at the tent tonight. “Honestly, I can’t imagine anyone going outside in this weather. Let alone seek out a poor, lonely tent,” I say. “Never mind, I feel better when no one can spot us,” Tanja replies, pushing her sumo bike with all her might across the damp meadow and the tall grass. “Back there by the forest! Where the big haystack is! That’s a good place!” I hope.

We quickly set up our tent. As we were able to dry it in our hotel in Tomsk, we don’t have to live in a wet fabric castle now. However, it doesn’t take long for the moisture in the atmosphere to immediately settle on the fabric. As the drizzle takes a break, I make the most of the little time I have before it gets dark. I unfold my light camp chair, settle down with a groan and routinely type my log data into the computer while Tanja fires up our little stove to heat water for tea and our travel lunch.

It’s 7 p.m. and the thermometer is at two degrees plus as we devour our hot meal from the packet with clammy fingers. Energy immediately flows into the body. “We have to hurry to get into the tent. The night is drawing in,” says Tanja. We quickly pull the foil over our bikes, put all the Ortlieb saddlebags in the awning and crawl into our travel home. “Ooooh, that’s cold,” shivers Tanja. We take off our cycling clothes in the inner tent. My fleece is so wet that I decide to dry it with my body heat in my sleeping bag. We slip into our last dry underwear and slowly get warm again. As it’s still early in the evening and I can’t sleep yet, I put my laptop on my cross-legged legs and write. However, it doesn’t take long for the cold to creep into my limbs. Outside the tent, it’s now minus two degrees for the first time on this stage. I close my computer and zipper up my sleeping bag. Although we are lying on inflatable mats, the ground radiates cold.

As we are now at the 56th parallel, the earth should be frozen just a few meters below us. Throughout the year, the ground is frozen to great depths in the extensive permafrost regions, including Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, Siberia and Greenland. Many of the permafrost soils in the northern hemisphere date back to the last ice age. The thought of the eternal freeze below us makes me feel even colder, so I tuck my head in like a turtle and close the head opening of my sleeping bag completely over me. Lying there like this, I listen to my breath. I think of bears, which some locals say must exist here. Although we don’t necessarily have to fear the largest land predators in this area, I have a great deal of respect for the shaggy forest and tundra dwellers. An author friend of ours, who circumnavigated Lake Baikal alone with his Kaja, told us true horror stories. He was also attacked and was able to save himself at the last second.

The howling of a dog reaches my ears through the down. There must be a farmhouse not far from here. I slip my head back through the small opening in the sleeping bag so that I can catch my breath. “Hooouuuu! Hooouuuu! Hooouuuu!” howls the dog plaintively into the autumn night. “Or is it a wolf? I don’t think so. Wolves don’t come this close to the road at this time of year. Don’t they? And if they do. Wolves are generally harmless,” I say to calm my agitated mind.

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