Fall

“Look what you’ve done to my floor!” scolds the landlady in the morning. Tanja ignores the accusations and continues to carry the Ortlieb bags outside. “What’s wrong with her?” I ask, clicking the bags onto the bike. “The tag has left two small marks in her old plastic floor.” “It looks like she doesn’t want to give us the change from yesterday,” I suspect, shaking my head.

In perfect weather, we leave the shack of the greedy landlady behind us without our change and cross many mountain ranges again. We fill up our water supplies at a rest stop. Three cyclists laden with rucksacks also let their bikes roll into the parking lot of the street café. They are young Christians who distribute leaflets from their church to anyone interested along the route from Baikalsk to Ulan-Ude. “And what are you doing in Ulan-Ude?” I ask. “We visit our priest and the church there,” they say in a friendly manner. After a brief chat, we wish each other good luck and then we go our separate ways again. The mountains have been slowly receding for some time now. The peaks become flatter and the cycling easier. We are making good progress and it does indeed look as if we will reach Ulan-Ude tomorrow. We enjoy the landscape, which was criss-crossed by ancient trade routes. It has something lovely about it and radiates peace and tranquillity. Today it is hard to imagine that this region was frequently raided by plundering Mongolian tribes. Fields are cultivated in the fertile valley stretching out in front of us. No wonder that the first Buryat families settled here hundreds of years ago and even then lived semi-settled in wooden yurts. Fishing and early trade with China and nearby Mongolia helped them to achieve modest prosperity. We are now in the delta of the Selenga River. The late afternoon sun warms us and a light wind blows towards us. We never thought we would be spoiled with such mild temperatures in this part of Siberia at the end of August. Baikal has not been visible for hours. We stop to catch our breath and look out over extensive forests, behind which the father of all lakes now hides. “Will we ever see him again?” I ask somewhat melancholically. “Could be,” I hear Tanja’s hopeful voice. Then we continue to pedal our bucks through the late summer day.

At one of the many mountain streams, a warning sign indicates that the water is undrinkable. “Probably comes from the nearby town of Selenginsk. There’s still a cellulose plant there that’s ruining the beautiful area here and the Selenga River,” I say. “At the turn-off you can ask if there’s any accommodation in Selenginsk,” Tanja suggests. “Okay,” I say and brake my Roadtrain. As another car drives past, I raise my hand to stop it. The driver actually stops. With my right foot still in the pedal loop, I pedal off the road with my left to reach the driver. Because I steer into a bend, my left hoe gets stuck under the drawbar of my trailer. In a fraction of a second, my foot is wedged there and the forward motion literally pulls me out of the saddle. All I can feel is my right knee twisting, my hip and then my shoulder hitting the hard asphalt. My neck is so overstretched on impact that it cracks loudly and terribly several times. “So that’s what it’s like when you break your neck,” is the first flash of thought. Driven by adrenaline and shock, I immediately jump up again. “Denis! Oh God! Have you hurt yourself?” I hear Tanja’s voice penetrating my brain from afar. I stand there, a little confused and happy to still be able to move my arms and legs. “So if something is broken, it can’t be fatal,” is the next thought. I immediately mount my bike and push it off the road. “Are you all right?” asks Tanja worriedly. “I think so. It just cracked terribly in my neck.” “Well, then it’s back in place,” she says. “Judging by the noise, that should be enough for the next ten years,” I try to joke and ask the young driver about the Gastiniza. “Yes, there are,” he replies, also surprised by my unexpected fall. “What’s wrong with your knee? Does it hurt?” Tanja asks again, pointing to a bleeding abrasion. “Not very much. At the moment, it’s the pain in my neck that’s worrying me.” “I’m sure nothing’s wrong,” she replies confidently, as she often does. But since I know that cervical vertebra injuries can take days to show up, I’m not sure at the moment. Then we get back on the saddles and ride to the center of Selenginsk. On the way there, my knee also starts to complain. “There’s no doubt that my body is in shock. But what should we do? See a doctor? Where? Here in this little town? What is he supposed to do? If he can diagnose anything then only if he x-rays my neck. That’s the only way to find out if something is broken in the vertebrae. Or not? Who knows if there is even an X-ray machine here? Man oh man, one ridiculous nonsensical fall and I’m already badly bruised. And my knee? Have I torn a ligament? Maybe just torn it? Or just bruised? What a load of crap. I hope my cervical vertebrae haven’t been damaged,” my thoughts keep running through my brain as we reach the miserable center of this little place. “That’s where the Gastiniza is,” a woman at a bus stop points to a familiar, ugly prefabricated building. “I’ll check out the store,” I say and hobble off. “The Gastiniza hasn’t been in operation for a long time,” a passer-by frustrates me. I would love to cry out loud right now. I long for a bed and peace and quiet. A place where I can lick my wounds, but the current situation demands that I grit my teeth. Limping even more than before, I walk back to Tanja. “No longer in operation,” I say demoralized. “And now what?” “We have to go back out and find a place to camp,” I reply, heaving my body back over the frame. At the end of the village, Tanja goes to a grocery store to buy some water. I wait outside and watch the bikes. “Moschna fotografirowat?” (“Can I take a photo?”) a couple of young people hanging around drunk in front of the store ask me. “Moschna”, (“May you”) I reply. They laugh boisterously and ask me where we are coming from and where we are going. Although I hardly have any energy left to answer the boys after almost 90 kilometers and my fall, I try to remain calm. It’s not their fault that I’m in such a bad mood.

Back at the crossroads of events, we leave Selenginsk behind us. At this point, I no longer have eyes for the beauty of nature. Just finding a place to camp is important now. But it is exasperating. For hundreds of kilometers, there is a small village every few hours at most and here in the Selenga Delta, one small settlement follows the next. So pitching a tent unobserved is not an option. What’s more, it’s Saturday evening. Many of the drivers, or at least the passengers, are drunk. “Ahaha! Adkuda? Kuda?” (“Where are you coming from? Where are you going?”), they ask and shout. “Let me shake your hand,” says another, squeezing mine with his paw as if in a vice.

We have to push our horses for another ten kilometers until a row of trees finally appears behind which we can hide. Limping and with my head twisted, I push my riese und müller behind the bushes. As soon as the road is behind us, whole armies of mosquitoes attack us. “Aaahhh! I thought the mosquito season was over!” exclaims Tanja, waving her arms around wildly. “This is a good place,” I decide and put my bike on the stand. We immediately unload our trestles, set up the tent, throw in our Ortlieb bags, inflate the insulation mats and pull a green camouflage tarpaulin over the bikes. Only then do we slip into the small awning. “Would you like something to eat?” asks Tanja, visibly exhausted after almost 100 kilometers of cycling and all the excitement. “I don’t know. I’m actually not hungry anymore,” I reply dejectedly. “The world will look better tomorrow,” Tanja tries to find a few comforting words.

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