In the center of Garden Eden

When the courier arrived at our door yesterday with the new saddle and the two plus two brackets, we were delighted. I immediately ran to our bikes in the checkroom and fitted the parts. In order to be able to leave the mounting brackets in their robust form, I had to move the shift box of the hollow hub slightly to the rear. Worked like a charm. After the conversion, I did a few test laps in front of the Gastiniza. The new saddle is hard but feels good. Newly saddled, so to speak, and with a stable original holding angle, we finally continue our journey today. After 11 days at a standstill, it’s time to get our slowly slackening muscles moving again and pump blood through our veins. Apart from burning to get the cranks turning, the long stay set us back. To reach Lake Baikal before the snow falls, we have to cover at least 1,200 kilometers a month until November. Because reporting on the trip takes up almost 50 percent of the time, it’s a pretty tight schedule.

As soon as Kustanai is behind us, we are once again surrounded by endless fields of wheat. They extend to the horizon line and unite with the apparent endlessness. Only occasionally are they broken up by a small group of trees. The steppe landscape, raped by man, appears monotonous. Every square meter is like the next. There is hardly any variety for our eyes. We ask ourselves whether mankind needs such huge quantities of wheat at all? A biplane flies parallel to the road at a distance of about one kilometer to spray the fields. The wind drives the poisonous cloud in our direction. Then the road bends and the master blows in our faces with all his might. The dream of a tailwind like in the days before Kustanai is over. It is not easy for us to defy him and although we had planned to cover 100 kilometers today, he sets us tough limits and shows us who is the master and that we have to throw any plans overboard. “Did you call him by his name?” I ask Tanja. “No, I’ll be careful, but I think you mentioned his name earlier.” “Me? Never! I’m not crazy. I was talking about the winds going around in my stomach, not about him,” I defend myself. “Well then he misunderstood you and has now found us again,” laughs Tanja.

After 8 hours and just 60 kilometers we are tired. I check the area for a place to camp and discover dense rows of bushes not far from the road. “Let’s try it there!” I say, whereupon we let our bikes roll down the steep embankment into the tall grass. With great effort, we push our road trains through the lush greenery. As we push them through a narrow gap between two bushes, we suddenly find ourselves in a tiny, paradisiacally beautiful clearing. “Can you see the grass pressed down here?” I ask Tanja. “Yes, I wonder where that came from?” “It must have been a deer’s sleeping place,” I suspect. As the site is reasonably level, it is ideal for our tent. Our camp is quickly set up. Hundreds of insects are at home here. Butterflies and dragonflies flutter in large numbers from flower to flower. The scent of a wide variety of wild herbs enchants the air. The sun’s rays, still hot, flash through the branches of the bushes. The master whispers on the outside. Probably to look for us. Its power makes the leaf crowns move back and forth and the shadows dance. If it didn’t carry the sounds of cars and trucks from the road over to us and the wheat fields didn’t continue behind the next row of bushes, you’d really think we were sitting in the center of Garden Eden. We enjoy the peaceful atmosphere until the last rays of sun sink behind the bushes. By now, the insects are crawling out of their hiding places in frightening numbers to drive us into the tent with their mean and sneaky stings.

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