Tormented city

When I arrive in the reception hall of our hotel shortly before 11:00 a.m., Huib the Dutchman is already there. We haven’t seen each other for almost a year and have only communicated by email during this time. Huib picked us up last year on the main road to Constanta. He was our angel who took us in when I was injured and organized the ambulance to Bucharest for us. He has also kept our bikes and equipment safe in his house to this day. We are eternally grateful to him for this. We quickly load our equipment into his jeep and speed through the Romanian capital towards Mariuta, the village where Huib owns a house.

Bucharest is without doubt one of the ugliest cities we have seen during our travels. There is little to see, hardly any places of peace and quiet, lots of hustle and bustle, even more hustle and bustle and an endless number of, above all, smelly cars that seem to merge into a single monster. A monster which, by opening up to the West, is developing ever faster into a super-boil and is growing inexorably into an unstoppable mass. Sure, everyone wants to own a car. Roads are torn open by voracious construction machines and, as it seems to us, are no longer shoveled up. Tasteless, dilapidated houses built in the communist style yawn at us from their dilapidated facades. Dust fills the air. It’s like escaping from a witch’s cauldron. There is honking, braking, swearing. Tires squeal, children run across the road, lanes end without warning in front of a rusty blockade. Jackhammers rattle, concrete mixers clatter. The city breathes like an asthmatic creature. She pants and coughs in an exhaust fog that creeps into the houses and apartments. Unfriendly concrete blocks are soon lined up endlessly. The number of inhabitants per square meter is one of the highest in the world. It takes us almost half an hour to leave the unhealthy hustle and bustle behind us. The air is getting better, the dust less but the garbage continues to cloud our view. In Romania, everything that is not needed is carelessly thrown away. Especially one of the biggest evils in the world: plastic bottles. Water, soft drinks and everything else the world market has to offer is packaged in this raw material, which is still far too cheap, and then pollutes the landscape by the millions and millions. Even some of the fields are littered with plastic. I close my eyes, not wanting to lose my good mood. What’s the point if I’m in a bad mood because of the waste problem and the consumerism of my race? We humans probably only wake up when we accidentally inhale plastic while breathing.

Harmony of body, mind and soul

When we arrive in Mariuta, Huib happily presents us with our bikes. We are happy to find our bikes undamaged and in perfect condition. Tanja immediately sets about sorting the equipment. What remains? What goes with? She has to think carefully. We left a lot of things behind when we fled the country a year ago, but we brought a lot with us in our luggage. I roll our bikes into the garden, give them a thorough inspection and pump up the tires. I am pleased to see that apart from a few drops of oil, nothing is missing.

After the work is done, Huib invites us to a barbecue with fish, steaks, good wine and beer. We celebrate our reunion and toast to the fact that everything will go better this time and that our journey is under a good star. I enjoy talking to him late into the night, and above all I enjoy sitting here and feeling completely healthy. Since my back has been repaired by the Romanian doctors, I am grateful every day. I am grateful to no longer be in pain and to be able to carry on. What a great gift. Only now do I appreciate it. Only after my traveling life was almost sealed in a wheelchair did I appreciate how nice it is to be healthy. I am happy anew every day. Even if it may sound strange, the past year has been one of the happiest years of my life. I would never have thought that I would be able to feel happiness anew every day. There’s no doubt that I’ve become more modest and, to be honest, it’s quite nice to be able to be modest. Of course, I am extremely curious and excited about how our journey will go this time and where the river of life will take us. I can hardly wait to start pedaling to bring my body, mind and soul back into a harmonious, functional balance and, above all, to continue exploring and experiencing the exciting and highly interesting Mother Earth for ourselves.

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