Wind force six

As soon as we sit in the saddle, the master blows in our faces at 39 km/h. We are only making progress with great effort. Soon worse, however, is the fact that mountains are reappearing. The porter’s statement in Ulan-Ude was completely wrong. Sometimes we have to push our riese und müller over the 800-meter-high mountains. Due to the short time until the end of our visa, we are forced to make the journey despite all the adversities. Siberia plays a card that we no longer expected at this point. My bruised knee is whimpering. I am forced to ignore the pain. Tanja has been struggling with a severe cold for some time. She is also demanding a great deal from her body at this moment. Thank goodness we are fit and have a good constitution with which we can compensate for a lot. The landscape is still beautiful. At times, the route passes through wide valleys with only slight elevations, whose adjacent mountain ranges are still overgrown by the eternal taiga. Here, however, it is visibly being pushed back by forest fires. Large, brown aisles stretch across the mountain ridges like nasty, incurable wounds. The sight is painful and shows that even the large taiga is being pushed back more and more. What remains are treeless elevations, some of which are only covered in grass.

Focused, we kick our horses against the wind that has found us once again. The phenomenon of wind remains a mystery to me, even after the long cycling distance of almost 14,000 kilometers. Why does he almost always go against the cyclist? Does he not like her for some reason? There were times when I saw him as the great teacher. A master who taught me to accept the unchangeable unconditionally. However, I realize every time anew what a great challenge it is to accept events and natural elements that cost strength and cause pain. That occur exactly when you can’t use them or didn’t expect them. Thwarting the plans and forcing us humans to change. “Let it flow”, Mother Earth has taught me over and over again. And she’s right, because if I accept the master and don’t complain about the mountains, it gets easier. Then the supposed obstacles disappear and dissolve into nothingness. Ultimately, we ourselves turn the mountain into an obstacle, because the mountain remains a mountain, however we see it. It’s even a shame to call such a beautiful mountain an obstacle, just because we have to ride our little bikes over it right now. I think it’s time to come to terms with the mountains too. At their summits they present us with a wonderful view and on the other side with an exhilarating descent. Hooray! This is the realization for all cyclists. How simple it is. Especially when you are allowed to roar down into the valley from such a ridge.

Lost in my thoughts about mountains, supposed obstacles and the master, I notice in the corner of my eye how a Lada on the opposite side of the road starts to turn. Without noticing me, he pulls over to my side so that I can only avoid the collision with a violent steering movement. About 100 meters in front of me, the driver slams on the brakes, pulls the door open and, by swinging his legs out in time, just manages to avoid falling onto the road. Now the man, completely drunk, staggers to the opposite side of the street. There stands the object of his desire. A poor farmer’s wife praises a bucket full of potatoes, the contents of which he obviously wants to buy. We cycle past. Just a few kilometers further on, the police have sealed off the road. A van, of which hardly anything is recognizable, is lying on its roof. It collided with a minibus on a straight road, the front end of which is no longer visible. Our tires roll crunchingly over the thousands of shards, past the tragedy that has just occurred. On the last few kilometers of Siberia, some unpleasant scenes and experiences suddenly became more frequent. I just fall off my bike out of nowhere. Tanja unexpectedly experiences the complete disruption, hopelessness and desolation of the village population. We encounter far more drunks and miserable creatures than before. A teenager is maltreated before my eyes. A helpless person is attacked by children as if by a pack of dogs. We are being robbed. The time to reach the border in time is suddenly running out. Mountains appear where they shouldn’t be. The wind whistles towards us at force six. Bad traffic accidents frighten us and, last but not least, a cold weakens us at this moment. We must be careful not to lose our positive wave of energy. Right? Is it something else? Should we also recognize the other side of this beautiful but also tough country? At least a small excerpt from the range of possibilities? Who knows? How should I interpret the events? Perhaps it is also important not to put too much emphasis on these cases. Perhaps it is important just to observe, under no circumstances to start judging or condemning things, people, cultures or countries. That would indeed be a big mistake. I have to admit, however, that this is not always easy for me.

The strong westerly wind drives in heavy storm clouds. Another ten kilometers to the small town of Gusinoosersk. It’s been eight hours since we left the longhouse behind us. We are exhausted and dog-tired. I can feel a low mood creeping up on me. “You can do it. Don’t let yourself down. Your knee will be fine and you’ll arrive in Mongolia safely and without any problems. Hang in there a little longer and you’ll find suitable accommodation tonight,” I hear the soothing words of Mother Earth. In fact, at 6 p.m., after 81 kilometers for the day and nine hours after setting off, we let our well-travelled steeds roll into the ugly town of Gusinoosersk. “Straight on to Gastinza”, shouts a man without us asking him. Thanking each other, we bump along the torn up, completely destroyed road to one of the usual desolate prefabricated buildings. “Yes, we have rooms,” says the woman behind her glass window. I hobble up to the third floor to have a look at the room. The Dewuschka (woman) must have misunderstood me, because the door opens to a small single room. “I need a double room, please,” I say when I’m back downstairs. The woman understands and gives me another key. She smiles graciously at me. A cat is also sitting behind the window on the counter, warming itself on a cushion. She also seems to look at me kindly. Somehow the moment seems bizarre to me, as if I were looking through a billowing wall of fog. “Tiredness,” it goes through my head. As our bikes don’t fit through the front door, we are forced to unload them completely on the road. People come by all the time and look at us in amazement. “What are they doing here? Where do they come from? What do they look like?” they seem to think. It doesn’t take long before we are approached. “What from Germany? And that with the bike? Malazee”, (Fantastic) says one of the young men, shaking my hand. In the meantime, Tanja has disappeared into the Gastiniza to ask if the Dewuschka (woman) can open the nailed up double door. “We can bring our bikes into the Gastiniza through the back entrance,” she steps back onto the sidewalk with the good news. I’m about to chain our bikes to a heating pipe under the hotel stairs when it starts to rain outside. “Phew, it’s a good thing we don’t have to sleep in the tent tonight,” I think, happy to have reached this place in time. Closing the gnarled wooden door, I block the howling, cold wind from entering the house. Our room at the state-run Gastiniza costs only 550 roubles (12.50 euros). We have the opportunity to take a hot shower and the bed linen is clean. Because of the enormous effort, we are too tired to eat anything today. I quickly type the day’s data into the laptop and by the time I slip under the comforter Tanja is fast asleep.

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