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September 5 Tuesday cloudy Bicycle touring Germany At breakfast, Sharon got stung by a yellow jacket on the side of her knee. The good news is that it hasn't swollen too much. Nothing like being on a bicycle tour with a sore knee. The road we chose to bicycle to Pirna, Germany, is a narrow maze with construction materials strewn higgledy-piggledy on the thoroughfare. We are bicycling along cobbles, tram lines, wicked potholes where there are missing cobbles, rocks along the edge border the main cobbles, sand, and cracked sidewalks. All of these obstacles have us weaving, jouncing, and twanging along. Rebecca's rear panniers have bounced off a number of times. Arran called this the technical portion of our bicycle tour. This is the area's first major refurbishing since the great war and they are going all out to beat the band, afraid, I think, that the money will run out before the work is finished. Even in the smallest villages, tons of work is being done. New houses stand beside old decrepit buildings. There are no structures between very old or very new. Buildings are either one or the other. They look strange side by side. Sometimes the new buildings are set off to the back. They don't knock old buildings down in Germany like we do in North America. They facelift them instead, both inside and out. The newfound prosperity has former East Germany busily pounding, jackhammering, and surveying. We stop at the train station in Pirna to take mug shots for the upcoming Czech border crossing. Arran says mine looks like a wild animal caught in the glare of headlights. Unfortunately, he's right. They're never going to let me in. On the outskirts of Pirna, Rebecca pulls her touring bicycle to a stop to take a picture of the housing. They are apartment blocks which look like long cells we would use for inmates. The most incongruous aspect is that the apartments sprout immediately adjacent to a farmer's plowed field. Man, it looks ugly and squalid. They couldn't find people to fill them in America, but here in former East Germany, they are full. Instead of stopping on the roadside, I continue pedalling to a crossroad ahead. Two construction workers are there as I pull my touring bike off. "Gud dog!" I say (what is the German greeting? Guten tag?), which begins a flurry of questions from the road construction workers. Soon, the three of us are joined by another two guys. One fella knows a bit of English. Arran, Rebecca, and Sharon arrive on thier fully loaded touring bicycles. More questions. A fellow disappears into a construction trailer. He comes back with a large pot of pasta - the remains from their lunch. A couple of spoons stick out from the pot. The road construction worker holds the pot out to us. Arran hungrily digs in and shovels in two mouthfuls between proclamations that lunch is the best when someone else makes it. We get of our bikes and lean them against the trailer. Setting the pot on the ground, the four hungry cyclists, crouch around the pot. We are grunting and smacking like wild animals. The workers gather around us and watch in amusement. They take the pot (watch those fingers!), and set it on a bike seat so at least we are standing and eating in a more civilized position. But it was difficult for all four of us to crowd around and eat at the same time, so we set the pot back on the ground. This caused one fellow to run to the cab of his dump truck. He returned with a thick woolen blanket that he doubled up and set on the ground, with the pronouncement, "For the ladies." The Germans talk of Canada's grizzly bears, polar bears, and Niagara Falls. One guy says three English words: Canada good. Grizzly. Arran disputes that Canada is better. He says New Zealand is better. All the German construction workers quickly denounce him. This causes Arran great patriotic pain for his beloved New Zealand. He digs into a bicycle pannier and pulls out a pictorial New Zealand book. He shows the construction workers the many scenic wonders of New Zealand. This gives the rest of us the opportunity to eat his share of the pasta. Arran finishes showing them the beautiful pictures in his New Zealand book. He snaps the books shut, saying, "New Zealand. Good." The guy with the command of English, quickly shakes his head and replies, "Canada good. Grizzly." Arran gives up. By the time he returns to the pasta pot there is little left other than a few noodles stuck to the pot sides, certainly no sausage. Rebecca whispers that she wants to lick the pot clean, but she holds onto a last shred of femininity and decides to scrape it with a spoon instead. Another fellow disappears. He comes back with a huge bag of apples. He indicates we are to put the bag of apples into our panniers (it was probably their lunch's dessert). To their great amusement, we happily comply. The ring leader grabs Arran's bike helmet, and sticks it on his oversize head. This causes us to break into stitches at the hilarity of how he looked. He loudly proclaimed that he was coming with us. Not a bad idea. At least we would have a guide who was fluent in German. But then again, how would we understand the translation? Finally, with numerous well wishes, hand shakes, and warnings of dire hills ahead, we are off on our even more heavily loaded touring bicycles. As I struggle to set off, one fellow grabbed my rear rack and sprinted down the road giving me a fast push off. Is this part of how the Tour de France riders are treated? With huge grins, and orange spaghetti sauce still staining our lips, we sailed along with a tailwind. Bicycle touring doesn't get much better. Even the scenery cooperates. It becomes the best so far with hills and mountains that look like cinder cone volcanoes. Roadside construction, with a myriad of orange construction pylons, narrows the road we are cycling to one lane. Sharon, in the lead, for some reason cuts to the inside of the pylons, instead of the outside of the pylons where the lane goes. As she passes an end pylon a flowing strand of warning tape flaps in the breeze. As she cycles past the tape, it snares her front bag. In a few feet the warning tape reaches its limit. Instead of breaking, it holds fast and jerks Sharon's front bicycle tire sideways. She tumbles unceremoniously onto the pavement. We stop to help her. As she picks herself up and brushes off the dust and dirt, she says, "So much for anarchy." In R*, Germany, there is a castle. We had planned on going to see it, but the castle turns out to be way up on the mountain. We admire the castle from the valley floor instead. We had just swooped down a long hill and we have no desire to pedal back up. The only food store in town is closed between 1 and 2 PM. Of course, when we bicycle into town, it is 1:30. A small playground park is across the street. We roll our bicycles there. Sharon stays with our fully loaded touring bicycles while Arran, Rebecca, and I wander the open air market while making our way to the bakery. Arran thinks this is the way shopping was meant to be done - outside in the sunshine. We buy onions in the market place - it is hard to come by single onions - the large supermarkets only sell things in mega bunches - including bags of peppers! Rebecca doesn't have enough money, or is trying to sort out her change. The woman says, "Just hold it up and I'll take a few." Arran and Rebecca are happy with the outcome. They think she had given them a good deal. At least she didn't take all of their coins. I buy an ice cream bar that has a chocolate clown face. The nose is a round green bubble gum. Bicycle touring in foreign countries is such fun! There is a queue forming outside the grocery store, waiting for it to reopen. When it does, I go in and buy an ice cream log. Arran says he remembers when he could eat that much ice cream. After eating my ice cream log, we bicycle down the road. One town later, Bad Schandau, is the last in Germany before the Czech border. We bicycle up to the border, produce our passports and are waved on. Hey, that was easy? I yell, "Prague, here we come!" and look up just in time to see the Czech border guards up ahead. Whoops. Apparently we had just bicycled through the German check point, not the Czech check point as I had thought. Arran and Rebecca are ahead of us at the Czech border crossing. Arran has a visa that he obtained in the UK. Rebecca has a UK passport in addition to her New Zealand one, so she shows the UK passport. She doesn't require a visa. Sharon and my turn are next. Sharon hands the guard her Canadian passport. He says, "Visa!?" I show the guard my Canadian passport. The guard says, "Visa." I say, "No visa." He says, "Visa?!" I say, "No," and shrug my shoulders. He shouts, "Visa!!" I stare at him blankly. He waves us and our fully loaded touring bicycles to the side. We push our bikes to the side of the road. Speaking German, the guard says to Arran, that he and Arran will go to the Duty Free building up the road where there is a bank and exchange 100 Deutsch marks each for 5000 zyloties and then Sharon and i will fill out a visa form. Arran translates the guard's news to us. I balk. I tell Arran it's not worth 200 bucks to get into the Czech Republic. We're not going, I decide. Arran and Rebecca offer to pay half. That's very kind of them, but I don't think that's necessary. I'm not paying 200 dollars to get into a country so I can spend more money. No thanks. Amid tears we hug and say good bye. Arran says, "What the big deal? It's only another piece of land." Yep, but it's there piece of land. And when they say we can't go there, we can't go there. Will that be visa or Mastercard? The guard hands Sharon and I our passports. He points his arm back towards Germany, basically telling us to get the hell off Czech territory. Sharon and I quickly turn our touring bicycles around and pedal off, not wishing to prolong the agony of our sudden break-up with Arran and Rebecca. The German border guards glance at our passports and wave us through. We are in a National Park area. We bicycle along a trail that leads into some trees above the road. We set up our tiny bicycle touring tent. I mull over my no-Czech decision while eating spicy sausage for supper. They don't make them like this back home. I wonder if I did the right thing by not going to Prague. Sharon was really looking forward to it. |
