Days 35-36 – Ukraine, Let’s Let Bygones be Bygones: Lviv to Ivano-Frankivsk
Sunday February 8, 2015, 133 km (82 miles) – Total so far: 2,826 km (1,756 miles)
Day 35: Lviv to Potik – 68.7km
After a lateish night of drinking I woke in the morning to find no breakfast awaiting me in the hostel kitchen. There had been one there yesterday but being a Sunday I guess the cook had the day off! I was essentially paying something like €2.50 a night in this place so I can’t really complain. The hostel had ran out of bread so all that was there for breakfast were eggs. I hard boiled 5 of them and hoped that would be enough fuel to start the day!
After a tough couple of days to reach Lviv I had decided to take it easy for the next few days. I was on target to reach Istanbul for the start of March so I decided I could afford myself a few easy days to relax a bit after the intensity and anxiety of the last 4 days of cycling. Talking to Stepan and looking at the map there were 4 villages/towns I could aim for which were all 60 to 70 kilometres apart. There were places to stay in all these villages/towns. This would make for an easy 4 days before making a break for the Moldovan border.
When I got outside it was bitterly cold again, the winter here was definitely a bit harsher than the Polish winter so far. As I loaded the bike and set off into the streets of Lviv, snow started to fall. It started lightly but got heavier and heavier as I made my way out of the city. Snow was starting to build up on the road and soon enough I had a full on snowstorm on my hands. Snow was building up on my bike and my clothes and made seeing the road ahead of me difficult.
The snow was really starting to get ridiculous now, people were seeking shelter and there weren’t many cars on the road. I was loving it though, it was just such a stupid situation to find myself in, this is what I get for trying to cycle across Ukraine in the winter. I fought on through the snow barely able to see a thing as it kept striking me in the eyes. It was a real battle against the elements and I was enjoying it. I continued on through the snowstorm all the way to the edge of the city before stopping off in a petrol station to pick up some supplies for the road ahead.
While taking a photo of the snow from outside the petrol station one of the workers there came outside and said something about photos being forbidden. When he realised I wasn’t from around here and was traveling by bike though he apologised and invited me inside to shelter from the snow. He offered to make me some tea and even offered to store the bike inside the station where I could keep it in view. It was a nice little piece of generosity which I appreciated considering the conditions outside.
After my tea I stepped outside again. Before I left I had a quick chat with the petrol station worker. He told me that what I was doing was quite impressive and that there is a big difference between a tourist and a traveler and that is why he had invited me inside for tea. I wasn’t expecting to find such a philosophical statement in a Ukrainian petrol station but there you go!
Back on the road again the snowstorm had subsided and I was able to leave Lviv under clear skies. The road however was covered in patches of slush which meant I was getting covered in spray by all the passing cars. When I arrived at the hotel that evening my bike, panniers, clothes and myself weren’t going to be the cleanest.
The scenery south of Lviv was the best I had seen in a while as well as I was making my way into the Ukrainian portion of the Carpathian mountains. Along the side of the road at one stage I saw a sculpture of several bears. I hadn’t even checked if this region was populated by bears or not but it looked like it was indeed. The population is so low though that encounters are very rare.
The road today was nowhere near as bad as the road into Lviv. The amount of traffic was way lower and the traffic that was on the road surprisingly gave me a bit of room when overtaking. The oncoming overtakes still happened quite frequently though so I still had to keep alert. The one trade off was that the surface in places was very bad which made for slow progress but for the lack of traffic it was a fair trade off.
Midway through the morning as I descended a hill I passed a horse and cart coming towards me with a family on it. I hadn’t seen many of these on the road into Lviv but in the countryside south of it there were lots of these on the road. The difference with this one was that it had a full family on board who all started belting out a song in Ukrainian to me as I went by. It was all very surreal!
As the morning continued the traffic died down and I was able to relax a bit more and enjoy the scenery. The sun was out and it was really turning into a great day of cycling.
At one stage as I was on the quieter section of road I looked to my left and saw an incoming low grey cloud. To my right were perfect blue skies but this grey cloud was moving in fast. It arrived a lot sooner than I thought it would and suddenly I was enveloped in a thick fog with snow being blasted in my face. I haven’t got to use the word blizzard much yet which annoys me so whether this could be classified as strong enough to be a blizzard or not I’m just going to call it one anyway as it makes things sound a bit more adventurous than they really are!
The blizzard didn’t last too long and I was soon back to sun and blue skies again. It had left some powder on the road but it was nothing too bad and I was able to get back to clearer roads again in no time.
I continued making my way up and down hills in the glorious sunshine. I finally got to one steep enough that I had to use my granny gear. When I tried to downshift though, nothing was happening. When I stopped to check why I noticed the entire granny ring was covered in ice. It looked like I wasn’t going to get much use out of that today so I stayed in the middle ring and grinded my way to the top of the climb.
On the next section of road after this there were a few more occasions where I had to bail into the snow as oncoming cars and vans made mad overtakes. On one of these occasions after bailing into the snow I looked up at the driver speeding past me to see a Ukrainian version of Dara O’Briain grinning maniacally back at me! The fact he was grinning so widely at making me swerve into snow to avoid him made me feel quite uneasy! The resemblance to Dara O’Briain though was uncanny. I don’t know the man myself so I don’t know what he does with his free time but I wondered if Dara O’Briain secretly took trips out here to rural Ukraine to frighten cyclists for pleasure, it was the only explanation for how much it looked like him.
After all of these close calls things quietened down a bit again. There was one tough section of road that was covered in solid ice and where there was absolutely no grip to speak of. At one stage on this the bike slid out and did my trademark leap over the handlebars. Amazingly it worked on ice too as I was able to keep my feet when I landed. I was secretly glad that I used to crash so much when I started mountain biking!
The lovely hills and scenery and good weather continued for the rest of the evening until I arrived in the village of Potik. I had booked a room in a cheap hotel here before leaving Lviv. It felt really strange to be finishing the day in daylight and with plenty of energy left. I did my best to savour this strange new experience.
It had actually been a really good day of cycling, there was good scenery, blue skies, sunshine, some testing but fun snowstorms and even some friendly people. Ukraine was starting to work its way back into my good books.
When I arrived at the hotel it looked like there was a bit of a wedding or some sort of celebration on. After getting to my room I had to listen to a 5 minute version of the chicken dance beneath me followed by the Macarena. Those two classics were enough for me so I put my headphones in for the rest of the night!
Day 36: Potik to Ivano-Frankivsk – 63.9km
The next morning I felt cheated when I was only given two eggs for breakfast, I need at least five damnit! I stocked up on chocolate in the village shop which made up for it although I bought three big bars of coconut chocolate by mistake. I hate coconut but I hoped that if I kept eating it throughout the day maybe I could force myself to like it. Needless to say this logic didn’t hold true.
I left the village and set out into another harsh cold winter’s day. I only had a bit over 60 kilometres to cover today so I left late when the day had warmed up a bit. Even then it was still very chilly with my hands going numb several times as usual.
Today was a lot more built up and industrial than yesterday. I spent the day going from one village to another with not a huge amount of countryside in between. Due to this there was a good bit more traffic than yesterday and far less good scenery.
The morning passed fairly uneventfully. I passed through village after village followed by a huge power plant which dominated the landscape. One of these villages was called “Burshtyn” which I found kind of funny, this is what you’d usually say in Ireland if you’re dying to pee. The name of the town even matched how you say it in an Irish accent!
Other than these villages there was little of interest happening apart from the odd section of road where the tarmac disappeared and I was met by hundreds of potholes. These made for some slow progress as I weaved my way through them but it was no real problem.
Somewhere along the way my front mudguard started rubbing against my tyre. This has been a problem on and off for the entire trip as the bike came with some ridiculously flimsy plastic mudguards. I bent the offending bar back into shape as I usually do however this time the bar could take no more and snapped away from the mudguard. I couldn’t find my multitool which would have helped me get back up and running and duct tape didn’t work fixing it so I just had to bend back the offending piece of plastic that was rubbing off the tyre and leave the metal bar hanging there. It didn’t look great but it’d get me by.
As I was messing around trying all these solutions a car stopped beside me. A Franciscan friar stepped out of the car to see if I needed any help. I had a quick chat with him and the driver of the car (who I think was his brother but I forgot to ask) about the trip. The friar gave me a pendant which he said would keep me safe. I needed all the help I could get with the recklessness of the average Ukrainian driver so I accepted his offering!
With the bike up and running again I cycled on towards Ivano-Frankivsk. Around half an hour later I heard a car beep behind me. I was getting annoyed with cars beeping at me to get out of the way over the past few days. I expected this was the same case here so I was surprised to look behind me to see the friar again. He got out of the car again for another quick chat. He had wanted to give me some food for the road. He handed me a bag full of his grandmother’s home made bread and pizza which I was very appreciative of. With all this cycling I can never have enough food!
We a longer chat about the trip here. He was a very enthusiastic and friendly dude with good English so it was great to have a nice chat with him. Before he left he asked if he could bless me for the road ahead. I’m not a religious person so I don’t believe in prayers and blessings having any effect, what I do appreciate though is the gesture and goodwill behind it. That’s why I’m always happy enough to receive such gestures, it’s the thought behind it that matters to me. So of course I told him I was okay with it and I was blessed by the side of the road. Before leaving I got a quick photo with himself and his brother (I think! I had still forgotten to ask! I also should have written down names, I am way too forgetful on trips like this) The guys we asked to take the photo had looked at me and guessed I was going around the world. So far on this trip no one had guessed that straight away. This meant my beard had now finally gotten towards the explorer beard stage, it was the only explanation!
After this friendly encounter I covered the last few kilometres and rolled into Ivano-Frankivsk. I had found out there was a hostel here so I made my way to it. It was only €3.50 for the night and due to being so quiet I had a full room to myself. On top of this the friendly guy working there let me do my laundry for free as I had cycled there. I now had a complete fresh dry set of clothes for the first time since Germany.
Overall Ukraine was turning out to be a very positive experience. The drivers were awful, there was no doubt about that and some of the roads were terrible but the positive experiences here were far outweighing the negatives and despite such a bad start on my first day it was fast turning into my favourite country of the trip so far.
Irregular Adventures 