Days 38-39 – An Interesting Reintroduction to Wild Camping!: Horodenka to Lipcani

Days 38-39 – An Interesting Reintroduction to Wild Camping!: Horodenka to Lipcani

Wednesday February 11, 2015, 143 km (89 miles) – Total so far: 3,043 km (1,891 miles)

Day 38: Horodenka to Chernivtsi – 66.2km

With this being the last of my four easy low mileage days I made the most of the free time and had a very long lie in. It was after 12am when I was finally leaving the village of Horodenka. The road out of town was very quiet until I reached a funeral which was passing my way, there was a very sombre atmosphere as I slowly cycled past the long procession.

Once past this the road got even quieter. There was only a car every 15 minutes or so. Stepan had told me that the road from Ivano-Frankivsk to Horodenka was both quiet and of good quality which is why I had gone this way but I had no idea what the road from Horodenka to Chernivtsi was like. I had assumed it would be of a similar quality as it was marked as a good road on the map. It was a big surprise then when I passed through the other side of a small village and the tarmac suddenly started deteriorating pretty badly until I was left with pretty much a dirt track with pieces of tarmac that were made up more of potholes than flat sections. This was the worst section of road I had come across by far on this trip, myself and the bike were being rattled to bits. I was progressing along the road at a snail’s pace as I tried to keep the battering and rattling to a minimum by meandering along the road trying to find the smoothest route possible.

One section of the road had turned to pure ice which took my full concentration to remain upright as I gingerly cycled along it. A bit after this as the battering was continuing the strap on my tent bag snapped, this really showed how bad the road was! I was using this strap to attach my tent to the seatpost so I had to do a lot of frustrating messing around until I got it securely attached again using bungee cords.

After this I switched on my MP3 player to take my mind off the road. I hadn’t been able to listen to much music so far in Ukraine due to how busy the roads were and the fact I needed every sense available to me in order to avoid the cars, vans and trucks that were hurtling both past and towards me! The music definitely helped and made the battering I was taking a lot more bearable.

I had planned to take a turn off along this road onto a smaller road on the map but going by the quality of this one a smaller one was going to be terrible so instead I continued onwards towards another village where the tarmac returned. There was more traffic but I was able to make for the slow progress of the morning and ploughed on towards Chernivtsi.

There wasn’t a lot to see on the road into the city. The only thing that stood out were the number of dog chases I had on my hands. Before Ivano-Frankivsk I could count the number of proper aggressive dogs that chased me on one hand but since then things had changed. The dogs around here seemed to resent cyclists for some reason and a lot of them would chase after you at full pelt trying to snap at your ankles and panniers! I knew Romania was famous for its packs of wild aggressive dogs so I was expecting to come across this issue sooner or later on my journey through Eastern Europe. Luckily it wasn’t that bad here, there were just a few isolated dog chases which didn’t present much of a problem as I was able to lose them pretty quickly. It was interesting though that so suddenly after Ivano-Frankivsk that the attitudes of the dogs changed so quickly.

I made my way through the last built up stretch of road and across the bridge into the town of Chernivtsi just before dark. The town is built on the side of a valley with the town centre inevitably at one of the higher points. As with a lot of Ukrainian towns the roads within the town are made up mostly of brickwork which is a touring cyclist’s nightmare. The rattling your bike, luggage and yourself take going over this stuff is pretty harsh. Due to this I stuck to the pavements for as long as I could cheekily avoiding the rough surface.

On my way into town I passed a lot of soldiers with rifles slung across their soldiers. There was a lot of military activity here for some reason. I also noticed a lot of people going around with large 5 litre plastic bottles of water. From this I reckon it was safe to say that the tap water here wouldn’t be the safest to drink!

Chernivtsi had a hostel which cost €4 for the night. My plan of taking it easy for the last 4 days had worked out really well. I had 4 days to recuperate and each night I had some of the cheapest accommodation I had come across so far to stay in. Due to it being winter and well outside tourist season I had an entire 12 person dorm here to myself.

Today had been the last recuperation day, tomorrow I was back out into the wild. As far as I knew north Moldova wouldn’t have any accommodation options to avoid the cold. There isn’t really any tourist industry to speak of there which is the reason for this. So it looked like I was back to wild camping again. It would be my first night in the tent since Western Poland. Due to my cold hands becoming useless in these temperatures I had avoided camping since then but now I was being thrown out into the wild again. Hopefully it would be a bit easier and a bit warmer than the last few nights I had in the tent.

For the night I decided to have a big feed to fuel me up for the next few days and also to celebrate nearly crossing Ukraine. I only had 60km to cover tomorrow to reach the Moldovan border. When I got back to the hostel the temperature was well below freezing as usual so I did my best to appreciate the warm bed and having a roof over my head.

Day 39: Chernivtsi to Lipcani – 77.1km

After lazing around in bed for a while and then having to stock up on food and water in the local supermarket it was 11:30am before I was leaving Chernivtsi. All of the rest and lie ins of the last 4 days had left me feeling very lethargic.

By the time I was leaving the sun was already high in the sky. The last few days of sun looked like it was finally having an effect on the snow and most of it around Chernivtsi had melted away. This meant there was now a completely different landscape around me. As I cycled through the suburbs of Chernivtsi with the sun shining and dust rising from the side of the road it somehow felt a lot like cycling in Egypt or Morocco in the summer rather than Ukraine in the winter.

I descended out of Chernivtsi and back down to the base of the valley where I joined the main road that leads from Ukraine into Moldova. As I reached the valley base I stopped by the side of the road so I could get a photo looking back at the tower blocks of Chernivtsi on the hillside. As I was raising the camera to my face to line up the shot there was a Mercedes traveling towards me. The driver of the car suddenly took his hands off the wheel and used them to shield his face! When he had passed me he put them back on the wheel again and switched his hazard lights on before disappearing into the distance. Whether he thought I was raising a gun towards him or whether he really badly didn’t want to be photographed I’m not too sure. If rumours are anything to go by the Mafia are very active in Ukraine. I had always found the amount of brand new black SUVs and Mercs with blacked out windows that passed me every day very unusual. To be honest I have no idea whether it’s a big problem around here but this guy shielding his face was a bit of a suspicious one and I couldn’t really think of any explanation other than he had something to hide. Maybe I’m just being paranoid but it all made me feel a bit uneasy so I didn’t hang around there too long anyway.

I continued on along the main road to Moldova. Early in the day it split into two roads and luckily for me the road that led further north into Ukraine took most of the cars with it. The rest of the morning and afternoon were spent taking it easy along this road. The snow that had become the norm for the past 3 weeks had now completely disappeared and I was left with a brown barren landscape. There was smoke rising in many different areas throughout the countryside as farmers had set fire to parts of the landscape. The whole scene couldn’t have been any different from the snowy landscape I had been cycling through for the last 3 weeks.

Late in the day I reached the Moldovan border post. The last 10-15 kilometres towards the border had been very quiet. There were barely any cars on the road, instead they were replaced by loads of bicycles. This seemed to be the way most people close to the border got around. It made for a nice change.

When I reached the Moldovan border post I joined the queue of cars only to be waved to the front. I was waved through each checkpoint fairly quickly and in no time at all I had made it into my eighth country of the trip, Moldova. Although I had briefly visited Moldova on a backpacking trip last year I still knew very little about the country. A bout of food poisoning during that trip meant that the most I saw of Moldova were the four walls of the hostel toilet! Due to this the thing I still best knew the country for was strangely enough its Eurovision entries! Although I probably shouldn’t admit it I usually find myself watching the Eurovision when that time of year rolls around. It’s car crash tv, you just can’t stop watching. The whole thing is just extremely cringeworthy and the songs are awful. All in all it’s just great tv! Moldova always seem to put in something ridiculous. “So Lucky” by Zdob Si Zdub and the awesome sax guy from “Run Away” are well worth looking up if you’re very bored! Anyway I was here now to hopefully learn something a bit more substantial than this about the country!

My first impressions of the country were quiet positive. People came across as openly friendly right away. I received a lot of waves and greetings in the villages I was passing through which was a nice surprise. It was obviously a much poorer country than Ukraine though. The road was in a worse state immediately across the border and for the most part the houses were a lot more ramshackle than those I had seen in Ukraine. As usual the differences between one country and another were very stark just either side of the border.

I realise that I should probably now explain my reason for choosing a route through Moldova. From Lviv the obvious and quickest route would have been to travel directly south into Romania and cross the country to Bulgaria. However I have read countless reports of people who have cycled through this area of Romania and have had a miserable experience being chased day after day by packs of wild aggressive dogs. They seem to be a problem in most parts of Eastern Europe but Romania in particular seems to be renowned for having the worst and most aggressive packs of them all! One Irish cyclist had actually been put in so much danger by these packs that he had no option but to take a train through part of Romania.

I wanted to avoid these infamous packs of wild dogs so I did a bit of research into Moldova. No cyclists who had passed through the country had mentioned any major problems with dog packs. Not many cyclists have actually crossed Moldova north to south it seems so maybe it was just the lack of people that have done it that meant that the viciousness of the dogs hasn’t been written about as widely as it has been for Romania. But, I felt like taking a chance on it! From my short bit of research it seemed the Moldovan dogs would be a bit friendlier than their Romanian counterparts. It isn’t the greatest logic and many people back home questioned it but I decided to follow it blindly nonetheless! Either way, Moldova as a country seems a bit more out there than Romania. Romania just doesn’t sounds as untamed or as exciting as Moldova so this also played a part in it. The country intrigued me and I was looking forward to crossing the country from north to south and getting a good feel for it.

After 10 kilometres of passing through the sunny countryside and very quiet villages I arrived in the first town, Lipcani. I had forgotten to exchange my Ukrainian money at the border so I got to an ATM and withdrew some Moldovan currency. The exchange rate at the border for the Ukrainian Hryvnia was Buy: 0.25 and Sell 0.80 so maybe it was a good thing I had forgotten to change the money, it looked like the crash of the Hryvnia over the last few days meant that I wasn’t going to get much purchase on the Ukrainian money I still had in my wallet.

Once I had my money sorted I started the climb out of town. As I had mentioned there is no real tourist industry in this part of Moldova so wild camping is the only option. I didn’t mind the camping at all, I had actually got a lot more comfortable wild camping solo and had started to enjoy it, it was the packing up of the tent in the morning in freezing temperatures with numb hands that I was dreading. I was annoyed with myself earlier on in the trip when passing through Germany that I was effectively wimping out by staying in hostels every night to avoid the cold. Now that I had no other option but to camp I had a chance to prove to myself that I could put up with the cold and numb hands when push came to shove.

I climbed out of town as the sun set brilliantly behind me. It made for some great light as I arrived at the small forest at the top of the climb. I had aimed to finish the day here so I turned down a side road to some aerials and then wandered off into the bushes to find somewhere to camp.

All was going well, I had the tent set up well before it got dark and I was unrolling my Thermarest so I could pump it up. As I was doing this I heard two cars pull into the side road by the aerials. They switched off their engines and the doors opened. I had picked a spot in the bushes not too far from this side road as it was a dead end and I didn’t think anyone would be pulling up there. This meant I was around 10 metres or so from the cars. I wondered what would take people out here to the middle of nowhere. My mind was coming up with all sort of scenarios as it does when you’re alone in the woods in the dark in a new country so far from home. It became apparent pretty soon that it wasn’t anything too sinister. I heard a man and a woman’s voice and soon enough a car door opened and closed. The kind of spots that are good for wild camping are also popular for other activities it seems!

Where I had the tent set up was well within earshot of the cars so I had to crouch silently in the dark in case I was heard. This was one of the strangest situations I had managed to get myself into! I was now crouching in the bushes in the dark just metres from this activity! If one of the participants was to hear me or see me I don’t think it would go down too well! So I had to keep crouched in the bushes outside my tent, trying to keep hidden and silent as best as I could! If they found me here I would find it very hard to explain the truth so I secretly wondered what the penalty was for snooping in Moldova.

After a few minutes they switched the car engine on, they were obviously getting cold! This meant I didn’t have to worry about the noise any more so I was able to at least start pumping up my Thermarest. Between each breath I listened intently to make sure the car engine was still running! Around 15-20 minutes later the car doors opened again and the participants stepped out. I stayed hidden here as they said their goodbyes and got back into their separate cars. Both cars had to turn around which involved doing a turn at the end of the side road. Unfortunately for me this meant that the headlights of both cars shined towards me and the tent! I kept low and luckily both of them didn’t notice me. Finally I was free! I checked the temperature before I dived in the tent. As I was trapped there the temperature had plummeted down to -3 degrees. I was never so glad to get into a warm sleeping bag.

Luckily I had managed to avoid a court case this time but I made a note to myself to pick out my wild camping spots a bit more carefully in future!