Days 40-41 – Watching out for “Banditos” and “Bad Men”: Lipcani to Bălți

Days 40-41 – Watching out for “Banditos” and “Bad Men”: Lipcani to Bălți

Friday February 13, 2015, 122 km (76 miles) – Total so far: 3,165 km (1,966 miles)

Day 40: Lipcani to Woods near Ciubara – 71.3km

With the temperature having dropped to -3 degrees before I had even gotten into the tent it was one of the coldest nights so far. I broke out my sleeping bag liner which did its job perfectly and made sure I could have a comfortable night’s sleep.

I lay in the next morning until the temperature had risen a bit before I started to pack up my gear. I’ve already gone into enough detail on how much my hands suffer when packing up my gear on cold mornings like this so I won’t bore anyone again but needless to say the prolonged process was as tough, painful and miserable as ever!

With everything packed I made my way back onto the road and coasted along in the morning sunshine into the first village of the day. Here I stopped in a small local shop to stock up on food and water. The shop was just like most of the small shops in Ukrainian villages, all of the goods are behind the counter so you need to point awkwardly at everything you need. In a lot of these shops in Ukraine people would skip in front of you if you were a foreigner as they knew you would take a long time to point out everything you wanted. Here though I was surprised to be waved to the front of the queue in the crowded shop. While I was ordering food I was even asked where I was from by several people in the shop and they started asking me about my trip in Russian. Everyone seemed very interested, curious and friendly. It made a big difference from the glares I would often receive in the small village shops in Ukraine.

After leaving the shop I continued along the main road towards Brceni. All the way along this road loads of cars were beeping their horns at me in encouragement and giving me friendly waves. Between this and the experience in the shop, Moldova was giving off a really good first impression. The sunshine, lack of snow and quiet roads made me warm to the country even more. I had a feeling I was going to like Moldova.

The sunshine actually meant it was turning into a reasonably warm day, the temperature hit 7 degrees which was the highest I had seen it at in a very long time. I was even able to cycle for an hour or so with my ski jacket off, the first time I could remember being able to do this on the trip.

Once I had gone around Brceni I turned south onto the main road which runs all the way from the north of Moldova to the capital Chisinau, passing through Bălți, one of Moldova’s largest cities along its way. This road mainly passed through apple orchards with small villages a few kilometres off the road rather than based alongside it.

Due to all the apple orchards by the side of the road there were a few people selling apples along the side of the road every few kilometres. I stopped at one of these stalls and asked for an apple. The guy selling them wouldn’t accept any money and instead gave me one of each of the four different varieties of apples he had for free. Moldova was turning out to be a bit of a hidden gem, I had not expected the people to be so friendly and welcoming. In the end it turned out that only one of the apples was edible but still it was the thought that counted.

Continuing along this road I pulled in at a lay-by to photograph another one of those strange stork shaped wells that seem to be all over the countryside here. As I was doing this I was being stared and pointed at from one of the cars pulled up there. This was nothing new and I was well used to it at this stage. The difference this time was that the people stepped out of the car and stopped me to shake my hand and say hello. One of the men spoke a bit of English, the first person I had come across in the country to do so.

They wanted to know what I was doing and insisted on taking a couple of photos of me. Since I had crossed the border into Ukraine people taking photos of/with me was becoming a more regular occurrence. All the hard work to get here had paid off, I had now gained celebrity status! About time!

We had a quick conversation about my trip and what I thought of Moldova. When they heard that I was wild camping they were a bit surprised and asked was I not scared of the “Banditos”! They mentioned that these “Banditos” were a bit of a problem in Moldova. They were smiling as they were saying this though so whether they were having me on or not I wasn’t sure! With this warning I was sent on my way and I continued southwards into a growing headwind.

Towards the end of the day I arrived in the town of Edinet. I wanted to push on and get some more mileage in as the headwind meant I was well behind my target mileage for the day. So I sped through the town all the way to the last roundabout. At this roundabout there were three roads I could take, each one leading to a different city. As I was rolling up to the roundabout I was about to check the road signs as to which way I should go when a small dog came out of nowhere barking like crazy and running straight for me. He was followed by another and I could hear more barking coming after me. I looked ahead to the roundabout and saw another small dog or two followed by a huge nasty looking beast of a dog chasing them. They were in full flow. I had no option but to stand and sprint like crazy, this big dog looked like he meant business. I went into the roundabout at full tilt with several dogs behind me and the big dog turning sharply after me on top of the roundabout with his legs scrambling. In the mayhem I couldn’t even check the signs and just sprinted for the second exit. As I came out of the exit with a full collection of dogs in chase barking like crazy there was an old man standing there. He cracked into laughter at the entire scene, I gave him a knowing smile as I sped past him with my entourage trailing behind me. At least someone got a bit of a laugh out of it! Luckily there was a downhill so I soon lost the dogs. By some good luck I had chosen the correct exit out of town and I didn’t have to head back to face the welcoming party again!

I continued pushing on against the headwind for as long as I could. Even though I kept going with the sun setting I still only made it a bit over 70 kilometres. The road today had a very up and down nature, this combined with the headwind meant I was making very slow progress. It looked like Moldova would be a tough nut to crack. I had put in a tough day of cycling and looking at the map I had barely made a dent in the country.

Before dark the main road passed a small section of woodland which was down beneath the road. This made for the perfect camping spot so I guided the bike down the steep hill and set up camp, ready for another typically cold Moldovan night.

Day 41: Woods near Ciubara to Bălți – 50.8km

When I woke up it was still incredibly cold so I had to wait until the sun had risen a bit higher before I could emerge from the tent. I then commenced the usual slow process of packing the tent and my items while warming my hands every couple of minutes so I didn’t completely lose feeling in them. It was agony as usual but finally I got it all together. Once the bike was packed I decided to take a track out of the woods instead of pushing up the steep hill. This was a major mistake as the track which had started promisingly soon turned to mud and straw. I struggled to get the bike out to the road as the wheels entirely clogged up and wouldn’t even move.

I was sweating and out of breath as I dropped the bike on the ground at the side of the road and sat down beside it. When I had my breath back I then had to start clearing out the wheels. It took 10 minutes of work but finally it looked like I had most of the clogged mud and straw out. With this less than perfect start it was close to 12:30 when I was finally able to start moving.

By the time I was moving it had been nearly 3 hours since I had eaten my breakfast and with the amount of effort it took to pack the tent and push my bike out to the road I was feeling low on energy. So within a few kilometres I needed to stop at a cafe to get some more food into me. It was a much colder day than yesterday so I opted to eat inside the cafe.

When I opened the door I was met with a gold toothed smile from the man behind the counter. I ordered some bread with vegetables baked into it, a load of chocolate and some cake. The gold toothed owner of the cafe insisted on giving me some free tea with the meal and asked me to sit down. I wolfed down the bread to try and get some energy back into me. As I was eating I got chatting to the owner. He spoke Russian as a second language (which most people in Moldova seem to do) so we were able to have a very basic conversation with a lot of hand gestures. In between all the talk the bit that stood out was his statement about the “bad men” of Moldova. He seemed to be saying that there was a big drug problem in the country and that a lot of people drove while under the influence. He asked me to be careful (or at least I think he did!) The Moldovans really loved scaring visitors to their country it seemed! After the bread I shoveled down the cake which had to be the densest cake known to man, I left the cafe feeling completely full to the brim. It wasn’t ideal then that a long climb started right outside the cafe. The incredibly dense cake was looking like a bad idea as I started grinding my way slowly up the hill.

Before I had left the cafe I had asked the owner if there were many hills on the road ahead. Usually when people respond to this question, if they say the road is flat, you can guarantee it’s going to be a bit hilly, if they say it is hilly then it’s going to involve some very tough climbs. The cafe owner here however said that it was very, very hilly! This was new territory and I feared what lay ahead!

The road ended up going up and down repeatedly all afternoon. Most of the climbs were sharp and just went non stop straight to the top of a hill before descending straight to the base of another one. The headwind which had made progress difficult yesterday was even stronger today and it made the climbing quite tough. In addition to the headwind and the steep hills the bad roads were slowing me down. And it also turned out that I hadn’t cleared the mud fully this morning and that was rubbing off the tyres. So I had four different factors slowing my progress. I spent another 10 minutes at the mudguards getting the mud out and got on the road again. A few minutes later I realised that it still hadn’t been fully cleared and spent another 10 minutes at it. Once this was cleared I got going again. Now I only had the headwind, the steep hills and the bad road slowing me down, great success!

With the struggle I was having covering kilometres today I realised fairly early on that I didn’t have much of a chance of getting far past Bălți, a large town 50km from the start of the day. By the time I had covered half that distance I was absolutely knackered, all the factors that were slowing me down meant I was expending loads of energy and not covering much distance. Despite my four easy days across Ukraine, these last three days had taken a lot out of me. The constant headwind of the last two days especially is what I struggled with the most, it was a lot stronger than any I had faced so far on the trip. When the road is repeatedly going up and down sharp hills this headwind had an even worse effect. All of this led to me feeling very worn down. Even making it to Bălți, 50km from the start of the day took a lot of effort.

Halfway through the day I had already decided that I was going to aim for some sort of hotel in Bălți. I didn’t know what kind of town Bălți was or even if it had a hotel but it looked big on the map so I hoped it would. The fact it was Valentine’s Day though worried me. Back in Ireland a lot of hotels would be booked up on these dates and the prices would be raised significantly. I needn’t have worried at all. When I arrived in Bălți I asked a couple of people for directions to a cheap hotel and came across one that was €10 for the night. They had no running water and the room was tiny and a bit filthy. The toilet was in a worse condition with one large pipe being held together by a strand of barbed wire! To top it off shortly after arriving to my room there was a knock on the door. A man arrived carrying a battered dirty metal bucket full of cold water as the taps/toilet weren’t running. If someone brought their partner here on Valentine’s Day I reckon the relationship would be ended pretty swiftly! The solemn man with the battered bucket of cold water would be the final nail in the coffin!

I ended up getting some food in the shop underneath the hotel and sat down to stream the Ireland vs. France 6 nations rugby match. Surprisingly the hotel had Wifi in the room which was quick enough to stream the match. So for a short while I was able to escape the old Soviet era hotel in the middle of Moldova and enjoy the rugby match and a great win for Ireland.

In the end the room was actually very cosy, the ground was fairly filthy and the bathroom wasn’t in the greatest condition but with the portable heater they gave me the room was actually quite nice. I was feeling immensely tired from the last few days cycling so more than anything I wanted a rest day. I would have loved to stay a few days here and just relax and get back to normal but I knew Chisinau lay just 140km away and would have a hostel. I needed some sort of motivation to keep me going so I decided I would have a rest day if I could get to Chisinau. With the headwind, hills and bad roads 70km a day should take a bit of effort but should be very achievable so I aimed to make the journey in two days. I really needed a day off in Chisinau so I hoped that all would go to plan.