27. Chilling with Stanisław

The creepy feeling from yesterday got an explanation today. As soon as I packed up and turned the corner out of the trees I saw that I had basically camped behind someone's back yard. A fenced off house with huge "private property signs". 🥶 A huge invasion of their privacy!

If they had a single window open last night, then they must have heard me breaking twigs on the ground and seen my flashlight through the trees. So it is pretty safe to say that the gut instinct was right - that I was being watched.

I stopped for a banana and yoghurt breakfast in the next village, and was approached by Stanisław, a retired truck driver who asked me if I wanted coffee at his house. I was blown away by this offer. The Polish hospitality is worlds apart compared with the Baltic states!

Coffee, cookies and great company.

Stanisławs son is married to a turkish woman, and they live in Turkey with his granddaughter. He has been down there four times. His daughter studies medicine. I didn't ask but got a hunch that his wife has passed away.

He is an avid cyclist and rides on a bike that looks a lot faster than mine, and grows cucumbers in his back yard, and gave me a big can of mango soda when I left. I didn't know it then, but this soda turned out to be crucial, since there was no shops or restaurants in sight during the rest of the 100 km through the countryside that passed by today.

The road was incredibly easy, until I lost an hour by misnavigating into a forest with loose soil. Eventually I found the way out back to the main road, after pushing the bike through a small river and then this mud pit.

A farmer with a water hose helped me to get rid of all the mud from my feet and bike, and informed me with the help of hand signs that "it is better to bike on roads instead of mud pits". I couldn't disagree with this logic, and we both had a laugh about it.

Rest of the ride was drier.

Lots of heavy machinery at work today, collecting the last harvest.

I sped up as the sun was going down, and was happy to see the twin towers of the cathedral in Łomża just as the sun set. The weather is freezing tonight, so I'm renting an apartment for 40 euros tonight. All in all it was a big confidence boost to realize that I can cover 100km in a day on just a banana, yoghurt, coffee and a mango soda.

I must remember to send Stanislaw a post card.