This is me in Berlin August 2008 just before the poison brought me to my knees.
These pages are about my latest cycle adventure, the plan is to cycle around the world. North to south and back up the other side, roughly speaking. How far I get and how long it will take me I have no idea, I don’t even know if I will get that far. Journeys like this are all about intent, drive and bloody mindedness, lets see how long mine holds.
Before this journey I was working with Ericsson Mobile Platforms living in Lund – the south of Sweden. After first emptying my flat I set off from my front door as is my modus on these journeys, and headed north for the Polar circle. In Sweden I really was frozen, so cold my joints locked up, my clothes were frozen solid and I had a cold shower to warm up. In Finland I was slipped something in a club and ended up spending the night on the beach under the impression I was a nuclear holocaust survivor.
The plan had been to study Russian during the winter but on hearing about a cheap flight from Tallin to Bombay, I decided to take a break from the cold and spent four months cycling around the south of India. This despite a bus drivers attempt on my life was a very good idea. The india4winter blog is incorporated in this one (December 2007 to April 2008) and I’m doing my best to get all the posts uploaded and fixed.
Estonia was a little bleak, though I really liked Saaremaa and its Gin. Tallinn was very, very difficult to leave. I had the top floor of a building in the old town, but was paying hostel prices. There were two wonderful wine shops, lots of fabulous restaurants and I’m a real sucker for the Estonian/ Russian nastily shod ice maiden thang. Latvia was rough on the bike but easy on the eye. Lithuania was just fabulous and I especially enjoyed Vilnius where I made some very good friends.
Belarus was my first Visa challenge, but in the end wast that difficult, it just required a little time and a lot of patience.
I had root canal treatment in Estonia, Lithuania and finally Belarus. On returning to Berlin by bus from Kiev to build the new bike, I visited my dentist who wanted to replace the zombie tooth with an implant. What neither of us realised at the time was the process of screwing this in/ drilling the hole would mix, expose and introduce to my blood all the dodgy materials that had been used to kill the tooth’s nerves.
It was this that I suspect had me in Scotland for six months recuperating, the vampiric doctors taking more and more blood for more and more tests until I decided that Id had enough of “yes we can see your ill, but don’t know what’s wrong” and I would try and walk it off.
So at the end of Febuary 2009 I followed the West Highland way and from Fort William, the great Glen way to Inverness and thankfully returned feeling much stronger and immediately began re-planning my route.
I knew I wasn’t strong enough to return to Kiev and head through Central Asia so from Berlin I have followed a couple of bike routes along the Spree, Saale and Danube rivers. From Ulm on I’m following the Camino Santiago again. This is very easy logistics wise and is really just training.
From Spain Ill head over to Morocco somehow jump over Algeria to Tunisia, somehow get into Libya, Egypt and then head north through Jordan, Syria, Turkey Georgia, Azerbaijan and that will be me 1000km south of where I was in Kiev, not feeling as if I’ve cheated and ready to cross the Caspian sea to Kazakhstan.
Peter J. Skelly, December 2009