Out of The Doldrums

Location: Split, Croatia
Distance Traveled: 2,001 km

Hello all,

Our last blog entry left you with a video of some of our most fun moments of the trip.

We didn't have the time to write our full story, and sadly we don't really have time now either. So much continues to happen everyday that our memories are blending with one another and our days seem to be overlapping. One thing is sure though: we have cycled over 2,000 km away from Westminster Abbey and are in Split, Croatia. Today is our second day off since our trip began 19 days ago. I suppose we should start our story back with our arrival in Italy.

The first thing we realized upon our decent from the alps into the Italian plains was the heat. Gone were the cool wet days of England and France. Rather, just when we thought we had reached the apex of our physical capacity to push ourselves, we were met with a new struggle of how to keep our pace of 120km a day in 38 degree doldrums. It was a struggle that made our Italian experience miserable until almost the very end. That is not to say that we did not enjoy our trip through Italy, as it is quite hard to not enjoy yourself when there is so much good pizza, pasta, gellato, and wine to be had. Instead, Italy was where we began to face new challenges.

The lack of rest days combined with the heat made us cranky at times...It made us insular and easily annoyed. We began squabbling about whether or not our food had been divided equally, and we became paranoid that we were secretly trying to sabotage each other. Our conversations slowed until there was a silence. No sounds could be heard except for the wind blowing over the cracked and dried maize fields that went on for hundreds of kilometers. We had reached our breaking points.

After 5 days of this, something had to give. We had began hoarding our food rations, and selfishly thinking only of ourselves. Our team spirit had broken down. It would take an exogenous shock to reinvigorate our spirit.

After a few nights of renegade camping in a pear field, next a mosquito infested haunted house, and in a trailer park, we decided to revert back to our more sociable strategy of knocking on peoples doors.
It was by pure chance that we knocked on the door of a family that would make us once again realize the purpose of our trip, and in so doing, bring our team back together to attack with solidarity the second half of our adventure.

Meeting the "Famillia Sami", was by far the highlight of our Italian adventure.

Their kindness and generosity was incredible. They allowed us to stay in their back yard, and immediately brought us a bowel full of fresh figs and pears, picked fresh from trees only 20 meters away. They gave us bottles of water, and a bottle of wine. They invited us into their house to relax and chat with the family. Well....to be honest, chat might not be the best word to describe it. What started off as primitive forms of sign language, slowly transitioned into the use of rudimentary words of Italian. incredibly, by the end of the night, both Chad and I spoke fluent Italian--either we are fast learners, or the wine transformed us into linguists. In any event, we communicated with the whole family, including the 85 year old grandmother who took a special liking to us. They invited us for dinner, and we graciously accepted.

After eating salami, fresh grapes, pasta bolognes, more figs pears and wine, we were officially stuffed.

It was amazing to us that this family could accept complete strangers into their house and treat them with such great generosity. It made us embarrassed
that just the day before we had been bickering over one spoonful of rice.

The next morning we woke up revived. we slept well, we had eaten well, and we had experienced a side of humanity that one rarely has the pleasure of experiencing in normal life. We both agreed, however, that this was not a unique experience. Rather, there are generous people all around the world and meeting them is simply a question of putting yourself out there.

With good memories freshly in our head, we pushed ourselves harder than we ever have before and cycled 200km in 8 hours to the Italian Port of Ancona where we caught a ferry to Croatia. Our next entry will attempt to describe the adventures sure to be had over the next few days.

-Ramsey & Chad

PS- You may have noticed that our route changed. We have definitely decided that taking a bus, train, car, or gondola is cheating...but we are flexible on ferries. :) What do you guys think?