Not the best day…

After yesterday's rain, I took my time to recover. I was supposed to vacate my room by 10 a.m., but that shouldn't be a problem – or so I thought.

Yesterday, after pumping up my front tire, I wondered if it would hold air. It had yesterday, but this morning the tire was completely flat. I'll just patch it, no problem, I thought. Except I couldn't leave the room by 10 a.m. after all. But the hostess was incredibly kind and understanding. And when I was finished, she said "bravo" – even though we couldn't really communicate otherwise, I understood that.

Yesterday, after pumping up the front tire, I wondered if it would hold air. Incidentally, it had been raining quite heavily while I was patching the tire, and I thought to myself, "It had to be this way, otherwise I'd be out in the rain." When I finished, it was still drizzling, and by the time I finally set off, the rain had stopped completely. However, as soon as I reached the first hill of the day just outside Kladovo, it started to drizzle again. But that was all it was, and my clothes dried very quickly in the wind. And the wind was blowing again today.

There was blue sky on the horizon in my direction of travel, so everything had to be fine, I thought. If only I hadn't had another flat tire! After barely 30 km, another forced break. It didn't seem to bother me much, though; I remained quite calm—I was surprised myself—and just thought, "There's probably another rain shower that has to pass before I get there." In any case, I was glad it wasn't raining, and so I patched a tire for the second time today. I was able to use the small puddles along the roadside from the recent rain to find the hole – really handy.

As soon as I continued on, I encountered the next surprise: a gravel road, much of it actually sand. And what does a day of rain (yesterday) do to roads like that? Exactly: it softens them. So I could barely move forward for a few hundred meters. But it got even worse: for a few meters, maybe 40 or 50, everything was so soft that I almost got stuck in the mud. And the stuff was so incredibly sticky that it filled the entire space between the tire and the fender. Then I remembered Ties saying that this is exactly why many people don't have fenders. I could hardly imagine it before, but now I was experiencing it firsthand.

I could barely continue – luckily, after just a few meters, I saw the first fountain in Serbia. It was truly a godsend. I used the water to clean the tires, mudguards, and frame, which definitely took me at least another 20 minutes.

The thought slowly dawned on me that I wouldn't make it to Vidin before nightfall. If this keeps up… A few kilometers later, another surprise, but this time a positive one: Larissa and Jean from Brazil were there, traveling in the opposite direction. Even though I was already running late, I had time for a quick chat. The two of them have been traveling by bicycle for two years (!) and each have about twice as much luggage as I do, or so it seemed to me. If I understood correctly, they mostly sleep in a tent. I wanted to know how things had been yesterday. They said they had luckily found an abandoned house where they could spend the night. That's quite an adventure – and they've been doing it for two years already! When I asked them what motivated them to travel by bicycle for so long, they said they were starting to get a little tired. They were going to cycle to Finland and then head back home. Well, still quite a way. I admire them and would have liked to chat with them longer, but I had to move on. Thanks again for the banana, dear Larissa.

Shortly before I met Larissa and Jean, I decided to get back to the main road as quickly as possible and continue on that route. But according to them, it was only about another kilometer or so of gravel, and then the road would be good, or at least paved. And that's exactly how it was. So I stayed on the EuroVelo 6.

Shortly before Negotin, however, it occurred to me that when I was planning the route a few months ago, I had wondered why the EuroVelo 6 didn't lead directly to the Bulgarian border but instead made a detour up a small mountain. Apparently, there were two small villages with vineyards there, but I could do without them now. So I decided to take the direct route to Bulgaria, the fastest way.

And there it was at last, the sign I'd been looking forward to for so long: "You're leaving Serbia. Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened :)". Those Serbs certainly have a sense of humor.

Of course, this was right at the border, and now it wasn't far to Vidin. However, there was still one more climb to tackle, the longest of the day. But after feeling for a long time that I wasn't really rolling along – and constantly thinking maybe the rear tire would give out, since my patching attempt hadn't been very successful – I finally felt like I was rolling smoothly again. And more or less "whoosh," I was already at my hotel in Vidin.

By the way, I encountered several dogs again today; I've gotten so used to them that it's almost not worth mentioning anymore. Now I stop every time and "chat" with them before continuing on my way. And that always went well. At the border – on both the Serbian and Croatian sides – the border guards helped me coax the two dogs away from me. And in Bulgaria, a man even opened his car window to whistle back dogs that were running in my direction. Now I'm beginning to understand the legendary fear of dogs among postmen. I'll certainly never be a postman.

One last thing: Today I returned to the EU, but I also crossed into a new time zone for the first time. So I arrived just before 7:00 local time, just before dusk. Luckily, I skipped the detour to Negotin, which saved me almost 7 km and quite a bit of elevation gain.