hey you! it’s us, the ecologists on bikes!
we have just cycled all the way from welten to ljubljana. i hear you asking: “how was it?” – well, let me give you four words: rain, ticks, legpain, porridge.
in reality of course, there was more to our 6 days of cycling together than just four words.
it all started with an “easy first day” that turned out to be a very hilly, very hot, very full of breaking bikes-day and ended with a very one-colour, one-textured meal. (sidenote: if you ever get the brilliant idea to make instant potato puree mixed with real potatos with lentil soup (lentils with water) – don’t do it.) but because everyone was hungry and exhausted it was surprisingly tasty.
the next days brought us many different kinds of adventures. there were super nice and refreshing baths in rivers and lakes of all shades of brown, persistant dumpstering mostly without succes and the final reward of finding 10kg of persil washing powder and a very fun and loving group that made it very easy to cycle together under changing weather, even if for one person the cycling was happening only on the first gear for two days.
a propos changing weather. do you know how to have a circle during a severe thunderstorm? with two semi-functioning tarps, pine-cone-microphones, two trailers, a tent and fifteen people squeezing together the circle quickly turns into a sausage – and lots of shouting.
we experienced a lot of kindness, like people giving us coffee, cookies, schnaps (?) or even plainly money to buy food with. or offering up their forests, meadows and cristal clear streams for us to camp in/nearby. but you know, there’s no ying without yang…. we were also kicked out of a weird squared swampy tree school full of slugs by this weird angry guy in a military outfit. he was asking us over and over again who our leader was before threatening to call the police. fortunately the nice schaps-people that we woke from their well-deserved 9pm slumber let us sleep in their slopey forest.
later we found out of course, that the angry man had only wanted to protect us from being swallowed by the mud that developed during the night full of rain.
one constant in our lives was the ridiculous amount of dumpster-mon cherie we brought from welten, that went from being disgustingly alcoholic to a surprising energy source and a *little daily luxury*.
besides of our two amazing trailers platypus and crocodile we had another non-human companion with us that melted our hearts every day by being the oldest puppy in the world. some call them fredda, some federico and some simply the pope as they regally ride in their papa mobil.
our final destination – we call it the vampire house – is also strangely wonderful. filled with pianos, curious objects, pianos, golden chandeliers, a goose and pianos.
we’re finally sleeping well on even ground and soft mattresses with the soothing penetrating sound of church bells every fifteen minutes and we are excited to see what the next days of the balkan anarchist bookfair are going to bring us.
stay tuned and good bike!
p.s.: for your pleasure, our notes for this text (and the ausgetüftelte textstruktur)xoxo
rivers & lake, sun, sausage plenary, very cool group, frederik, the nice alcohol neighbours, lightbugs, first meal, two days only in the first gear, dumpstering 10kg of persil washing powder, big thunder (everything wet), mon cherie, under thunder, platypus & crocodile
funny anecdote, hard story with a happy end, product placement, foreshadowing (bab)
also, we have a communal phone number now that is reachable: +38671391725
