An interesting night's sleep with the usual chorus of dogs. I'm sure I can speak their language now. To add to this an extra special cockerel decided that 3am was the time it was going to get up and let everyone know, perhaps he had been on holiday and not changed his watch back?
I decide that 50p for a coffee is well worth it with the petrol stove not being fully trained yet, so set off into town at 8 leaving all my stuff on the farm. This proves to be a wise decision as the town is teaming with people. The gathering seems to be split into 3 lots, people waiting for the bus, people buying stuff on tractors and people standing around the public water taps and the market. This is a small gathering of folks who've come to sell the local produce at crazy cheap prices; 20p tomatoes, 40p peppers, 50p figs. These prices are per kilo, per kilo I tell you! If someone finds a fruit or vegetable that's not top notch the stall owner puts it on a different pile and these are sold at an even cheaper price. I buy up some figs and other bits and head back to the tent to get the laptop to take back to the cafe and write some blog, have a charge and enjoy a Turkish coffee. When I get back to the tent I notice that the UK/European plug adapter has broken. Well that's the final straw. I can't believe I'm going to get one of those anytime soon. The blog will finally come to an end and with it my search for power sockets. Hay Ho, all good lessons in travelling with technology. I go back into the town which consists of a cabin selling newspapers, magazines, cigarettes and beer, a convenience shop, a shop selling tractor bits and farm supplies and unbelievably one more shop, in this tiny village in this part of Serbia... a chinese tat shop. Incredibly it has not one, but two solutions to my adapter problem, costing 100 or 80 dinar. A dinar is approx a UK penny. So my mximum cost is £1. What a ridiculous stroke of luck. That could have taken hours to find in Belgrade, Vienna, Munich or Paris.
So off I go for a fine Turkish coffee which is now starting to be served with a piece of Turkish delight. When I arrive back at the tent Miko the farmer is back from his rounds and his brother has come to visit. He invites me in for another coffee and of course the obligatory schnapps. Being 9.30 this is now late in the day for schanpps and I think nothing of it. Miko's brother is a welder and has to go off and do some work. We chat about his wife being away in Austria for 3 mths and about various things about the trip. I ask him if I can buy some of his honey but he explains that all of his honey goes to the big processing plant I saw yesterday. I wash some clothes in a metal pail outside, pack up and tie the clothes on the back of the bike to dry.
Next stop Jagodina about 50k away.
Next stop Jagodina about 50k away.
Charged up with lots of coffee and schnapps I zoom off on pretty much the only road heading South except for the motorway (auto put) which runs parrellel. I try and keep an eye out for a fig tree as I have devoured all the ones I bought at breakfast, but no joy, not in 40km. So when I wheel into Jagodina and stop at a grocers I'm delighted to find they have some and buy up a big load. The road to Jagodina starts to get hillier than has been the case in the last 100km or so. The old legs have to be reminded how to work and I have to stop for lunch in a field and devour what seems to be a favourite lunch of bread and tomateos and bread and honey. A quick nap and then off to Chakademus which is what I have started to call Jagodina. (???) The road to Jagodina is up in the hills, looking down on the town. Various plots of land are being turned into houses and there are still a few that haven't, so get in quick for your chance to get a big, cheap house in Europe. I notice a few German and Swiss cars around here, parked in the driveways. I don't know if it is a good tourist spot or holiday area, but they obviously know something. As I come down the hill and into the town I nearly fall off my bike laughing as a big red sign saying "Hemel" sits outside a company building. I think its a German company, I could be wrong, but it's not a word you see everyday, if in fact ever, outside of Hemel Hempstead where I am from. In Jagodina I sit at a particularly violent fountain that looks like it might spill out of its pool at any second. I check my emails and see that I have forgotten to contact a warmshowers host in the next village about 10km away. I decide to text him when I arrive and see what happens. On the way to his village and another place mentioned in the book; Cuprija, a guy on a bicycle comes along side and we have a chat. He is a bicycle mesenger of sorts and is planning his own tour down to Greece soon. He reckons on completing 250km a day for 2 days to get there. He stays with me for about 5kms past where he was meant to turn off and then heads back. I reach Cuprija at about 5 o'clock, after crossing an iron bridge over the river Morava, whose valley I have been following since Smederevo. I text my warmshowers contact Judo Dave (for that is what I have called him as I can't access his real name), and tell him I'm in town but not to worry if he can't host me as I said I would give him a day's notice. I go in search of beer to present to my host as a gift, just in case, and after a small search up the wrong street I park up outside a diskount alkohol shop. A bit like a cross between an off licence and a Majestic wine warehouse. Since Germany I've seen these places where people buy their beer by the crate, but unlike a wholesaler you can buy just one can or a bottle of something stronger if you want. I'm just about to go in when two guys pull up on bikes I'm more likely to see at home and say hello. "Judo Dave!" I exclaim. "Yes thats me, but Judo is not my real name" :) He is very sorry that he can't host me tonight but it's not because of short notice, it is because he works with the Serbain Mountain Rescue team and he trains new recruits on weekends and has to go off tonight. Tis nice to have met him and have a chat all the same. He and his friends are hoping to cycle to the opening of the Olympics in 2012 so I might see him then.
I head out of Cuprija which seems rather devoid of the colour and menagarie of people that Stevens recalls. Unfortunately his time saw a marked difference in people's outfits; back then they told you where somebody came from. Nowadays it's not so easy. I'm sure the Greek Orthodox priests would still stand out though but none of these appear for my deligfht. 20km down the road to Nis I stop at a small village and look for camp. I ask various people with farms but my signing and Deutsch are not as useful here. People either say no and can't quite believe I've asked or point me to the motel near the auto put. I head out of the village on a different road to that which I came in on, ready to find a field, but I come up to the railway line. It is just a bit too big for my fully loaded bike and I decide to cycle back the way I came, rather than try to haul it over the tracks. As I go back into the village a lady I had said hello to earlier appears. She looks about 50/55 years old and is wearing a very glamourous black dress. She walks bent over with a very pronunced limp. She beckons me to follow her down a track and points to a patch of land out of the way where a derlict housae can be seen. She points around the corner and says you can camp there, no one lives there. So I do. I prepare a pasta dinner with a tin of tuna that is like no over tuna I have tried before. More like the consistency of mince or cat food. A car goes past whilst I'm cooking and he reverses to take a look at me, but then goes on again. I retire to the safety of 2mm of tent material and dream fishy dreams.
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