Reminiscing day 140 – 5.744 km
Written on March 10th, 2026
I’m writing this from seat 33C, being handed chicken as the vegetarian option, somewhere between Turkey and Uzbekistan. The perfect place to think back on the past few weeks of travel.(*)
Weeks of riding, resting, camping, drinking coffee, making decisions and trying to make sense of it all.
Weeks of moving with strangers, four of them, to be exact, who somehow let me become part of their stories. Strangers who in turn became part of my story as well. Strangers who, at 15 kilometers an hour on average, slowly turned into friends.
This is my little love letter to all of them. For the views we shared, the meals we cooked, the stories we told, the flats we fixed, the distance we covered — and mostly, for the simple act of sharing their journey with me.
* And yes, I’m fully aware that this flight took place more than 6 months ago, lol. I’m catching up on life.
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My king of undercooked pasta
We met somewhere in Bosnia.
He asked where I was heading.
“Nepal,” I said.
“Ah, cool,” he replied.
Which instantly made me suspicious. Nobody says “cool” to Nepal unless they’re doing something even more outrageous.
“So what about you?”
“I’m going to China, bro” he said.
“Well, actually New Zealand. But I’ll go to China first.”
Ahh.. Of course, there we have it. This guy is just casually cycling halfway around the planet. I laughed.. Partly because it was insane, partly because I immediately liked him. It was nice, too, to meet someone else who was doing the same ridiculous thing I was doing. Someone who got it.
A shared lunch later, where we pet a cute, albeit scruffy, kitten we decided to ride together for twenty kilometers before I’d take a hard right into nature. But the hard right never came. And me being me, Mr. Spiritual, took that as a sign. This was meant to be. So I asked if he wanted to keep going for the day. He did.
We ended up camping in a nice and, seemingly, peaceful meadow beside a river. A meadow that seemed peaceful until the mosquitos showed up. That’s life for you -it gives and it takes.
That night we sat by the water -in our cold weather clothing, in a 25 degree summer evening, to try to outsmart the mosquitos- and got to know each other through stories, shared experiences on the bike, and me tasting Rodrigo’s beautifully undercooked pasta.
He called it al dente.
I called it a crime.
But it was enough to get us to bond quickly.
We travelled together for three weeks, crossing three countries, with an average temperature of approximately thirty three degrees. In this short amount of time he showed me how to slow down. Really slow down. To stop feeling like every day had to be measured by distance or achievement, but instead to allow for the feeling of “having time”, to appreciate it and more importantly to live by it.
He has this little mate ritual, and when I say little I mean the whole ordeal takes him like an hour and a half, where he takes the space to find the perfect spot for his chair, where the water gets the time to boil, where he allows himself to slow down.
He showed me it’s not necessarily about the drink.
It’s about giving yourself permission to stop. To sit. To exist.
Since then, I’ve started doing the same -not the whole mate-thing, but giving myself the permission to stop- sometimes I stop at two in the afternoon just because the view feels right, or when two trees are perfectly spaced out to accommodate my hammock. And for how insignificant this might seem, its impact on my life couldn’t have been of greater power.
From the kindness of Bosnia, to the beauty of Montenegro, straight into the sheer steepness of the Albanian alps -Rodrigo was exactly the connection I needed then, and the friend I have now.
Rodrigo, Cycling to New Zealand (via China)
09 – 29 June, from Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina to Shkoder, Albania
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The girl and her hammock
Shkoder, Albania, was the place where Rodrigo and I decided to take a break. Which was nice, given the summer heat, but it was also a destination loaded with feelings, as Shkoder was where we would go our seperate ways.
But, as I have learned, back then and to this day, life is full of surprises and, more often than not, filled with little gifts. The little gifts being getting invited for coffee, free food, a roof over your head or, as was the case in Shkoder, Mina. A Slovenian girl on her own bicycle journey from Slovenia to Corfu. Just a hammock, a few clothes, and a love for adventure.
When she left to hike the Albanian alps, we agreed to meet later in Berat, a little picturesque town in Albania. Once reunited, we complained about the heat, enjoyed the views of the town and set off cycling together.
If you were wondering, cycling with someone you just met is exactly the same as a first date, except there’s a lot of sweating and heavy breathing involved. And I know what you’re thinking, you, with your filthy mind you, but I’m talking about cycling. Okay?!
So this means you talk about everything and anything, from food, to past experiences, to interests, to hobbies, you name it. And it was this exact reason I told her “So, just so you know. Before this trip I had a motorcycle and have been riding bikes my whole life. So if you see me going downhill too fast -don’t feel the need to follow me, deep down I’m just a kid who still enjoys the thrill of going downhill as fast as possible. Just know that I’ll always wait for you at the bottom of the hill.”
It was at exactly this moment that thought me the hard way that bragging rights can come with consequences. Because not even five minutes later yours truly, mister “I like to go fast downhill”, was making some sweet, sweet love with the road.
But this little mishap also showed Mina’s positivity, and humor, when she said “No worries buddy, the sea heals.” So the mood was set, and now I at least had another reason to reach Corfu, as I was in dire need of some healing. Especially the ego.
We spent the first 4 days cycling in Albania, traversing mountain roads which hadn’t been used in years, pushing our heavy ass bikes up rock riddled hills, and experiencing some amazing views. By boat we reached Corfu and, ofcourse, the first thing we did was going straight to the beach to hit the sea, because, remember, the sea heals. Right? Right??? Well, let me tell you. After setting foot in the ocean, and immediately slicing my foot open on a clamshell, I can tell you that, in fact, no, Mina. The sea does not heal, the sea is a little bitch and hurts.
Nevertheless Corfu was the place where Mina and I enjoyed the touristy life, mostly because traveling with a bike and a hammock gave us the freedom to eventually stray away from the busy-busy to settle down in nature. Being buzzed asleep by mosquito’s (yes, again, some things never change), and sung awake by the sound of the birds. We shared stories we felt sharing, we told stuff we hadn’t told before and together with Mina I reached deep inside myself to learn who I am -we connected. At exactly the slow pace Corfu demanded.
Mina, cycling to Corfu
05 – 13 July, from Berat, Albania to Corfu, Greece
“So, how do you like your coffee?”
It was an early morning in Thessaloniki, walking the city streets before the sun rose above the buildings, nervously trying to beat the blistering summer heat Greece graced us with, heading towards a great coffee place to get myself my morning cappuccino, “Oh and yes, do you have oat milk, please?”.
Walking up to the place I saw a girl sitting on the bench outisde. One of the things I vividly remember is her wearing this little yellow scarf around her neck, and also the gut feeling she wasn’t Greek. So there it was, the potential for the quintessential-traveler-conversation-piece. “Where you from and where you going?”.
Three euro and twenty cents poorer, but one cappuccino richer, I asked the girl with the little yellow scarf if I could join her.
“So, how do you like your coffee?”
“Espresso. And you?”
Was the start of us traveling together for 4 weeks, all the way to Istanbul. Because, wouldn’t you know it. In the middle of Thessaloniki, which is in the middle of Greece, with not a hint of a bicycle in sight, I managed to strike up a conversation with a person who, together with her friend, was cycling from Switzerland to Georgia.
The cups became empty but the conversation kept flowing, and it was only after realising that the sun had risen above the buildings, and was busy scorching our backs, that we decided to meet up for dinner that evening, to meet her friend, Carol as well.
Solo traveling kinda means you’re either alone or, when you meet someone, you’re together 24/7, with not much in between. Well luckily our pace was the same, the energy was a match and the three of us shared a liking for tomato and cucumber salad. Which turned out to be pretty important as it became our staple meal for lunch.
Crossing into turkey made us experience the crazy hospitality of the Turkish people. People who would drive up to us -literally blocking our path to the point where you’d believe you’re gonna get robbed-, only to get given all the food they’re carrying. People sitting outside, yelling at you. Only to invite you in and present you with tea and biscuits. When we asked a truck driver if he had an air compressor to inflate on of our fixed flats (sidenote: I’m still salty about that one specific day we had a combined sixteen (yes, one-six, 16!?) punctures), he said “ofcourse”, but not before you join me for lunch.
For the whole journey the weather was great, if at times too hot, the climbs not that big, if at times a bit steep. Traveling with these two girls felt easy, natural, relaxed. And being with three made for a fun dynamic. You could lean into the conversation, or fade into the background and let your thoughts wander. The evenings were spent talking about everything and nothing, moving beyond generational and cultural differences.
But the big difference I noticed between traveling solo, as a man, to traveling together, with two girls, was the amount of stuff we got gifted. Not only on the streets, but also in little villages where the shopkeeper would, literally, open his shop for them. To then being gifted things as well. It even became a running joke that I would stay a bit behind when they went out to ask for something, because more often than not they got it for free. I mean, it’s sexism, I know. But then again… Free stuff is free stuff, you know.
All jokes aside, maybe this is one of the things I value most about our shared time. How they taught me that, even within our present-day Western societal standards, there is still so much gender inequality present. They showed me what it means to exist in the world as a woman. How seemingly small acts of kindness are so often rooted in sexism. “Aren’t you scared”, was the number one question they got asked when they told about their journey. While I, as a solo traveling man, was considered cool, daring and oh-so fearless.
And to this day I still think about that exact sentence, the accompanying conversations and about the million other things they showed me. They changed me -as a man, a person and a human being.
If you would ask me to describe our time together, it would be something like this:Cucumber, tomato, skarpuzzi, sleeping at churches for the convenience of running water, chai, but mostly a deep care towards each other.
Leonie & Carol, Cycling to Georgia
30 July – 14 August, from Thessaloniki, Greece to Istanbul, Turkye
