When God plays dice with your health...
As we crossed the border and entered Serbia, another rewarding cycling day was turning to an end. While fully enjoying a break with my Ecotopian friends attacking large portions of watermelon, not in the least did I suspect that by the turn of the hour I would be facing a sudden twist of my destiny. As I was then covering the last miles to reach our final destination (we were to camp near a village school) I started suddenly feeling tired, really tired, so tired that my legs were failing me for the first time. As soon as I got to the destination I couldn't keep my head up anymore, was freezing with cold and developing a strong fever. My head was bursting. I couldn't talk or communicate anymore. I was a pawn who had just arbitrarily been kicked out a chessboard and knew the nightmare was there to stay... After one day of exploring the surrounding national park, the group left and I was left alone to face my dragons and to slowly try to regain energy. My massive headache, which I was trying in vain to keep in check with very mild medicines, gave me a hightened sensitivity to noise, temperature, light..and my stomach was quite blocked, meaning I could eat only extremely plain food. The weather was unpredictable and I was living with the constant threat of a storm, which would force me to sleep crouched to avoid a stream of water getting in. The only sure thing was that nights were freezing and I had to put all my fucking clothes on all the time! I was so slow and ill that even the simplest operation, like going to refill my water bottle, would take at least half an hour, and yet the days seemed neverending, as I was sleeping very little. Putting my head down was too much pain and yet keeping it up up required too much energy.. The open-air Balkan-style toilets did not make my life easier either, as they were the filthiest bottomless shit pits I had ever experienced (compared to which the famous horror of Simferopol detailed by Seyi Latunde Dada was the Queen's bathroom). Ohhh and the local kids! You must know that my tent was positioned at about 10 metres from the local playing field, where every evening they would come and play. Balkanic kids are authentic screaming machines..and would regularly fill the air with ferocious wails, often followed by collective bouts of collective laugther up until the early hours. For my extreme enjoyment, the final party of the village festival happened to be the very same evening when my illness was at its peak... Then there was the horror kitchen, smelling chicken and rotten onions, with food residues everywhere, infested by flies and with an electric hob which would take 30 minutes to boil a cup of water....The local food shop was no better place either: two old ladies smoking like chimneys and selling only junk food, the only edible thing for me in there was a pack of white pasta, which constituted my only source of energy for those long 4 days.
I don't think pain teaches you something, with pain you are oppressed, you can't think, you're left devoid, you can only wail, invoke "mama" or a "god" of dubious existance. Only mild pain can be instructional, deep pain has only one lesson: enjoy the present when you can. We are in the hands of chance and there is no use in competing with each other to try and live faster, better, shinier... the only "er" we need is wiser. Health is the ultimate asset.
On the start of my fifth day in hell, I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, pack up my bike and get my ass out to the nearest train station (15km south). By the afternoon I am in a comfortable hostel bed in the middle of a large city. Feeling born again. As I walk down a street and listen to some live music, I found myself euphoric, as if I had just jumped out of a coffin and all the doors of the world were now open...
