Particular Impressions

During a journey you collect many impressions from which some will remain other vanish. After a while you have experienced something special in almost all areas of the everyday life and the travelling that you will keep in mind forever.

Travelling by Bicycle

Many travel cyclists count the kilometers they made during the journey. We only estimate them. Our tachometers are used for navigation and for the speed measurement. By this we never know how many megameters we already have done. The longest day trip was in Italy with more than 160 kilometers. The shortest distance we covered in one day was about 4 to 5 kilometers. The most exhausting way was along the Turkana beach where sometimes we needed more than one hour for one kilometer although we tried hard. The top speeds downhill are about 60 kilometers per hour with a maximum of over 74 km/h (maybe it would be possible to go faster).

Dangers

The highest risk for us usually is road traffic which mainly is determined by the way of treating eachother on the street. In Syria we witnessed the friendliest drivers up to now, where paying attention to the others is the highest esteem. A similar attitude towards other road users exist on Sicily and some other countries. In Israel, Germany, Turkey and in many Black African countries you find exactly the opposite. There the strongest and heaviest vehicle is always right. In Black Africa and in Turkey we ascribe this attitude to a lack of imagination and understanding. In Israel and Germany it is due to the people's thinking to be in the right to have their own will.

But the most dangerous encounter on the roads had been Ethiopian children up to now. They regard cycling foreigners as welcomed victims for their malicious games as throwing stones, putting sticks between the spokes, pushing and blocking the way or taking parts from the luggage. The grownups very often support the children and seem often not to take foreigners as humans.

Places to Stay

Many people connect a bicycle travel unseparably with camping. This is right for areas without any facilities but in towns usually we sleep in houses. The most outstanding accommodation was the Hotel Ontario in Karlovy Vary. The best simple inns we found in Ethiopia. Although usually there is no shower you always get a double bed with clean sheets, blankets and a mosquito net if advisable. In opposition we found the most expensive hotels in Sudan. Yemenite hotels fascinated us with their original and beautiful architecture.

Food

The best food definitely we found in Italy. Outside of Europe especially the Lebanese and their neighbors value good food which they made with finesse. In most of the other countries the people prefer home made food as couscous in the maghreb or potatos, maize and bananas in East Africa. Until now the most monotonous food we got in Amhara region where the people mostly like to eat injera with meat prepared in one of three different ways: raw, half cooked or fried.

Climate

As cyclists we are concerned in a particular way by the weather conditions. As we have not an hermetic and air conditioned cabine around us, we have to endure high and low temperatures, the wind and the rain. The highest air temperatures we witnissed in Wadi Halfa where they reached 46°C. The coldest days by temperatures below freeze we endured in the mountainous Sauerland in Germany. There and in Black Africa we experienced the heaviest rainfalls. In the Middle East we had been opposed to the strongest winds of our whole journey.

Landscape

Scenic landscapes are without any doubt one of the highlights of a bicycle travel. The most impressive and beautiful landscapes of our journey had been the Lakes of Plitvice, Wadi Rum, the Lake Turkana as many others which we can't enumerate all. Cyprus impressed us by its natural diversity on a relatively small area. Opposite the Sahara we kept in mind because of its vastness and monotony.

Towns

Especially in towns you get a feeling for the way people live in a country and their culture. Architecturally we had been impressed at most by Karlovy Vary and Sana'a. The town with the highest altitude differences was Taiz, where some people have to climb altitudes of more than 1000 meters on the way from work to home. In Palermo, Nairobi and Damascus we liked particularly the life style and the feeling in the town. By history and the present political situation Jerusalem was without any doubt the most interesting place. Very sad feeling caused us the town Wadi Halfa. This former desert metropolis of more than a million of inhabitants was sacrified to the lake Nasser by Egypt and Sudan.

Gastronomy

Als travellers usually we are more often customers in restaurants, cafes and pubs than in the everyday life at home. Due to these circumstances gastronomic facilities are especially important for us.

In Tunisia we learnt to value cafes as meeting places. The most beautiful cafes and restaurants we had visited in the ancient town of Damascus. In Ethiopia the incomparable high density of bars and restaurants for us had been the expression of a society dedicated to leisure-time.

People

Syria is famous worldwide for its particular hospitality, in which we can only agree. The most colorful and exotic people on our way had been the tribes of the Hamer, Galeb and Turkana. The strong hierarchically organised society in the highlands of Ethiopia was the strangest one for us and which we found very difficult to understand however, at the first moment it looks very similar to an European society.