So, after our crazy weekend to remember in Romania we became a posse of 4 again with Janos and drunkenly
passed on into Ukraine! It was getting dark by the time we had got through border control but an hour or
two's riding got us into the countryside and found a perfectly suitable corn field to make camp.Awoke the next day and yipee Claire was another year older! Not the most exciting start as just packed up and left, all really tired and still in recovery so just on the bikes and off. Got to a small town and a stop for much needed caffine hit - weird nescafe but it'll do. Sitting outside supping away when a friendly local came by, he spoke Hungarian so actually were able to communicate this time through Janos. Keen to share history of the area, shared his grapes and apples and even went to get his money collection for us! In return for old Ukrainian bread tokens we gifted him some English pennies - he was so happy! Off again and to a bigger village with a great rambling everything-you-could-want market, picnic lunch and then coffee and cake treats!
The road conditions went from good to rather diabolical after lunch, took a 'B' road that ended up being
a stone track down some hills turned waterfalls! But managed OK and really got off the beaten track. Into
a patch of forest to camp and a really nice spot, perfect for campfire and birthday feast! First course of
quinoa and veges fresh from the market, then stuffed marrow. Dessert of chocolate stuffed bananas and sour
cherry and poppy seed stuffed apples baked on the fire. mmmmm we eat darn good I tells ya.Next day a lovely lie in, nice and cool and quiet. Up to lazy breakfast and some bike maintainence. When we left again the road continued to be rather patchy, and some big inquizative stares from the locals. Like they never seen cycle tourers before?!
Onto a better busier road but still got to race horse and carts :) Started to rain so took shelter by a river
to eat and wait for it to stop - the Trans-Carpathians where we were cycling have very changable weather - lots
of sudden rain and thunder storms. Ate as a man walked his cow along on a piece of string and some ladies herded
their goats past.Continued along past old soviet style buildings and had local kids come ride with us for a bit, thought we were very amusing! In the small shops they use abacuses to add up your bill and its ridiculously cheap - beer 20p and fresh veges are almost nothing.
Went up a side road with the idea to visit the blacksmiths the next day, up along the valley but quite populated
and little sign of camping spots. Stopped by some women wanting a chat and ended up being invited to camp on ones
lawn! Then got fed (not very vege) soup for dinner. Really lovely lady and although complete language barrier we
still managed good conversation!Next day up to see the blacksmiths which I can't comment on as feeling ill - but the guy doing the tour was rather hammered (of the vodka variety) at 9am!
Another great little local market for lunch supplies, full of atmosphere and everyone out and about, we all really
loved the markets! Enforced lunch stop when Saskia got a flattie, but nice view of the hills and cooked up a feast.
Rest of the day saw more patchy rain and nice mountain cycling. up a steep bank in the evening to find a great
little spot to camp, not too private though, the local kids came to say hello and giggle and in the morning we met
the local shephard out with his cows. Came to sit down and share his homemade vodka with us (see the theme here?)
funny chap, keen to chat.
Thursday now and it was a pretty easy cycle towards the camp, up and down a good hill and a stop by the river for a
swim and clean ourselves up a bit. Arrived at the site about 3pm.. over a bridge and onto a spot of land owned by
the University of Uzghord.Really strange to be at our end destination (well, for now!) already quite a few folks there busy setting up so put our tents up and got stuck in too.... NO BORDERS.
The site for the camp was really lovely, on the side of a hill with lots of forest and a great (and much needed) swimming river close by. There was a field and also an old hanger that was good for big meetings and the concerts. There was a lot of work to do setting up, everything was done from scratch - showers, loo's and a very impressive kitchen with huge hot plates over open fires to cook food on. After a few days setting up the workshops began - attended on where people shared what immigration and border issues were like in their home country. Very informative but also very depressing. Went along to the Food Not Bombs gathering too, people from around the world were there all sharing experiences, and then cooking everyone dinner! There was a big huge fire pit and circle for social gathering and also morning meetings... these were often too long and rather frustrating, esp when the 'Should we feed the cops' discussions began! I think what I enjoyed most were the informal chats and meeting people from all over the place. There were a lot of people from Russia and Belarus and all meetings were in Russian and English. It was quickly obvious the differences in activism and the political situations between the soviet countries and those in the west.
It was a pity we had to leave in the middle of the camp but visa issues required us to got to Lviv (oh the irony!). A quick whirlwind visit with Janos, managed to sort out applying for our visas for Russia (don't ask how much it cost!) and got to see a bit of the town - really beautiful but knew we would be coming back. Returned to camp for a crazy punk gig complete with unusual Russian male bonding run round in a circle dance.. interesting. More my thing was the cheesy disco a few nights later - all the classics and just like being back in London ;)
The whole camp was more focussed on workshops and networking rather than actions but at the end of the week a small group visited the deportation/asylum seekers camp in the area and tried to make contact, whilst a bigger group went to the local offices in town and held a demo in the city center. The conditions for the people inside the camp are of course atrocious, denial of lawyers, medical care and interpreters. A group formed at the camp to keep a local campaign going working with ex residents to highlight the problems. As the camp came to a close we had to say goodbye to many cool people including Janos back to Hungry and Saskia back to London... very sad to see the our lovely cycling companion go, it was a very special 3 months on the road us girls together! Tabs and I stayed a few extra days to help (kinda) pack down and then it was time for us too to head off - back to Lviv!
we are in lviv, me, claire and janos hitched here (very slowly) yesterday
so we could start to sort out our russian visas so that hopefully they
will be ready before claires ukrainian visa expires. went to the
consulate earlier today to get forms etc and find out if it was possible.
it seems it is possible, so we left it in the hands of local travel agent.
also booked trans-sib for the 18th september. its all pretty scary cos if
one thing goes wrong (the train booking or the russian, chinese or
mongolian visas) it fucks everything up. just have to grin and hope for
the best!
claire now has her wallet! 3 and a half months after we were by epping
forest and she realised she left it at tottenham. it chased her to
amsterdam, berlin, and then took a detour to greece before catching her up
finally at ukraine. we were thinking about giving the wallet its own
blog! Tabs.NoBorders camp to Lviv.------
The ride from NoBorders camp to Lviv was a really nice one, with the Carpathian Mountains providing beautiful scenery and the quiet road taking us through many out-of-the-way villages.
That is apart from a slight incident at the start!
It turned out that dispite our efforts during the camp to abolish all borders the Ukrainian border police didn't really share our dream and still actually quite liked borders. And they didn't really like people camping next to them. Which apparently we were, on our first night after leaving NoBorders camp.
We had just found a forest and camped there as usual, and had a good nights sleep. It wasn't till the next morning during breakfast that we realised the error of our ways. Through the trees appeared a crew of camo uniformed men with guns and dogs. We wern't really too worried cos we recognised them as Ukrainian police, and figured we had done nothing wrong. They checked our passports and immigration cards (these are almost as important as a visa in Ukraine), but couldn't comprehend that two females could be travelling without an accompanying man...So they made us sit and wait whilst they searched the whole forest. When they returned more than an hour later without having found our "man" we figured we could go on our way.
Not so!
They loaded our bags and bikes onto the truck and off we trundled to the "border house". They didn't speak more than 10 words of English between them so we didn't have a clue what was going on. What we did know was that they were driving us back in the direction of Uzhgorod. Aside from detaining us and driving us back down the road they were actually being quite nice to us. This changed when we reached Border Guard HQ and were confronted by an angry man in an office who once again demanded our passports. We had to show him where New Zealand was on a map, and try to explain that my passort said Great Britain and Northern Ireland on it, but that didnt mean i was from Ireland.
After about another hour of uncomprehensable angriness, directed at us and various people down the phone a young English speaking border guard was marched in as translater. He explained the problem was that our camping spot had been less than a kilometer from the Slovakian (EU) border. The angry guard then told us we could not continue on the same road to Lviv because it continued close to the border. We must go back to Uzhgorod, to Mukachavow and up the motorway to get to Lviv. We politely reminded him that we were tourists travelling by bike, and that his suggested route, as well as being a 200km detour, was a bit dangerous cos it took us on a motorway for 250km.
Luckily for us at this moment a second senior policeman came into the room and said we could carry on as we were. So we legged it out with our bags and bikes and cycled speedily up the road for the second time in 24 hours. The ordeal had taken about 5 hours so we had lost a lot of cycling time as well as being 15km further away from Lviv than when we had woken up. But at least we could take the same road!
That night, in order to avoid the same thing happening again, we cycled well into the darkness and reached a border guard checkpoint where the road neared the Polish border. We said a cheery hello to the guards, one of whom had helped us hitch a lift the previous week, and told them we were camping next to their hut. Better-the-border-guard-you-know!
The rest of the trip was really pleasant but uneventful in comparison, thankfully. We had a minor issue with some cows trying to eat our paniers, bumped into 10 Russian cycle tourists, passed through a mountainous rural idyll, then through a ski resort and into Lviv a day earlier than anticipated.
