The first day of my bike trip had finally come. Of course the day was a bit of a mess. I needed to send my backpack with my hiking clothes to my friend Maria in Basel for me to pick up when I got there. I realized I didn't have her address though and needed to check the internet. There is no internet cafe in Naklo, so I had to bike into Kranj. As soon as I got on my bike I remembered that when REI packed the bike, they let a lot of air out of the tires, so the tires don't blow out in the airplane. I bike the 30 meters over to the gas station and the first thing I do is not succeed in cliping out of my clip-less pedals and so I fall over on my left side and skin up my left elbow. After I compose myself after that grace-less debacle I try to figure out how to put the air gauge onto my bike's air gauge. Bike gauges are different from car tire gauges and so I ended up letting all the air out of my back tire. Humpf. So I walk my bike the 30 meters back to the hotel and gave to go up and get my emergency bike pump that I would be travelling with and try to pump as much air as I could into the tire. I would still need to visit a bike shop to get the correct amount of air in the tiress so I don't blow it out by having too little air (under-inflation is appearently the cause of most tire blow outs. The tire will have two holes that look like a snake bite). My tires would be good enough for now though.
So I bike into Kranj and was lucky enough to find an internet cafe (and they didn't even charge me) and spent my one minute looking up Maria's correct address and sending James and my parents an email letting them know I was beginning and that I had decided to go to Switzerland instead of biking along the Danube to the Black Sea (tempting fate a bit too much for a single woman to be travelling in Romania).
So then back in Naklo it cost 30 Euros to send my 6 kilo backpack to Basel! Ouch, that already put a cramp in my budget. I must bit the bullet though and send it.
So at around 11:30 I pedaled off to begin my grand bike trip to Switzerland. Of course I was carrying way too much weight in the panniers but I would just have to go. And often starting a trip can be the most confusing, which exact road do you take to get out of town and in the direction to the next town you want to go? I took a long route but at least I knew it would get me going in the right direction. And I was off!
While biking through Trzic, Slo (I didn't know it yet, but I was supposed to turn off to Austria before this) my pedal fell of while riding! Back in Naklo I had taken my clip-less pedals off and put the standard pedals on as I was terrified of having another grace-less fall, only this time with 30 lbs of luggage on the back and maybe even in front of a speeding truck. So back to the last town before that where there was a bike shop. The guys were very nice and put my standard pedal on correctly for me for free, but they could not figure out why I did not want my superior clip-less pedals and preferred the measly standard pedals.
Back to Trzic I followed the road in what I thought was the correct direction. It turns out it was not. After going about 15 km up very steep windy roads, exhausting myself, I was able to ask someone and they told me I needed to go back past Trzic and find the highway to Austria.
The highway to the Loiblpass looked very busy and intimidating, but I needed to get moving so I headed out. Soon, after having exhausted my going up the wrong road before and having to go uphill again I was unable to bike more than 15 km per hour, which I have found is the speed you need to maintain to keep the flies away from you. Soon more and more flies started buzzing around me and I was beginning to feel like Pig Pen from the Peanuts cartoon. Now I was so exhaused that I couldn't even continue biking uphill and had to get off and push my bike (basically another 7 km to the top of the pass). Now the flies really started to buzz around me as I could only push my bike 5 to 6 km per hour. Every once in a while I would stop and try to brush them away, but that did not work too well and they came right back. I was very embarassed that I knew I had so many flies around me that I'm sure the cars passing me could see a dark cloud around me. Every tenth of a kilometer was horrible, but I would note it from my odometer that I had made it another tenth of a km and was at least making headway and that kept me sane because the flies were so, so bad and landing all over me that I was on the verge of going mad, throwing my bike down and rolling around in the road to try to get them off of me. Some car would have driven up to me to find a crazy, sweaty woman in biker clothes mumbling on about the flies. It was a really terrible experience and I hope I don't ever have to go through that again.
I had wanted to get to Austria that night but I was desparate to find a place to stay. I passed the Ljubelj Concentration Camp, 1943 - 1945. I wasn't expecting to see a concentration camp along the way. I don't know the history, but I'm guessing that it was for the Jews from Ljublana and Slovenia to dig the 1.6 km long tunnel through the Loibl Pass. There was a pansion there, but it was full. I was feeling rather dejected.
Finally I made it to the top of the pass. I pushed my bike up to the Slovenian customs and got a royal grilling from the customs agent before being allowed to leave Slovenia and enter the tunnel to get let into Austria on the other side. The wonderful, wonderful thing about tunnels is the flies do not follow you into the tunnel. I was so happy going through that long tunnel and dreading the other side. In Austria though, the flies were not bad at all. I was so tired that I could not even pedal downhill. I could just sit on my bike and barely had enough energy for the brakes.
Gasthof Duetscher Peter was appeared like a mirage, and they had room for me! A wonderful guesthouse, even with an animal farm. So ends my first day, 63 km.
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