hello again, dunav

Okay, so i tried to post yesterday with some pictures too but yet again the blogger application ate my entry. Yesterday was tough, but rewarding enough to keep me going. There were a lot of big long hills once i finally navigated out of Belgrade. Belgrade is made out of mountains, by the way. Seriously its some treacherous terrain. With the long hills out of the city came some beautiful views of the Danube from afar, as well as views of the countyside with some fall foliage. The downhills were amazing, up to 53km/hour. Too bad they were precluded by uphills of 6km/hr :( All in all it worked out okay, but was definitely challenging. The drivers and passersby were very friendly too, one old guy who amazingly spoke english offered me coffee or tea after finding me overheated and perched on the cement 112km road marker in his front yard. Beats me how i can overheat when its 55f outside. One driver that waved quite enthusiastically really reminded me of Misi, too bad it wasnt Misi! Today! was a whole different can of beans. I somehow pushed myself stupidly against the wind for five hours to travel only 35km. The wind was worse than the Rosedale ride that one year when we had to forcibly pedal even the downhills. Maybe only worse because of the baggage, dunno. The weather would have been amazing and perfect except for the wind. Flat terrain, maybe only one climb, but still I could only move about 6km/hr, i got excited to reach 9km/hr, only.even for a few seconds. I was yelling at the wind to stop please for maybe an hour or at least slow down but the wind didnt care. I had to walk for a bit because the wind was throwing me around too much for me to be comfortable traveling anywhere.near cars, then i had to rest in a ditch because walking was too difficult too. Had to.give up on waiting the wind out, and ride again. Finally i reached.Veliko Gradište. Not much to report there...met up with the Danube again briefly. The wind was managable about 8km before Veliko Gradište as i started descending into the valley. The decent was 7% and seemed to last forever, but i did have a sinking feeling that i would have to.climb up that steeply again. Not yet though. Im staying just past Golubac for the night, just around the bend from the fortress. Once the walls of the valley started getting steeper, i was really glad that i had been tortured so much for a large part of the day. The views are amazing, so much so.that my bike had to reward me by getting a flat, then the wind started up again, ha. Either way, the fortress is amazing and the cliffs are amazing and the truck driver that stopped in the restaurant under the place i am staying is amazing too. One truck driver there knew english and helped me arrange my nightly accommodations; I finally got in trouble for not having the paper card that tells the police everywhere I have stayed in Serbia. Hopefully things will work out at the border on my way out, ha. Anyway, hot shower, hot soup, hot coffee, mostly cured. Hopefully tomorrow my broken ass knee will have decided to stop whining and carrying on. It should figure out by now it's not getting a break! Now to fix my flat...