We had a great time with our new friends in Maribor but today it was time to move on. Thanks to everyone, but especially Bora who picked us up off the street and took us home and his girlfriend Metka. Between the two of them we were treated to many interesting chats about Slovenia and the world in general over glasses of beer. We drooled over a home cooked meal of stuffed peppers and mashed potatoes and we saw the fireworks for the end of the Lent Festival. Experiences like this always remind us what a kind place the world really is. By the time we got on our bikes and rolled out of Slovenia’s second city it was nearly noon and already getting quite hot. The saving grace of the day was that the Sunday traffic wasn’t nearly as heavy as it might have been otherwise on the main road running towards Hungary. According to our map, a motorway should have in place several years ago, but so far it’s still little more than piles of dirt by the side of the road, so all the trucks heading east clog up the smaller routes during the week. We lunched under some trees and then headed out again in the early afternoon but we took a wrong turn and soon found ourselves going more south than east. There’s just something about backtracking though that’s hard to do so instead of turning around we carried on regardless, still towards Hungary but not via the most direct route. Late in the day we stopped at a swish spa and campground to see about spending the night but the price was too rich for our taste. Instead we rolled on just a few more kilometers and found a large field that was perfect for our tent. Tomorrow we should easily reach Hungary and then, a few days later, Budapest.

It’s not every day you get picked up off the street and treated to a coffee in someone’s home but today turned out to be our lucky day. We were just sitting in the university town of Maribor, having lunch on a bench in the city centre, when a man came up to us and asked if we’d like to share a drink with him. He was also a cyclist, about our age, and had noticed us eating sandwiches from his apartment several floors up in a nearby building. Soon we were chatting together in Bora’s flat, which he shares with 7 other students. It brought back some memories of living in student accomodation for us, not so long ago, with the odd posters, fun music and very interesting people. We got on very well and before long he offered us a place for the night so we could go out in the evening and enjoy a music and arts festival going on in Maribor at the moment. Well, we had a great night out drinking beer with our new Slovenian friends and have decided to stay at least one more day in the city with them. What a wonderful chance meeting. Who knows when we will get to Budapest at this rate, but at least we are having fun along the way!

Some random things we have learned so far from our new friends:

• Albanians make the best ice cream
• Slovenia is a very equal country
• Polka music is actually very popular (yes, really — check out the Atomik Harmonik picture)
• There is no mass exodus to Britain now that they are part of the EU
• Liquor with less than 25% alcohol is considered a “light” drink
• Many people have stills in their back yards and make their own brandy
• If there is a crazy sports person out there, they are probably Slovenian (like Martin Strel)

Ahh, clear skies. A cyclist’s friend, especially after it just wouldn’t stop raining since noon yesterday. We left our hotel and ended up finding a very cheap Internet cafe and catching up on the important details of our online life. The cafe was full of very friendly people, who tried to convince us to stay a few more days since the town was going to be hosting a film festival and number of bands but instead we decided to carry on and eventually we got going down the road by midday. Since it was a gorgeous sunny day it seemed a crime not to cycle in it. Most of the afternoon was spend winding our way up and down a rural road, which was nicely shaded. We had to cross the railway tracks several times and it seemed we were forever stopping at the crossing for the next train or just getting over the tracks before the barriers went down. Near supper time we turned on to a more minor road where we had dinner and watched a farmer fertilise his field; thankfully not with manure or our dinner might have been abandoned! We listened to the radio for a while and then crawled up further into the field and behind a few trees, where we found the perfect spot for our tent.

After a long break, it’s finally time for another radio show! This time we talk about our first few days in Slovenia (what a wonderful country, so many waterfalls and stunning rivers!!) and also feature an interview with Andrew and Eider, a couple we met in a French campground. They share tales and advice from their overland tour from Australia to Spain, not on bicycle but very interesting all the same, especially since they collected stories from locals as they travelled in a project that got funding and support from the UN. You can read more about Andrew and Eider’s project Environmental Memoirs, and also take a look at their personal blog, which features some stories from their travels.

 

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The children’s song “Rain, rain, go away, come again another day,” was ringing in our heads today as we sheltered in a bus stop by the side of the road in the middle of Slovenia. Rain is stopping play at Wimbledon and a few thousand kilometers away it’s not doing much for our cycling either. The water started to pour down just before noon, with some thunder and lightening thrown in for good measure. We had our lunch, read our books, changed our clothes, repacked our bags and still we waited for the rain to stop. We were happy enough, dry and warm, but we were going a bit stir crazy so when the rain eased a bit a couple hours later we made a dash for the nearby town of Celje, thinking it wouldn’t be long before the storm blew over entirely. Wrong! As we stopped for groceries the skies opened again and the rain came down harder than ever. We debated trying to wait it out, hoping to find a camping spot for the night, but we soon realised our chances were slim so we got a hotel room instead. It turned out to be the right move because several hours later the water is still accumulating on the streets of the town. We made one trip out of our room for food and barely made it around the block before we were soaked. One bright spot in our day came not from the weather but some good news on the radio: the release of Alan Johnston, the BBC’s correspondent in Gaza. He was kidnapped in March and every day since then we’ve listened to the latest efforts to free him, his words as he was dressed in an explosives belt and forced to appear in a video by his captors and messages of hope to him from listeners around the world. Very moving stuff and we were relieved to hear he was finally released unharmed. It’s amazing how attached you can get to someone you don’t even know.