Jordi repeatedly warned us that we should not ride out of the city. Kiev has only a handful of ways in and out of it, and they all seem to be expressways. Masha, the girlfriend of Jordi, happens to be a professional bicycle tour operator, and she reitereated what Jordi had to say about the safety of leaving Kiev. Nate braved crowds and an enormous language barrier to find two tickets. The rest of the morning was spent lounging on the grass outside of the Kiev train station.
With tickets purchased, a much needed lounge on the grass ensues
The train rideto Bialyserkov was supposedly an hour long trip. Instead, we were stuck on a Soviet era train for nearly four hours, smashed up against nearly a hundred people in our car alone, with a squat toilet between cars reeking of the worst of human excretions. In short, it was an excellent affirmation of our belief that riding bicycles is in fact a superior form a travel.
Nate is so very excited to be off the train
Getting off the train at Bialy Tserkov was an enormous relief as we practically gulped down fresh air. We were faced with two options for disembarking, one being hauling fully loaded bicycles weighing about 50 pounds each up four flights of stairs and across the train tracks. While this sounded like great fun, our second option seemed more practical, albeit challenging in its own fashion. This option featured a ramp whose gated five foot tall entrance was welded shut. We peeled bags off of the bicycles, passed them over the gate, and then climbed around the top of the ramp, which was about six feet off of rather heavily trafficked train tracks.
Ramp access is for wimps
Desperate to get moving and away from all things involving trains, we took of in what we assumed was the correct direction. Beautiful, winding, two lane country roads with barely any traffic to speak of stretched as far as the eye could see, with sunflower and wheat fields punctuated by ancient wind breaks. City traffic rapidly gave way to single speed bicycles from the 1960s and ubiquitous Lada automobiles. These seem to be the only automobiles owned by rural Ukrainians, and they only come in a handful of colors, those being green, green, or occasionally light green.
One hundred acres of sunflowers, being camera shy
Snack breaks keep Katie happy
The importance of water cannot be emphasized enough. Dehydration does not just make you feel like you want to die, it also makes you an incredibly crabby touring partner. In order to avoid dehydration and its resulting crabbiness, we were required to stop for water approximately every twenty miles. In the middle of the Urkaine, running water is almost completely unheard of. Wells, both public and private, are the only means of obtaining clean drinking water. At our first stop, we were greeted by curious peasants wondering what the hell a pair of random Americans were doing in their village of twenty families. Bemused, they were more than happy to provide us with icy cold water from 40 meters below the ground. At our second stop, we were given a quart of freshly picked sour cherries, and we stopped to enjoy them, along with more delicious water.
As the day wound down, our lovely road suddenly dead ended into a raging expressway. We realized that we had gone around in a scenic, if uneccessary triangle. Oops. With lessons learned about asking for directions, we made camp in a wind break, and with rice in our stomachs, we watched the sun set. We were promptly devoured by mosquitos, which truly added to the ambience of the experience.
Happily stretching before the influx of winged monsters
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