Day 10: Augustow, Poland to Białystok, Poland

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Well, today was the kind of day on which I just should have stayed in bed. When I woke, shockingly, it was raining and cold again. Each day has been darker and colder than the day before. I rode out anyway and headed to the internet place I had seen the night before in the center of town. I have discovered that most of the internet terminals in Poland are literally coin operated, which is kind of quirky. But this one had multimedia ports, so I was even able to plug my memory card in to put up some more pictures in the blog.

On the way out, I noticed a sports clothing store across the street. It was so cold that I decided to buy some long lycra pants to wear over my shorts. What they had was somewhere halfway between lycra and sweatpants, but it would have to do. That was such a good decision!

I also passed a few "shrines", for lack of a better term. Poland seems to be teeming with shrines, both to saints and to lost relatives, many of these by the roadside. Some have handmade crosses, but all have colored glass incense censers that look like a mix between a lantern and a jar for canning fruit preserves. I saw several of these just on the way out of Augustow.

One of the elements that drew me to this part of Poland was that signs of all three of the major religions from the region can be seen here -- Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish. I had read that right outside of Augustow in a little town called Grabowe Grady there was a community of Orthodox old believers: the men in flowing white beards, a beautiful church and a spectacular choir. So I took a turn off the main road and then another turn off of that road onto an ashen-looking dirt road to get to this town.

I found the church and cemetery here and it was a remarkable place, really out in the middle of nowhere. But there was not a soul to be found anywhere. I had read that the church was at the northernmost tip of the village, so I walked my bike down that ash/dirt road south from the church for about 4 miles or so. I came across a few people, but, at least by the sight of them, no old believers. I met a man with two puppies who lived in a wooden shack. He was in a suit that was caked in mud and he pointed me towards where the dirt road hit the pavement again. He asked me for a cigarette, I think, but all I had was chocolate, for which he thanked me and then he went back into the shack. And that was it.

I suddenly realized it was 2:00 and I still had a long way to go to get to Białystok by sunset, since I lost an hour at the border yesterday. So as I hit the paved road, I did my best to catch the one connecting paved road that would bring me back to the highway. Well, when I got to the tiny town where I was supposed to take a left turn, the "paved" road on the map turned out to be a dirt road. So I quickly figured out that I would have to go an extra 8 km or so to get out of there on all paved roads. Not good, especially as I could see storm clouds coming in my direction. The storm clouds made for very strong headwinds, too, and by the time I made it to the main highway, I was exhausted and my right Achilles tendon and knee were in a lot of pain. This had me very worried, as it was 2:30, I still had had nothing to eat and I had to get to Białystok by 7 pm at the latest.

There was no place to eat at the next town, so I kept pedalling until I did find a "grill" and had some pierogi and soup to warm up. While there, I faced up to my biggest concern about the end of this trip -- finding a bike shop in Warsaw that could box my bike for the plane. I have had visions for the past few days of finding no way to transport my bike back to the US and having to wait an extra week while a bike shop orders a box. So I had written down the phone numbers of about 15 bike shops in Warsaw. Literally the first one I called said: "no problem -- it will take us about 30 minutes. Bring it in whenever!" Major issue resolved!

I got back on the road and every fiber of my legs was killing me, yet I still had 60 km to get to Białystok. And I also began to realize that, unlike the Via Baltica, which I much maligned before, the highways here have NO shoulder. And this is the main route from the Baltics to Warsaw, so the road is loaded with trucks. They've generally been good about going around me on these roads, but at one point a truck honked at me solidly for 15 seconds before passing...I gave him a less-than-friendly hand signal. It was about the time I was having that it started to rain and I really started to feel sorry for myself and wonder if I could ever make it to Białystok today.

About 12 km further in, I stopped for some tea to warm up and noticed they were showing the Tour de Pologne on their TV. The cyclists were all getting soaked AND climbing mountains in the south of Poland, so I realized I was being a wimp, finished my tea and pounded out the remaining 48 km to Białystok, despite the many, many hills and the continual drizzle.

I arrived here before it got dark, but had such trouble finding my hotel that I was riding around for about 20 minutes in the dark. The hotel -- Hotel Turkus -- is a strange place. The halls remind me of Moscow apartment blocks (the legend when I lived there was that the person who designed all the concrete block apartments originally designed prisons, which explained the very severe, padded doors for the rooms). The decor of the restaurant had to be seen to be believed (see photo). But the dinner here (no other options beyond the hotel restaurant, since we're in the middle of nowhere) was very good and was not ruined by the "dance party"/karaoke going on on the dance floor. I'm here today and tomorrow to take a rest, then it is 2 more biking days to Warsaw.

Vitals on today's ride:
Distance: 67 miles (total ride: 567 miles)
Map of route: http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=21577
Soundtrack: Aretha Franklin, Live at the Fillmore West 1971; Steeley Dan, Live at the Record Plant