http://www.pdsnoki.org/
Fundraising Goal: $9,000, or $9 per kilometer!!!
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Another cold day in the Baltics, with no sun. The plan today was to make it to the Lithuanian/Polish border town of Kalvarija, but that plan was foiled. I headed over to the tourism office to enlist their help in finding me a homestay, hotel or guest house in Kalvarija. They were very nice and helpful, but after 30 minutes, it became clear that there was nothing. They told me that the border district between Marijampolė and Suwałki, Poland, was just forest, with not much there. They encouraged me to stay in Marijampolė, which was a larger town, but a good 18 km further inward than Kalvarija -- this would mean a very short day of riding (probably only 38 miles) and a very long day the next day to Poland. I agreed and booked a modern-looking hotel called the Keta Guest House for a what I thought was a high price of 130 litas ($54). The man at the tourist office wanted to know all about how my trip had been going and what I thought of Lithuania. We got to talking and it turned out that he had spent one year in school in Kaunas with my Lithuanian friend from Fletcher, Paulus Vilemas.
On the way back from the tourist office, I saw a car with a Vermont license plate -- this one's for you, Leslie! I checked out, picked up my nicely cleaned and folded laundry (which made it very easy to pack!), hit the post office to lighten my load by sending my Baltics book and map home and then got on the road.As I noticed when I arrived here, Kaunas is in a deep river valley, so I had a 1 km climb to get out, but it wasn't too bad. And the ibuprofen knocked out any ankle soreness, so all was good. Because it was very cold, I stopped on the far outskirts of town to warm up and get some lunch at a cute
little place, painted green on the outside and fuscia on the inside. I had one of the greasiest meals I've ever had (Lithuanian potato pancakes, though really good, are fried in bacon grease and served dripping in it. You then dunk it in sour cream...).I got back on the road and noticed on the map that I had no choice but to ride about 7 km on the full, 4-lane highway before catching the country road 230. This actually wouldn't have been too bad except that they were repairing the highway, so the other direction was closed and we had two-way traffic for these 7 km. There was barely any shoulder and at one point a massive, wide load came in the other direction, while a truck was passing me. That wasn't fun, but I saw it well in advance and pulled off onto the gravel.
When I finally got to the 230, I was relieved. That was a poor instinct. The 30 km of the 230 was the worst riding experience I have has so far. While the paving was quite good (many of these roads use the gravel-on-tar paving that creates a lot of resistance for road bike tires, but this was true pavement), apparently the trucks prefer this road to the highway that it parallels. I don't know why, but this road was FULL OF TRUCKS! There was a permanent ridge between the edge of the road and the right tire line of the road from all the heavy truck traffic, I guess, and there was n
o shoulder. So as these trucks went by every 5 seconds or so, I had to stay to the right of the ridge, on the white line and avoid falling into the dirt-and-gravel shoulder. It was pretty harrowing and I just couldn't help but wonder why the trucks took this route. Maybe the highway is a toll road, I don't know. The only pleasant moments were the baby goat I saw early on and the statue park dedicated to an early president of Lithuania, Kazys Grinius. Grinius was a doctor who studied in Moscow but fought for Lithuanian independence. He eventually was expelled to Germany as the Russians advanced in WWII and then emigrated to the US. He died in Chicago among the Lithuanian community there.
I made it in to Marijampolė quickly and then searched around for my hotel. But to my surprise I found a bike shop and asked them to help me check my tire pressure. My rear pressure in particular seemed really low. The guy tried to pump the air in but he had no valve on the end of his pump and it literally blew off the tire when he pumped it. So no luck. I also noted there was a little hotel over the shop, just in case there was any problem with the one I had booked.I got my bearings and found my hotel, the Keta Guest House. It looked nice and very modern and there was a "wurst house" attached. As I came into the room (ground floor, hurray!), the woman behind the desk took a phone call. It was the manager, who must have seem me arrive from the wurst house. He told her I could not keep the bike in the room. I asked her where he proposed that I put it and she showed me the fence outside the hotel. I told her that meant I couldn't stay at her hotel, and she was very sorry. I asked to speak to the manager and he refused! So I left and asked where there was another hotel. She said there was one right next door.
This other hotel looked very nice so I figured it was very expensive. I rang the bell to enter and nobody responded, but while I was there, unbelievably, I saw another bike shop. This was a tiny, bike repair shop and they spoke only German. Nevertheless, they had a pump, a gauge and a presta/schraeder adapter so they were able to pump me up competely. What a difference -- the tires are great now.
When I went back to this other hotel to ring again, someone finally opened the door. This was a very modern building, with conference facilities and African art in the vestibule. The lady who let me in said she didn't work there. She said in broken Russian that this hotel was closed but she had trouble explaining what she meant. Another man came in a suit and tie and said in English that it was not a hotel. I asked why it had the Lithuanian word for hotel and stars on the outside. He seemed confused and said it was used for something else now, but he didn't know what. I was about to ask him why he was there, but then I realized there was really no point in asking more questions -- this was already getting into really strange territory, so I just walked out and figured I'd go back to the other place above the other bike shop.
But then I remembered I had noted an Internet cafe on the way in, so I went there, looked something up online and was all set. The Hotel Zilina was on the outskirts of town, but still wanted 110 ($45) litas for the room (or so I thought), but I booked it at that price and sight unseen, to be sure I had a place.
When I got there, though, it was totally fine. They only took cash, which they wanted up front, but they LOVED that my name was Strauss and the room and shower were fine. I had to carefully close the flimsy shade so as not to give the house next door a show, and there were no restaurants within miles, but otherwise it was fine. There was a grocery store nearby, though, where I was able to get some cash, some local delicacies for dinner (a round sweet bread, some dried apricots, a banana, some sliced salami and cheese, and a beer). They even had a little pharmacy, so I got some extra ibuprofen at 40 cents for a pack of 20.
When I came back and tried to pay, I discovered that in my terrible Russian, I had misunderstood the price. The room was 70 litas, or about $29. I guess tomorrow I'll need to spend those extra litas before I leave Lithuania!
Vitals on today's ride:
Distance: 40 miles (with back-and-forths in Marijampolė), total: 443 miles
Route map: http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=21496
Soundtrack: The Rolling Stones, Live at Leeds (1970s), Murzilki, Live at Mathattan Express, Moscow, 1995.
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