Not much happening today...I manage to drag myself out of bed for some breakfast, aided by Paracetamol. While I spend most of the rest of the day sleeping, Nadine is out in Reykjavik, buying food and checking out the pool. In the evening, I start feeling slightly better, and we go for a small walk around town - again, helped by some paracetamol. Here's to hoping this whole mess will be better tomorrow morning!... read more

Late morning, the sun (!) wakes us, and we crawl out of our tent for some breakfast and coffee. Using the "super special" burning liquid bought in an outdoor shop in Reykjavik almost sets the tent on fire, because it produces a high flame, and all efforts to extinguish or control the size of the flame are in vain. Additionally, it completely covers all cookware involved in a thick layer of black soot. Quality stuff! Just for reference, if you own a Trangia using liquid fuel and you value your life, do not use Primus PowerFuel! To extinguish the flame, we needed to resort to using some of the moss around us. Yes, it's that bad! The coffee is still ok, and we pack up and continue on towards Ƥingvellir, the field between the European and ... read more

Day of arrival - if not without problems. It's the classical situation, almost ripe for a movie...you're almost there, but yet so far...anyways, let's start from the beginning. Waking up a last time, we go through the usual ritual: I make coffee, Hans takes down the tent, we have some breakfast, then get on our way. The road is good, but my rear tyre has lost pressure once again overnight and needs to be pumped up again. Not a good sign, but we're only about 50km from Lepel, surely it will last at least until we're there! Also, we're running pretty low on water, but we'll definitely find a shop sometime soon. With the type of road condition we're on right now, we'll be in Lepel in a few hours. Spoke too soon: soon, we arrive ... read more

What a helpful bunch of people these Belarussians are! Some of the friendliest people I've met on our journey I met today, here in Belarus. But first, let's talk about what happened... Around 9am it seems that the rain finally stops and we crawl out of our tent that held up well against the storm. We use the last of our water for some coffee and continue along the M7 towards Ashmani. The first problem: we need money. I try a cash machine, but it turns out that Belarussian cash points don't accept debit cards. Fortunately, I have some Litas left over and I find a bank that does foreign exchange. Taking all my Belarussian (which I got out of a simple language book) together, I go in and manage to get my money exchanged, the ... read more

Day 11 of our journey, and the legs are starting to feel tired. A good thing that the road out of Druskininkai is absolutely perfect: sheltered from the wind, flat, and the sun is not too hot. On our way out of Druskininkai, we get lost once again (as we did on the way out of pretty much every single larger town). Two Lithuanian women, dressed up in their fancy car, offer to not only help us find the way, but drive with us to make sure we find it. Once they made sure we found the right junction, we have a little chat with them and they are quite interested in our journey (they speak perfect English). Once back on the way and well out of the town, we notice that (a) not every small ... read more