Day 40 - Vukovar to Novi Sad (50 miles)

Today was the day I entered Serbia. And today was another day of wind -  worse I think than yesterday - on long, straight stretches of exposed road through a more or less flat and agricultural landscape. I left Vukovar on a main road following a ridge above the southern bank of the Danube, although I never saw the river as it lay behind a string of buildings and trees. I passed the extensive war cemetery just outside town and through the occasional small village, each a mix of the old and somewhat shabby, the new, looking like retirement bungalows, and the unfinished, the underlying brickwork complete, obviously lived in, but clearly awaiting rendering to finish the work.

All the while I was cycling into the teeth of another constant and gusting wind. It is tiring work. Every push on the pedal just keeps you moving slowly forward, nothing more; it feels like there is nothing that you can do to add to your momentum, add to your speed. Stop pedalling and the wind brings you to a halt in yards, there is no freewheeling here, even on the downhill inclines you are pedalling. It is constant work with little sense of progress. All you can hear is the wind in your ears. All you can feel is the wind on your face and tugging at your clothing. And all the while you are trying not to think about the wind and its effect on the day. On any other day this would be an uninteresting but pleasant ride on good tarmac and gently undulating ground. But not today.

The route threw in four short steep descents to villages at river level, although there was no sign of the river, followed by the inevitable ascent, welcoming in a way as they shielded you from the worst of the wind. But the outcome of the wind and the hills was that it took three hours of constant cycling to complete the twenty three miles to Bačka Palanka and the border with Serbia. 

I passed through the Croatian passport control on the south bank, over the bridge and through the Serbian passport control and into Bačka Palanka and Serbia. All very seamless. It was then east again and back into the wind, this time on the opposite shore but along another busy main road. After five miles with too many cars, too many lorries and too many close passes it was a short stretch cross-country and to the Danube flood Dyke. Everything seems slightly different to previous occasions: the views to the wood by the river, the occasional house and across to the distant hills all remind me of Central America to the point I almost greet a shepherd watching his sheep in Spanish. I see boxes sitting on the edge of fields, like a chest with multicoloured drawers, and I realise they are beehives. And I notice the way the grass and trees bend to the wind while I am trying to force myself against it.

Eventually I reached Novi Sad, Serbia's second biggest city, where my arrival coincides with the work visit of a friend. I first find a pizza restaurant where I eat a late lunch, not having eaten properly that day so far, and then I head off to find the apartment that Beatriz has rented to cover her four days here while working at the university, an apartment with a washing machine which was put to good use that evening while we went into the old town for dinner.