After five days in the Delta and equipped with medication again, we moved swiftly through the plains west of the Siret river. Just when we dared to think about reaching the next city and reliable internet that night (the next day a meeting ouf our construction group was scheduled for half a day) an all-too-familiar "pling" sound brought us to a stop in Gulianca.
As the next gas station with a pump (with ours it takes ages to refill the tire after changing the spoke) was quite far, I suggested we try to ask for a pump in the village. Saturday, early afternoon, we found a mini market with a lot of people hanging out. We were truely lucky, one spoke some English, another some Italian, and a third, a young car mechanic, changed the tire, and the spoke in minutes, while someone was sent home to fetch a pump. A formula1 type event, we could have reached the city except we were now invited to coffee, beer, and to spend the night, which we all gratefully accepted. We spent the afternoon and evening with Cosmin and his brother, his godfather and learned about village life, history and external relations - most people have spent some time in another country (here: Italy and the UK) and many have returned.
The next day we followed our contruction group meeting in a small park three villages further, luckily the connection worked reasonably well and we have enough data left this month.... A rainy morning kept us in Tecuci on Monday, fortunately the local museum was open and free of charge and we got a personal guided tour through all the exhibits in Romanian. We were amazed how much we understood, well pronounced, with plenty of enthusiasm, and a lot of scientific vocabulary it was easier than expected. Of course it also helped that we have acquired quite some knowledge on the region and especially the early history so that most exhibits did not need that much explanation...
In the afternoon we set off inspite of slight drizzling hoping a hotel we had identified on google would be able to host us. Unfortunately the road we took was beeing reconstructed after new sewage tubes had been put in and was a complete mudpuddle. As there was quite a bit of traffic we, our bike and the luggage were a complete mess! As we entered the village, someone called out in German: "Seid Ihr aus Deutschland, møchtet Ihr einen Kaffee haben?" It was Mihael, who had learned his fluent German in Torgau, very close to Leipzig and lived on a small farm with his wife and his children and foster children (alltogether 18 at some point in their life). Among the many buildings was a charming round reed-covered house, which they had designed and built themselves. We gratefully accepted their invitation to spend the night there, and after getting to know all the animals on the farm had very interesting conversations about Romania and Germany. Besides Mihael also one of his foster daughters had spent considerable time there they were grateful for all the help they have received (including a house left over at some point from a red cross intervention and taken to Romania by lorry, which Mihael assembled himself on his farm). On the next morning - sunny again - we cleaned the bike and all the luggage with the help of a water house in the front garden and set off to two days of beautiful cycling on sometimes challenging roads but through a very lovely landscape, rolling hills, blooming trees everywhere and lush spring green tones.
The next night we camped on the property of the owner of the village store, where we had asked where we could put up our tent. Again, we were invited to spend the night in their house and to very tasty homemade liquor. The latter we accepted but as we had another construction group skype meeting and spent many days in real beds we were quite happy to set up our tent there.