Today’s ride was particularly scenic, at times it felt like I was in New Zealand again, surrounded by sheer cliff faces while cycling alongside running water.

We started our day with some borek, a common breakfast food comprised of pastry and a filling of ricotta cheese and spinach, plus other sweets from the bakery.

It started raining after half an hour, but at least the weather was cool and we wouldn’t be stuck in the sun like yesterday. In one of the towns, we came across another cycle tourer a German guy who was cycling to Thailand over 8-10 months. I was glad Leo did all the talking because he had such ridiculously nice eyes, that I ended up awkwardly looking at the ground. We had a laugh over it later though.

Leo: Wow, how nice were that guy’s eyes?
Me: Yeah, I don’t know how you could concentrate for long enough to hold a conversation with him.
Leo: Man, I was struggling.

Anyway, once we left the Pirot municipality, the road suddenly turned into a super smooth, tarmac road. The best thing about today’s ride is that there is a new freeway and tunnel which most cars would use instead of this route. So for the whole day we could ride side by side, chat and stop more often for photos without any traffic bothering us.

The land formations changed quite drastically and even though we were among mountains again, they were completely different.

We arrived in Zajecar and went out to dinner with Leo’s new friends. At the start of August we flew to Istanbul separately and each waited an hour and a half in passport control. I managed to make friends with a cool bunch of Canadians and a dancer from Brazil, while Leo met a Serbian guy and his American girlfriend. We all had a range of travel and life stories to share, as well as a tonne of food.

I look pretty tired in the picture, but it probably gets worse, since tomorrow is the 150km ride to Romania. I’m hoping it’s not too rough…