the long and winding road...

because of the lack of digital photögraphing and the funny keey boards, like this one, we have been bolg negligent and we apologise. so let me fill you in on the last month:

romania: one of the most beautifull countries that we have been to that is contrasted with lush green mountians and hillsides and impoverished peoples that will beg for anything that you might have in any way that they seem fit. like a mom holding her crying and starving baby over the edge of a railing seperating a food court and a street so that the baby is hovering over you and your food pointing, drooling, screaming. the mom...indiferent, vacant stare, giving you the "its not my fault that you wont share" look.
we cycled close to 500 miles in this country and we did so pretty quickly so that we could get out and into "more civilised" land. we did happen to mee a french guy who was finishing his around the world bike adventure and that was sweet. we also met the nicest romanian brothers in the country. they let us sleep in their yard becasue the campground down the road was booked solid and piper gave the tear jerker burts to get us in. they instsied that we try some romanian moonshine, bystrika. powerfull enough to burn. when we left romania the rain began...

hungary: as soon as you cross the hungarian romanian border many things become apparent. romania is very poor, hungary is not. the roads were the first major difference. they were smooth!! wow, what a novelty. the first town that we came to had bike paths!! and people used them!! more noveltys. as we approached our first major hungarian city a mountian biker cycled up to us and befriended piper. if we were in romani or bulgaria or even turkey and someone biked up to you to talk they were surely crazy, or drunk, or going to try to steal or beg. but this guy offered to buy us poweraid and insisted on taking us into the city to buy us a beer¨!! where the hell are we?!?! so Zoltau became our first hungarian friend.
we ventured on following cÿcle paths to a wine region where you can get your bottles filled from the keg for pennies and then to the hungarian hills of svlvasvarad. we tried to mountian bike here but got rained out and discovered that most of the mountian bike trails are paved...hhmmm. from here we trudged through more rain to slovakia...

slovakia: amazing for cyclists. signed cycleways, quiet roads, long valleys, mountians...were going back!! we cycled the 3 major national parks in the country: the slovensky raj, the tatrys and the mala fatras. all amazing and very different. and people actually recreate in this country. no where else have we seen people taking time to recreate in the outdoors. maybe this is what a little money brings...vacation time. we cycled for about 2 weeks through the rain and decided that it was time to escape into czech...

czech republic: this coiuld very well be the most amazing country in the world. its fairytale land out here. rolling green hills dotted with thick dark green pine forests, cut by babbling brooks with jumping trout and spangled with old churches, castles and chateux. did you know that the ploural of chateux is chatimo?? its gross but true. weve been following lazy bike trails that drip allong the landscape and drop you in painted cities and mideavel squares with mounstrous fountians. camping along lakes and rivers and barelÿ using the roads. its all bike infrastructure out here, truely puts the US to shame. cz has been developing their long distance bike trails and hiking trails since the seventies and they are all well signed to the point where we dont we dont even need a bike map to figure them out. so here we are in chesky krumlov taking a few days off and its still raining, for a month straight now, and tomorrow we head south for austria and the danube river where we will let the tail winds and gentle down stream grade push us into vienna where piper will be flying home and the timo will continue solo. hope to hear from you all soon...