Saturday July 18th,
Travel day...we left Prague on the 9:30 train to Czeski Budjovice. Today is another scorching hot day with temperatures tipping 40degrees. We have changed our plans to a more manageable cycle 30 km instead of 57km. We arrived at our destination at noon and thinking better of taking off in the heat of the day we stopped for a beer, Budweiser of course, this town is where they were first made, and a meal. Our food was excellent, from a restaurant that only served food from the farms in the area, with fresh vegetables and typical Czech dishes. In the end we paid a whopping 17$ for two meals and two beer. I think that we will eat out a little more. At 2 pm we started on our way. Just behind us was a massive storm...first clue to stop and stay. The second clue came in the way of a massive hill. Then about 20 km in we stopped by a farm house in the little town of Stekr and lucked into a cool refill of water and a man with a pump, our tires were quite low and we did a bunch of killer hills. They suggested that we stay in one of their empty pension rooms, but no, we pressed on... We even met another Canadian staying with her family and she suggests that it was too hot to continue and yet we still pressed on. We took a wrong turn, actually we went straight and should have turned, 4 km out of our way and headed back to Stekr and we still did not stay. We re routed ourselves back on the trail and passed a sign that said something to the effect of DO NOT ENTRE, RECONSTRUCTION IN PROGRESS, DANGER, but you guessed it we still pressed on out of some insane will to get to Czeski Krumlove. After negotiating a crazy downhill 12% grade, washed out trails and rubble and rock we found a campsite and stayed...and it was camping hell! At least 2000 people, drunk out of their minds, sunburned and with no intention of sleeping. I couldn't stop laughing, I just about cried. Anna and I staked out a little plot of land about as far away from the action as we could get and with in 2 hours the entire place was filled to bursting. Someone put their tent 3 inches from our front door and all around us. The boys dropped their drawers wherever and whenever they pleased but mostly in a bush in front of our tent. Music blared and songs were sung, cigarettes smoked and people dropped and slept pretty much anywhere. Strangely they were all up by 7am to continue on their journey in dingy s down river. Wow what a night. I wished that we would have stayed in that little pension at the top of the hill.
