Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Day 25 - They weren’t donuts, but they were alright….

We left Lille on Saturday for Brussels. By all accounts the road would be nice, scenic, pleasant, and FLAT. Guess which one wasn’t true? Maybe we let all the promises of reaching Brussels go to our heads a little too much or maybe we are just creatures of habit and our habit happens to be procrastination, either way we left Lille rather late - 2:30 in the afternoon to be precise. We started off making good time and made it to Tournai, where we had to pass through the city center, at about 4:00. Unfortunately their happened to be an impressively decrepit cathedral and a parade so we quickly became thoroughly distracted. Around 5:00 or more likely 5:30 we decided that we ought to leave town since Brussels was still quite a ways east. In fact much further east than we assumed. After leaving Tournai, we immediately discovered which description of the road to Brussels was not true; it was not flat. The first hill was over a mile long and included a section that was marked on the map that designates a grade greater than 6%. There were four more marked ascents along the way and the road was not ideal for climbing. It was often very bumpy causing us to have to make even more of an effort in order to ascend each hill. Alyssa, with here new pannier, was now forced to join me on the ascents and no longer got to wait for me at the top as I crawled up the hill. We struggled on until the odometer read 725 which means that by google map’s estimation we only had five miles to go. I thought that this was a pretty decent estimation, but a missed turn and the windiness of the roads through towns actually added quite a bit of extra miles between Brussels and us. The trip was supposed to be 55 miles, but at 65 miles into the day, we were a good way out from Brussels on our map, and it was already a pretty dimly lit 9:45. We were actually in Gooik which turned out to be about 15 miles outside of Brussels; however, it was too dark to continue safely. We decided that we could go no further. Having rode most of the day in Belgium already, we noticed a few things about the landscape: it was much greener; much less agriculture was taking place; and most importantly for our current situation, it was much more densely populated. In France, the countryside was often times entirely un-inhabited; there were only fields and forests which was great for finding a camp site. Belgium had many more towns, much closer together, and the often just blended into one another. We were pretty sure that there was not going to be any isolated forests for camping especially with our proximity to Brussels. After scouting the area for some indicator of a hotel, I headed to a bar to ask for help. On the way over, an older man turned the corner who I asked if he spoke any English. He happened to speak a little which turned out to be more than enough to tell me that there was a hotel that was very nice, which I instantly equated with expensive, and I asked for a cheaper option or a place to camp. He asked if I had a tent and then offered a large grassy area right next to the grocery store that he worked in front of which we happened to be standing! I said that we would take it, I ran to tell a tired Alyssa the good news, and he showed us where he was talking about. He asked if we needed food or water, and after we assured him that we were fine, he insisted that we take some pastries. They were slightly flaky, filled with crème, topped with thick dark chocolate, and were pretty delicious. We set up our tent behind a small row of bushes, devoured the extra pizza from the night before and the pastries, and then watched sixteen or so UFOs ascend from the trees off in the distance, hover for a few minutes, and slowly fade into the clouds. Alyssa later saw some stars moving about in an odd manner, and then we snuggled into the tent to escape the cold and quickly fell asleep.

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