Each Friday we’ll be featuring some of our favourite photos from the road

It had been raining all day, cold stinging rain, and the wind was blowing in our faces. We pushed on to Pamplona, with 40km left we figured that we should be warm and dry within three hours. Then a tunnel appeared with an angry Spanish police man, who told us that the tunnel was out of bounds to cyclists and we’d have to take the small road that wound up over a the snowy pass. We were to tired to argue and turned ourbikes up the steep incline with slumped shoulders and chilly hands.

Fearghal

For the next few Mondays we’ll be posting a new recipe from the road.

This winter warmer is great for rosing the cheeks when its cold outside. We drink it after dinner, as we watch the last flames of the campfire die down, readying ourselves for sleep in our frigid tents.

It can be made with or with out hooch, a few cloves will provide enough spice to fill in the gap and if you have some bitters, a few drops will help too. As with all of our recipes its also very flexible and can be tailored to use your favourite spirit, or whatever’s on the reduced to clear shelf at tesco. We’ve made it with Armenian Brandy, Uzbek Vodka, Georgian Grappa…- whatever’s cheap and available. 

Ingredients:

1 orange sliced

1 Lemon Sliced

100g sugar

100mls Vodka

700mls Water

Method: Combine everything except the vodka in a pot and bring to the boil, stir till sugar is dissolved then add vodka. Serve  hot from a flask on a snowy hill top or somewhere cold, windy and beautiful. Click here for step by step instructions.

Fancy Permutations:

Hot Pink Gin: Replace the vodka with gin, and the orange and lemon with two pink grapefruits(peeled) use brown sugar and add a few drops of angostura bitters to taste.  

Hot Orange Brandy: Replace lemon with orange and the vodka with Cointreau.

Hot Spiced Rum: Replace vodka with dark rum, add 5 cloves a stick of cinnamin and a vanilla pod to the mixture. Remove the cloves immediately after boiling.

Cheers

Fearghal

Here’s a great blog from Tom, our Christmas host in Armenia. 

Constant Dissatisfaction- men that don’t fit in or simply typical of the overindulged and restless generation X? 

Comments Please, and don’t hold back especially the errr…. older readers : ) 

The funny thing is that no matter how much time you spend on the bike thinking “by God this is boring, why am I doing this again?” as you pass yet another crumbling kilometre marker telling you exactly how far it is to the next place where you’ll buy too much bread and not enough bananas and people will laugh and ask you where you’re from and if you’re married and check your tyre pressure before you pedal off to find a good campsite a hundred metres down a jeep track littered with empty sun-bleached fag packets, you always get home and remember how beautiful it was and how free you were and how good it felt to be out there. This I still cannot reconcile. More

Simon

Negotin - Serbia

We haven’t camped very much over the last while, what with the extensive flooding on the Black Sea coast and also the great hospitality in Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria that has kept us indoors with the locals rather than out in the elements. But now the snowdrops have appeared, the buds are slowly peeping out of the skeletal tree branches, and the heavy rains have abated enough to allow us to camp more frequently.

I’ve really been looking forward to camping again, I love the simple purity of it, being outdoors with lots of clean fresh air, having my own space to chill out and relax, and a familiar place to spend the night in. Hostel rooms, friend’s floors and bivvy spots all change daily, but the inside of my MSR tent is the only place that I can call my own. Being outdoors all the time, I find I really get in touch with nature, I study the trees, flowers, stars and become in touch with the moons cycle, anticipating it’s various stages as it, like us, travels around our planet.

The best campsites are quiet, sheltered from the wind, with soft, dry ground that is free from underlying rocks that can snap the tent pegs. A nearby river or lake and abundant dry wood for making a campfire is always a bonus, as is a having a great view. For safety, the site shouldn’t be visible from the road, so paradoxically, one shouldn’t be able to see it from the road while cycling along, searching for somewhere to camp. To counter this problem, I study the topography before it’s time to stop and build up a picture of the land in my head, so I have a good idea what hidden campsites may lie behind a wall, embankment or grove of trees. Once we’ve located a suitable site, we normally wait until after sunset, switch off our headtorches and make our way through the darkness, hopefully without being noticed by any passing cars.

Fearghal and I each carry a 2 man tent, giving us space from each other, as well as room to bring some of our kit inside the tent. Like at home, I have a particular place for everything, food and valuables go on either side of my head, and filthy clothes at the other end; well away from my nose! In the morning I dress swiftly and smoothly, the process being made easier by not having a wardrobe of clothes to choose from. After 16 months practice, I can pack up my home and all my belongings in around 10 minutes, if required, though normally I prefer to take my time.

Some of my favourite campsites have been in Kyrgyzstan, China, and Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. This one on the outskirts of Madrid has to be one of the worst, the ground was littered with huge holes and angular paving slabs, and sloped so much that I kept waking up during the night having slid to to the bottom of the tent.

But invariably I look forward to getting inside my tent, slipping into my warm sleeping bag and spending a night in my cosy mobile home.

Simon

Bucharest - Romania

There have been numerous times while cycling under the searing sun, sweating my ass off, wondering why the hell I was carrying a good few kilos of thermals and waterproof rain gear, but since arriving in Turkey, I’m glad I kept them. It has rained almost every day, soaking roads and fields and making camping almost impossible, as to camp would require a boat rather than a tent. We have dodged collapsed roads and tentatively made our way across flooded sections, trying not to get soaked by cars driven by all too impatient drivers.

On our first day in Bulgaria, to escape the rain we found a small derelict building to sleep in and set ourselves up for the night. But when I awoke and looked about in the full light of day, I had a sense of deja vu of camping in the desert in China, as our lovely digs seemed to have been used regularly as the public toilet with numerous “packages” scattered about the place. But luckily we’ve been well received by many locals who have taken us into their homes, given us shelter, food and water, and through charades and broken English, we’ve been enlightened to their customs and culture.

Now with all the luxuries of Europe creeping in, we’re finding more and more excuses to keep out of the rain, and have been indulging ourselves with morning coffee and brandys, long boozy lunches (with wobbly cycling afterwards!) and, being the off season, have enjoyed sleeping in some really cheap hotels. As Fearghal says, this is gradually turning into a Tuxpedition!!