Page 13 - DLNdec2015-1001
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yesterday’s late night. After a fantastic breakfast of pizza and coke,
honestly the locals must think we are mad; we set off on the final few
kilometres to the border crossing in to Bosnia.

Croatia and Slovenia had been fantastic hosts so I was expecting more of
the same from Bosnia. It started well enough with a shopping centre just
across the border with a chemist who stocked everything we had run out of:
Vaseline & Sudacreme to deal with the saddle sores and skin loss we were
both suffering from (we had actually run out of anything resembling chamois
cream a day earlier and in the absence of any suitable replacements had
bought lube from a Croatian petrol station who stocked an extensive line of
sex toys behind the counter!). I was also able to buy caffeine powder and a
honey spray to hopefully try and repair Katie’s ulcerated mouth.

Vaseline aside the caffeine powder was my best buy ever and is something I
will pack for every forthcoming endurance event. Having taken my first sachet
immediately and being so impressed with the results we quickly adapted our
daily schedule as follows: find a flat preferably grassy road side spot about
10:00/11:00am, spread out our silver emergency blankets, empty the
contents of 1 sachet directly on to our tongues, set the alarm for 10 minutes,
lie back head resting on a bike wheel (to alert you should any one try and
steal the bikes), enjoy the power nap. 10 minutes is all we needed for the body
to absorb the caffeine and be fooled into thinking it had actually enjoyed a
good night’s sleep!

That first shopping experience was the highlight of Bosnia for me. Most fellow
competitors have described Bosnia as a magical country but for me it was
an uphill drag. The countryside was scrub and boulders punctuated only by
the occasional road side BBQ cooking goat on a spit, head still intact, a few
locals selling some small black berries and then a huge mining town where I
was almost knocked off my bike by a car with a trailer who after over taking
us pulled in much too sharply, the trailer brushing my shoulder. The
countryside is still littered with landmines which Katie only remembered when
she came face to face with this sign after nipping into the bushes roadside
for a quick pee, a sharp reminder that this country was at war not so very
long ago.

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