Medugorje to Neum with a Folding Bike
Posted on January 13, 2019
Twilight Dive, midsummer, Neum, Bosnia David Bugeja (c) 2018
I did not want to stay in Neum. Out of the question, out of my mind that I’d even consider stopping over for even a single night in this tacky tourist enclave. Certainly not in midsummer with all the hotels packed tight and the ceaseless procession of luxury coaches forever emptying their motley cargo onto the streets. How many people could possibly fit into Neum?
But I had no choice. Crazy to bite the bullet, persist, and go on cycling past noon in the humid forty centigrade heat. I’d seriously be risking my health. My last summer ever with a bike through the Balkans. My third summer in a row after recovering from the malignant melanoma lesion on my left shin. Read More
With a folding bike to Medugorje
Posted on December 24, 2018
Sunrise over Kruzevac, Cross Mountain, Medugorje David Bugeja (c) 2018 Read More
Valletta to Medugorje with a Dahon Folding Bike
Posted on December 23, 2018
Across the Calabrian Interior from Guardia Piemontese to Sibari via San Marco Argentano David Bugeja (c) 2018 Read More
Trebinje to Medugorje by Bicycle
Posted on December 16, 2018
Sunrise over Kruzevac, Medugorje David Bugeja (c) 2018
The priest said –
“Do one little bit of good in a sea of evil. What does it count? It counts for God who can multiply that good as he multiplied the five loaves and two fishes. It does matter that I try to help someone even in a little way. That person perhaps might then go on and help someone in return… God wants me as I am, even if it is only my sins that I bring with me to Him. But I must believe that I can change. Not remain stuck where I am… Just do all the good you can as you are, with all of your sins and you will change if only you trust in Him…” Read More
The Longest Ride
Posted on May 26, 2018
Hercegovacka Gracanica, Serbian Orthodox monastery – atop the Crkvina Hill – two kilometres away from Trebinje town centre David Bugeja (c) 2018
Cycling day and night
I fronted up at the Hotel Leotar in Trebinje town centre on August 16, 2017 at 2.15 am.
Just shy of two hundred cycled kilometres from Medjugorje in southwestern Bosnia.
I had crossed the border into Croatia at Metkovic, then trekked solo along the Jadranska Magistrala all the way to Dubrovnik before I quit the coast and headed back inland into southeastern Bosnia on the lookout (desperate) for a place to stay the night.
I had gone almost twenty-four hours without sleep and had been on the road since 6.15 am of the previous day.
Ten and a half hours in the saddle and a five hour stay out of the sun stopover (11.30 am – 4.30 pm) at Ston on the Croatian coast plus three wasted hours (8.30 pm – 11.30 pm) ditched on an idiot’s search for accommodation in Dubrovnik and a final two and a half hour ride to Trebinje (11.30 pm – 2 am):
I hugged the edge of the two, three, four hundred metre cliff drop coast road and wound round an endless sequence of hairpin turns on this steep rising, pitch black Croatian highway – jaw-dropping scenic if cycled by day but death wish treacherous if stranded out there still in the saddle by night – ending my journey with a pitch black twenty-five kilometre stretch of road on the Bosnian M20 motorway. Read More
Valletta to Medugorje by Bicycle after Skin Cancer – Ride across Sicily
Posted on May 13, 2018
Last day in Sicily – 5 am Sunrise over Calabria, as I ride from Acicastello to Villa San Giovanni before the day’s heat and sun start to kick in. David Bugeja (c) 2018
July 9, 2017, Sunday, 11.35 am I push on down the street and force a heavy step forward and grasp the slipping string handles of two recycled grocery bags (one in each hand) tight and sweaty, as I trudge back along Via Scalia to Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele in the forty centigrade heatwave gripping Pachino.
The heat has settled in and is here to stay till summer’s out.
Drained and dejected and worried about the sun. Should I be doing this after melanoma? Read More
Medugorje after Melanoma
Posted on May 7, 2018
Sunrise over Kruzevac (Cross Mountain), Medjugorje David Bugeja (c) 2017
Melanoma challenged me.
Pick up the pieces, adapt to the new status quo and get back to a life worth living.
But do get back and never let any doctor, any friend or anyone else for that matter tell you what you should do or can do or ought to be doing.
Oh yes, after cancer struck, I was forced to overhaul my summer cycling routine, especially since I was determined to keep on with wandering across southern and Balkan Europe during the torrid summer months, when average UV index levels hover above the 11+ mark. I teach chemistry and summer is the only time I get the chance to leave Malta for many weeks at a stretch and do my thing.
The time I cycle, the gear I wear, even the type of bike I ride and the sum total of luggage I could now afford to carry along with me had to change.
But hey, I still was cycling and I still was riding alone as in my life before cancer.
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