Netherlands-Belgium-Luxemburg
from May 31 until June 6 2002

We're cycling around the world, aren't we?

our last night in our own home

Very emotional we leave Oisterwijk on our bicycles. Leaving family and friends turns out to be at least ten times harder then we expected. Just try cycling away when all your loved ones are standing around you in tears, knowing you won't see them for one or two years.

the departure from our cottage

Unable to move Peter tries to get on his bicycle, but the message doesn't seem to reach his legs.

from left to right: Karin, Leny, Peter, Sarin, Edy

Once we don't see them anymore it's somewhat easier. We ride alongside and talk non-stop. Peter drives me crazy by repeating the same sentence over and again: "We're on our journey around the world now! Finally it's so far. We're gone, we're travelling. I can't believe it!" "Yes, I know, we've started our journey now, utterly awesome" I reply after a while.
"But we're really on our way now, isn't that great!"
"Yeah, that's great." I do sound more down to earth, even though I also feel the butterflies in my stomach.
Peter can't believe it. Two years of waiting, working, saving, selling hearth and home, making preparations. Two years that seemed like twenty to Peter, like he counted every second and minute.
In Eindhoven we do our last shopping, we buy a Pentax 170SL compact-camera. Then we enter Belgium, lovely sun on our faces. It promises to be a beautiful summer, in a newspaper we read they expect a heatwave. Just after crossing the border we put up our tent on a campsite and enjoy our first night as worldtravellers.

Cycling isn't easy the first few days. For me, Karin, that is. Peter always tells me to practise and practise and practise, which he does too much and I get nauseous when I hear the word. The lack of training shows now, cycling in the Ardennes. To make things worse the temperature is very high and my internal heating-system has to get used to the combination strain and heat. According to Peter I'm lucky that my natural tendency to laziness is compensated with my natural perseverance and my refusal to ever give up. The narrow frontier-road between Belgium and Luxemburg is the first major test for my perseverance. The beautiful road leads from Ouren in Belgium to Weiswampach in Luxemburg. The first two kilometres go from steep to extremely steep. While Peter stands on his pedals to force his bicycle up the hill, he starts laughing about the Redoute; in the cycle-classics that hill is looked upon as very tough. This climb is a lot steeper and tougher, and we cycle it with all our luggage! I see Peter dancing on his bicycle, while I'm sweating and heaving. On the steepest part my speed is so low that I come to a standstill without even trying. Just in time I put my foot on the road, just before I keel over. The rest of the climb I accomplish by foot: panting, puffing and calling names.

It gets warmer and warmer, the temperature in Belgium and Luxemburg reaches 30 degrees Celsius and higher. When we leave St. Vith on the sixth day it's sweltering and hot. This has to go wrong. At the end of a long and beautiful day filled with one climb after another we find a marvellous campsite on the top of a hill, just outside Wiltz. The view on the hills and woods of the Ardennes is great. Unfortunately we've put up our tent face to the wind, which we discover when the thunderstorms burst that threatened to happen for hours on end. Together we have to take hold of tent and tentpoles, otherwise the tent would fly away in a moment. That would be a very premature end of this dream of ours.

Peter is a real boy when he plays with his new toy: the Suunto-watch. With functions like altitude-measurer, thermometer and compass he's busy for hours, while cycling. You can even tell the time on this thing, it's unbelievable!
At night, when we write our diary, we mention ascended and descended metres, highest temperature and distance we've covered. A kind of scientific expedition, this trip of us.

Luxemburg looks a bit like Switzerland: ready and neat. Everything is completed, arranged, cleared away, proper, beautiful. No creases, no rubbish, no smells, no cracks in walls, no problems. Cycling here is a bit sterile, especially because we're used to cycling in France, a country that'll never be completed. The tarmac-road hums though and there's no dangerous glass to be found on the roads which makes punctures almost impossible.

In Larochette we find shelter at campsite "Auf Kengert". The campsite is too expensive for us, which the Dutch owner notices. We only have to pay half if we stay two days. The hot weather has changed into 'normal' summer-conditions in the meantime: sun and rain alternate. We rest a bit, visit the castle of Larochette and can't believe the sounds a 300-kilo's Belgian Hell's Angel produces. He sleeps day and night and seems to have a build-in drill.

Before we go to sleep that night Peter asks the next question, to be absolutely sure:
"Has our trip around the world really started?"
"Yes, it has. We're on our way, travelling, for a very long time."
"But, if I wake up later and it wasn't true?"
"Then it's bad luck, but a wonderful dream."
"No, you can't say something like that. We are living our dream now. I can't believe it."