We didn`t progress much, but ate beautiful meals, slept in nice beds and got away with a huge fine too.
We had a very watery night in the camping next to Belgrade. While I was writing the previous day`s memoir, a storm formed around with lightning bolts and thunders. It seemed we won`t have any rain, but suddenly it started pouring down. We fell asleep with the sound of the dash of rain.
Mongol-rali résztvevők a belgrádi kempingben, stílusos sátorral
Started the next day with a small argument, even though we told the receptionist that Peti won`t sleep in the camping (so he got his passport back in the evening), he wouldn`t have it, and we still had to pay the accomodation and its taxes after him too. The receptionist just shrugged his shoulders, and explained, that as they have administrated four people into the system, we have to pay for all four. Most probably it is not a usual scene to have three people go to the camping and have a change of people within the same day, but I belive they should know how to deal with it anyway. Although since we are on the "road" in Serbia, they spoke the best English.
Therefore we left the borrowing-pit a little dourly. Soon we passed Belgrade. We didn`t see much of the capital city as most of it is covered by the Veliko Ratno (Great War Island) at the sea-reach of the Sava. We didn`t have a great first impression, at some part of the city there are about 7-8 twenty storey block of flats, in not such good condition, and almost looks abandoned.
While we were rowing next to Belgrade, Tunde drove into the city so we can show you the more beautiful parts of Belgrade too. She went to the palace too, which has a great significance in Hungarian history. In 1456, Janos Hunyadi led the Hungarians to a victory against the Turkish, to which we still remember with the midday bell. Yes, we are talking about the Siege of Belgrade, or how it used to be called, Nandorfehervar.
Egyszerű, látványos, zseniális ötlet
After Belgrade, we met our accompanying car by Szendro. The castle by the Danube is a beauty, unfortunately we cannot say the same of its surroundings. The river is full of clutter, the place under the palace - where we stopped - is home to some sleazy houses, mess and more rubbish. We didn`t waste much time. We continued our journey and Tunde drove over the Szendro bridge, which is the last road-bridge till Iron Gates. And tomorrow, we will continue our journey on the left side, in Romania.
A Szendrői-vár
The daily target was more than 80 kilometres again. I found a camping called Paradise Beach by the bay closed to Malo Bavaniste. We got there pretty late, so I could take a picture of the sunset from the kayak. There are thatched tables on the shore, there is a small buffet, and a diner. A little further in there is a football-ground-like space, which was ideal for us to make our tent. We did manage to get there before the kitchen closed, and enjoyed a lovely grilled fish. Lucky, the mosquitos didn`t get in the diner, however, outside 10-15 were attacking us at once, while we unpacked and made our tent.
For the fifth, we only had a short Serbian stage left, as we stepped out of the country at Veliko Gradiste. That day we stayed at Tunde`s relatives in Pojejena (Alsopozsgas), and we have planned on rowing all the way to Berzeasca, then to go back to Pojejena by car. But the Serbian border control outmanoeuvred us. It took us more than three hours to get our official permit to leave the country, as the harbour-master was on launch (for one and half hours) and then we didn`t find the customs officers. The trouble was caused by us trying to enter the country on public road and not on the Danube, therefore we didn`t have the neccessary documents. We had to fill in a few forms, state the captain (who we decided Gaspar to be), under what flag we are sailing, the weight -, name - and crew number of the ship. Even the border patrols were laughing when asking these questions.
From half past one they were waiting for us with the lunch in Pojejena. After four we went across the other side of the Danube. We knew we had to check in at Omoldova, but we were very hungry, therefore we stopped there and decided to go to the customs after eating. We "parked" by the pier of the house, put on some dry clothes, and by the time we went around the house, the border patrols were there as well. We told them we will be with them in a minute, but we didn`t want our food to get cold. They seemed understanding, perhaps because they knew our host. Finished our lovely lunch, sat back in our kayak and rowed about 8 kilometres to Omoldova. We have been told off there as well, made us promise we would never do this again, and told us, this action could have cost us about 5000 lej per person.
To make things a little simplier, we left the kayak by the border control and went back to Pojejena by car. We have spent the rest of the evening with the relatives, talked, baked chimeny cakes and fixed the door handle on the car boot. It was past 1 am when we turned the lights down.
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