2016 – Page 6 – Ecotopia Biketour

Kamenitsa eco village

Candid July 25, 2016 August 29, 2016

From Minsk we cycled for two days to Kamenitsa / Каменица. Due to our tight schedule, this was our only proper wild-camping night in Belarus, which we spent without problems on a beautiful meadow that smelled like Thyme. On the first evening, when we cycled through a small village, suddenly we were surrounded by dozens of kids on bikes. They were very eager to fill our water containers for the night and were extremely excited to get some of our tall-bike and “Fuck Cars” stickers. Kamenitsa is a small village about 120 km north-west of Minsk where several families from Minsk…

Biketour in Minsk (part 1)

CharlieCharlie July 23, 2016 July 19, 2016

After Shanti-Dom, we cycled 70km to Minsk. Getting into the city was not so easy however, and somehow we had to cross the big ring road that circles the city. Consulting the GPS, we found that the easiest way was to follow a small footpath for 300m – but we soon found out that the footpath was up a hill, just through a corn field (with 3 trailers…) You could already see the huge wall of housing blocks approaching. All over the horizon! Minsk was not so pretty on first impressions – huge, identical tower blocks all around. It is…

Shanti Dom

Candid July 21, 2016 August 29, 2016

Due to our short visa, we had to take a train to skip most of the 400 km of cycling from Brest to Shanti Dom, a yoga farm with an international volunteering programme about 70 km west of Minsk. Lucky as we are, it started raining cats and dogs just after we got out of the train to cycle 40 km, but when we finally arrived, we were greeted with a beautiful sunset and rainbow. Shanti Dom is an old school building on the countryside in the middle of nowhere that a young hetero couple is turning into a yoga…

Biketour in Brest

Candid July 19, 2016 July 19, 2016

After so many fails, we couldn’t believe it when the bus started going and actually took us into Belarus. At the bus stop we were already awaited by Valentin from Radeja Bike Club, with whom we had been in a lot of contact with to prepare the documents for the visa application. Valentin was over-excited to lead us through the city, and communication was a bit difficult, as he only speaks Russian. With Radeja Bike Club, he has been organizing long-distance bicycle tours in many countries, including western-European ones like Spain, and camps for people with disabilities in the forest,…