Madrid – Colmenar Viejo – Wild camp – Ayllon – Navaleno – Nájera – Vitoria-Gasteiz – Wild camp – Gorliz – Bilbao – Wild camp – Lezo – Bayonne – Lit-et-Mix – Sanguinet – Bordeaux – Jonzac – Orches – Tours – Chaumont-sur-Loire – Meung-sur-Loire – Buthiers – Morsang-sur-Orge – Moussy-le-Neuf – Compiègne – Saint-Quintin – Le Cateau-Cambrésis – Mons – Leuven – Eksel – Sint-Oedenrode
30 days | 2.269 kilometers | 15.870 meters elevation gain
I’m at the beach. Waves are violently crashing down on the rocky beach and taking down a bunch of pebbles every time they retract. The sun is setting, I am sipping a tea that I just prepared on my cooking stove. I found myself an absolute gem of a camping spot. Just off the road. A rocky path was going down to the beach and half-way there was a leveled picknick spot, perfectly hidden by some trees, with a bench and a table. I smirked when I found it. Just perfect. It’s too easy to find these perfect camping spots here in Spain. Everything is just so nice here, all the grass fields mowed, the streets clean, the flower perks watered. There are picknick spots and toilets everywhere and at the beach even showers.
Whilst sipping my tea and listening and staring into the sea I’m opening my diary on my phone. Ever since I reached Ushuaia I haven’t written in it anymore. Beside from some scribbles, some dates and kilometers it’s empty. I’ve been postponing this task too long. The task has been growing and my appetite to start the task decreasing. There’s just too much that has happened.
Reaching Ushuaia was overwhelming, so many emotions. But even though it was my destination, it soon turned out that the bike life didn’t stop there. Very soon I found myself doing the regular chores again: washing the bike, finding a bike box, preparing for my flight, arranging somewhere to stay in Madrid. Also it doesn’t help that flying and taking busses with a bike is very stressful.
How much are they going to charge for the bike? Did I put my pocket knife in my checked-in luggage? Will my bike come out undamaged?
Anyway, my journey back to Europe was long (more than 48 hours) but without problems. I still don’t exactly know what happened at the check-in at the airport, but I ended up not paying a single penny for my bike. Lucky? Or just that good old smile of mine?
When I arrive in Madrid I take my bike outside.
The sun is shining and I assemble my bike in shorts and a t-shirt. Fuck yeah! This is so much better than snow and freezing temperatures. I have been waiting to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin again after temperatures started dropping increasingly in the south of Argentina.
I cycle down to the house of Elisa, she is a friend of Jesus, with whom I cycled a good part of The Peru Divide (Peru I, II and III). I texted him if he had any friends in Madrid where I could stay some days and now I’m about to ring the bell of Elisa. She is super sweet and makes me feel at home right away. We chat a bit in the kitchen and then she is gone. She tells me to just be at home, take a shower, use the kitchen, whatever. Later that night I also meet her roommate Paula. Also super chill and interested in my trip. They invite me to come down to a cultural neighborhood festival and to a big party in the Madrilanean streets (celebrating San Isidro, the saint of Madrid). Exactly this is why staying with locals is 10 times better than staying in a hotel. Without Elisa and Paula I would never have indulged in local Madrid like this.
The next day Pim arrives in the late afternoon. He is my best friend and we’ve been through a lot together. We did our Erasmus (study abroad) together in Istanbul, moved to San Diego together and many other things. It’s funny, every time I go do something lots of people always ask me if Pim will join as well. Most of the time ‘yes’, but these last two years ‘no’. He already wanted to visit me in Chile but a big pimple on his butt that had to be removed surgically threw a spanner in the works. Ever when I told him I would bike home from Madrid he told me he would come. And today he arrives.
Our greeting is typical. Like we haven’t seen each other for a week. “Whats up buddy“, he says, while I reply “You put on some weight huh?“. We enjoy the rest of Madrid together and cook a meal for the girls on our last night as a “thank you”.






On Tuesday May 14th we head out on the bikes together. The start is slow, but it turns out the whole day will be slow. Not because Pim is holding me up, I’m holding him up. Or better: The Koga is holding us both up. First I have to get the crankset installed that I bought but don’t have the tools for. A sweet bike shop guy in Madrid lends me his tools and helps me fix it. After we get back on the bike I right away notice my chain keeps slipping but the problem has moved from my crank to the chain. We stop at the next Decathlon, I buy a new chain and put it on myself. After that I notice that the problem has moved again and now to my cassette, so I end up changing my complete drive-train after having a new cassette installed at the next bike shop we encounter. We’re in a town called Colmenar Viejo and it’s late already, the sun is setting and Pim decides to book a room for us in a hotel in this little village just outside of Madrid. It’s his holiday and he doesn’t feel like searching for a camp spot in the dark.
The next day my bike is tip top and we really leave the Metropole of Madrid. It’s super hilly but the landscapes nice and the villages pretty. We end up in one of the villages’ yearly parade with two of the biggest bulls I’ve ever seen pulling a wooden cart and lots of traditionally dressed up kids. Me and Pim are watching the spectacle from the sideline, in a bar, sipping a beer and eating some tapas.
At the end of the day we find a beautiful camp spot, with grass, trees overlooking a seemingly medieval village and the sun setting beautifully behind us. We make pasta.
The next days we cycle through the vino region of North Spain. We cycle over medieval bridges into medieval villages, we see beautiful old churches sitting atop hills in the distance. The roads are small, not busy and go up and down, up and down. One morning we do 600 height meters in just 20 kilometer. Insanity. It means we need an early lunch to fill up the lost calories.
I will never forget the fact that one evening we end up in a small village to refuel for the last stretch. We’re already pretty beaten, but our goal is to make it just a bit further. We eat some bread along a river under a tunnel of trees to prepare for this last stretch when I propose to call it a day and make this our camp spot. I mean it’s perfect: the grass is beautiful, the river perfect for a bath, it’s a quite village with a chill vibe and to be honest I’m pretty tired already. Pim doesn’t need much convincing. When he comes back from the supermarket from doing groceries for dinner he shows me the biggest steak I’ve ever seen. “Proteins” he simply replies. I cry my eyes out. It’s the first and maybe last time I’ve ever seen such a big steak being fried in my little cooking pan on my little stove. But to be honest, it’s one of the best steakes I’ve ever eaten.











Another thing we invented was Rain Adaptive Riding (RAR). Yes we even came up for an abbreviation for it. Whilst being in North Spain you might think it would be very sunny. Let me tell you: I thought so too. But at times it was really damn cold. And unfortunately it was raining quite a bit too. But it would always come and go. Never a full day of rain. Always a shower here and some drops of rain there. So, with applications like Buienradar and other weather apps we started to find the exact moments when we needed to pedal hard and the right moments to take a break and we started to become pretty damn good at it.
After crossing a beautiful little area called Cañon Rio Lobos we almost make it to a bigger city Najera. Twenty kilometers before we reach that city we bump into a small wine festival in a small village but stupidly decide not to check it out.
Just before reaching Najera we noticed many people walking next to the road. Not soon later we found out we hit the Camino de Santiago. We made use of this by checking-in into a pelgrims hostel. They turned out to be super cheap and when asked for some kind of proof to show we were actually doing The Camino we just said we lost it. We got accepted anyway. We decided to make it our rest day the next day.
Little did we know that these peregrinos were such depressing people. They would always lay in their bed the whole day and be gone really early in the morning. To our big surprise, when we would wake up around 9 or 10, the complete room would be gone already. Incredible to think that 18 people would wake up with their alarm clocks, pack their stuff and leave the room without us even slightly waking up from it.









We continue north and hit the Basque coastline. Very rugged, lots of height meters. I guess with blue skies it could be beautiful here, but for us the Northern Spanish weather still equals grey and rainy. We do some more wild camping and the day we cycle into Bilbao the skies finally turn blue. We take our first dip into the Atlantic, what a great feeling!
In Bilbao we meet Chris, our Warmshowers host. We can roll out our mats out on the floor of his office for the coming days since he will not use his office until next Wednesday. It’s perfect, the location is right in the city center and we can do our own thing. Chris takes us into town right away. We meet his friends and go for beer after beer. Pim and me elongate the night into the early morning.
The next day we are having a big headache. We leave the door open for some fresh air to come in.
But we forget that it’s Friday and we are residing in an office building with other companies that work and have clients over today. When suddenly Chris calls me that his neighboring offices have started complaining about us. Apparently they could see us suffering and sleeping on the floor and they were wondering what the hell is going on. We quickly close the door again and hope we didn’t screw up to stay here. Luckily Chris is super relaxed about it.
The rest of the days we explore Bilbao a bit and then on Friday night I say goodbye to Pim. His flight is tomorrow morning around 6AM but he prefers cycling one hour to the airport now then in the early morning and to just sleep a bit at the airport. With a big bike box dangling around his shoulder I wave him goodbye.
A few days later I also leave Bilbao and end up camping along the beach where I start catching up with my journalling.
















I wake up by the already bright sun beaming through the canvas of my tent. The first thing I hear is the sound of the nearby crashing waves. A perfect morning with a nice sun that’s not too hot and not too cold. I make breakfast and coffee and pack up. The road leads me to harbour villages and over rolling hills towards the other Spanish Basque metropole of San Sebastian (als known as Donostia in Euskara, the Basque language). I’m early so I enjoy some parks and beaches. It’s a beautiful city cramped in between a couple of mountains with two huge bays. The city, like Bilbao, is lively: nobody seems to work here but enjoys the beach, park or the trails instead. I meet up with Heeyah that I know from back in Mendoza, Argentina. She treats me to San Sebastian’s famous cheesecake and a red wine. In the last days I’ve tried to search for a place to stay in San Sebastian, but the Warmshowers hosts don’t reply, the friends I know from here don’t text back and Rick’s friends that live here are not at home. Since I don’t feel like spending 30 bucks for a dormitory I decide to cycle out of San Sebastian that same night to find myself a wild camp spot.
First I cycle up a hill in the city that seems uninhabited and thus eligible for wild camping, but all I can find are hiking trails and nothing is flat. So all I can do is cycle down again. In the meantime the sun has set and the rush and adrenaline I had of finding a spot in daylight slowly fades away. It’s eleven in the night and I find myself cycling through suburb after suburb trying to find spots to camp. But it’s just too civilized here. There’s still lots of people in the streets and I’d rather not be seen putting up my tent in the middle of a city. Around midnight I find a spot behind a small electricity house in a less crowded area of the village next to San Sebastian. Absolutely not perfect, but out of sight. It has to do. Tired I jump into my tent and go to sleep right away.
It’s way too early and workmen are already parking their cars right next to the small electricity building where I’ve pitched my tent yesterday. I pack up and make it to the next supermarket that’s only 500 meters away. I start pedaling after a baguette with humus. Soon I cross the bridge and border into France, but fail to find any sign saying “Bienvenue a France” or something.
I check my map again to see if I’m really in France, which is the case. So maybe the French are less chauvinistic than we all thought?! I cycle along beautiful beaches and beach cities. Boys and girls in wetsuits with a surf board clamped under their arms seek their way to the beach. I take a quick nap in a park where old men are playing jeau de boules. Which reassures me of the fact that I’m indeed in France.
I get really annoyed with myself and the sudden language change. For the most of the last 1.5 years the language anywhere was Spanish. Now suddenly I cannot understand or even communicate with the people anymore. I hear myself saying “Gracias”, “hola” and even “puedo usar tu baño?” time after time and it annoys me. Also I’m struggling with the worry that if I start to learn French words and sentences now that my Spanish will disappear, which I really want to prevent. I make my way to Bayonne where I take another long break. Reason? I’ve emailed like 5 Warmshowers in this town and I’m desperately waiting for someone to reply. I give myself until 21:00 before checking into a way to expensive hostel. It’s just too crowded for wild camping here, there’s buildings, people, private property and barbed wire everywhere.
I think Europe is way too crowded anyway, coming back from South America, there’s just so many people here and it comes with a lot of infrastructure. Another thing that annoys me: I have to recharge my phone three times a day because my phone is always on for navigation purposes. In Argentina there was only one road and a village once every 200 kilometers, so navigating in the most of Latin America was just unnecessary.
Anyway, it turns out that today is just not my day. At all. The language, the crowdedness, not finding places to camp or stay, the Warmshowers hosts not responding. But right after I check into the hostel all my annoyances melt away. I have lots of nice conversations with people and I feel that I’ve missed these interactions the last days. Also I can just leave my bike at the hostel and go for a walk into the city. Something that’s not possible when wild camping. I have a hot shower and a comfy bed and tomorrow will be another day.













It’s raining in the morning which is the perfect excuse for me to take it easy. I leave around 1PM. Today I can just follow the signs of the Eurovelo 1 route. Which takes away the burden of navigating with my phone. The bike paths go through dunes, forests and along beaches and it’s an absolute relieve to be away from the masses. At the end of the day I successfully ask at the reception of a camping if I can use their shower. Freshly showered I arrive at a picknick spot in the forest where I still have lots of daylight to put up my tent, eat and write.
After another flat day cycling through forests and dunes accompanied by headwind I arrive in Sanguinet. Not my intended stop but the place I take my last break turns out to be just too perfect to leave. It has a nice grass field to put my tent, a small beach at the lakeside and just a good overall vibe. There’s lots of locals taking their daily walk. I take a bath in the lake and listen to music. Then another example of ‘who does good; meets well’ unfolds. I see a mountainbiker about to dive into the forest. Me, in good spirits, wave at him like I wave at everybody. He misunderstands and thinks I either know him or I want something from him. He stops to ask what’s up , I tell him that I just only threw him a friendly wave. Okay, he continues his ride. An hour later he returns from the forest and from his ride and we see each other again. This time he stops for a talk. When asked I tell him I will pitch my tent here for the night. He invites me to pitch my tent in his garden, “way nicer” he adds. I pack my stuff and follow him into the village. He was right, his garden is big with green and perfectly cut grass: a campers’ paradise. Five minutes later I’m sipping a red wine with a plate of bread and cheese in front of me. Vive Le France! I have the nicest evening with Alain, his wife Helène and their daughter Alicia.
I wake up late and have a coffee with Alain, Helène and Alicia. I say goodbye. Alain gives me a real French Opinel knife as a gift, he engraved it “Alain – Sanguinet – 2024”. Amazing.
A relatively boring day unfolds into Bordeaux. Two events make it less boring.
One is a wrong turn into a sandy track that I decided to go for but after 1 kilometer turns into real loose sand and not cyclable anymore. Pushing and dragging my bike through the sand in the rain for kilometers it reminds me back to tougher times in the deserts of Bolivia. The nostalgia turns a smile on my face and I continue pushing. The second event is my first puncture in Europe. My Schwalbe tires with more than 17.000 kilometers on the meter start to get real thin now, so I guess this will start to happen more often from now on. I arrive in Bordeaux and have some time to explore the city before turning up at Alain and Mimi‘s house. They have offered me a bed via Warmshowers and they’re lovely. We talk and they feed me really well. In the evening I make a video call with the family of my father’s side that are having their bi-annual family weekend. It makes me miss home a lot.
I take a rest day in Bordeaux after waking up late again. I have a cold and am not feeling 100%. I roam the streets of Bordeaux. I see groups of friends enjoying some drinks on the terraces. It makes me miss having something like that. For the first time I start to have the feeling that it’s time to come home. To start building a life back home again, just like the groups of friends I saw hanging out today.
Then I suddenly see a pamflet with matches for the European Cup football on the window of a bar. Something I really enjoy watching back home. I see that the tournament already starts in two weeks. I start calculating and think that if I cycle fast enough that I could still see the third group game back home.
I’m actually quite happy that finally I start to get these feelings of wanting to return home. When I was cycling in South America, even in the last weeks in grueling circumstances, I never had these feelings. I never wanted to go home. I can find peace with these feelings now and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. It’s been quite the ride, but I guess it cannot last forever. Thinking about all this I wander through the medieval streets of Bordeaux before returning back to my temporary home.













I say goodbye to Alain and Mimi, beautiful warm-hearted people. Alain gifts me his padded seat cover when he sees my broken saddle. I continue cycling north amidst lots of vineyards (at least that’s what I think they are until I learn that I’m cycling through the Cognac area and that cognac is made from grapes as well). The weather is great. I arrive in Jonzac where I meet Jean-Do and Marine and their three kids (ranging from 6 to 10 years). The kids are already waiting for me in the streets and scream and run towards me when they see me. What a reception! The family is great and I feel right at home. We eat together and when the kids are off to bed, Jean-Do pulls some of his best Cognac from the closet and we start talking about our adventures. Last year they’ve been cycling with the whole family from Ushuaia to La Paz and we have done mostly the same routes so we have lots to talk about! They did it on two two-person tandems of which one had an extra cart at the back for the third kid. What a load that must’ve been! For me they’re a great example of how you can still do crazy, fun adventures even when you have young kids. Most of the people with kids always tell me “that it’s game over“, but they prove everybody different and I love it. It gets way too late but we don’t care because we get to revive all of our adventures for a small bit.
I have breakfast with the family, and then we say goodbye. They give me lots of delicious food for the road (incredibly tasty dry sausage and cookies). They even gift me a helmet when I tell them about the time when I lost mine in Spain. So sweet!
Another day along grain and grape fields. I pass the village of Cognac. I found a new strategy for my navigation problem: now I just write down the names of all the little villages that my route passes and tape the piece of paper to my handlebar. In that way I don’t have to check my phone all the time. The roads are small, rolling, almost no traffic yet still paved. It’s great. The azul blue skies contrast amazingly with the yellow grain and the green grape fields and I feel like cycling in Windows XP‘s desktop background.
But something’s missing. I’m bored. Cycling is too easy here. I miss the pure survival, the cold toes, the quest for potable water or food, the hail, the rain, the mountains, the battle against the Patagonian winds. The day just passes, but I miss the true fire inside of me. Maybe tomorrow.
I find an “Aire” in Chef-Boutonne, a place where campervans can spend a night for free. It’s a grassy field so I just pitch my tent next to 6 other campervans. They are all locked up inside and I don’t understand why, the weather is beautiful.
I do something stupid the next morning. Located next to the campervan spot is the municipal swimming pool, in a quest to look for electricity to charge the battery pack of my camera I walk inside, see a plug, plug my charger in and leave to pick it up after an hour. At least that’s what I think, but an hour later the pool is closed.
I walk to the municipality and ask for a solution. They tell me that the guy that was there this morning will return tomorrow morning at 6AM again. Desperately trying to find another solution the French only give me nodding heads in return. Are you serious? Nobody else with a spare key of the freaking swimming pool? That’s crazy and unimaginable. For the rest of the day I sit in my camping chair right in front of the entrance of the swimming pool because the lady on the phone told me that the guy “might come back in the afternoon”. In the beginning of the evening I give up: what a waste of my day. I meet a Dutch couple in the Aire and it’s nice to talk with them, they invite me over for dinner and the rest of the day I spend talking with them. With a big sigh I roll out my tent again at night and pitch my tent at the same spot again.
The next day the cleaning guy is at the municipal pool again and I get my battery pack back. Back on the bike the scenery is the same as the last days: blue skies, rolling green hills, cute villages, small roads. I make it 110 kilometers to Orches where I pitch my tent next to the local football field. The team that’s training lets me use the showers in the locker rooms. I play football with the kids and they give me their Pokemon cards as a gift.
I cross the big rivers Indre, Cher and Loire and pick up Leo’s house key at his farm just outside of the city of Tours. He is my Warmshowers host of today. Pretty cool, he is 34 and a year ago he started building his biological farm where he now sells his fruits and vegetables in a little shop. He gives me a small tour and tells me I can just go to his house to chill and take a shower. I will sleep in his room while he will sleep on the couch. What a legend. I meet his roommates and in the evening we first have a super nice dinner in the garden with fresh vegetables from the farm before we set off to a festival. Leo understandably has only one ticket, but I tell him I’ll come along to see if I can get in one way or another. Not my first rodeo getting into venues for which I don’t have tickets.
At the festival I right away bump into a guy that’s leaving and rips off his wristband to give it to me. I provisionally put it around my wrist with the hope the security is not too strict. But they are. They notice my “second-hand” wristband and deny me access. Without hard feelings Leo says goodbye, apologizes and goes inside. I walk around the festival to seek for any loopholes in security. I try the bushes but they are too dense. Than I wait for my chance, and when all security is looking the other way I jump over the fence. “What’s the worst that can happen?” was exactly my thought 10 seconds before. I immediately get an adrenaline shot. I think a security guy with a dog has seen me so I rapidly walk towards the crowds. It turns out I’m backstage, but find my way to the main stage where I drown myself in an ocean of limbs and bodies. I wait 10 minutes. Nobody seemed to have noticed me so I call myself clear. Still, I need a beer or two to calm myself down. I text Leo: “I’m in!“. The rest of the night we enjoy crazy punk bands, and eclectic techno music.












I wake up around 10AM in Leo’s way too comfy bed. I make coffee and breakfast and take things easy. I say goodbye to Leo and start cycling along the Cher river. After 7 kilometers Leo calls me, “you’ve forgotten your aluminium coffee cup!“. Shit! Do I abandon the cup or go back? Fuck it, I am not in a hurry so I go back to Leo’s house, collect my cup and cycle back to the Cher river bank. I see some crazy castles and chateaus on the way. France really had some crazy money in the past to build all of this. I cross over to the Loire river in the north before I call it a day. I check out the website of a municipal camping in Chaumont-sur-Loire and come to discover that’s it dirt cheap. When I roll up the owner has already left so I just set up my tent, take a warm shower and enjoy some WiFi.
The next morning I bump into the owner of the camping and have an animated talk with him. Then he tells me he just opened up his campsite for the season and that I don’t have to pay. Dale! A day along the Loire river follows. With some detours to see some more crazy castles. I take it easy because I’m well ahead of my schedule to my arrival back home the 22nd. I stop one village before Orléans because no Warmshowers host has been found to host me in Orléans, so I prefer the tranquility of a village to set up my tent. I sloppily wash myself under a water basin. Then I discover that they even have lockers for bikes here, which gives me the opportunity to leave my bike and bags behind and stroll through town.
The next day I first pass by Orléans, a city where Joan of Arc waved her banner for a while. I read a little bit about her history and come to the conclusion that she was just a crazy girl and convinced everybody that she was “guided by God” to gain her popularity.
The first day in Europe with actual tailwind unveils itself afterwards, so the first 70 kilometers fly by. A big rain storm that’s passing by makes me have a mandatory 2.5-hour stop in a Lidl supermarket. It cools the temperature down big time! I find another campervan spot in the forest on the outskirts of a small village.
Days start to get so incredibly boring. I miss the adventure, I miss cold toes, battling freezing temperatures and wind, high mountains, I miss crazy gravel roads, I miss guanaco’s on the side of the road, I miss speaking Spanish, I miss companionship of other cyclo travelers my age. I miss a spark inside of me. All the days are just so grey, so nothing, so predictable. Cycling in Europe/France is just to easy. Whenever I get hungry I go to the nearest Lidl/Aldi/Intermarche/etcetera which is always within a few kilometers. The roads are all flat and paved, wild camping is too easy, drinkable water literally everywhere, conversations with people minimal because I don’t speak the language and other travelers here are always retired, old people with which I just don’t connect. The days just go by and I’m counting down the days that are left to the 22nd of June: the day of my arrival home.
Today I end up 20 kilometers south of Paris. I can stay with Anaïs that I know from a camping somewhere in the north of Argentina. She was so nice to offer me a place to stay even though she is in the middle of moving to a new place. I tried to find a Warmshowers to host me in Paris, to spend some days in the city, but once again nobody responded to my emails. So Morsang-sur-Orge it is! Anaïs takes me into the city at night for a stroll and it’s great. The next day I help her clean her apartment a bit and go into the library to do some writing. At night she takes me along to see her friends. I notice I’ve missed being social like that and really appreciate the night.
I cycle through Paris, which is quite stressful: too much people, cars, crossings, speedbumps, traffic lights, etcetera. But after 60 kilometers I finally get out of the city into smaller villages again. Way nicer to put your tent somewhere next to a small pond in a village than in the middle of a metropole.
Some nice gravel sections through the forests of Compiègne follow. In Compiègne I may put my tent in the garden of Marie, Vincent, Esther and Ewen that I’ve connected with through Warmshowers.


















I visit the place where the first World War was ended: the French and the German signed a deal in a train wagon somewhere in the woods east of Compiègne. Than, with a tailwind, I fly to Saint-Quentin for a bed in a youth “Auberge“. Which I’ve stumbled on by accident as I was looking for the municipal camping. Putting my tent is €6 and a bed €11, so I decide to spoil myself with a bed and do groceries to cook myself a nice meal in the big kitchen. I’m in good spirits: it’s Saturday night and I have a bed tonight. I pop open a bottle of wine during cooking while Julieta Venegas is singing her happy songs over the speakers of my phone. I might even go into town for a beer, why not?
So I cycle into town and find a nice big pub that is having a party. I order myself a beer and make some friends. So far so good. But as I order more beers the night becomes more hazy. I’m drunk, but in a good way, still smiling and all good vibes. But than everything changes. I don’t know why, but there’s a group of people not happy with my presence. I cannot understand why because they’re all talking French. One girl in particular is being very annoying and aimed her frustration at me. I give her a little push to show my annoyance with her. Something I shouldn’t have done and will start to regret right away. Not because the girl didn’t deserve a push, no only because it was not a smart move of me with all the events that start to unfold from there on. The bouncer suddenly appears to throw me out. I’m all okay with that, there’s no problem, I will just go home. But he turns out to be one of those aggresive bouncers, that are just waiting for a little spark to start becoming real aggressive, an excuse to get violent. Even tough I show only cooperation he starts to grab my shirt, tearing it completely apart. He throws me out, on the ground and then starts kicking me and punching me in the face. I have no idea what’s happening to me. I take a few punches to the face and kicks to the stomach and run away. I run around the corner to sit down on the stairs of a church. I’m shaking, completely filled with adrenaline. What the hell just happened? Why? Then suddenly two guys appear around the corner. They start talking to me. At first I think they are asking for directions or something, but then suddenly they start to punch me in the face as well. I take more punches to the face and run away again. What the fuck?! I quickly get my bike and get the hell out of there. In the bathroom of the youth hostel I check my wounds: bump on my forehead, thick and bloody nose, thick and bloody lip, bump on my cheek, completely ripped shirt. I wash the blood of my face and go to bed.
I wake up at 1PM with a sore face. Then I suddenly remember yesterday. Did this really happen? I look into the mirror and look straight into the answer to that question. What the hell? How could that happen? I feel ashamed, I feel like a victim of senseless violence, but on the other hand I want to be tough for myself. Just a small fight, some bruises, nothing too bad, get over it. I struggle with this for the coming few days. Everytime I feel my bruises and wounds reminds me of that night, but also I want to just forget about it and move on. It’s actually quite funny: I survive the ‘dangerous’ South America to have my most violent experience in the north of France!?
That day I watch the Dutch squad play their first group stage match at the Euros. My initial plan was to watch it in a pub in the city. But last night’s events have put my mood off, no way I’m going into that city again. So I watch the game on the WiFi, on my phone, in the youth hostel, alone. We win. After that I need to get back into the city to try to see if I can get back my fleece vest that I had to leave behind in the pub yesterday. I don’t have a good feeling going back to that place and I’m nervous. Luckily they’ve found my vest. I cycle out of the city around 6PM and a few hours later I pitch my tent next to a campervan area in the town of French painter Henri Matisse called Le Cateau-Cambrésis.
Today is the last day packing up my tent this trip. I cycle some more nice forest roads after which I cross into Belgium. Right away I see people carrying crates of Jupiler into their houses, I see “friteries“, Duvel signs and all of the other Belgian goodness. Tonight I’ll stay in the house of Daniel and Diana and it’s quite a funny story how I ended up staying with them. They’re from Mexico and are working and living in Mons for a couple of years now. Diana started following me on Instagram some time ago and when I asked for tips in Europe she responded and offered me to stay at her place. And it gets even funnier: Diana isn’t home but still told me that I’m welcome to stay with her boyfriend Daniel. The thing is, Daniel hasn’t been following my trip and basically has no clue what his girlfriend dragged into the house. So the moment I ring the doorbell and meet Daniel I tell him my story. Besides the fact that I’m a total stranger to him he is the sweetest guy ever. He totally spoils me with food and drinks and takes me along to watch Belgium play their game in the Euros at the big screen in town. The next day it’s raining all day so I am really glad I decided to take a day off. I have a nice evening with Daniel, he cooks for me and we have a nice night together before I hop back on the bike the next day.




The weather is better and I cycle past the “Panama Canal of Belgium“: a big-ass boat lift in the central canal of Belgium, lifting boats up to overcome a 80 meter height difference in the landscape. When I cycle on I miss the “Welcome to Vlaanderen“-sign, but at some point I notice there’s Dutch words all around me! I see stuff like “fietsstraat“, “ingang“, “Café de Draak” and “eenrichtingsweg” and it’s so weird to read my own language in the streets again! I make it to Leuven where I’m kindly welcomed by Winston and Laura and their 4 months old baby Tomás. They’re friends of Sander and super sweet. We talk and have dinner together.
The next day I cycle to Hechtel-Eksel, the town where my friend Wasi is from. I meet his friends, family and stay in the house of his parents. And of course Wasi travels from Gent to be there as well. He is a close friend now and it’s always nice to see where somebody has been raised and were somebody grew up. And vice versa it’s nice as well: his parents have heard lots of stories about me, so it’s also cool for them that I roll into town with the same bike and gear that I’ve cycled the desert with in Bolivia with their son.
Lovely days, lovely people. Hechtel-Eksel all the way!








I say goodbye to Wasi and his parents, Wasi and his dad cycle along with me for half an hour. I navigate over Achelse Kluis, because I’ve used to cycle to that spot back when I was living in Eindhoven. I enter the border with the Netherlands.
Damn, everything is so recognizable now. I meet my brother and my friends Pim and Jacko in Valkenswaard, we have lunch at my sisters’ where I meet two other friends Freek and Daniel. With the six of us we cycle towards Sint-Oedenrode. I steer into the dead-end street at my parents when I suddenly see 50/60 friends and family waiting for me in excitement. Queens’ “We are the Champions” is playing over the speaker and a big round of applause follows. I come to a stop in the middle of the crowd. I never get really emotional, but this time I get overwhelmed by emotions. I have a big lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.
My parents get a big hug first and then the rest of my friends and family. I’m so incredibly grateful for this day, but not only for this day, for my friends and family that will always be there for me, support me. Even though I do crazy shit that makes me not be around for two years. In Dutch there’s a saying “Uit het oog, uit het hart” which roughly translates to “Out of sight, out of mind” but I’m very happy to have friends and family that keep me in their minds and their hearts, even though I’m not in sight. And of course the same goes for me. I’ve never really missed anything when I was at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, not the food nor the culture nor the Dutch weather. The only things I missed were my friends and family, the people that have a place in my heart. And they were almost all here today to welcome me back. I will never forget this day.
Thank you all.









































Wat een mooi end van een onvergetelijke fietsreis met een vervelend staartje van zinloos geweld (Blij dat ik dat nu pas lees)
Zo blij dat je heelhuids thuis bent gekomen , helemaal door het gevaarlijke Midden-en Zuid Amerika gefietst en word je in Noord Frankrijk nog even in elkaar geslagen
Bedankt voor je prachtige verhalen Marijn
Nu is de cirkel rond
De cirkel is rond <3
Blij dat ik weer lekker veel tijd met jullie mag en kan spenderen xxx
Marjin, Rita Braun here from Whitefish, Montana.
Over the last two years I’d pop in on your blog now and then. Tonight I read Argentina III to the end of your tour. What a journey! Life changing, mind bending…all the goodness of life. Congratulations on embarking and then finishing this massive journey. And what stories you have! So many wonderful people encountered!
Take care and best of luck as you move from this journey to your next one.
Hi Rita! So incredibly nice to hear from you! Thank you so much for the nice words. It’s the people along the way that made my trip unforgettable. You and Chuck made me and Jacko feel at home, you welcomed us into your lives after some harsh days on the bike, enabling us to recharge our mental and physical batteries. I cannot thank you enough. With a warm heart, Marijn. https://worldtrip.marijnvandewijdeven.nl/montana-1/#jp-carousel-369