Ukraine is a very beautiful country with its huge skies and red sunsets. I have never before heard anyone say too much when they came to visit. I wonder why. The people are all helpful and they all want to come over and talk but I just wish I could understand them. The girls are shy and the grandmothers seem so cute but they also look hardened and set in their ways. The guys seem to have the same bone structure as my family and sometimes I could even see a lot of my brother in the young workers. In fact the resemblance is quite shocking. I think that my brother would have liked this trip too; we were both lost dogs looking for where we came from.

We stopped in the middle of the day and Emmanuelle spent an hour or so in the hammock to recuperate after 60 km. She really earned it so I let her sleep in my hammock instead of the little mesh hammock she was carrying. Anyway we arrived in a little town just 20 km out of Lutsk where we asked the locals if there was a hotel or a place to camp for the night.

One man who was bringing the hay back from the field in a horse drawn buggy offered his backyard for the night. He was a cute older man who had the hands of a farmer and a heart as big as the sun. We followed his buggy back to his farm and he motioned to a spot where we could set up camp.

Perfect for us as we were exhausted from the day of biking in the heat. After he was done his chores and the sun had set he came over to our camp and we thought that he wanted to know if we would like to heat up water for coffee. I was writing my log for the day and Emmanuelle came running back to the tent without any coffee. She said that he has set the table outside and brought a whole bunch of food and drinks.

A little surprised I staggered over to the table which was indeed set up for a feast with everything that we could ever want. He also set the table with these curious little glasses only about a couple of inches high.

Uh oh... here comes the vodka...

I guess the locals love their vodka and I didn’t want to offend him so I drank a toast with him. I'm not the heaviest drinker in the world and after a day on the bike, straight vodka out of a bottle without a label is the one thing that is the furthest thing from my mind. Nevertheless I drank to his health and generosity for the meal. Then I went to bed.

I wondered why I have never heard of the hospitality of Ukrainian people.

Ok, so it was not a dream! We had really slept in a bungalow in this magical, clean little **** camping resort in the middle of nowhere.

After a hardy Ukrainian breakfast, we picked up our bikes. Thank God they were still there! And hit the road. It was somewhat of a nice ride, I say somewhat because, the scenery was great and very different from what I had ever seen before, but the roads! Ah, the roads were rough! Holes and bumps, gravels and cracks were dancing in front my eyes! I had to constantly lift my arm to prevent it from being shaken up.

At 1pm I was already pretty tired so we stopped and Chris set up the hammock. I just crashed, oblivious to the constant noise of the crazy traffic!

It was getting late and it was getting time to find food and a place to sleep. Now food was already tough to find but we managed to buy a few cookies, Ukrainian bread, and sausage and chocolate, it was not a feast but when you are starving, you are pretty happy with what you have.

It was getting dark and I was ready to sleep on the side of the road when we thought it would be better to ask a farmer if we could set up our tent on his field. After a few attempts and lots of miming we found a very nice farmer that took us right to his house and offered us a field to put up our tent in, water and a shed for our bikes.

We were so happy. We set up everything and began eating our feast of bread and chocolate. It was then 9 pm when the farmer came back from the field, he saw us eating and somewhat tried to explain, we could have warm water to make our coffee he invited me to follow him to his house, to my surprise, I finally understood that his wife had prepared us supper, a huge bowl of borsht, bread, lemonade, pickles and of course vodka!! I could not believe it! How nice of them to offer a meal to foreign tourists like us! I wish I hadn't eaten all that bread and chocolate! I was already full but I was not going to refuse such a great meal! However I didn't drink the vodka; I just had a taste! It was really strong and the farmer was getting a kick out of watching me cringe when tasting it!

It was the first time I tasted borsht and I have to say it s quite good except for the sour cream which I don t like so much. It was then time to go to bed, a sleep well deserved!