Treibgut

Ich stecke lieber Strubbelkopfüber im Wasser als im Sand und kombiniere wirre Ideen und symetrien.

Ich gehöre zu den Tagschattengewächsen und schlage nur sehr schwer wurzeln. Meine Verbündeten leben in Wäldern zusammen mit Discokugeln die auf Bäumen wachsen und runden farbigen Klängen.

I m rather stucked with my tousled head in the water than in the sand, combining woozly ideas and symetries.

I belong to the day shadow plants and find it rather hard to grow roots. My confederates live in the forests together with disco bowles that grow on trees and round colored sounds.

Golubac Fortress 1043 – some week-end house in Romania 1007

Another typical “marching day”: Have a sleep in and no breakfast before we attack  Golubac Fortress – high, higher and to the highest summit we climb! And feel like ancient kings of “Danubia”… The big freighters look like toys down there..

Letting our feet dangle, 3 of us enjoy the amazing view: Cliffy rocks forming vertical walls to both sides of the river, it’s really impressing after having traveled  all those weeks in totally flat regions! naked stones laugh at us because of our baby-like age. Still being right in the middle of the Iron Gate, we keep on driving, the sun sets. What a great feeling to float down the nighty river in the dark.. When we find a place to stay and ask the people if we can tow the boat there, we get a clear “no”; we tried to explain that we really need it and they sound quite pitiful: “No. Please!”. Ok, we’re pirates from the dark floods, but still!

Turning and picking some plants from the turbine, one of the guys goes like: “Hey! Why you not stay here?!” Really confused we turn again.

Finally, we get beer and have a nice evening with the guys on the veranda being surprised by German vocabulary like “Ferienwohnung” or “Bescheid”.

Veliko Gradiste 1059 – Golubac 1043

For the journey, the nice lady gace us ripe apples&peaches from her garden as well as a bottle of home-made Rakija made of apples. The fruits are gone pretty soon cuz they smell & taste like serbian summer… we pass the huge lake located right before the “entrance” of the Iron Gate. Luckily, the wind has calmed down – it would have been pretty hard to cross with the strong koschava moving you rather upstream than downstream… in the evening, we landed in the middle of the Golubac fortress: for the 2 watergates Djerbdap I & II havebeen built, the pegel of the Danube went 30 meters up -  that’s why we could park there and climb a wall from the keks-roof! What a wicked fortress! and a strategic spot: the Serbians built it to fight the Osmans but 30 years later Golubac was alrdy conquered by them and kept for a few centuries… ironic. No1 of all the placed we stayed over night, perfect kulisse for the Keks – pirates meet serbian and osman soldiers -  in our minds …

Nowhere Beach 1104 – Veliko Gradiste 1059

After maybe 2 weeks of discussions about Rene’s hair, he gets a funky fresh haircut today – Steffi on one side, Kathi on the other, Mo stays sceptical about the whole mission..

When we arrive in cute Veliko Gradiste, we get a warm welcome: a young lady with her two kids is approaching us waving and laughing and offers anything she can help out with. In the centre we had a funny Serbian conversation with an old woman on the sidewalk, all we could understand was that she once had a German teacher (80 years ago? In 1980? She’s 80 now?); but she was having fun telling us lots of stuff!

Ritopek 1141 – Smederevo 1115 – Nowhere beach 1104

Leaving the rubbish pile behind towards the former Serbian capital Smederevo to restock supplies. Skyscraper impressions with overhangs and individually designed balcony empires…

A Russian-Serbian fisherman stops by for a chat. He keeps talking in Serbian and Russian we keep understanding very little but for the essential parts – fish? yes!  vodka? yes? – it’s enough. After this nice little exchange (3 shots of vodka from us for about 4kg of fresh river fish from him) we gotta gut the fish. Everybody goes for it, we take turn steering so everyone can have some fun.

Later we found a beach where we started a barbecue for estimated imagined 10 people (heaps of fish, potatoes and other veggies in tinfoil, stuffed champignons…). In between plastic bottles, old shoes, river shells and strange industrial sounds from behind the gravel hill the Danube fish got grilled. The little spiky, pointy nose fish found lots of  ‘friends’ or rather eaters whereas the so called Danube flat fish who due to many small spines wasn’t loved as much.

Belgrade 1170 – Ritopek 1141

After a last walk to the petrol station/bakery we leave our kind friends in Dorcol. Back on the Danube, we face a strong wind and blue-gray waves, which give you the impression of being on the sea.

In the evening we land in Ritopek, rubbish village. Colourful plastic bottles, bags, glass, every kind of rubbish was in sight. people on tractors drove by.

Back to the city center after a rather chilly swim in the lush and soft waters of the Sava. Steve’s taking a trip to the hospital after his hand has not significantly recovered. The whole x-ray odysee took several hours but brought clearity that he had broken some part of the middle hand in Novi Sad one week earlier.  In order to get it all properly fixed again he decided to go back to Germany.

Sava island – Ada Ciganlija -  Belgrade Dorcol 1170

Fuzzy headed all day we started off becoming club members of Redorno Ulanska Korta and joining the club president for a traditional Rakija breakfast. Extreme Minigolf in the afternoon by the lake finishing with some deluxe Serbian fast food.

Belgrade 1170 – Belgrade Sava Island

Strong wind gusts shaking and waking us this morning. Steve also found his way back to the Keks again being somewhat a loof a bout his excursions. Steaming to the Wicked Forest seems like a bad idea. A few internet hours later we cruise up the Sava (river) having Nemanja, Nina, Sinisa and Ling on bord. After some renegade night driving we park at a cozy Sava island only inhabitated by houseboats and stilz houses run by some local soviety of water life loving people. Stumbling through the dark and following the beat we find that open air Drum’n Bass Gig we came here for. Some crazy people had organized amps and spotlights and everything you need for having a good night’s party out in the woods.. great dancing and funny people there!

Belgrade 1170

Where is Steve? that was what the crew wondered about this day. He’d taken the turnoff to the club-boat esplanade and won’t be seen for the next time.

Full moon, changing weather, all in all we got up to some internet business but a kind of general unorientated state took overhand in which none of us was able to take the lead.

During the whole time in Belgrade a burger/pizza with ketchup/fast food flash burst out within the crew as of 24/7 availability.