Day 5: Czech Republic to Slovakia

Saturday 10 September 2011

We woke up to a warm sunny morning at the side of this lovely Czech lake.

On our previous day's drive we had joked about the quality of water in light of the country's industrial history during the period of Russian influence in WWII. While it did have a floaty layer of algae flecks, the water was refreshingly cool and the surrounding hilly tree landscape made me feel like I was taking a dip in Algonquin. Even more special was that it was Costas' first time in a fresh water lake!

We allowed ourselves a slow morning to enjoy the nice weather, swim and pack up before getting

 back on the road toward Bratislava. As we pulled out of the Czech campground, Costas was sure to leave a can of beer behind for the helpful attendant who we struggled through translations with in the previous evening. It was the cheapest beer we'd bought thus far.... imagine leaving someone a can of Sainsbury's beer as a "thank you"... we decided it's the thought that counts.

That morning we also realise that we had miscalculated the travel time until we needed to be in Budapest where we would be picking up Ally, our fifth adventurer.

Despite having forwarded her flight details, we managed to convince ourselves that Ally was arriving in Budapest on Sunday, so when Paul received a text message from her saying,

 "Can't wait to see you on Monday!" there was some journey rejigging to be done.

We were back on the road by mid-day with Paul behind the wheel. There were fairly frequent construction zones along both side roads and main roads, so when we were back on the motorway and found the car to be exceptionally bumpy, we chalked it up to road works.

It wasn't until Paul went to overtake a truck that we had virtually no acceleration. He and Mike, who was sitting in the front seat, exchanged glances and Paul immediately indicated to veer onto the shoulder of the motorway.

I look up from my netbook, "Where are you going? What's wrong?"

"Flat tire," they say in unison.

"Ohhh no," I reply.

We were tucked in on the side of the Czech motorway and Mike confirmed our suspicions, we had a huge screw lodged into the tire and the smell of burning rubber seeped into the car through his open passenger side door.

The next few minutes are a blur, as I've never seen two men jump to "man in charge mechanic" mode in my life. I slowly gathered my things and hopped out to the side of the road and sat down next to Costas on the grassy hill beyond the ditch. Mike and Paul threw on the bright orange safety vest and set out the motorway collapsable pylons we found in the glove box.

Trucks and cars flew by at 130km/hr, and in the Czech Republic, trucks will veer onto the hard shoulder when a car goes to overtake them. This meant that Costas was on car lookout in the event that this overtaking might happen within our range.

Unloading to dig out the dinky spare tire

Cars did indeed veer toward us and Mike and Paul had to back away from the repairs on occassion to make sure we didn't get ploughed into the ditch. It was an otherwise uneventful repair thanks to in house expertise (and adrenaline, I think).

Paul and Mike... in their glory

In the meantime I fiddled with iphones and the Tomtom to sort out our next steps.

After severla phone calls to Sixt, the rental car agency, we finally just pulled over again to await further instructions. It was a game of phone tag- speaking to locations in Germany, Czech Republic, and Slovakia to figure out where we could get either a new tire or a new car. We enjoyed some wrap sandwiches and beers in a farmer's field about 20minutes outside of Brno, the Czech's second largest city and soaked up the mid-afternoon sun.

With so many phone calls made to Sixt, we started to keep track in a log book! This was getting expensive...

While waiting to hear back yet again from the agency, we decided to get back on the road and just stick within the speed limit of our spare tire, a mere 80km/hr on a motorway with a 130km/hr limit. Here we come Bratislava.... it'll just take us a while to get there.  

We arrived in Bratislava at dusk and settled in at the only campground we could find- a "lakeside resort 7km northeast of the city centre." It was indeed on a lake, whether or not it was man-made, we're not sure. Paul said it reminded him of a run down equivalent of Butlins in the UK. Caravans, little cabins, and a few bar huts- all in cinder block- scattered throughout the property adjacent to the "lake." Despite the shoddy surroundings, we enjoyed a lovely dinner and a game of UNO under the stars while the nearby disco thumped in the background. We had yet to hear from the car hire company..