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Saturday, July 13th - Naumburg to Bad Duben, 7237 km
I have packed by bags by 8am when Horst's father invites me to the dining room to have a coffee. He asks when I plan to leave and explain I need to fix the broken rivets on my front mudguard that broke again when I hit the rough cobblestone yesterday. "Ah Zoe" he says. I go upstairs to get my tools and when I return he has already removed my mudguard and brace. He disappears to work on it. Not to appear lazy, I clean the bike and replace a screw on the bottom of my rear rack that has worked its way loose and escaped somewhere along the road recently. Herr Dittman returns with two new rivets made from hammered nail heads and he reinstalls the mudguard himself. We negotiate a price for the room. He asks for 10DM and I give him 15 for the extra service. I also pick up a potted begonia plant for them as an added thank you when I am shopping for groceries in town.
East Germany bears the brunt of years of Communist abuse, an asteroid belt of ugly, grungy, industrial towns in disrepair and broken road surfaces. Very little is in the process of being fixed up since reunification two years ago. I am heading north-east, aiming to pass between two of the worst industrial nightmares, Halle and Leipzig, without going into either one. It is 2pm when I reach Merseberg. It isn't worth a picture. Here I get horribly turned around in the Dickens-esque decay and end up redirected south. I arrive in
Leuna, one of the many rectums of East Germany, filled with smoke stacks and nuclear power station towers. It’s a sci-fi nightmare, something that might have been used as a location for the movie “Brazil”. I struggle my way back on terrible roads for the better part of an hour, having made almost no headway at all in the hour after leaving Merseberg. I find myself on Hwy 181 heading east to Leipzig at 3pm when I stop for lunch. I turn north again before I reach Leipzig. The terrain continues to flatten out and the wind is behind me from the south. I make good time through Delitzsch and onto Bad Duben. I arrive in Bad Duben at 6 pm. The first hotel I see is called Goldener
Lowe, the same name as the only hotel in Naumburg. Do they have hotel chains in East Germany? There's no answer at the hotel. It does not look abandoned but I have no idea if anyone will be there later so I move on. The next wants 50DM for a bigger room than I need but they refer me to Pension Calyx two kilometres out of town. Pension Calyx is very "western," with clean, efficient rooms and modern conveniences, including an in-suite bar to tempt the weak and indulgent. The young couple who run it are friendly and attentive, even though they had family visiting that evening. They even invite me to join their family dinner for free. They have two boys, aged 12 and 16, who take great interest in my bike trip. I show them my log book and journal. I begin to feel like an extension of their family, which is a wonderful treat for me. By 10 pm I retire for bed without any regrets about not having cycled into town that evening.
PHOTO 1: Cathedral in Naumberg
PHOTO 2: Naumberg Cathedral from rear
PHOTO 3: dirty East German town in disrepair
PHOTO 4: Leuna industrial park
PHOTO 5: Bad Duben
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