I'm an adventurer, thrill seeker, and life enthusiast with a shorter life expectancy than your mother's cat - Follow my never-ending journey.
I was on a 65-day cycling journey from Holland to Istanbul.
I had been following the Danube river for weeks; cycling through Austria, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Serbia when suddenly…
A pack of snarling, amber-eyed dogs appeared out of nowhere and tried to bite my ankles.
I tried to scare them away; I yelled at them, made myself as large as possible, and even tried kicking them with my boot.
I tried to talk them down, tried to out-cycle them, and even dropped a delicious ham sandwich hoping they would leave me alone.
It didn't work.
Whatever I tried; the dogs just kept coming at me.
Throughout the Balkan countries I was repeatedly attacked by feral dogs, and over time I developed somewhat of a phobia for these vicious animals.
I was about to enter Romania, a country that— according to rumour— had more street dogs than all the other nations combined.
Before I crossed the border, I loaded up the map case on my steering wheel with as many rocks as I could fit.
It didn't take long for the first packs of dogs to appear. I bombarded them with rocks of various sizes, making sure I didn't hit them. I just wanted to scare them off.
Unfortunately; they remained unfazed.
Day after day I'd cycle myself entirely out of breath to escape these dogs. Sometimes this led to dangerous situations as my fear-ridden brain ignored all other traffic.
One afternoon, while sitting in a small village, I saw dogs chasing a local on a bicycle. The saliva was dripping from their teeth as they went after the man in a complete frenzy.
To my surprise, the pursuit didn't last long.
The local man got off his bike, stood tall, and quietly faced the dogs.
Instantly, the dogs calmed down, and soon after they took off.
Was this guy a dog whisperer? How did he get the dogs to back off so quickly?
He explained that Romanian dogs get very aggressive towards people on bicycles because they don't often see people on bikes. It's unfamiliar to them, so their instinct tells them to be aggressive.
When you're on a bicycle, the dogs don't recognise you to be human, but as soon as you get off, they do.
I had to try it to believe it.
At first, I was hesitant to slow down, get off my bicycle, and face a pack of feral dogs without a means of escape. However, as soon as I did, the dogs lost interest and wandered off.
When you're riding a bicycle 8 hours a day, for 65 days straight, you have a lot of time to think.
I started to think about what other fears I used to outrun, and I realised that crossing that barrier of fear had never been as bad as I expected it to be.
Most of us rather deny a crippling fear than face it, but if you slow down, remove your option of retreat, and directly confront your phobia; you will see it is never as bad as you imagined it to be.
At the end of my trip, after 65 days, I had cycled 3300 kilometres, experienced over 50 dog attacks, and overcame my fear of those attacks by no longer running from them.