Take the 20 euro cruise ferry back to Sweden. The lunch buffet on-board is sold by its weight – 2 euro per hg. Expensive for a cyclist. I eat the left overs of a Russian loaf – deliciously sour.

The green in the Stockholm archipelago is so dark – almost black. Nearly threatening, but I rather celebrate it as a force of nature. In Sweden, the force of nature is shown by its colors. In the desert, by the heat and the wind. In the Pamir mountains, through the bitter cold and the barren landscape; paradoxically in the absence of color.

I board the daily ferry to Riga, departing at five pm. It’s a typical ferry of the Baltic Sea with most of the cramped cabins below the car deck without windows, and with a unison decor of gold and mirrors in the public areas. It’s clean and quite ordered, but the tastelessness of the interior, the food and the often hefty smoking and drinking passengers make me long for home although just a days trip away.

Fortunately I meet Swedish Kalle – also on bicycle but for a week-long trip to Tallinn – and we chat away the gloomy evening hours at the upper deck.

We get a ride with Lina’s parents to and with the boat over to Germany (saving us paying a ticket for the ferry). We need a quick start from Kivik just like I did when I took the commuter train from Stockholm.

We get to camp for free at a local camping outside Ascheberg. I’ve brought with me a small homemade brochure with information about the journey, a map and a few pictures, that I use to explain our travel and budget. My hope is that we will be able to get free camping every now and then, and thus also the possibility to shower and wash our clothes.

From Bästekille in southern Sweden, travel companion Lina Larsson joins me. I started looking for someone to bike with last autumn, and an advertisement on several internet discussion boards gave dozens of replies. I met Lina just twice before we decided to give it a try, so the journey will also be a bit of what people along the road have already named ‘a social experiment’.

Loads of chocolate the last miles. Cheers to friends Daniel and Emelie (www.danielemelie.com) for a place to sleep and a well-needed haircut in Kristianstad.

I’m following a map by Svenska Cykelfrämjandet (‘The Swedish Association for the Promotion of Bicycling’). “Cykelspåret längs ostkusten” (‘The bicycle track along the East coast’) marks smaller roads with less traffic. Quite some of these roads are graveled, cutting through woods, fields and smaller towns and villages. It’s actually a beautiful countryside, with numerous tranquil places where one can stop to rest, eat or just enjoy the fresh air and be warmed by the sun of the early Swedish summer. But I’m totally focused on getting further away from home – it is still painfully close. The next few days, until I reach Kivik from where Lina will join me, will be just cycling.

With a piece of thread over a map – straight through Europe and along the west coast of Africa – I come up with the distance as the crow flies. Roughly, I estimate the distance along roads to be the double that, and I calculate a total travel time of somewhere between one and two years.

I haven’t cycled much before – long distance at most for a week or two, and almost never daily. Fact is that I haven’t even touched my bicycle for the past eight months. But I guess I’m somewhat desperate to get away from life back home, and besides feel a longing to contend physically for the journey. Anyway, I need a quick start. I start off with the commuter train to southern suburb Järna, and begin to pedal from there. I will at least reach further than to a concrete suburb of my own hometown before I have to settle and pitch my tent. It is the first day of what will become quite a long journey.

To be honest I really lack confidence and with that also energy, appetite for eating and the hunger to see and do things. So I eat bread with a slice of salami for lunch, and I pedal only because I know that once I’ve overcome these first few days, I will enjoy it thoroughly.

In a small clearance in a suburban wood of Bergshamra, nearby Nyköping, I pitch my tent next to a jogging path amid a fair amount of mosquitoes. Get inside, eat a can of cold beans and fall dead asleep.