Canoe in Soomaa National Park, Estonia (June 25th 2006)

Hello!

You may wonder what I am doing there ??? This was not included in the initial plan. Well, the story started some days ago. Last monday I could feel a serious muscular pain in my left leg. As a consequence my pace was reduced and it was getting hard to keep up with the others. I thought it would be better the next day while visiting Vilnius, but it was not. So considering this pain and the general tireness, I decided to take some days off to recover while Andrea and Joa Marc would keep cycling toward Latvia and Estonia. We decided that we would catch up around Tartu in Estonia in 4 or 5 days. I stayed another day in Vilnius, and I took the bus with my bike on Thursday 22nd to go to Tartu, including 4h waiting in Riga. As opposed to the first one, the second bus driver in Riga was not ok with having my bike in the boot of the bus. I tried to explain to him the situation in english, but he could not understand anything! Fortunately, Jenni, an estonian speaking finish woman managed to sort the situation out! I have been lucky. She invited me to stay at her place after I told her about my plans. Her boyfriend Kaarel studies history in Tartu, and we went for a late visit of Tartu by night. The next day was the estonian national day, which is the main event in Estonia during the year, with bonfires everywhere in the country. I was invited to one of his friends' party close to the Soomaa National Park. After a great and tasty estonian dinner, we spent sometime around the fire after 1pm.
Yesterday we got the chance to go hiking in the national park with some guides, it is all flat, but the type of terrain changes all the time, from the boggy forest with all sort of high weeds and annoying insects, to the toundra-like tree less areas... Today we did some canoe along the Halliste and Navesti river. We are still very lucky with weather!

My leg is feeling better now, I am hoping that the pain will not come back when I start to cycle again. I have not heard from the others since they left Vilnius, they should get back to me very soon to decide where we will meet. I am also learning some basic Estonian.

Mina lähen.
Nägemist!
Steph.