26.08
Riga, Fukusima
Struggling with finding my way to Fukusima, but getting a reply quickly when I ask for help. Being welcomed by the only person I know there. Eating my lunch together with the food which is immediately offered to me, some couscous and pickled vegetables and mushrooms, while the question “Is it better to have diarrhea or to vomit while biking?” is discussed. People apologize for the imagery, and I say that I don’t mind and sharing related stories of my own.
Eating pancakes with banana and peanut butter and chocolate paste. Repairing the roof of an overwater gazebo and loosing gloves. The feeling of being instantly useful is dizzying.
Downloading Organic Maps during the map workshop, freeing myself of MapsMe ads.
Making dough with yeast for the dinner. BBQ with freed fancy vegan food: sausages, beetroot patties, cheese, later wrapped in dough and cooked on a grill, later pouring into your mouth out of bread. Going to a sauna naked for the first time in my life, collecting some dry birch leaves from a sauna broom with my towel.
27.08
Riga — Juras Priede
Setting out to scout together with X, and quickly remaining behind to buy some insistence against mosquitoes (in vain). Picking and loosing apples. Reuniting with X, having lunch together, sharing wafers and chocolate, napping. Feeling good at being listened.
Arriving to the spot, swimming naked in the ocean, also for the first time. The surrounding seems unreal, as if it is a space where there is no time or danger.
First day sleeping on a beach, setting the tent at the sunset to see the sunrise once awaken. Disbelieving the thought that you can just put a tent in such a beautiful place to spend a night there and nothing bad will happen to you.
28.08
Juras Priede — Mersrags
Cleaning the pot with a pine branch with needles. Unexpected power sockets sticking out on a pole from the ground.
Picking plums and black gooseberries in an abandoned garden, filled with many fruit trees and berry bushes, capable of filling dozens of jam jars. Biking alone and realizing that it is the most comfortable way to do that. Buying some halva and chocolate to treat myself and others.
Swimming with swans upon arrival. Setting the tent on a slope to be a bit more remote, feeling how tiredness make me more irritable. Learning to build stone&log constructions to keep the heavy pot with boiling food stable. Getting stressed about seeing resting people while cooking and being tired. Stressed about tired people not being responsive to offers of having a sharing circle. Crying in the tent, with resolve to carve out some resting time for myself the next day and not to cook not to get angry at people.
29.08
Mersrags — Zenu dikis
Biking with Y for 10 minutes at my speed and then parting with them, staying behind. Wanting to make pancakes and manifesting three aluminum trays: two with maggots, found in a plastic bag of trash on a bus stop, one with coals and a mesh, found in a ditch; attaching them to an empty trailer I am dragging.
Trying to make some private tea to eat with my wafers. On the fire, the paint peels of my small metal container and gets into the water, and I make a difficult decision to pour it out not to drink burnt paint. The second tea tastes disgusting, it is not tea but smoked water, and I make the same difficult decision. But caring about oneself gets easier with each repetition.
Putting my tent at an even bigger distance from others and feeling stressed going there in the darkness later to go to sleep, this time meditating on the emotion of fear after yesterday’s anger and sadness. Taking a tick off myself and evicting it before going to sleep.
30.08
Zenu dikis
Rest day. Failed attempt at making a pancake (the oil starts to burn on the tray), although the fried pieces of clumpy batter taste really appetizing.
Beach napping. Finding two skewers and two grill grids at the second BBQ place, further away from our cooking place. Making dough from the remaining kilo of flour I feel responsible for, and improvising chocolate paste made of peanut butter, oil, water, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt (!). Enjoying the compliments.
Getting a tick out. Sewing helmet strap along with other people sewing, to decorate their clothes or to mend things. Hearing reports of the underwhelming Cape Kolka, the most northern part of our route. Peeling the rest of dumpstered veggies and frying gathered mushrooms on maggot trays (cleaned from maggots). Enjoying the dinner much more after the day of resting.
31.08
Zenu dikis — Irbene
Seeing a white heron perching on a tree and then flying away during the breakfast. “They are called angles because they appear as if out of nowhere, so quiet are their wings.”
Making a list for cooking, with only the amount of rice per person specified in the table which is supposed to have numbers for all grains to help people calculate how much to buy. Traveling with Z, discussing how great it would be to pick some nettle for a salad (picking just the top few leaves and then mashing them). Riding on a mesh bridge over a marsh. Having lunch on dunes, making a decision to throw away half of the food because it is sour from going bad unexpectedly quickly. Treating Z with privatized sweats. “Don’t worry, everyone has such a stash.”
Meeting scouts and going on a somewhat unplanned detour, seeing abandoned buildings, probably a school among them, and riding a rusty merry-go-round pole. “It felt quite dangerous” — “That’s why we still have our bike helmets on” — “But that’s just half of the people!”
Unexpected warm shower blessing and filling three of our containers with yellow water for 5 euros.
Riding through an abandoned military town with a huge radio telescope (“built to observe the aliens!”) Arriving quite late, picking no nettle, setting the tent in the darkness, using precious battery power on the phone to use its flashlight to put a tent because the bike flashlight’s button died. People telling each other how the river is actually warm in comparison to other rivers, other people entering the water and yelling in disagreement.
Getting belatedly requested and thus unexpected mustard for the salad dressing, enjoying complements for the cooking (mustard, oil, sugar(!), salt, spices for fish).
01.09
Irbene — Uzavas Baka
Saying goodbye to Z. Trying to set wet wood on fire with an empty lighter which produces just sparks and an almost empty sanitizer bottle, spraying alcohol on Polish train tickets. Setting the wet wood on fire with X’s help in getting a functinal lighter and a big paper coffee cup. Leaving the camp quite late because of a morning rain and cold. Enjoying the breakfast made by X with yesterday’s rice, cinnamon, picked red berries, sugar, and raisins (the list might be inaccurate). The best breakfast of the trip. Finishing the packing with reluctantly adding yellow water to my bottle.
“A shame you can’t transfer your impressions to another person.” — “Yes, this experience is embodied.”
Biking with Y, saying before the start that we’ll ride together for a short while because of our speed difference, for me to use the Internet access they have while I think I have none, ending up traveling half of the distance together, talking about relationships, polyamory and geography art, having a lunch on a beautiful lake with ducks near Ventspils, followed by effortless deticking of my right leg with a thread.
Washing myself in a shopping mall bathroom, refilling the stash of toilet paper, changing the yellow water for transparent with some relief.
Fruitful dumpster diving: an apple, a bouquet of yellow flowers, peppers, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, three pots of basil, pumpkin, melon(?), onion, and parsley.
Getting lost for a while in the city, pedaling to the camp with a worrying thought that it is getting dark, signing songs loudly to drive away anxiety. Reuniting with Y, splitting the freegan food for me to cary less in the backpack. Arriving to the camp through a long dark forest road, greatly relieved at seeing a fire flickering somewhere below, down a narrow steep path. Feeling nauseous and resting near a fire, very close to it to warm up in the cold. The Baltic Sea, in comparison with the Gulf of Riga, seems louder and mightier.
02.09
Uzavas Baka — Pavilosta
Picking apples from a tree growing on the beach. Finding a really nice meditation spot, high above the water, under a signal tower.
Rejoicing at being able to dry the tent and the towel after them being wet for around 24 hours.
A circle with movement and love letters box organized by Y, who volunteered to deliver them to their addressees. “But how would you transfer the letter to someone who’s not here?”
Scoutless day. I can volunteered to be one since I am the first one to leave the camp, but I feel that I won’t arrive the first with my speed and thus put the arrow signs before everyone arrives. I end up making arrows out of stones anyway.
Picking up the biggest apples of all the picked apples.
Buying a lighter which produces more than sparks and throwing away the old one, with marijuana leaves printed on it, accidentally symbolizing my intention for stopping regular smoking and reducing it to a couple of times a year. Buying soy and almond milk for some hot cocoa for my last dinner. Unpacking the van. Hesitant before the last sunset swim, but Y cheers for me when I enter the water. “I’m wearing a coat! I was afraid the water would be so cold!” — “But it’s never as bad as you expect.”
Pealing garlic. Cleaning the table. Enjoying the best dinner (pasta with so much vegan cream~). Having a circle where we imitate the noises we hear and then express our emotions through movement and/or sounds: people howling, grunting, exhaling, throwing flowers on the table, chuckling nervously, smiling.
Washing a pot to make cocoa. Diluting the almond milk with water so much it is barely possible to taste the milk, trying to compensate the flavor loss with sugar and cocoa powder. But it is nice to have some sweat warm beverage in the darkness, even when it is watery, I tell myself.
03.09
Pavilosta — Liepaja
Waking up earlier to catch my bus in Liepaja. Another great meditation spot on a grassy dune top, where the things that interrupt me are not sensation reminding ticks crawling on my skin, but a playful husky and then an indifferent unidentified white dog visiting me on their walk.
Setting the fire with a new lighter, cooking oats with soy milk, apples, some peanut butter, oil, sugar, salt, and negligible amount of cinnamon which I get out of two almost empty bags.
Saying goodbyes. Hugging. Comparing the tour to Vipassana, with its long rides in solitude, phoneless time, and the meals being such a delight, along with sunsets and sunrises.
Getting invitations to come to places. Saying that I will join the tour next year and hope to see everyone again.
Eating the lunch from my food container in Liepaja, enjoying the contrast of my outlandish look, with disheveled hair, smoked coat with coal stains and holes, loaded bike, and the people walking around. Feeling pain of returning to the work chats. Feeling very tired, but very fulfilled with the trip. Anticipating next summer.
