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Published: August 28th 2009
Altja
Graham and Erin arrive at the Altja bus terminal.We are determined to see one national park in every country we visit, so today we headed off to
Lahemaa National Park. Looking at the guide, it seemed we could use any of three towns as a base, all of which were on the same busline: Käsmu, an old captains’ village; Võsu, a popular beach town; and Altja, a tiny fishing village at the end of the line that has a swing on a hill. (Apparently swings are a thing of high sport in Estonia.) Turned off by beachgoers and intrigued by swings, we checked the schedule for Altja. Five hours between drop-off and pickup; sounded reasonable for a couple of short hikes. We approached the ticket counter.
“Kaks pileetid Altjasse. Edasi-tagasi,” we said in broken Estonian. (“Two tickets to Altja. Round trip.”)
“Ei edasi-tagasi. One way,” said the cashier. We shrugged and figured, enh, must be something weird in how ticket sales work here. We paid, hopped on, and took off.
One of the nice things about Estonia (and many other places I’ve been in Europe, actually) is that there’s not a whole lot of suburb. You leave the city and it gets wild fast: a sky-high world of
TallTree
I love Northern European forests -- tall and narrow. birch and pine. The only thing detracting from the natural beauty was the rest of the bus. The Iron Curtain may have kept out most of Western culture, but the ugly decor of the 1970s transcended borders. Our fellow passengers were mostly teenage boys acting stupid to charm teenage girls, which unfortunately works in Estonia too. The bus wound around the coast; we admired the tall trees and infrequent colorful houses. We got to Võsu and the teens got off. We congratulated ourselves on not going to Võsu.
Fifteen minutes later we were in Altja. Only one other passenger was still on the bus at this point, an older woman who was met by family. She had a suitcase; she was staying awhile. We stepped off and looked around, trying to get our bearings. To say this was a one-horse town would be an exaggeration. Maybe three quarters of a horse. We saw some signs to the east, so we headed that way. Finally we saw the swing.
Swings in Estonia are not playground swings. They are not tire swings. They are large platforms tied to a frame of stripped tree trunks and attached to an axle.
Altja Neem
Cape Altja features a narrow beach and calm waters. Anyway, it was a bit too rich for my blood.
We decided to see where the trails went. The signs to Cape Altja pointed through somebody’s yard; we shrugged and started walking. We spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering: past a gaggle of swans, toward a large rock, over a creaky bridge, along a narrow shore, on a trail of red mushrooms, through a looming forest.
We managed to get in two short hikes, punctuated by an emergency bathroom stop. The etiquette of bathrooms in rural areas is very strange. I wandered up to a, er,
the pub, hoping that I could buy a snack and justify my presence, but the place was deserted, the door wide open. After dancing around nervously for a bit I just went on in. I figured, better than the alternative.
Around half an hour before the bus was due to start, we headed to the stop -- just to make sure we didn’t miss it. It sure would suck to be stuck in Altja overnight. I sat down. Graham stood, squinting at the posted schedule. I waited.
Graham turned to me and paused.
“Are you
Creaky bridge
Graham walks gingerly across the bridge over Aljta Jogi (Altja River). sure the bus is coming?”
“Yeah, the online schedule said the last one leaves at 5:15. Why?”
“Because this word looks like Friday.” He pointed to the heading over the second schedule:
Reedeti. “I sure hope they don’t mean this bus only runs on Fridays.” I scoffed. What kind of bus line would be Friday only? I mean, really.
We waited a bit. No sign of a bus. I called the national park’s information center -- just to be sure. Thankfully the woman at the desk spoke English. I asked her about the Altja line. Uh huh. Uh huh. Oh... crap. Suddenly I had a vision of the cashier at the bus station in Tallinn. “Ei edasi-tagasi. One way.” I thanked the woman and hung up. Now what?
We went back to the pub (no longer deserted) and asked the bartender what number we should call for a taxi. He frowned and told us that a cab to Tallinn would be very expensive, about ten kroona per kilometer. Well, $75 still sounded better to me than not making it back to the apartment in time to check out the next morning, but the bartender had an
Rakvere Erin
Erin, near the town square: "Where are we again?" even better idea. He used to live in Rakvere, a town 20 minutes away that has hourly bus service to Tallinn. He’d call a cab to take us there and we could catch a bus. While we were there we could grab dinner. He could even recommend a place.
We thanked him profusely. With that out of the way we chatted him up over a couple of much-needed beers, downed awfully fast. I must say I don’t think the floor has gone that wobbly in a while. We learned that his name is Ronald and he’s moving to Miami next month. We learned that he likes to drive very fast, but it’s safe, he says, because he’s been doing it since he was six years old. We were very amused by Ronald. The cab came. We tipped Ronald very generously.
We decided to make the most of our unexpected destination, so we went and saw the sights of Rakvere: a public square with cool lamps; a large bull; an old German fort. That’s about it for Rakvere. We got dinner and drinks at the place Ronald had recommended. We wandered into the Kaubamaja and got some more Estonian candy (chocolate with
kama filling; verdict: I don’t suggest it). We spent a lot of time laughing and I spent a little time fretting that it would stop being funny if we missed the real bus. But in the end we made it home to a hot sauna and a soft bed.
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jmj
non-member comment
Oh yeah...
....and probably won't be the last and least of your traveling woes. Laughter is your friend. At least you didn't have to flag down a bus in the middle of the hot countryside, with a cranky driver that wouldn't talk to you and tell you where the bus was going. England, 1978. Hoolitse üksteist.