Curonian Spit

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July 14 - Today was interesting. I didn't sleep that well as people were coming in and out of the room a lot after I went to sleep. I got up around 7:30am and had a slow start to the morning. My stomach is a bit out of sorts, as it has been some of this trip. I wonder if it's the water. Once I got ready, I headed out to the Curonian Spit with Rachel from North Dakota. The spit is a thin little piece of land that juts out of Kalingrad (a random piece of Russia in the Baltics) and the top part belongs to Lithuania. We took a ferry to get there, and it took all of about five minutes. From the ferry we walked around a bit, went to the info office to get some maps, and then got on the next bus to Juokrante, a town a little further down the peninsula. The plan was to rent bikes and ride from Juokrante to Nida, the last town on the spit. Or at least that's what we thought. We missed the stop and went to the last town, Nida. That was fine - saved some money and went in reverse. When we arrived it was rainy, not ideal. It was a little cooler, which was good, but still hard to deal with the occassional rain. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I would have because of the rain. Shame, as it turned out to be a beautiful place to see.

Our first stop was the big sand dune that looks out towards the Russian side of the spit. We walked along the water until there was a path that we followed up to the sand dune. It was really a beautiful view, dampened only somewhat by the rain. Eventually we walked back to town on a path through the woods, which was nice, and then had some food. Next, we set about finding bikes. It didn't take long as there were bunches of places renting them. We found out where to drop them off in the next town and then set out for a thirty kilometer ride. I found this ride much easier than the last time, perhaps because I had someone to ride with. She set a good pace and we covered the ground in about two hours of riding. We didn't have many stops along the way, but the ride was very nice, passing through forests and near the coast at times. It was more beautiful than my last ride in Estonia. Or possibly just more recent, and therefore more in my mind that two weeks ago. We did have a stop towards the end, near town, and it was at the water. By then the weather was clearing and there was some sun. We sat there for an hour or so, having a snack and taking in the view.

On the ride into town, Rachel bought some wild mushrooms, quite famous here, and we set out to find the drop off point. Not hard, though later I realized I forgot to give them back the key to the bike lock. Damn. There were some things that we did not see that I would have liked to, but the bus would be there soon and we didn't have the strenght to spend another hour until the next one came along. We found the bus stop and sat there for fifteen minutes waiting for the bus. The bus ride was about twenty minutes and then we took the ferry back to the mainland. Walked back to the hostel, enjoyed a well deserved shower and had some dinner. My only big problem is having this stomach ache. There are no private-ish toilets in this hostel, and I could really do with some privacy when feeling like this. Tomorrow I'll go to Vilnius via Siauliai, a town famous for it's Hill of Crosses. Rachel will join me, and it will be nice to have some company for a long day.

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