Coffee is best served boiling hot

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Stary Folwark, Wigry National Park, 16-07-2001.

At first I lie still not daring to move an inch, my limps still limp and crampy after a well-deserved night of sleep - much needed when cycling up and beyond a hundert kilometer a day. I listen intently to the sounds outside my sleeping bag, it is the pre-dawn hour, the time the animals of the night seize their nocturnal activities, ready for rest while those forest dwellers involved in Sun Worshipping prepare themselves for the coming day.

I decide to follow the latter taking a quick peek outside the warmth of my nighttime partner. At the other side of the lake over the tops of the shadowy trees I can discern a silver horizontal stripe growing in intensity, the beginning of a new day here in Wigry National Park...

A brand new day for me here on top of my three stories high observation tower built out of sturdy wooden beams, no walls apart from the support beams but wooden lean-toos and equally wooden benches, a bird watcher's paradise...or maybe the ideal wild camping place for an entripid traveller like me.

Couldn't actually believe my luck last night finding the wooden boardwalk hidden in the lake high reed, that gave access to this huge stucture overlooking the lake and totally hidden in the vegetation...nor the sight of hunderts of white swans out on the lake, the sounds of that multitude of swans preparing for the night followed me deep into the evening while I watched the sun set and worked on my luke-warm half liter alu cans of Polish Zubr which according to the shop owner means Der Bulle in the local lingo - German for either Bull or beat cop...

While I have an early morning swim after rekindling my little camp fire, the swan nation is slowly coming to life as well. I watch how partners greet each other poking their yellow colored beaks together, territorial disputes never finished the day before start with the new day in this feathery kingdom.

The sharp hissing of my old and dented coffee kettle - another one of my age old travel budies - tells me coffee is best served boiling hot. Even out here in this overpoweringly impressive forest several thousand kilometer from home...

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