Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

There are certain perks to having a car. Just as there are to being a wallflower, says a film that I didn&39;t enjoy much. Not that I am a wallflower (too old to be one, I suppose) or that I&39;m particularly fond of wallflowers. So let&39;s skip this wallflower subject altogether and start over.


For half a year, give or take, I had just two wheels of my own. That was not exactly bad - this way I was able to do stuff that I otherwise wouldn&39;t had tried, I had to plan ahead, be cunning, friendly and insistent. I went hiking, cycling, boating both alone and with friends, and even on quite a few trips as a passenger. But with the winter coming (luckily I do see some positive sides to this season as well) getting a car of my own became more and more important. So, to cut the long story short, I got one. On the previous weekend it was taken on the first short test drives (to Vāne and Nītaure) and on this one the Latvian golden mile was undertaken. What&39;s the Latvian golden mile? Just a nickname for the tour Riga - Jaunjelgava - Jekabpils - Aglona - lake Razna - Rezekne - Madona - Ergli - Riga that I came up while writing this paragraph.

I was accompanied on this trip by the lovely Kseniya (some compliments are always good, especially when when they are meant for real and not just out of politeness), and as the plan was to undertake a two day trip, I had brought along nearly the full set for camping that I have at my disposal - two matresses, three sleeping bags, two extra warm blankets. And the tent itself as well.

Day One (Saturday) was the official day for a journey without maps (at least digital ones). Why? Because I said so, isn&39;t that a reason good enough? So I didn&39;t know the fastest way how to get from Sarkandaugava on the road to Bauska which I wanted to take, the use of GPS was out of question, so we lost some time leaving Riga, but it&39;s not like there was a timetable or a google calendar anywhere in sight. The sun was shining, the day was beautiful, so was Kseniya (I&39;m losing focus here with this shameless flattery, am I not? I&39;ll try to abstain from using this blog entry for compliments from now on), and we got to Jaunjelgava without any adventures. I should probably let Normis know that there is a quite nice promenade in Jaunjelgava. It&39;s not exactly a countryside trail which would fit the standards of sapnis.com/vietas perfectly, but Jaunjelgava isn&39;t a real city (my apologies if you&39;re from Jaunjelgava and consider yourself a city dweller) either. Anyway I liked the walk and in a handy manner on the way back we went by the main street, thus having seen both the riverside and the city (ok, maybe it is a city) as well.



Next stop - Jēkabpils. Ok, Krustpils first, but it&39;s the same city nowadays anyway. Since I was not a geocaching mission, we had enough time for a walk through Jēkabpils and to visit the Struve Arc park (a UNESCO site after all) in the daytime. Woo hoo! That&39;s something new - actually seeing some sights, instead of just searching for tupperware. Although seriously - geocaching is a fine hobby, recreation, sports - whichever you prefer. And there&39;s no doubt at all that there are many more geocaching tours in store for me. Everything&39;s cool, as long as you know your balance. What was I writing about? Jēkabpils, I think. There was a very creative merry-go-round there - with cubes instead of horses, and one statue of a horse nearby, so the children could see the one horse and imagine riding other horses. "Never limit a child&39;s creativity!" - so I&39;ve always said. Or maybe I haven&39;t, it doesn&39;t really matter, as you can&39;t prove anything.


The main goal of this trip, if there ever was one, was to revisit an island on the Cirīša lake in Aglona and restore a geocache there. Obviously there first thing one does in Aglona is visiting the popular pilgrims&39; destination - the Basilica of the Assumption - which is one of the just eight international shrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Seriously?! Even I did not know that before just having checked Wikipedia! That&39;s quite something, isn&39;t it?


And then - off to the lake! Luckily I remembered where I got the boat the previous time when I went to the island, so no time was spent searching for one. Aglonas Catlaki - you can write down this name should you ever need to rent a boat on this lake. Or have a party near the lake with dubious music. No, they are not sponsoring this blog, if you&39;re wondering. Honestly going on boat trips in this season is slightly depressing - even with the blissful sunshine you remember that the water is not as pleasantly warm as you&39;d like it to be, and very soon (or not so soon - you can&39;t know that ahead very well) there&39;ll be ice fishermen and skiing geocachers instead of leisurous people ir oar boats. There are some changes on the island since I last went there - there&39;s a wooden statue at the top of the hill, thus making the hiking trail along this island slightly more meaningful (or to be more precise and gramatically horrible - less meaningless). And this statue probably was what caused the disappearance of the previous geocache. Hopefully the new one will remain there for a longer time. I suppose on a certain level it could sound creepy - taking a girl to an island that goes by the name "Sacrificial island", but the only thing sacrificied on the island was a tupperware box, which is not too painful a sacrifice.


Afterwards I wanted to go to a cafeteria. But the one in the centre of Aglona would had been a very poor continuation to the restaurants in which I had been during the last few geocaching trips. And who wants to travel with no style? Not me. So what do people with style do in Aglona? Obviously - instead of going to a cafeteria they just grab some potato chips and beer at the local store. Ok, maybe it&39;s not that creepy - we visited the local bread museum (which was sadly closed to general public) where there is a bread shop. Now this is a place I will highly praise to you! We got a positively weird and very tasty black bread with cubes of lard in it, and an apple pie as well.

Luckily there was a map of the nearby region close to the Basilica, thus we knew which direction to go - I had planned to visit the Čertoks lake (the Devil&39;s lake) and to camp near another lake close to it. Obviously in this season there aren&39;t any problems finding a camping location anywhere, but I prefer places which I know to be good. And the paper map at least showed which way we should take from Aglona (should you care - it&39;s in the direction of Krāslava).

We found the lake (it&39;s a good thing that I know that there&39;s no sign pointing to it on the main road), didn&39;t feel THE PRESENCE, went around it and just when we wanted to move on, it turned out that THE PRESENCE had felt us. Meaning - the car keys didn&39;t turn in the ignition. I tried all the programmer&39;s tricks with turning it off and on again, checking whether it is actually plugged in, waiting and praying, and finally even reading the fucking manual. Yup, I read the manual alright. And even that didn&39;t help. So as the very last straw I decided to call the guy from whom I had bought the car. I didn&39;t have high expectations from this call, as I&39;d expect someone who has just got his hands free from a car (which he certainly had some reasons for getting rid of) would not want to hear anything from the buyer, as those people rarely call you to say: "Wow, what I great car you sold me! It doesn&39;t have any problems whatsoever!" But the guy answered and was even able to help me - telling me that the steering wheel has probably locked. Which was true.


Near lake number two I got the tent up with all the sleeping bags and blankets available. We didn&39;t have much luck at starting a fire (meaning - no luck whatsoever), so we got into the tent and watched movies in the friendly company of potato chips, pistacchios and refreshing beverages. Whaaaat? Who watches movies in a tent? I certainly do. And we found out that the battery on a TurboX tablet doesn&39;t last long enough to watch two movies. Not a very important fact, but you never know when some knowledge might come in handy.

Even with the big selection of blankets this was by no means a hot night. And no - I don&39;t make inappropriate jokes about friends. That would be just plain stupid (and I may be stupid, but not in a plain way). It&39;s just that the temperature dropped below zero at night, and I hadn&39;t actually prepared for that perfectly - out of laziness I was sleeping in jeans instead of thermopants, and I couldn&39;t find where one of the sleeping bags was at night (as it turned out in the morning - it was under me). Obviously I&39;ve known worse, but comfortable it was not. Nay.

In the morning we had a breakfast with the amazing Aglona bread, and headed for Zosna. There wasn&39;t much of a logic in my plan of the trip but for some reason we went through all the locations in Latvia where I know that my ancestors have lived (Jēkabpils, Zosna, Vestiena). There&39;s not much to do in Zosna on a Sunday morning (or on any morning. or at any time for that matter), so I set the controls for Mākoņkalns (and not for the heart of the Sun. I may be using unclear quotes too much here). Yes, this was a GPS-friendly day. And so we went there. The view from the hill was superb - as this was another amazing sunny day.



Where do you go from Mākoņkalns? To Rēzekne. And what do you do in Rēzekne? First you see the ruins, then - go to a cafeteria to get a hot chocolate (which was not exactly hot, to be honest). But at least the cafeteria is nice, and so is the building in which it is located. It&39;s new, isn&39;t it? Or have I just not bothered to notice it before?


This text is getting overlong, no one will be able to read it, especially if I keep inserting pointless remarks like this one. But I&39;ll try to stick to the point from now on. After Rēzekne we took a rather strange road to Madona, from there - to Gaiziņkalns. Up the highest hill of Latvia, and down again. Remains of yesterday&39;s bread and the obligatory mini bottle of champagne (thanks to Vimba for this tradition! by the way - the pink champagne is not tasty at all), the road to Ērgļi, and so we got to Ķeipene.

Do you know what? I had been at the museum dedicated to Sergei Eisenstein before, but I had no idea that you could climb up the leg of the giant table. Where we so crazy about geocaching that we just didn&39;t bother to check this? Or was the door maybe locked? I seriously have no idea, but it was worth climbing up there. The museum itself was closed though, that&39;s too bad.


And after Ķeipene? The long and winding road to Riga. For some reason the Riga-Ērgļi road now doesn&39;t strike me as bad anymore. It&39;s fun and I enjoy the ups and downs, the lefts and rights. I think, this was a good weekend. As usual - I hope the next one is not gonna be worse. And the one after that. And the one after that.