Camino Pilgrim

Three months of recovery from a sprained ankle… It took a month for the large swelling to drop. It took another month for the foot not to swell up slightly after every walk. For the last month I kept doing regular short walks to make the injured part strong enough to handle a walk this long.

Now I am back on the trail! I had to take a taxi to where I last left off because the bus goes there only on Wednesdays.

I met two young Germans at Tipu Nature School, who will be volunteering there for a year as farmhands. They had decided to use their gap year between school and university to figure life out in a remote Estonian farmhouse. I hope the goats, chicken and geese will keep them good company.

There might have been a pilgrim on foot and another on a bicycle today. Not many people go through here and they continued on the Camino where the RMK hiking trail turned off.

Other than that I was really alone. Just a perfect sunny day. No annoying bugs before the end destination. Just two non-poisonous snakes enjoying the sunshine on the roadside. Throughout Soomaa I have now seen all three variations of that snake (the color of the dots on the head are either white, yellow or orange). Not a single poisonous snake with the zig zag in sight. Which is surprising since there are almost no people who live in Soomaa territory.

The endless straight car roads did not bother me. I enjoyed listening the wind blow through the leaves, distant birds singing and later some grasshoppers.

Last 4 kilometers into Kõpu village were clearly not in the swamp anymore. Hills and farmlands suddenly appeared. Houses started showing up frequently. Villages were bigger than two houses. Even the Kõpu church tower was visible at least two kilometers away above the tree line.

I did not manage to access the church today for a stamp, but at least I got to enjoy an ice cream after a perfect day of walking. Hopefully even longer walks await in the future.