PART 1: GUANTANAMO, LATVIA
Day three of the road trip was a fairly intense one, involving some false starts and a bit of back-tracking as some of the transport connections I was relying on turned out to be fictitious. Those Baltic travel schedules turned out to be every bit as unreliable as I'd thought. In fact, there were times when the only things that kept me going were the wonderfully warm smiles of Latvian women.
These, I have to say, are among Latvia's greatest natural assets ... and when I say that, I'm comparing said smiles to some other pretty darn impressive stuff.
Exampleoceros: it’s a little known fact that Latvia has recently been named the greenest country in Europe. Or at least, I think it's little-known – mainly because no-one has ever come up to me and said "Hey Anthony, did you hear that Latvia is Europe's greenest country?" So either nobody knows this, or nobody is telling me. I'm not sure which.
Either way, it's quite an accolade. Consider some of the competition: Finland is basically a few tens of thousands of lakes hidden inside a big forest, with only a handful of folk living in it, separating their recycling meticulously; Slovenia is 70% trees and about 15% mountains, with a population of around 40; Germany was so freaked out when it nearly lost the Black Forest to acid rain in the 1970s that it has entirely re-invented itself as a Green Society par excellence; and in Iceland, the buses run on hydrogen and nearly everything else is powered by moving water. So I don't know whether Latvians are proud of their 'green status' ... but if they aren't, then they freaking well should be :-)
Certainly flying over the country (as I did in May), the greenness of it was both extremely striking and extremely inviting. I had a powerful urge to get hold of a bicycle right away, and see this country properly, instead of transiting through Latvia as I always seem to do. I've promised myself that one day I will do that, hopefully with my family (and with Scott – we've been talking about it for ages). But not today, sadly.
The smiles, though ... well, they're absolutely world-class. I mean, forget London: if you're tired of being smiled at by Latvian women, you really are tired of life.
The early part of the day was also marked by a cavalcade of annoyances, which reached a deafening crescendo at around 8:30am. I was still in the waking-up process, and after asking for help from the staff and being met with utter indifference, I was sitting in the bar of my hostel and trying to make the wi-fi work. There were five guys in the bar dressed in faux medieval costume – tights, velvety waistcoats and so forth. I'd previously seen them on the steps outside when I went for a cigarette, drinking their 'breakfast beers'. (It's a common Eastern European thing to get tipsy at breakfast time. If you're Ukrainian or Russian, you do it on the way to work.)
Now they were inside, and on to their second round ... when all of a sudden, the beers were placed on coasters, musical instruments were produced from under tables, and latches were being loudly flipped open. A few seconds later they were tuning a bunch of guitars and lute-like things, before launching into a rendition of Guantanamera at ear-splitting volume … just as one expects first thing in the morning at a vaguely Irish-themed hostel in Latvia.
The early part of the day was also marked by a cavalcade of annoyances, which reached a deafening crescendo at around 8:30am. I was still in the waking-up process, and after asking for help from the staff and being met with utter indifference, I was sitting in the bar of my hostel and trying to make the wi-fi work. There were five guys in the bar dressed in faux medieval costume – tights, velvety waistcoats and so forth. I'd previously seen them on the steps outside when I went for a cigarette, drinking their 'breakfast beers'. (It's a common Eastern European thing to get tipsy at breakfast time. If you're Ukrainian or Russian, you do it on the way to work.)
Now they were inside, and on to their second round ... when all of a sudden, the beers were placed on coasters, musical instruments were produced from under tables, and latches were being loudly flipped open. A few seconds later they were tuning a bunch of guitars and lute-like things, before launching into a rendition of Guantanamera at ear-splitting volume … just as one expects first thing in the morning at a vaguely Irish-themed hostel in Latvia.
Like any sane person, I reacted by fleeing. No-one deserves Guantanamera* before 9am!
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PART 2: 'SHAO-LEI'
At around 5:30 this afternoon, I rolled into Šiauliai in northern Lithuania. First impressions: drier than the other Baltics, more heavily cultivated, and a good deal more 'Soviet'. There were broken footpaths, shabby tower blocks, Moskvich cars and many other reminders that I'd arrived in one of the 15 former republics. But there were also cycle paths (very un-Soviet) and credit card machines that actually worked.
I found the railway station without too much trouble, my wheelie bag bouncing over concrete blocks that had assumed all kinds of funny poses and angles. And a bit over an hour later, I boarded a train to Vilnius, and arrived there (sorry, here) a little after 10pm.
So ... success :-) I'm now approximately 1,045km into the journey, with about 1,200km to go. And I'm in Vilnius, of all places! How cool is that?
I'm also completely exhausted, so without further ado or adon't ...
good night :-)
('Guantanamera' = that horrible Cuban song that you've heard way more often than you should. It translates as 'woman from Guantanamo', and it's about unrequited love. According to one version of the story, the songwriter was at work one day when the woman he loved brought him a steak sandwich, and that little act of kindness inspired the song. Which is kind of cute I s'pose ... but why do we have to hear it over and over again, even in frikkin' Latvia?!?)
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