Latvia

Our first stop in Latvia was at the home of our Warmshowers hosts Aldis and Dace in Valmiera. They happily squeezed us into their two bedroom apartment and gave us great company over the two nights we stayed. They shared with us some of their countries history and how the Soviet occupation had effected their grandparents and parents (Dace's mother geing born in Serbia where her parents had been deported to). We had intended to wander the town for most of the day, however our bikes were in need of a good clean after the rain, and to be honest we stunk after 9 days camping in Latvia and needed to clean both ourselves and our clothing before we ventured any further than the apartment.

Some Latvian history

Once we finally made it out we wandered two blocks and conveniently found an outdoors store that stocked Brooks bicycle saddles. Kate had sworn that if she saw one she would buy it in another attempt to battle saddle sores. Purchase complete and returned to the apartment, we had an hour to wander along the river before our host would be home for our promised home cooked meal. After being distracted by slalom kayakers practicing their sport we rushed home to create a simple stir fry - something we eat so often at home but have not eaten in months.

AMAZING new saddle - people say leather is brilliant because it is!

As Kate now had to break in a new saddle, and because we had had so many long days in Estonia, we decided to take the next few days slowly and do our best at being tourists, not just cyclists. It was a quick 35km ride down to Cesis, a cute wee town that boasted a castle from the Latgalian days. One tower had been beautifully restored and we got a real buzz from finally feeling like we were in Europe.

King of the castle

The next day was Calvin's birthday, so again we had a leisurely ride (although much more dirt road than anticipated) to Sigulda. We set up camp before the forecast rain, had a quick birthday lunch complete with cake and candles, and then set off about being toursits again. First stop Gutmanis Cave. This cave has a tragic romantic story linked to it about the Rose of Turaida and her commitment to her betrothed. After this we headed to the Turaida castle and were once again enthralled by the fortifications and clever technologies such as the heating that the castle boasted.

Hiding from the rain for birthday celebrations - cake and bread!

Cellars of Ligatne on the way to Sigulda

Gutmanis Cave with old and new graffiti. One inscription dates back to the 1600's AD  - but we couldn't find it.

We rode back to our campsite in the rain, and it continued raining heavily all throughout the night. It took us a while to get started the next morning, neither of us wanting to take on the rain, but we were eventually motivated by the fact that we had Aldis's friend waiting for us in Riga who could offer us a warm shower and a place to dry our gear. Once we hit the main road to Riga we discovered it was a classic Latvian highway squashing both lanes of traffic and us on our bikes to a road with no shoulder, while cars overtook us at great speed and with little berth. After about 2km of cars screaming past in the rain we scouted out a much quieter side road and enjoyed some space again. On joining the highway again we only had another few kilometers before the roadway split lanes, widened and gratefully had a generous shoulder to ride on - perhaps Latvian roads won't be the death of us. Approaching Riga we were kindly presented with a cycle path all the way to town. We had a brief and well timed stop at a bike shop on the outskirts to try a get a replacement front pannier rack as part of Calvin's had broken and was being held together by tape. We had no luck but we did get a great bargin on a drink bottle with free electrolyte tablets and missed a thunderous downpour of rain while we yarned away with the increasingly interested salesman about our trip. Rain stopped, sun out, photo taken by salesman of "New Zealanders at our shop!" and we were off again.

Navigating the next 20km of cycle way, roads and footpaths (where one way roads appeared from nowhere) was slow and we weren't so lucky missing the next downpour. We wound our way over the Dauglava River and along the never ending Slokas iela (road), passing through ever changing areas that felt like you were travelling along a timeline from 100 years to finally reach our host Janis's small Soviet style apartment, complete with walls and roof. The only minor setback was there was no Janis. Twenty minutes later a car came flying towards us, slammed on its brakes and out popped Janis. Everything was carried up to the top floor and there we were, stepping back into Soviet era living. It was small, basic and concrete but it worked and you could imagine the regimented and limited life that would have inhabited the place previously. Janis quickly set to work cleaning out his room so we could sleep there (giving himself the foldout coach), took us out for dinner (we had offered to cook for him but he insisted) and then gave a little tour and history lesson of the area. A very generous man!

We spent the next day exploring the Old Town of Riga and all of its varied and wonderful architecture. We randomly stumbled upon the opening day for the Gum Ball 3000 race from Riga to Greece with an impressive array of flash cars and motorbikes. We then took in a very sobering and well presented history lesson at the Occupation Museum of Latvia. Neither of us had known much about the Russian/German/Latvian history and after picking up little bits of information earlier in our travel it really pieced it all together. It should also be noted that we caught the local tram in and out of town all by ourselves!

Taking in the old buildings of Riga

The biggest zebra crossing we have ever seen. Kate is thrilled because she got a free incense stick from the Hare Krishna man. She lost it after 10 minutes.

Leaving Riga was much easier than arriving. 500m down the road and on to a cycleway that lead us all the way out to the coast. We passed through many quaint seaside villages along the way and enjoyed the quieter roads the further we got away from Riga. Our lunch stop was going to be at a peaceful public picnic spot but this turned out to be someone's campground, Ivo's to be correct. Maybe he was Latvian as he lived there. Maybe he was German as he spoke quite a bit of it the language. Maybe he was Russian as he had served in The Red Army on the far side of Serbia against the Chinese. We weren't too sure, but he liked Schnapps and had probably had some already that morning. There was a bit of confusion if we could eat our lunch there but once that was established he offered us "real" coffee, cups, cutlery and Schnapps. Throughout our meal we found out that he owned 500m up the beach and 1km down the beach; it was €5 to camp; if he found us there without paying he'd call the cops who would then knock us on the head; freedom camping outside his area was bad because of all the bugs; it was 100km to Kolka (Northwestern tip of Latvia) which was very nice, and he would rather hang himself than cycle out there; he had either used a machine gun, fast rifle shooting or bombs on the Chinese and then laughed a lot while in the army (we didn't laugh at this point). This was all communicated in German, some English and some fantastic charading. A very entertaining lunch.

We continued on around the coast and began our first attempt at wild camping in Latvia - about 40km from Ivo's. We succesfully found a possie but later found out that there were hundreds of tiny little midgies come dusk and we were eaten alive.

Wild camping attempt #1. We camped on the knoll to the left.

The next day, when we hit Talsi for lunch, we came to a point where we were undecided where we wanted to go next. A storm was showing on the forecast but had eased a little and we were keen to start heading south to border. The options were discussed and re-discussed; pedal on south and camp somewhere with the possibility of packing a wet tent and riding in rain until the next town to find somewhere to stay and dry out in, or turn off here and head towrds the lake area of Spāre and get a basic cabin to sit out the potential storm. With our combined aged wisdom we took the appealing option of sitting in a cabin and watching a potential storm go by.

"Nah we should just camp and keep going south rather than detour."
"Yeah-nah, I thought we just discussed this. We've turned off now anyway. Nah, the lake sounds nice."
"So what are we doing?"
"The Lake!"

It was a great indecision decision. We found the Lake Usma Kempings that we had seen advertised for a cheap cabin and met our very friendly campground manager, Dace (pronounced Dat-zay). She offered us a two person cabin cheaper than we had expected then quickley changed her mind and offered us a little private house next to the lake with cooking element, fridge, beds, cutlery, crockery, fan, table and chairs everything you could want for an even cheaper price! Awesome. She then loaded us up with a 5 litre bottle of water, some sparkling water and a heater "you'll be cold, you use this...but maybe not all night." She thought we were a bit of a novelty coming from so far away and turning up at her campground and shared this with other locals staying there. Every time we saw her she would say "do you have...(coffee/food/towels/anything)? I give you ...!". She worked at the campground two weeks at a time, then had two weeks rest ("I am pension, I am old!") back in Riga. She took such good care of us!

Lovely sanctuary at Lake Usma

Lake Usma pre storm

We had decided to stay an extra day to hopefully miss the impending storm but woke to calm weather and sunshine. We were rather surprised but happy to see the sun so took the opportunity to take a dip in the lake and wash ourselves. Thunder was echoing in the background but it never felt as though much would come from it. We felt a bit lazy not deciding to contiue to ride south, but the sleep in and relaxing was great. Four hours later thunder, lightening, rain and then hail arrived. The friendly local cat (we named him Tips for his white tail tip) very conveniently arrived at our door step just as the storm started so in he came and made himself comfortable on the bed. We were all dry and all happy not to be outside. Tips was later inspected by Kate for fleas and ticks which came back positive for ticks so he was back outside. Poor fella, but we let him come back for some more pats later.

Leaving our lakeside paradise was a little sad; Dace had been incredibly accommodating to us and gave us both a big hug as we left, Tips would be missed and the serenity of the place was going to be hard to replace. The sun was out though and we headed off down the gravel/sandpit road, fish-tailing as our laden bikes sunk into the sand traps. Sealed road finally arrived much to our relief, as well as the rain much to our surprise! By the end of the day we had dried out and found a very nice lakeside camp spot (about 5km north of the township of Skrunda) with sunshine, tables and no mozzies. Freedom camping attempt #2 in Latvia was much more succesful - although Kate found a tick on herself and then tent.

Wild camping attempt #2 - less midgies, more ticks.

Border day and it started in sunshine, quickly turned to storm clouds, then rain heavily. Wet weather gear was donned only to have the sun come out shortly after. Throughout the day as the sun and rain fought for the sky we were left creating a tropical sweat storm underneath all our wet weather gear. We found out the hard way that half of our route to the border was along sandy gravel roads. Of course the rain poured when we were trudging through this section and our bikes sounded like rusty chainsaws trying to grind all the grit through the gears. We may have  complained about the weather a lot, but by the end of that day we came out in sunshine and found the whole situation quite funny. Rain had mostly dominated our time in Latvia so why would it subside now? As a bonus we got to enjoy hidden away castle ruins, church ruins and many stalk nest sightings!

Hmm, which way? Sand, sand or sand?

Hitting sealed road again was a luxury even if it was a bumpy patchwork of seal repairs. On the way to the border memories were shared of our time in Latvia and an account of rain versus sun days.

Rain:  8.5 days

vs.

Sun: 2.5 days 

(but who's counting anyway!)

We had sunshine and hoped it would be a sign of many sunnier days to come in Lithuania.