Hiking - 2014
Canoeing Lake Saimaa, Finland (7 days) - September 2014
This was a somewhat peculiar trip to the edge of Europe, part of
a 5000 km road trip around the Baltic Sea.
The day before we left NATO had dispatched dutch F16 fighters to Poland and the Baltic States to guard against Russian aggression, and this was exactly the area we had to cross on our way to Finland.
We didn't understand the languages, didn't hear any news, as our road trip took us deeper into these unknown countries. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. The latter three the former USSR.
Finally we arrived in Tallinn, Estonia. And the next morning we took the early ferry to Helsinki, Finland and found ourselves on the shores of Lake Saimaa that same day.
But the canoe center. was deserted. Lots of equipment, but no people. I called the owner, who talked me through a curious process of punching in codes, opening locks and gathering equipment.
He told me to leave the money in an envelope, and just take any equipment that I needed. Canoe, lifevests, maps, barrels, paddles, whatever I wanted.
What followed was the most awesome canoe trip I ever made. 7 days of good weather, every night a wild camp on a remote island and total freedom in our route and places to camp.
After 7 days we returned as we had left, without seeing anybody at the canoe center. We just left all the gear where we had found it earlier and headed home, this time through Skandinavia instead of the Baltics, and as such completing our round trip around the Baltic Sea.
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