Sarahmade

We have spent the weekend in the middle of nowhere. We got the bus from Parnu, but not before we brought cakes from the factory down the road from our accommodation, we think at cost price. They were very fresh though had the taste of diesel. The bus took us via a ferry and causway to the Island of Saaremaa, off the west cost of Estonia. It was pouring with rain.

We arrived at Kurresaare, the main town and went shopping for food we wouldn’t have to cook and vodka. We then got another bus to the middle of the middle of nowhere. It cost under a pound and took 1 hour. It was still raining (Tom spoke to a lady who said it rained all last summer).

Then we arrived at out destination – Kipi and went to find Esta the lady in charge. It turns out that Esta isn’t very good at being in charge and she gets a bit flustered at the idea of guests. When we arrived it had stopped raining but she started by saying “problem”….she then spoke for about 8 minutes and we heard the words “neighbour”, “rain”, “neighbour”, “summerhouse”, “renault” then she told us to sit down and she ran away. We gathered from this that for some reason we couldn’t stay in the place we had booked because of the rain but her neighbour had a place and they would come and pick us up. Then after 10mins she came out again and said “problem” and then we heard “neighbour”, “expensive”, “summerhouse” and then she ran away again muttering “neighbour neighbour”. Then we gathered that we would be staying at the place we had booked afterall and we had to get in the car with her husband and her daughter and they took us to our cabin.

It was in the middle of nowhere, in fields of juniper bushes, about 100m from the sea. There was fireplace made with stones and a big waterpump and then our little cabin with just beds in it. It was so beautiful. Then they left us and we went to the sea and named parts of it after ourselves, Tom Cove and Sarah Rocks. The clouds had cleared and we found the loo so things were definitely looking up. Then at 10.45pm the most beautiful sunset.

The next day Esta came round to our place and she looked a bit less stressed because it was really sunny. She bought us some drinking water, because you couldn’t drink the water from the well as it was orange and metallic. The water she bought us was green so we didn’t drink that either. She said also she would bring us some bikes and some wood. Then we really started camping. When Van man bought us bikes, wood and skewers we cycled to the local shop (6km) and brought sausages. Tom – with his excellent scout training made a fire and we cooked vegetable kebabs and sausages and drank beer and vodka.

We didn’t hear from Esta the next day. We went for a big ride on our bikes and had two peak experiences. The first was when we saw a sign for an eating an drinking place so went to investigate. It was a village called Pilguse. When I say village it was about 5 houses and one of them served coffee. We were so happy as we hadnät had an hot drinks for ages. The second was when we were in search of a windmill which turned out to be a lighthouse and cycled up a small hill through fields of crops to be confronted with a beautiful view of the sea. The road we were on went into the sea.

So we spent 3 days cycling on dirt roads sometimes going for miles without seeing anyone. We didnät see any other tourists. There was no one staying at our camping ground. We had to wash in metallic, ice cold water. I had to sleep under 5 spiders and two dead wasps they had collected. When we got back to civilisation I forgot you had to lock toilet doors.

There may be a part two to this as I haven’t even told you about being allergic to juiper bushes, our flight in a 20 seater plane, vietnam man and sawdust toilets.