26. Jun 2025

Rannakodu - Kuiviži

Photo 1: Today I arrived in Latvia. Walking through Estonia was no sweat. By that I do not mean that it was easy. At the end of a day having walked an average of 28 kilometers a day with a backpack weighing between 18 and 20 kilos depending upon how much food and water might be in it, is never easy. At the end of a day all I wanted to do was take a shower, eat, do a WhatsApp call to my wife and then go to bed... or sleeping bag. Falling and getting stitches was no fun either. What I meant was that the weather was so cool, overcast, windy and rainy that I did not sweat much at all. What is good about that is that I do not need so much water on the hike and I do not need to wash my clothes so much... no sweat, right!

Photo 2 / Video: There is really no path as such on the beach. You just have to find your way along. Not always is it so easy to walk or jump over a water inlet like in the video. Sometimes there are deep and wide and you have to find a way to get around them... or wade through the water which I did not want to do for various reasons. At a few points I ran into high and thick plant growth so that I had to turn back and find another way to go. This always brings a bit of suspence in the walk... will I get through or not?

Photo 3: I actually saw one yellow arrow on a rock on the beach to mark the Way of St. James.

Photo 4: The sun was shining today in Latvia, and I had a few short encounters with people: Two bike riders from Belgium for whom I was able to pray, a young Catholic family from Latvia who said there were folliwing Jesus as well, and these two bike riders in the photo from Poland. All I could say in my very broken Polish-Russian was: Good day! Jesus is my Lord! God be with you my brother!" They were so happy that they wanted to have this photo taken with me at the border to Estonia. It is aways a good sign when people want to have your picture taken after you have told them something about God or prayed with them.

Photo 5: The foundation to a railroad going out towards the sea that was never completed because World War 2 started.