past and through

Posted on April 12, 2023 by Christoph Rehage

Tags

By loading the map, you agree to Google's privacy policy.
Learn more

Always unblock Google Maps

This post is about an 18km walk from Cicov to Sap. We walk through a sunny day and end up camping next to an old ship.

Two days of rain, two days of back pain. I didn’t know why it had gotten worse again, but given my recent hospital stay I felt worried. Maybe I shouldn’t have ridden that bicycle, I thought. Or maybe the last night in the tent had been a bit too cold and too wet.

the window

We decided to leave anyway. The weather forecast said that there was going to be a window of maybe one or two days without rain, and we wanted to make use of it.

So we packed our stuff and left the hotel. The weather was fine indeed – not warm enough to take off our jackets just yet, but at least we didn’t have to wear any thermal underwear or our fleeces.

hot water

We walked slowly, almost tentatively. As usual we were following the EuroVelo, and as usual we felt a bit as though we were walking not through Slovakia, but past Slovakia. This changed when we realized that we were running out of hot water. We had two thermoses, and both were running low.

So we went to a house in a settlement, and when we saw some people drinking beer in the garden we asked them for hot water. They filled up one of our thermoses and gave us two tangerines and some chocolate.

the ship

We pitched the tent next to what looked like a loading platform for an old ship. There were no people in sight, and it was neither windy nor rainy nor cold.

At some point a man with a little kid appeared and told us to be careful: it was going to rain heavily the next day. Then another man came, stayed for a little chat, and brought us more hot water and some more chocolate.

And in that moment it felt as if we were walking not just past Slovakia, but through it.