tiny rainbows

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This post is about a 16km walk from Geisa to Vacha. It’s my first walking day in former East Germany, and the rain does not stop.

I had spent the night in a small and cheap guesthouse. There were two other guests in blue overalls who had arrived in their company van. My room had three beds and a fly swatter on the wall. I liked the place.

rain, no rain, rain

The morning greeted me with heavy rain at first, so heavy in fact that I was seriously considering staying another night. Fuggit, I thought, I don’t need this!

And then, just like that, the rain stopped, and the sun was out. I bolted out of the door, packed up the Caboose, and started walking. Will this be my first walking day without any rain since Frankfurt? I was now thinking.

Of course not. Of course I was wrong.

An hour later I was in my poncho, somewhere on a country road, shaking my fist at the sky. Or rather: I would have shaken my fist at the sky in the past. Not anymore. Sometimes people asked me what had changed over the course of The Longest Way. This had changed. I didn’t get so angry so easily anymore.

Instead I noticed a tiny rainbow in the distance.

no place for a pilgrim

I was still walking on what seemed to be multiple pilgrim routes. The Luther Pilgrims’ Way went past here. And so did the Camino. This meant that there was a pilgrim hostel in the town of Vacha, a simple place to stay for people who were walking for spiritual reasons. I wasn’t walking for spiritual reasons, but I wanted to stay there anyway. So I checked online and it said you were supposed to go to a bookstore and ask for the key there.

As it turned out the gentleman at the bookstore told me that I had arrived too late. The season was over, there were no people anymore, and the pilgrim hostel was closed.

I ended up in a hotel that looked more expensive than it was. There didn’t seem to be any other guests, and my room was pretty cold when I entered. But there was a radiator, and I had cup noodles and hot water. And down in the lobby, there was Adi, the hotel cat.

pictures

the walk from Geisa to Vacha:

my room in Geisa

the fly swatter

main street in Geisa

Geisa

goat made from discarded metal

the road out of Geisa

the first day without rain?

religious imagery in what used to be East Germany

border tower in the distance

Geisa under a cloud

of course it rained, though

cross and bench near Vacha

tiny rainbow

so this is part of the Camino eh

lake near Vacha

nearing Vacha