Archive for the 'Slovakia' Category

What wakes me up is when I realize that I can hear voices right behind the wooden wall. When a thought that it could possibly be forest guard comes to my mind I don’t feel very happy. But when the two guys keep on talking in a car parked less than 3 meters from me I give up and start packing and eating some breakfast. Luckily the two lumber jacks (because that’s what the guys after all have been) left for work before I was ready to leave. It takes a while to make my feet go properly and get into a proper tempo.

As it soon turns out the cottage where I was supposed to stay for the night is still pretty far and through not very easy terrain (freshly cut forest with some trees still lying around). I was damn happy that I stopped down there and didn’t try to go any further – there was no place to sleep till the cottage which was another 1.5 hr away. The cottage is really nice, it’s a shelter for tourists with wooden benches and a fire place where anybody can sleep over for free. I met there a German guy who also did a few days of hike and got into talk with him. It cost me some half an hour but was fun. I have finally told my mom that I am going alone, she slightly freaks out.

I get down the hill to the village of Pohorela and from that I am taking the “good old” asphalt road to Pohorelska Masa (famous in AIESEC Slovakia for a couple of crazy summer camping trips, now the camp is empty and desolate). Now there are two roads to where I am heading, I pick the one that according to map is a little bit shorter.. but it also means more walking the road compared to a path in forest, dang. Walking up the hill taking a broken down road I am again close to giving up – fed up with this all . I finally get up to Sedlo Setarova (sedlo = saddle, the gap between two hills is called like this) and from there after 40 min (and not the official 25 minutes) I finally get to Studna na Murani (the Well on Muran). I am doing pretty bad – feeling really tired and stuff and so I just decide to go to Nizna Klakova and sleep over there in a tourists shelter.

The way there feels like its never going to finish, instead of official 1h 20m it takes me 2hrs! I dont get it how could I go so slow but when I finally get there and take of my shoes I feel like I wont be able to walk a few meters. The shelter is smaller than on Andrejcova but nice. There are 3 czechs over there (they stay here during nights and go for trips to the hills around during the day, 3 days they have spent here like that).

On the same meadow there is a fence with the famous horses from Muran. The are big, brown and beautiful. After sunset in only sandals I decide to go for water (sign says that 3 minutes away), after some difficulties I find the spring and fill in my bottles. Problem comes on the way when I loose the path and with minimal light I try to get through the bushes and trees towards the brighter spots between trees – the edge of the meadow, when I finally little scratched get on the meadow I found out that I am some 50 m away from the path. I think that was my punishment for complaining about getting lost I ate some canned meat, watched the stars and go to sleep. The czech guys have decided to sleep under the stars, in middle of the night I am woken up with loud screams of “get lost! hey! bastard!” and a minute later one of the guys comes in with this explanation: “a fox was pulling on my sleeping bag, bastard!”. In morning we find in the book where the visitors write their notes on their stay that the fox is a common visitor and got used to being fed by the tourists, looks like he was trying to remind us that he didnt get any leftovers today

At 9 am we arrived by bus to Lysa Polana, which is a border crossing with Poland.

After the first hour of hiking (warming up) we arrived to the Miskiewicz waterfalls. Here we found out that the direct road to Morskie Oko (Sea Eye) is closed and we will have to go through 5 Polskych Stawov (5 Polish Lakes).

The views on the path and at the lakes were amazing but we have lost more than three hours when compared to planned route. We have taken a rest at the Cottage at the 5 lakes and also at Morskie Oko.

From this cottage the climbing to the peak of Rysy was hell. Already on the first one hour part between the lake Morskie Oko and Czarny Staw (Black Lake) made sweat trickle down our faces, but the around 45 degrees ascent that took another three hours killed us both.

We have even few times went off the path, gradually I was falling behind and honestly the last few hundred meters I was on the edge of exhaustion. I felt like I have no more strength to continue, actually missing more the psychical strength than the physical. First was a feeling I don’t want to go any further and later I felt depleted, my lips felt like tiny pins were irritating them.

After we got over the peak of Rysy we just limped to the cottage. It was already after sunset and going any further would be stupid (but we met a family of father and two kids who decided to continue down hill and risk getting to the next cottage – one and half hour away – while there were still some light left). The price was 500 sk per night/person, damn a lot, but we had no other choice. People like us who have no other choice… well have no other choice than to pay. They set the price high to scare away those who would come and just hang at the cottage for few days – the cottage is always crowded.

So we finished up sleeping there with another like 20 people (full capacity with few of us sleeping on the floor). We have been told that that day there was some guy who came to the cottage all the way from Morskie Oko because he found a lost jacket and came to ask if it doesn’t belong to any of the guests – crazy! There was also one guy, who passed us during the climb, in shorts and with only a plastic bag in his hand – weird. Ivos knee started to hurt, was not that bad at night, I also have not feeling too much fit.