Follow the Mountains : Day 82: Road walk with some obstacles

I rose again early and descended. The forest quickly changed from needle to beech forest. It was a lovely hiking trail with lots of switchbacks and the last bit was along a creek, before I walked down another 4WD track along a river. I passed a few tents but otherwise it was still quiet and it sometimes felt like walking in a tropical jungle.

In Dilowe I got my usual town treat and watched how hitching works. The people are really ruthless. If someone gets a car to stop, somebody else standing along the road opens the doors of the cars and jumps in. Usually here is still enough space for the other person, but really seems very rude to me!!!

Then I had a long hike along the main road and the brown border river Theiß. But I enjoyed it a bit, because I put in some music while hiking. People were selling blueberries and mushrooms on the street. There was a big fence before the river and every few 100 m there were soldiers sitting along the road There was one big construction site, where they stopped the cars once on a while, so they tended to come in waves. At around noon I took a break in the shade, where I even had an Internet connection. But a young soldier spotted me and wanted to see my passport. Luckily I had it in the top of my backpack. Of cpurse he spoke no English. When I had packed away my passport, he came again and wanted to see it again. So I unpacked it again. I sat a little in the shade but when I wanted to continue, he sad I should wait. So I waited until a car with 4 other soldiers came, one of them spoke English. So I unpacked my passport again and told them, that I just hike and want to cross the offiziell border. At first they didn't get it and asked me if I have money for the bus. Anyways, after some forth and back, showing my passport AGAIN, they let me walk and said they will tell the people along the way that there is a German Tourist hiking :) And I should not cross the river... well, it was a wildly gushing, big brown stream most of the time with a barbed wired fence!

I continued but it started to get really hot. I had a quick break on a bench in Groß-Botschko and ate an ice-cream from a tiny store. Nice people, where drying mushrooms and eantef to talk to me, but sadly thete was a language barrier. When I was on a small dirt road with shade, I had a look where I want to camp. I decided to camp nearby, so it's about 10 km to the border tomorrow and shops should be open by then. So I was sitting and setting in the shade, trying to get a bit organised.

When the ants and flies were too annoying, I continued to find a camp spot in the woods up a hill a little away from the road. Now the mosquitos are annoying and it really bugs me, because it's not like here is water around. I wish! Cause I don't have enough and there is none to come. But it'll be only a few hours hiking tomorrow and then I can buy some or I can ask somebody on my way.