Italy - Day 24: A busy morning, ticks and some podcasts

The night was short. I was high on sugar, still thinking through all the options for the next weeks and then there was loud music and singing in town, lasting at least until 3 a.m. At some point I decided to listen to podcasts, because I couldn't sleep anyways.

I thought it to be perfect, that everybody seemed to be awake until late, so I could leave my tent, wash myself and some clothes early in the morning at the water tap that I had passed on my way up from town. But although I think there is barely a car going all day on this dirt road, at 5:30 a.m. in the morning, 2 cars passed me there, going up into the direction of my tent. One of the cars even stopped and a guy filled his water bottle. So I decided to have a very rough wash up and go back to my tent.

This place seems to be a heaven for ticks. I found them crawling everywhere: on my tent, on my solar module laying in the sun and especially on me. After my little walk and a short pee, I found around 25 ticks on me (I stopped counting at some point...). Most of them really tiny and only 2 were already sucking and must have been from previouse days. These ticks are not easy to spot on my freckled skin with all the scratches (but so easy to spot on my white, not sun exposed skin). Every time I checked, I found new ones and I wonder, how much I missed or couldn't see because they were somewhere on my back... I was really not tempted to leave my tent today, although it was another beautiful sunny day ;)

But of course I had to leave once in a while, to move my solar panel in the sun or to pee and every time I got back I found at least 5 new ticks on my legs.

I spent the day mainly listening to podcasts of the "Blaue Couch", which I had downloaded a while ago and which is basically a half hour to 45 minute long interview with one person.

I am not very optimistic as to what they will tell me (if they will tell me anything new at all) tomorrow in the hospital. I don't think I will be able to continue hiking for now and guess I will have to get a proper diagnosis (maybe with ultrasound or MRI) in Germany.

At least there is a "Flixbus" going from here to Stuttgart every day at around noon. It's just that the buses for tomorrow and the day after are nearly fully booked and I won't book a bus until I know when I will leave. So I hope to still get on one of those buses, otherwise I have to spend more tent days in the forest above town, which is a little boring and annoying with all the ticks!

The only picture I took today: sunrise at the water source, looking towards Castel di Sangro