Short And Wide, Long And Narrow

From Ventspils I continued south through Courland passing the towns of Kuldiga and Liepaja on my way to Klaipeda in Lithuania. The former is a rather unremarkable, little provincial town were it not for its rumba. No, it is not the Baltic capital of raunchy Latin dancing - rumba is the Latvian word for waterfall. With a maximum height of only 2m it may not be particularly high - even for a country as topographically challenged as Latvia, but what it lacks in height it makes up for in girth, claiming the title of Europe's widest waterfall at 250m (and I have it from several reliable sources that girth, apparently, is everything). Kuldiga was also home to Jakob Kettler, duke of Courland, who in the 17th century not only managed to maintain the region's autonomy between the rival forces of Sweden, Russia and Prussia, but also got in on the colonial boom of the time, acquiring the island of Tobago in the Caribbean and and island at the mouth of the Gambia, making Courland probably the smallest colonial state ever. Liepaja, on the other hand, was strategically important for the Russians (both Tsarist and Soviet) who built a huge naval base, called Karosta, there. In Soviet times particularly the town almost doubled in size and yet, paradoxically, became a closed town, with non-residents requiring permits to visit family there. Today the naval base and its residential areas are a virtual ghost town, with half the buildings abandoned, empty, stripped, and returning slowly to the earth. To get an idea of what the world would look like after the Apocalypse Karosta does a pretty good job.

One of the many Tsarist barracks buildings left abandoned and boarded up in Karosta. Notice the trees growing through the roof.

Journeyman

Whilst travelling I usually find accommodation via Couchsurfing or through people I already know. When that doesn't work or when I am out in the countryside then I freecamp. Such as on Thursday night when I arrived at Cape Kolka, which separates the Baltic Sea from the Gulf of Riga, at 9pm. I had enough time to take some sunset pics but not enough to get any further. I didn't see this as a problem as the cape forms part of the longest stretch of beach in Europe (which is also, thankfully, supremely underdeveloped) and so I just walked along it for a few kilometres until I came to a suitably isolated spot, spread out my mat and sleeping bag, and went to sleep (the cape is part of a national park where it is forbidden to camp in a tent, but nobody said anything about just going to sleep). I have, however, come to the conclusion that sleeping on a beach is vastly overrated. Sure, the wide open beach and constant sea breeze are pleasant and keep the mozzies at bay, but I woke up playing host to a business of flies and with enough sand inhabiting my various nooks and crannies to stuff an obese gopher. The next day was spent walking among the fishing villages of the cape, which are home to the Livs, an obscure minority related to the Finns and Estonians desperately clinging onto their identity. Their language is already almost a lost cause with only a dozen or so native speakers.

A boat in a traditional Livonian boat graveyard. Livs neither burn nor break up their old boats, instead they bring them onland and leave them in the forest so that they return to where they came from.

The Problems Of Becoming Solvent

Poste restante is a great idea, and, before the advent of the internet, was the only way for people to keep in contact whilst travelling around like I am now. The basic premise is that letters or packages are sent to a post office in a given location and the post office will then keep the letter or package for a given time until the addressee comes and collects it. Courier services, such as FedEx and DHL, are also very useful in that they can deliver mail to pretty much anywhere in the world in just a couple of days. Sadly, as I found out whilst in Riga, the two systems are not mutually compatible.

A sumptuous Jugendstil door in a turn of the century house that has unfortunately been neglected.