The rain had stopped at some point of the night, so with a bit of hanging the tent it was quite dry.
The road to Ventspils was again rather boring, but now it was saturday and more traffic. And, there was some construction before Ventspils, with some trucks following me on a narrow one-direction-at-a-time lane. But that’s how it is. There was some festival in Ventspils, the center was packed and loud music. I got lost a bit and saw a glimpse of Ventspils old town. Might be a nice town to spend some time, but not now. So, quick stroll through the town, stocking up at the Maxima.
After passing the town, I realised I had not eaten too at all since breakfast, so I went to the Busnieku Ezers lake beach to have a lunch.
I wanted to go to Mazirbe, because I had been there last year, too. It has a nice campsite and it’s a center of Livonians. Their language is Fenno-Ugrian, and looks a bit like Estonian. As far as I know, there aren’t too many speakers left, but they still have the culture center in Mazirbe. A functionalist style house, build 1939, designed by a Finnish architect.
As I rode to the village, there were a lots of cars and buses parked and passing. It soon turned out that there’s some event in the village. I was a bit suspicious if that’s a good thing, but I decided to stick to my plan. So, I went to the campsite, put up the tent, went to buy some food and cooked the dinner. The festival was actually the yearly gathering of the Livonians. I went to see what was going on, and people were walking towards the shore. I followed them. It turned out to be a fire ceremony with singing, drumming and bonfire. Awesome. The approaching rain with dark clouds and colourful sunset made the scene spectacular.
So, considering that the choice was good. But the band that kept me awake until 2:30 was a negative side-effect.
Kristiina Ullgren 