Thursday 23 July 2015

Day 10: Koszalin - Osiecki





Day 10 on the Baltic Santiago trail: Koszalin - Osieki. Today we actually met some fellow hikers!! It was incredible. After 10 solitary days I'd basically forgotten that this trail is meant to be a major tourist attraction that will revive the Baltic coast from Rostock to Kaliningrad.

But there they were, four determined Polish-German women walking from Ustka (former Stolpmünde) to the border. Which is funny as I'm walking from the border to Ustka. They also had a Baltic family connection and were doing the trail properly - with shells dangling from their backpacks, some sort of rosary prayer scribbled on a piece of paper and stamps from different churches. Yep, they were actual Santiago pilgrims (or St. Jacek as he's called in Polish).

We on the other hand are total frauds. We're just using the trail because it happens to run through my family's old hometowns. I mean, we're not even Christian.

"Is there even a Jewish version of the Santiago trail?" I asked Dan as we walked on.

"Yes. The Jewish pilgrimage involves buying bagels on a Friday, walking over to my mother's place, sitting down, eating a nice dinner and then sleeping in a comfortable bed," he replied.

15k into another day of walking, the Jewish version sounded so much more appealing.

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