Off Roading and Beyond

1426 kilometers, Jurmala, Latvia
Since Vilnius, recovering from food poisoning and leaving our new friend Tom, we traveled through Lithuania and spent the night in the forest (after never being able to find the coast.... cities can be hard to drive in when there is a lack of signs) we crossed into Latvia again and headed north along the west coast to Ventspils.

What adventures we had yesterday! We took Blues on a little off-roading adventure to find the sea and a lighthouse that was marked in our atlas. We couldn't believe that the roads were even on the map, as some were just dirt/sand and at times we wondered if Blues would make it through to the next town. Just before the road gets better, and despite Petra's excellent driving, Blues gets stuck in the sand. We dig and find logs to try and create some traction in the middle of a swarm of mosquitoes, we push and pray but to no avail. Then two vans seem to be headed our way, but they see us stuck and turn around. We hadn't even seem a house in ages... then a lady comes by walking her bike and Petra has a chat with her in her best Latvian. Suddenly two German ladies who had their bikes on top of their small four door car came driving by. We had seen them at the lighthouse and they saw us stuck and stopped. They offered helpful suggestions like taking more weight out of the van and using the rubber floor mats under our rear tires to get traction in the sand. It took a few tries and we were all pushing as hard as we could, but finally Blues started moving and left a pile of our backpacks in the sand as he made it onto the slightly better road. We thanked the German ladies profusely and there were hugs all around. We decided it was best to stay together until the next town, where we exchanged email addresses with our new friends who were definitely an answer to prayer!

After a night by a beautiful lake, an amazing dinner and a slow starting but comfortable campfires we headed to Jurmala this morning where we dropped Petra and Brett at the train station. They head home today. Was sad to see them go as this trip has been quite an adventure. One more day and then we're on a ferry home to Stockholm. This is a trip I won't easily forget.