Day Twenty Two - Ventspils to Ķesterciems (113mi)
This would not be a long-haul bikepacking trip if it didn’t have its moments of challenge. Today was one of them. Leaving Ventspils, I could feel the wind direction. Not good. Headwind for the first 55 miles until I took a right turn down the Gulf of Riga. There was also some super scary and sketchy road construction in the first 15 miles that involved single lane traffic both ways, on gravel, and a 3 foot drop off the shoulder. There was no room for miscalculation on this stretch. Thankfully no logging trucks came barreling through.
On the note of driving behavior, Latvians drive like bats out of hell. We are talking like 90mph+ on town roads that do not have flat surfaces. You can see the car bouncing and shifting side to side while driving at these speeds. It’s insane.
Most of today was on a paved road following the coastline, without the sea really being visible. All you could really see was forest, which is cool, but it gets monotonous after 2 hours.
Did I already say it was a hard day? The wind just kept smacking me in the face the first half of the ride. That, combined with the monotony of the scenery was hard. I stopped for a pizza 40 miles in, then kept rolling, and rolling, and rolling.
And rolling. I saw a woman walking down the road with red hair in the middle of nowhere, an odd place to just be out walking. There was nothing around. 15km later these two cars were parked on the side of the road and people were milling about. I was on my guard. A woman stepped in front of me yelling in Latvian. “Shit”, I thought to myself and just blasted by. Then she started running after me, and that’s when I noticed a sound of desperation in her voice so I stopped. She ran up to me speaking loudly in Latvian. I told her I didn’t understand her. It turned out she was desperately trying to find that woman with the red hair. I was happy I could help, and it left me wondering just what the hell was going on.
It had started raining and my mood went south. The most interesting part of the day was passing through Kolka. There was a cool church.
What really caught my eye, however, was the massive amount of wood cache for this huge apartment building. The logs were massive, like twice the size of sleeper logs, and stacked high and long. Winter never really leaves the lives of these people. It’s always preparing for next year, and summer really hasn’t fully started here yet. Look at all that wood! There were several buildings like this in the area.
Towards the end of the ride I picked up the pace, for maybe 15 miles or so, as I wanted to make it to the Albatross Restaurant near where I was camping. It started raining and I was soaked. This was the only restaurant within 5 miles of the campground and it was already 8pm. Things were closing but their Google listing said they were open until 9pm. I showed up wet and shivering. It took three different people before I got the one who understood English. Nope, the kitchen closed at 8pm and it was exactly 10 past 8pm. They rejected me. After 110 miles of riding this felt shitty. I stood outside in the rain and just looked at my bike, wondering what to do, for maybe 5 minutes. They felt bad and came back out to invite me inside.
I was so thankful for their humanity in that moment. It would have been awful to go to bed without any dinner after that ride. Today I passed the 1400 mile mark, and tomorrow I have 95 miles and will pass the 1500 mile mark. Time for rest. Not many photos on this slog of a day.