Second day in paradise

Early in the morning, the little guard dog Mustash sneaks up to Tanja’s sleeping bag. Then he licks her hand carefully. “Well my little friend? Do you want to be stroked?” she whispers, stroking our protector’s head. Mustash is almost overcome with delight. He lies flat on the floor and remains stock-still. Just don’t stop, that’s probably what it means. As the sun rises higher, we slip out of our sleeping bags. We enjoy muesli with dried almond milk that we dissolve in water. Dan comes to visit us at 10:00 am. “Did you spend the night well?” he asks kindly. “Very good. It’s nice to be able to sleep under the open sky again,” we reply in a good mood. We talk to him for a while and decide to stay a day longer. “No problem. Stay as long as you like,” Dan invites us and leaves us again.

We use the day to rest from the events and the long journey to Romania. Then we take our time to reorganize the load of our saddlebags. “Are you going for a swim?” asks Tanja when it gets scorching hot in the afternoon and we cool off in the lake. The setting couldn’t be better. Today, a herd of cattle grazes on the opposite bank.

In the evening, Dan and his son Andrei come by again. “Do you want to go fishing?” they ask, pushing a rod into our hands. We sit together on the jetty and cast our fishing rods. Although the lake has been restocked with fish, none of them want to bite. As the sun gets low, whole schools of fish jump out of the water. They seem to be making fun of us. “Eh! Huh! Huh! You can eat your own bait!” we think we hear them singing in chorus. Disappointed, we give up trying to get something on the grill.

When Dan and Andrei leave us again to drive home, we set up our tent on the terrace because of the many mosquitoes. Although Dan says there is a lot of riff-raff here, people who are not afraid to steal fish from the lake at night, we somehow feel safe. “Even though our dogs Mustash and Petilatiza are very small, they will bite everyone and protect you,” our hosts promised us.

TANJA WRITES!

So much has happened since we left Germany, nothing spectacular, but enough for me to enjoy my time here at the beautiful fisherman’s cottage and to indulge in my thoughts. Still, somehow spectacular, now that we’re on the road again. The change when we got off the train in Bucharest. Meeting people who lack their daily food, children who sniff gasoline. Things, experiences, which Denis has already reported on in detail and which I don’t need to describe again here. Enough in any case to get me thinking. We are delighted at how openly we are received by the people in Romania. Also the gratitude of being able to experience something new every day, even if we humans cannot always directly change everything that we don’t like or that we believe should be different. As I look out over the lake, I remember an experience we had on a trip to Nepal years ago: We decided to take part in a white water tour. To get to the river where our rafting tour was to start, we hiked over the mountains for two days. Everything was very well organized. Porters were there to carry the heavy boats for the rafters. We see the men sitting at a bend in the road. They smoke and laugh. We talk for a while and I ask what they do apart from the obvious resting. “We let our souls follow us,” a sinewy man answers me with a loving smile. To this day, I love this incident and have taken the man’s response to heart. So now we sit at the beautiful fisherman’s hut and let our minds wander. Many thanks to you Mother Earth and our warm hosts.

We look forward to your comments!