June 12, 2010

June 12, 2010

Not sure really where to begin to tell you about my adventures of Saturday. So, I will begin from my very first half recollection of the day. I was awoken to a phone call from Andrea. I had told her I was going to waking at about seven in the morning to begin my walk to Hradec Kralove. However, the night before I decided to sleep a little later as I stayed up to watch a World Cup match and didn’t get to sleep quite as early as I had wanted. Anyway, my alarm was set to go off at 8:30 and Andrea called me about 7:30 figuring I would be awake. She had just come in the door from a night out on the town with her Mother. My wake-up call, instead of being the alarm of my phone, was Andrea telling me all about her and her Mother’s adventures through Birmingham and beyond. It was definitely nice hearing from her and listening to her stories, but I was still half asleep and wasn’t listening nor comprehending what she was telling me very well. She ended up getting frustrated with me and my lack of an ability to hold a conversation. We hung up with each other, I tried to fall back asleep, but could not, and that was the beginning of what would probably become one of my biggest adventures since I have been in the Czech Republic.

My plan, to walk from my city, Novy Bydzov, to the city Andrea had taught in, Hradec Kralove, the distance 30 kilometers or 17.1 miles according to Google maps. Now, the reasoning for me attempting this long walk, I am not completely figured out. It definitely was not to save the two US dollars it would have cost me to take the bus to Hradec Kralove. I do have some vague ideas why I was to attempt the journey. First, the exercise, second, to attempt to do something I would have never before and never again will do, third, to prove to myself I could complete the walk, fourth, and this was not even a big determining factor, but between Novy Bydzov and Hradec Kralove in a village called Hardec, there is a castle, which I have been told repeatedly I must see. The reason I didn’t put this high on my list, I have seen numerous castles while I have been in Europe and one more, in a small village, wasn’t really something that demanded my seeing.

Well, after I was now wide awake and ready to undertake this challenge, I made sure I ate a hearty breakfast of cereal with a banana sliced into it, I packed my backpack, trying to pack as lightly as possible and then headed out the door.

(Let me add a little side note before I continue. The reason I was going to Hradec Kralove, not in particular walking, but just going there was I had made a few friends with Andrea while she was staying there and I wanted to say goodbye to them. The fault of that idea came to me on Thursday night though. As I received a phone call from one of the friends I was planning on meeting up with and he had informed me that neither he nor any of the other friends I had made were going to be in town for the weekend. I could not cancel my trip though. I had, also, my plans to meet an old, old friend who just happened to be travelling through Eastern Europe. The person I was supposed to meet on Sunday I had not really had a conversation with since I had been in Elementary school. We had been the best of friends when we were in the fourth or fifth grade, but then through middle school and high school completely parted from one another. We graduated with one another, but were not friends and barely from my recollection spoke. I did set plans with him to meet in Hradec Kralove and I believe he had actually gone out of his way to meet. So, with those plans I had to be in Hradec Kralove. Then, seemingly out of nowhere a friend of a friend of Andrea’s, who has been living in Hradec Kralove called me and asked if I wanted to meet to watch the USA/England World Cup match on Saturday. So, despite my original plans of seeing the friends I made falling through I could not go back on my going to Hradec Kralove.)

Well, back to the story of the walk, with my back to my apartment door and high hopes I went to the local grocery store, filled my backpack with healthy snacks and fruit, which I placed next to the large amount of water I had packed. I also bought some suntan lotion, the weather forecast for the day was around 90 degrees and sunny. With all my essentials together I made my way out of Novy Bydzov and headed to one of the towns I teach in, Nechanice, which was supposed to be about the half way mark of my walk. The first part of the walk to Nechanice was mostly shaded, but still took a great deal of energy. When I reached Nechanice I nearly gave up. I had made one detour along the way to try to visit one of the friends I had made while living in Novy Bydzov. He lives in Prasek, a tiny village, about three miles from Novy Bydzov. He wasn’t home though and I had walked probably an extra half mile or so to visit him. So, when I arrived in Nechanice which is about a total of eight or nine miles from Novy Bydzov, even though I walked mostly in the shade, I was exhausted. I knew buses between Novy Bydzov and Hradec Kralove frequently traveled through Nechanice. I nearly called it quits and got on one of those buses, but then I saw the sign telling me the castle I wanted to see was only two kilometer south of the city. I had sat down at restaurant to make my decision and I had got a second wind after sitting for about twenty minutes.

This is where my stupidity and the stupidity of the signs I saw turned my adventure upside down. First, as for my stupidity, I didn’t bring a map whatsoever, through my vain idea I have an incomparable sense of direction, I thought I could make the whole trip without a map. As for the stupidity of the sign, the sign was a simple arrow pointing south, reading Hardec. So, without the map I just followed the sign. So, you do not get the idea I completely blame the sign, Hardec was to the south. However, there are two roads leaving Nechanice to the south. One goes straight south, the one I took, then another, which I did not see or know about left Nechanice and went to the southeast toward Hardec and the castle. Without going into it too much further I walked along the road I thought was the right one for a long while. I am horrible at gauging distances. So, I was constantly under the impression I would be walking up to the castle at any minute. I was dead wrong and after walking way too far and passing through a few small villages I found that I must had made a wrong turn somewhere. Luckily, in the village I had landed myself there was an information map, which allowed me discover I had just walked probably five or six miles out of my way. I sat down at the bus stop and looked at the bus schedule figuring it was time to throw in the towel. I had walked about 12 miles or so and the sun at this point was beating down on me.

The bus schedule was no help, I was in the tiniest of villages and no buses were planned on coming through for another couple of hours. I was forced to continue my journey. So, I rechecked the map they had posted and tried to think of what to do. Seeing that Hardec, the place with the castle was the biggest village within walking distance I made the decision to not give up on seeing the castle. I planned out my route on the map, lifted my now heavier and heavier backpack on my shoulders and headed out. I was to head straight east until I hit a road, which turned north and would take me to Hardec. This is where the second huge foul up in my plan occurred. As the roads are not clearly marked and I knew from the map I would have to walk through the forest a little. I made my turn back north down the wrong road. As I made the turn it seemed to me as the right turn. I was definitely not a paved road or anything of the like, but it did have car tracks running down it. So, I supposed it was the right road. I was dead wrong and hit a dead end after walking into the forest about a mile. It was at this point I had to make the decision to turn around; head back south or continue in the direction, north, which I knew Hardec was located. I decided to create my own path through the woods figuring it would lead me faster to Hardec then if I backtracked again. This was not the wisest of decisions.

My created path hit an even bigger dead end. (And let me tell you as I walked through the woods I was completely frightened. I was continuously hearing gunfire. My only thought was that there were hunters in the forest beside myself. Whenever I heard I shot I would verve in the opposite direction taking me even further out of my way.) As for this big dead end I hit at last, they were bushes about my height. However, over these bushes I saw a village and people across a field. I made the decision to brave through the bushes, which I immediately discovered were covered in pickers, tearing my legs up more and more with each step. To add to my legs being ravaged after I got through these plants I found a creak which I had not noticed. It was not like I had to go swimming, but I did have to run through this creak, the water coming up to my knees. On the other side of the creak I had to climb a steep slope and then I made my way out of the forest into the field. I can’t begin to imagine what I looked like to the people working across this field. I was completely filthy and I was making my way out of the middle of the woods.

I approached the men to try to discover one of them with the ability to give me directions to Hardec or, with hope, tell me I was in Hardec, the men were friendly, but none of them could do anything for me. I kept repeating “Hardec” and they kept looking at me with confusion in their eyes. Luckily, for me, after about a minute of our interaction, which was going nowhere, a boy of about 14 rode up on his bike. He spoke a very little English and offered to show me the way to Hardec. I had come up out of the forest in some small village nearly two miles south of Hardec. The rode alongside of me for awhile, or at least until I was able to relay to him I felt comfortable with which direction I needed to go.

I ended up walking the two miles on a dirt road with no shade whatsoever and landed in Hardec. I sat down at the bus stop in Hardec and the gun shots I had heard earlier were getting louder and much more frequent. They even started to be followed by the sounds of canons. It was then I realized they were doing one of the Czech Republic’s traditional reenactments of the battle between the Prussian army and the Turkish-Austrian army. The castle was less than a mile to the west of me, but the bus schedule said a bus to Hradec would be arriving any minute. I wanted to see the castle, but I was not going to miss that bus. The bus never came. I sat at that bus stop for nearly half hour. And after the disappointment of the bus not coming and realizing I would have to continue my walk there was no way I was walking away from the direction I needed to head to see the castle. It would have been nice to say I had seen the castle, but as I wrote before it wasn’t really high on my reasons for making the walk in the first place, I have seen a lot of castles and it just didn’t seem worth it.

I walked on east. Passing through little village after little village and each I checked the bus schedule to see if a bus would be stopping anytime soon to take me to Hradec Kralove. I was not so lucky.

Eventually after walking another 10-12 miles I made it to a peak outside of Hradec Kralove and I could see the entire city. After all I had gone through I felt a sense of pride, a sense of accomplishment. I made way down toward the city and the first bus stop I saw for city buses I sat down. I had to wait a little over a half hour for the bus, but I could not make the final walk to the city’s center. I am a little disappointed I did not make the walk all the way to the center of Hradec Kralove, but after the detours and the walk through the forest, I was at point where I felt I could feel proud.

As for the rest of the day, it was somewhat of a blur do to the exhaustion I felt. I did meet up with the friend of a friend, his name was Graham, he was from Scotland and he is an aspiring author like me. We actually had great conversations as we watched the USA surprisingly tie England in their World Cup match. After the match though, I had nothing left. I parted ways with him and went to bed at the apartment of a friend I had made while Andrea had been in living in Hradec Kralove. The friend wasn’t in town, but had left his keys for me.