Latvia. New country, new adventures!

First stop, camping 'Jūrasdzeņi', on the Baltic Sea coast of Latvia.

We were able to fill up our water tank. In the process, I had a little mishap. I have to flush the tank twice because we had dirty water in it before. I have to let the water run through the faucet into the sink so that it goes into the wastewater tank. It would be smart to pull the plug in the sink. I wasn't that smart and quickly flooded half the car with water and gave myself a lot more work. Luckily, nothing broke. Only the gas stove didn't work for a day. It was also full of water. As I would later find out, this was the lesser evil that was going to happen to us in Latvia...more on that later.

In any case, we had a beautiful spot on a plateau with a view of the Baltic Sea. Nice Dutch neighbors with whom we sat at the table in the evenings and exchanged tips. We also had enough time for that because the ordered food took over an hour to arrive.

Annika did some research and the wish was to visit Gauja National Park the next day. Said and done.

The drive there already showed the first differences from Estonia. The roads are significantly worse and everything looks a bit dilapidated. But the landscape is very beautiful here as well. For example, there are storks everywhere. Once we saw 8 of them searching for food in a field. Another time we saw 14! storks soaring into the sky with the thermal.

The first point of contact was the city of Cēsis. Annika recovered from a tiring night and I took a little city walk with Henry.

Afterwards, we headed to a campsite to do a hike through the national park the next day. The campsite is located at a great lake and has everything we need.

By chance, we even met the authors of our Baltic travel guide there. Two nice women who were currently updating the guide.

Unfortunately, the coincidence also had some negative things in store for us...

Henry apparently contracted an eye infection 2 days ago, which unfortunately did not heal over time and with our first aid.

On the 3rd day, strong toothache and general discomfort were added. When we wanted to put him to bed in the evening, he also vomited. The night itself went okay. But when the swelling under his eye did not get better, we decided to see a doctor. Fortunately, there is a small hospital in Cēsis. Unfortunately, hardly anyone there spoke English. With hands and feet and the help of a young man as a translator, we eventually got to a pediatrician. Unfortunately, she only spoke broken English as well. The treatment room was also a different standard than what we were used to at home. The doctor didn't examine Henry very thoroughly and prescribed eye drops for us. We weren't so sure if that was the right thing to do, so we checked the medication online and consulted my father (who knows about these things). But it seems to be the right one.

Henry handles the whole thing very bravely and hardly complains about the whole situation. We are really proud of our little chaos pilot.

Feeling somewhat relieved, we went to have breakfast. Quickly a few groceries because we have nothing to eat anymore, and quickly back to the campsite so that Henry can rest.

When we arrived there, I was still lost in thought and accidentally squeezed my right middle finger in the car door. The day is absolutely forgettable.

We don't seem to like the area here, so we plan to continue our journey to Riga tomorrow.

But the day took a turn for the better after all. We got new "neighbors" and as luck would have it, the woman was an ophthalmologist from Hamburg. She took another look at Henry's eye and determined that it's a stye. So not a big deal.

We then had a really nice day with Sabine, Stefan, and their children Neele and Oke. The two kids were totally infatuated with Henry, played with him all the time, and provided a nice change for us.

Of course, the eye drops caused some screaming at the end, but then this eventful day was over and we are looking forward to the onward journey...

Ole