Slovakia

And then into Slovakia, where I was to be for six nights, and luckily thanks to my flatmate in Ghana, who is Slovakian, leaving Ghana a couple of weeks before I did, I had someone to show me around the whole time and so my time was very maximised.

Flew into the capital, Bratislava, and I can again see examples of how different New Zealand cities and towns are to other countries. We have a slightly smaller overall population than Slovakia, and yet Auckland is a much larger city, due to our bizarre over urbanisation in one place, and our lack of really any type of large apartment blocks in density, and lack of smaller older town centre.

Which is what this city has, kind of outer suburbs, which are still quite apartmenty, and inner denser apartment areas, along with the old town centre.

Spent the afternoon walking through here, and enjoying nice cold drinks, as for pretty much all my time in Slovakia, I found it very very hot during the day, and freezing at night.

Also interesting to see, after excessive Coke drinking in Ghana with the heat, and it being a pretty commonm cheap drink in NZ as well, still cheaper than milk I assume, that its like premium product here, pretty much as they have their own alternative which initially I found nice but not very sweet, but even their Coke to match has equal levels of unsweetness, so prefered the local alternative.

Also fantastic for the day heatness was the cheapness of ice cream , like 50 cents per scoop, totally awesome, even if Smurf flavour didn't quite live up to expectations, all others were good.

Anyways...next place was to a village where there was a music festival on, of which the main act was the Offspring....where I knew more songs of theirs than I thought I would so all good, also fascinating to look around at all the different types of people turning up to this kind of thing, seeing as some of the other act were Slovakian punk and more I don't think I listened that closely to...

Next day were off again, by bus and train, which was interesting cos like thousands were all trying to leave at the same time by bus from this place, to the home town of my friend, from where we were able to spend like the whole day going around and visiting castles.

First was the 'newer' of the castles, still in ruin, but good enough that they renovated it for people to look through and get a good idea, and its on a place with amazing view of the surrounding area. Including down to the river right below, from which we took a boat trip, you have to look at the photos, as I can't describe the boast well, and the photos probably don't help much, but its just like a flat piece of interlocked wood, with tiny tiny sides, but it worked well enough andwe got through.

Then walked through to the older of the ruined castles, which was in a very good state of ruin, like incredible to try and imagine how it must have once been used, even where a floor possibly could have been!

Next day was the beginning of the more serious walking, and a test as to how well my feet and legs were going to function on hills after the practical flatness of Ghana, and was well tested first up with a nice steep slope to get to a cave, a dry cave which seemed like it didn't go anywhere but couldn't have kept going and going I suppose of you were flexible enough...

Luckily the next ruined castle I didn't have to carry up the backpack, so made my feet a whole lot lighter, so not such a demanding hill, but still another cool ruin, not idea how it would have functioned.

The afternoon, got some quick Slovak culture at this open air museum where they've bought togther the different houses and buildings from all the regions and constructed them again into a mini village, very cute wooden houses.

Then time to move on to the next town, which was my friend's university town, Banska Bystrica

From here the next morning we caught a train to the middle of nowhere-ish but where there was an ice cave, which was very cool, both literally and figuratively......

And this started out our big day of walking, we had to cover like 7 hours to get to the next place where we were to catch a bus, so an interesting test for me, cos even though I walked a lot in Ghana, not so much with hills and only in jandels, hadn't really worn covered shoes, let alone hiking boots in months! There was agony in the feet by the time I finished, but was totally worth it and by the next day my feet had recovered so all good.

The walk went through the Slovak Paradise National park, which has very cool walks where you follow a river bed, which needs ladders and walkways to help you get through the different places such as up the like 50m waterfall, oh and not so much water is coming down while you go up.

At the end of this day we had made it to Poprad and from here the next day we went in the morning to the High Tatras, starting at one lake and walking through to another, very very beautiful, especially so as it was nice summer days. Possibly why there were so many people out around walking the trails also, quite possible we walked past like hundreds on our 2 hours or so journey from lake to lake to train stop.

The afternoon was then castle visiting time, and this one was a lot bigger and a lot more fixed than all the others, they has put back in a lot of floor, and it had helpful audio guides and all, in the gift shops you could even buy African masks from Ghana! Don't ask me why......

After the visit to the castle though it was time to head back to Poprad and say goodbye for me to get on my train towards Poland. Possibly one of the coldest train rides I have ever had, thank god for my sleeping bag, or its possible I may have frozen to death!

And so ended my time in Slovakia, beautiful country and very lucky I could fit in so much in so little time as had someone to show me around and figure out all the buses, trains, times etc.

Photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/emmajaynedavidson/20090820Slovakia#

Apologies cos my photo taking again, never can effectively capture the full picture, but I try.....