16. Struggling in Estonia

Right now I'm taking shelter from the sun at a bus stop with concrete walls on top of a hill in the heartland of Estonia. The app says it is 30°C, but it feels much hotter. It's like all the water I drink just evaporates.

I started out from Tallinn 5 days ago, and I'm only halfway through the country. I thought Estonia would take 7 days, but it will probably be 5 more days before I reach Latvia. Gone are the days in Finland when I could go 100km in a day. Now I struggle to do 50km, and the other day I had to stop after just 35km. Crazy temperatures all day. I probably need to start biking at 05 in the morning so I can go further each day, instead of this craziness.

One thing that surprised me a lot about Estonia? The insects. As soon as you get out of the sun and into shade - you also get into a swarm of things that bite you. I never thought that the mosquito situation would be worse here compared with Finland, but it is. Probably because there hasn't been any cold nights yet.

Had a big grasshopper/spider/animal/thing crawling on my chest last night, on his way down into my sleeping bag. Took some improvised acrobatics to get him out of the hammock, but at least it was a friendly insect. I'm more worried about a raised bite I have had on my shoulder the last 2-3 weeks, that is starting to turn purple. Probably should let a doctor take a look at it when I find one.

The coast at Altja, northern Estonia. Not much to see, but had to snap a picture when I was there, because I won't see the ocean again until I reach the Mediterranean Sea.

I hope next post will be a bit more positive. 😄