Canoeing

Daniele and I spent last weekend in Vaišnoriškės, an old etnographic village in Aukštaitija National Park. We were invited by the Director of the Botanical garden in Kaunas through Manuel from Spain, who is a volunteer there, to join them in an expedition, organised for the visitting of Birutė Galdikas - a famous conservationist, whose studies are in the field of orangutan preservation. 

On Saturday we went in the deep forest and walked into a strictly preserved area which you can not enter without employees of the park - we were lead by our colleague Tautgirdas, who showed us very old trees and then took us to a swamp for birdwatching. This swamp was erased from the face of the earth during Soviet times and was turned into grazing ground for cattle. Luckily, nowadays it is slowly recovering and birds are coming back nesting there.

After that we went to a restaurant in Ignalina which is famous for preparing a traditional cake, šakotis, and everybody took part in its preparation. Once it was ready everybody enjoyed it and I can tell it was very very tasty.

After having dinner we went back to the village and made a campfire and spent the whole evening around it listening to the interesting stories of all fascinating people that we met there.

On the next day everybody went canoeing in Būka river and Baluošas lake. I was partner with Manuel and we were so good that we almost did not miss a single tree on our way. We even opened the swimming season by overturning our canoe in the river. It was quite refreshing... 

The bad thing about having а great time is that it comes to an end very quickly. We want to thank to Manuel, his director, Vida, and his mentor, Giedrė, for the wonderful weekend they gave us and the opportunity to meet so many interesting people. Labai ačiū!