Thursday, June 15, 2017

Eastern Finland, Joensuu-Lapeenranta, May 20-25, 2017 (Day 3)


Day three started great, I was warm and the sun was shining. After breakfast and packing up our stuff, we sat down to do a little bit of route review before leaving.


As you can see we were getting pretty close to the border area, which I was excited about. I had never been near this sort of border area, and I really had no idea what to expect when we got close. But first we took a short ride in to Kitee to have a look around, because some of Olli's family has lived in the area. We ended up stopping at a little diner place called Katukeittiö Safka for lunch while we were there, just before taking a ride around the lake. I can honestly say that I don't recommend this place, I spent the rest of the day feeling pretty sick.


After eating we took off to explore and do some gravel riding. Here you can see the navigator is navigating. We ended up taking a trip around Kiteenjärvi (Kitee's lake).


And then we started to head south away from Kitee toward a camp area near Kesälahti. Except my stomach started hurting around this time, and I began the day of figuring out where the next toilet was.



The campground we were making our way to was called Karjalan Lomakeskus, but when we arrived there it was super creepy and like a ghost town. They had apparently closed the year before and had no plan to reopen. So we used the barricade as a camera stand to take funny selfies instead.


In the mean time I had stopped at every gas station or toilet I could find, so we had to make a decision on where to stay. After into Kesälahti and realizing there weren't many options for us, we eventually broke down and just booked a cottage in one of the local tourist spots called Karjalan Kieveri. We had planned to only camp or stay in laavus the whole way, but since I wasn't feeling well we decided it was the best choice for the evening.


It was actually a pretty nice little cabin. They had small kitchens in them, but there was no stove. We ended up using our little alcohol stoves to heat our food and water, which in turn set off the fire alarms. Once getting the cottage aired out and getting the fire alarm reset, we were able to eat some dinner, and  thankfully I started feeling better. Being able to take a shower was a nice treat, and then it was time to rest in preparation for the next day.






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