heavenly surprise
= Day 15 =
Today I visited all the waterfalls I could reach. There are four of them here. To get to the rest, you'd need climbing gear. Turns out this is a very popular spot with tourists. At every waterfall people take photos and swim. I didn't miss the chance to swim either and picked a waterfall called "Maiden's Braid" – the most beautiful of them all.
On the way to this waterfall I ran into a wild-man actor – a young guy made up to look like a caveman, who offers all passing tourists a photo with him for money. To be honest, it was a big surprise to suddenly meet a savage with a sly grin popping up on the path, poking me with a homemade spear tipped with a stone point. )) I froze for a couple seconds, but quickly figured out what was what. And I offered to take a photo together, to which he replied: "sure, for a fee – whatever you want." A shot like that you can't pass up – that's what I thought at that moment. This wild man must be the only one in the whole forest, maybe in all of Adygea. I thought his idea of making money in such an unusual way was brilliant. The spot gets enough foot traffic, and what's more, he's the only entertainment in the whole forest. Besides the waterfalls, of course. )) I figure in 5-6 hours you could easily earn 2-3 thousand rubles during the season. We talked a bit, and he told me about some mysterious place where pears grow. Somewhere up on the mountain and somewhere far away. Some other time…
By afternoon I was already at the lower Khadzhokh camp near the forest entrance. I went into a store and bought something I'd wanted to try for a long time – Adyghe cheese. I sat down in one of the several gazebos with benches inside and started eating lunch. And just as I finished eating, a downpour with hail suddenly and completely unexpectedly broke out. Amazing how quickly the weather can change. Just a moment ago the sky was perfectly clear, without a single cloud. And in an instant it all turned into a torrential hailstorm, with hailstones sometimes reaching up to 2 cm in diameter. People scattered in all directions – some into shops, some into gazebos. Good thing I'd put the rain cover on my backpack in time – the gazebo I was in only protected from the hail, but didn't save me from the downpour – it was literally raining horizontally. So if not for the rain cover, I'd have had to sleep wet tonight… The downpour gradually turned into ordinary rain, and I slowly started walking toward the village of Dakhovskaya. It's 10 km from Khadzhokh. I walked on foot, since according to info online, buses don't go there. And cars pass here pretty rarely, and when they do, they're quite reluctant to stop.
I reached the village in about three hours. Went into the local store, bought food. I really wanted something carby and coffee. At that moment I felt like I could eat endlessly – that's how hungry I was. One of the places I wanted to get to was a rock with the unusual name "Devil's Finger". I couldn't make it there today – it got dark. And once again I had to do what I do best – find a place to sleep in the dark. And right before the forest, after crossing a bridge a little ways, I found some kind of farm or estate. In the dark I couldn't quite make out what it was, but I could see horses. So I'm guessing it might have been some kind of farm. I settled down by the fence, surrounded by tall grass.
Before sleep, a wave of thoughts about the meaning of life, purpose, and the path washed over me again. I woke up several times during the night from the cold and the hard, uneven ground.