Sad farewells

Day 14 (Friday):  (written by Dave)

And so, it was time to say goodbye to Babka, Maximo, Jožko, Tomaš and all the extended family and with a few tears we were off. We called in at Slaná Voda to say goodbye to Marko, who was on summer camp there. We also paused to take a couple of photos at the lookout tower on the road back to the 78 road through town.

We were heading to Žilina for Elena to go with Katarína to the government offices to register Kyle and Lara as Slovak nationals and we met Michal outside the flat in Vlčince. Elena, Katarína  and the kids went of to the offices and Michal and I went to get a coffee and chat.

After coffee, I headed to Stranik to meet a guy called Peter, who I have contacted off and on over the past ten years, always intending to paraglide together, but up until now we have never managed to make it work. Since Peter now lives at the foot of Stranik and finished work around 1pm, this time it could finally work. Long story short; we met up finally, after all these years on the top of Stranik and finally managed to fly together. It was a very short flight for me, as I didn't want to risk landing at the bottom and having to get a ride back up, so once I'd landed near to the hire car on the saddle near Zastranie church, I packed and drove to the bottom to watch Peter land. We walked the short distance to his house and I had a coffee and nealko beer with him and we chatted some more, I was really pleased that we could catch up with what had happened in our lives since we first started communicating all those years ago. 

After a little chat I bade farewell to Peter and headed to Ovčiarsko, to join the rest of the family, who were at Michal and Andrea's beautiful new home there. I met Michal, waiting for me at the house, parked up and walked to meet the others. We found them just walking back from the woods and, on hearing the fun they'd had on a zip wire, set up by Pavol (a neighbour and friend), I returned with them to try it with them. Kyle, Lara and especially Katka were more than happy to have another go on it. We all had turns and took some pictures and video of our play.

We wandered back from there to the house, where I got a shower and freshened up a bit before we all walked back up the hill to the home of Miro and Renata, who were hosting a gulaš party. The food and drink was wonderful and the gathering of friends and neighbours typical of the welcome one receives in this part of the world; we enjoyed home made gulaš, made with locally reared meat and garden produced vegetables and we ate it washed down with home brewed beer produced by Miro; amazing to a group of westerners, who procure nearly everything shop-bought.

The party ran quite late, with us drinking, chatting and observing satellites and stars in the clear night sky. We returned to Michal and Andrea's house around midnight and more or less retired straight to bed, absolutely tired.