In between those new stories an old one, from Estonia. Lao used to be my favourite meditation place, hiking hut in the middle of a peat bog, but with trail to it rotten long ago. Now it was only for those who knew the way.
Sunrise at Lao
That Saturday I made it to Lao hut around 3-4 in the afternoon. Came in from Liivi river direction, someone had been smart enough to fell a tree across the river, so this time I made it without falling in. Still got lost a bit and reached the hut from wrong direction, across the peat bog. Lazied around, eat huge lingonberries, took a walk along the old ditch back towards the river to find out where I had gone wrong. So it happened that by the evening there were plenty of my tracks around the hut, including those coming in and those going out. The hut itself is a capital building, two floors, birdwatching tower, looks like a weird bear church. The window on a first floor was open, it was also fairly dirty, so I set up camp on a second floor. Hatch on a gable I opened so I could admire the full moon and sunrise over peatbog. It was completely dark by eight, huge full moon was climbing over the treetops so I dived into my sleeping bag.
I had just laid down when a wolfpack started its evening song barely 200 metres from the hut towards Virtsu road. I lack words to describe my feelings. It was powerful. Sleep was gone, crazy squirrel was running around on the roof and mice had a party on the first floor. It was maybe half past eleven when I heard a sound of an animal jumping to the floor downstairs. It was sure too loud for mice. Steps approached the stairs, visitor placed the paws to the first step, then silence. Sound of claws on the wooden floors told me it is some sort of dog. I became worried about my foodstuff that I had left downstairs on the table, so I took a headlamp and went down. Of course, visitor had disappeared without a sound, he had not touched my things.
I brought my backpack up and had barely climbed back to my sleeping bag when long, low howl and yelping of puppies probably marked the end of the hunt. Only then I realised that fox or raccoon dog would never wander so close to a wolfpack lair – and that it was probably the Landlord himself, who had been fooled by my many tracks and came to check the hut.
And the morning was exactly as beautiful as i had expected
Vahur Wanders 