Day 146, Chata Volovec – away from Stos Kupule

Weather: ⛅🌤️🌤️☀️🌤️
Picnic: 🥪🥪🥪 (3 out 5, wraps with Nutella, peanut butter is finished…)
Track: 🇸🇰🇸🇰🇸🇰 (3 out of 5, Nice track through the forest, with nice views)
Track intensity: 😯😯😯😯, 4 out of 5, too long for our liking, but we managed)
Campspot: ⛺⛺ (2 out of 5, flat spot in the forest)
Name of followed trail: SNP trail

We have a good breakfast and start with 200m of elevation up to the top of Skalisko. The view up there is really good!

From the top, we continue down to Uhornianske sedlo, where the trail crosses a road. On our way there we meet some people who are picking cranberries. At the road we say goodbye to Rein. After a week of hiking it’s time for him to go home. By now, it has become a good habit of finding (and leaving) Rein at random places. We are certain that he will use his infamous hitchhiking skills, or levitate himself towards the next village 😉 after we leave him here.

From Uhornianske sedlo, it’s another 20 km to our desired destination, Stos Kupule. This is a spa town, where hikers can sleep at the spa. We try to call ahead about 4 times, but nobody answers the phone.

It’s quite a long day, luckily with a relatively easy trail from the saddle. Still, the last few kilometers are done more in a trance like state, wishing we were already there.

When we get to Stos Kupule, we find out that the spa is run by the least hospitable people we’ve met on trail. Very much unlike our previous experiences in Slovakia, these people genuinely don’t want to help us. Apparently there is no space in the spa (we should have called ahead…🤔), we’re not allowed to pitch a tent, and there are no taxis coming here.

This information is all given to us by translate apps, because nobody speaks English or German.

We don’t mind no for an answer, but the lack of willingness to try and think of a solution makes us feel helpless and angry. Neither emotion is very helpful, so after trying to get further than ‘no’ for an hour, we give up before emotions get the better of us. We book an hotel in a different village and decide to walk to the main road and try and hitchhike out of here. That’s the main thing!

At the road, the traffic is low. Since it’s already 19.00, we call the hotel for a taxi. The hotel infoms is that they don’t know a taxi service in this area, and the ride to them will take more than half an hour. The lady also says that they’ll close in an hour. With this information, we decide to cancel this hotel, because there is no way we’ll get there in time.

Our final solution is to solve it with our own skills and possibilities. We get water from a nearby spring and continue for another kilometer to a flat spot in the forest to pitch our tent.

Tired of the long day (35 km) and of the stupid issues we encountered in Stos Kupule, we pitch, make a noodle dinner and go to bed.

In the end, we’re proud we solved it together and we now have a good spot to sleep. And, 1 kilometer less tomorrow!😁