The paved path ended soon. Now, we are over a lot of stones. The challenge is there is a lot of sand too. As I mentioned, this whole area is sandstone mountains. Sand comes out easily off the mountains. There were rains two days back.

All that sand you can see in the picture is making the hike tricky. We are trying our best not to slip. Some were using sticks to avoid slipping.

It has been tiring enough so far that people have started taking breaks.

This whole area is formed of sandstone mountains. If you see the top most point (a bit left of the center of the picture) – there is a sandstone rock natural archway there. That is our target today! A bit left of it you might see a think small line sticking out. That is the “Column”. You will see how it looks in real life once I reach the top. As of now, it is a long haul…

Destroyed a very large part of the Bohemian (Saxon) Switzerland forests. The tell tale signs of thousands of burnt trees are all over the place. I understand this was done deliberately by a human being.

Driving for about two hours north of Prague city. We are nearing the town of Hřensko. Apparently, this town has a very large Vietnamese population who came over during the Communist regime. The river you see is Labe (Elbe) and the other side is Germany!

Finishing up the day with a Aperol Spritz (everybody seems to be drinking this here), writing out my blogs and chalking out my adventure tomorrow.

Enough of this old architecture and long dead people. Yearning to be in nature.

If I understand correctly what I have signed up for (I am not sure Aperol is a good thing anymore), I will be hiking for over 16K (10 miles), climb up some 330 floors, cross a country boundary (into Germany) and wear a smile for all that.

Never done a cross country hike before. Never had to carry a passport to walk around either!!

Heaven bless me!

I just realized that they are just hideous (like my wife has always pointed out). (Bright lights make me furrow my eyes… ever since I was a kid, I squint my eyes in bright light – especially the left one that is severely myopic)

But let that not take your attention away from how much I enjoyed the boat ride!! I saw some beautiful sights. I made friends with the young lady who served us coffee and wanted to know why we call it Black Coffee in America when all coffee is black (there is a history, believe it or not) and got to know an elderly couple who lives in Lewisville – literally a spitting distance away (well Texas size spitting) from where Natasha and Nikita were born and grew up in their very early years!!!

Today was sunny and less crowded in front of the tower. I got a better shot.

Stopped on the streets to listen to this group. Good group.

But here is the thing… look at the elderly gentleman sitting down stooping over his instrument.

What musical instrument is it?

It was percussion. It seemed to have a lot of rods in it. But they were making lot more bass noise than shriller ones. He had what looked like metal wraps in his fingers.

He was good. Really good. Got a lot of rhythm in the tunes.

Do you know what he was playing?