Day 69: Welcome to mosquito heaven

"Our third and final field trip of the summer school is to Kemeri National Park. Please bring your raincoats and wear comfortable clothing. Oh, and the park inhabits the largest population of mosquitoes in the whole of Latvia"

What would your reaction be to hearing that? I looked around as we were being "informed" and literally saw the jaws of all the BISS students drop and hit the dinner table. You could see a range of emotions in the eyes of the students - shock, anxiety but fear being the main one. Rather than forcing all the participants and lecturers to be eaten alive by mozzies, the organiser allowed us to choose whether to go or not - ah, the joy of free will. With our hearts beating fast and minds thinking quick, we each walked up to the piece of paper stuck on the wall to write down our final decision, given only a couple of minutes to make up our minds. I made the rather rash decision to go and this is how I justified it:

• It's the last field trip
• It must be quite an amazing place if they really want us to go
• I'm already covered in mosquito bites and the subsequent scars - surely one more won't hurt
• It's better than staying in bed all day (did I just say that?!)

I woke up this morning with one thing on my mind: I will spray the whole can of mosquito repellent on me -  skin, clothes, even my hair - and I did. I'd say three quarters of the group decided to go along today, so it was quite a good turnout considering the warning. We were also warned that it was going to take 3 hours to get to the national park (near the coast) by bus. Time to sleep - great! Every time I opened my eyes, all I could see was grass, trees and the occasional railway. 

After a quick toilet break (and look around the shops) in a shopping centre in Sigulda, we were quite off schedule. The journey took us around 4 hours in total, which meant our trip had to be shortened and we had to leave earlier to get back to the university for dinner. 

When we arrived at Kemeri tourist information centre and met with an employee of the national park, we watched a short film to give us an overview of what the park has to offer. 

But before we were able to see any of the wonderful nature and beautiful animals shown to us in the film, we had to do this:

Raking!

The field had to be prepared for a local festival happening on the weekend. I suppose raking a massive field of grass was meant to make us feel like the local community...? It definitely made us feel knackered, that's for sure.

The next stop was Kemeri's renowned sulfur springs - the only one in Europe that is so near to the sea. We knew we were close as soon as we sniffed the air. 

The well.

The spring.

Made in 1863!

People used to come to bathe in this water for its medically proven healing abilities, but now it's only done with the supervision of a doctor. 

On the way to the next destination: birdwatching over Lake Kanieris, a shallow coastal lagoon lake. Almost 200 species of birds have been observed here, most of them nesting.

Blue-ish lagoon.

Only 10 people were allowed on the birdwatching tower at a time. With our binoculars, we managed to see a few species of birds.

Snap, snap, snap.

I've never spent so long on a bus before, but we did get to see coastal villages of over 5000 years old! I would love to come back to the national park to see more of it... Is anyone willing to drive for 8 hours? No? I thought not.

By the way, the wind kept all the mosquitoes away! We made the right choice guys!