#2: [30-Nov-09]

12-Sep-2004 -- After having spend a very luxury night at a nice thermal hotel and having visited the confluence point 39N 31E the previous day, we left after breakfast heading to point 39N 30E, which seemed not too easy as far as we could see on our map, as there was no village or street near it and mostly this is a sign that there is a mountain or something else that makes it difficult to get to the point. And unfortunately we were right about it.

Driving on one of the bigger roads to Ahya and using the GPS, we could not get any closer than 2.8 kilometers. The reaction of the people living in a small village we went through was nice. People are always so astonished why obviously foreigners come through their village. You have to imagine that they often have no proper roads but rather mud tracks, in this case red earth. A very beautiful village and worth to be visited. The houses had the same terracotta color. But as the path ended up in the fields, we returned back through the village and tried the other way around the hills hoping to get any closer to the point.

When again the road really got worse, or rather was no longer existent anymore, we left the car and started walking up the first hill following our GPS, which told us that we were 2.6 kilometers away from the confluence point. The way up the first hill was quite nice, the way down was already quite stony and when we walked up the next hill, or what first we thought would be a hill, but the higher we got, we discovered that it rather was a mountain. You have to know that we got out of the car just after noon and climbed up the mountain during the hottest time of the day. We only had one bottle of water with us and the way really proved to be a hard one. If Harald had not pushed me twice and was kind enough to let me rest in a shadow drinking some water, I would have given up! It was a miserable way to the point!

But finally, more than two hours later, walking and climbing almost continuously up the hill, we reached the point and fortunately this time there were no big bushes in our way and we could easily find it. After taking our pictures of the GPS, the point and the surroundings, we had a confluence cigarette and some more water, wrote a confluence SMS to Roman Winkler, to whom the GPS belongs, and without him we had never made a single point, as he brought us to the idea at first.

Later when we had recovered a little, we went back down. This time we luckily had set the point where our car was, so we could walk back the more comfortable way and had not to return via the direct one we walked up. But it still took more than one hour to get back to the car.

When everything is over and you are back to civilization again in your car on your way, an overwhelming feeling of joy and in that case of pride comes over you as you have made it once more. But after that point I promised myself only to get points next to roads and never again one somewhere up a hill. But this only lasts a day or two and then you get the confluence fever again and you just do not care any longer where the point is. You only care about that the point has not been visited before!