Hiking Latvian coastline

Tl;dr: In 2008 I walked from Ainazi to Liepaja in 12 days. Journey was 500km long and was almost entirely along the beach.

Idea and preparation

My friend and I were considering something like this for quite some time and then one day we just agreed on hiking the whole coastline. Decision was made in winter so we had several months to prepare, but in the end we were not prepared at all. When summer came, we did 1 day / 1 night preparation walk along the beach, just to see how much distance we can cover and what it would feel like. Preparation went fine and after about a week, we took off. 

Gear

Hotels were out of the question - we wanted to enjoy this at fullest, so we slept under tarps and cooked all meals ourselves. No electricity meant no phones and no GPSs. We printed out several sheets of maps, but scale was too small and oftentimes it was impossible to determine were we are and how much we have walked. Only way to determine current location was to match small rivers on map with real scenery. It wasn't perfect and sometimes lead to false positives. I can tell you one thing - it's not a great feeling when you realize that river in front of you is actually the one you thought was 10km behind. Because of this map thing, we never knew when we passed cities and stores (it's not obvious from beach and one doesn't just wonder off looking for stores and what not). That lead to carrying on average 2 days worth of food and water. The most amount of water I carried was 13L. Crazy and stupid.

Weather

Mostly cold rain, scorching sun and ferocious winds. The usual.

The bads

I took 2 weeks off my job specifically for this trip. Plan was to finish it in 12 days, so I had 2 days of rest before diving back to work. First days started kind of slow, mainly because we thought covered distance was bigger than in reality. When we realized we won't make it on time, we had to increase walking speed and overall walking time. This and large amounts of provisions lead to continuous tiredness and blistering legs. On the 5th day of walking, my partner had to withdraw and went home. That is when things became even more difficult. Every day I though just how easily it would be to just go home and not experience all this. I almost did go home during last 2 days. To this day, this walk remains the hardest thing I've done. 1000km in Israel's heat probably won't make a dent compared to Latvia's coastline.

The goods

Sunsets and tea. Every evening, around 8 o'clock, I started to look for suitable camping place. More or less level ground in nearby forest and as few people and ants as possible. Cook food, eat, watch sunset and go to sleep listening to sea's splashing sounds. Every evening was like a heaven. You are here and now and nothing else matters.

Not to forget the feeling when you finish the whole thing.

The most beautiful part was Kolka - Liepaja (5 days). Wide, abandoned beaches, sometimes exclusively rocky, sometimes with very steep cliffs . Winds are strongest here, but it is worth nevertheless. I hope to repeat this section again someday.

Finish

We started on day one, at about 14:00. I finished on day twelve at 12:00. So technically it was 11 days. Because I only had to walk ~4 hours that day, I didn't feel very tired, but I didn't feel very excited either. I just felt good and tried to comprehend that this was the end. No more walking tomorrow. Back to real life.

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