I have a moment of time while something uploads, so I’ll jot down a few lines here. I was originally supposed to go on October 7, and I told my brother I needed a ride at 10:10, which he agreed to. Then my brother came at 10:40 asking whether I was going after all. I told him not anymore, the train was already gone. At 12:10 there was another option, but then my mom stepped in and said that at 12 o’clock there was no point traveling a few km across the border, since the train ride there and back alone would take 4 hours.
So for lunch I had, for the first time in a long while, a good meal – pea puree – and sat down at the monitor as usual. That’s how it went until evening; I was just researching Slovak mobile operators, their terms, prices, and so on. I have quite a phobia of being without an internet connection, chat, and the like.
The Slovaks are doing great when it comes to prices, and even in Cadca, at an altitude of around 650 m above sea level, I had full signal the whole time H+. But I’ll get to all that, I’m getting ahead of myself. The next day was exactly the same. I was trying to load Bible 21 into the database on webelieve.cz, but somehow the least powerful hosting couldn’t handle it, and I wanted to sort it out before leaving, so I did what I could and whatever was within my power, but anything that improved crashed again after a while, and I told myself I had to get out of here or I’d go crazy.
So I wrote to aspone.cz support and set off at 12:10. From Billa I walked to the post office and withdrew 300 CZK; I already had 100 CZK, so I could buy a Slovak SIM card. I was at the station at 12:25 or so – I stood in line to buy a ticket and then went to the exchange office at the station.
Until 12:30 there was a lunch break, and 5 people were already waiting. As soon as the door opened, an older lady didn’t hesitate and ignored who had arrived first, which annoyed one gentleman, and they got into an argument. The lady then came out and thanked the gentleman for doing a good deed, and with that one act of the comedy was over.
Then I asked the remaining 2 whether I could go first, since it was :33 and my train was leaving at :37. I exchanged 400 CZK for 14 EUR and even got 16 CZK back. The rate was very good, because banks offer well over 28 CZK, while here I paid only 27.4 CZK per euro. Even so it surprised me a bit; I guess I live in a different financial world. I walk into the station blind, because the underpass still has no boards showing which train leaves from which platform. You only find that out on the platform or in the main hall.
Only 2 platforms are open, and from number 4 trains leave exclusively for Opava Vychod, so I went to number two. But there was no mention of my train anywhere. I check Idos and sure enough, 16 minutes late. Still, it was strange. Eventually it showed up, and since I was at the end of the platform, I hurried to the 1st car and got on. I was immediately struck by the roomy red seats, free WiFi and an overall very pleasant train environment, but that it could be 1st class never occurred to me.
I stood in the corridor, I was only going 38 km anyway, and I don’t mind that, especially when I’m texting with someone. The conductor came and asked for my ticket. I gave him everything – the Slovak one, the Czech one, my In Karta and some meaningless receipt showing the balance on the In Karta. He punched the first 2 and left.
Not for long – a minute later he came back and said “You can’t be in 1st class“. It immediately clicked where I was, and I walked on to the next car. Some guy was standing at its front, so I kept going. I looked into the compartments; none was completely empty, and none had a girl sitting alone, there were always several people.
Well, even if there had been one, I wouldn’t have gone in. I stopped at the end of the second car and called my insurance company to ask how health insurance abroad works. The price was the same as it used to be – 15 CZK – but it has to be ordered at least a day in advance. I explained the situation to the lady a bit, we chatted, and she said goodbye with the remark that since I’d be there only a few hours, I’d have to hope no disaster happens. I had my European health insurance card with me, and for basic treatment that would supposedly be enough; it would be worse with more complex and expensive medical procedures.
The first to drop out was Vodafone, while T-Mobile held on a little longer. It was funny how at the Slovak border the Poles and the Slovaks were battling it out – the Poles were even winning :D, I got 2 SMS saying Welcome to Poland, while from the Slovaks only 1 :P. I enjoyed the ride, though it was spoiled by people constantly walking to the toilet who seemed to carry a large dose of anger, judging by how incredibly hard they slammed the doors and how they behaved. In Cadca I got off and was happy to be here.
At the station, workers were just repairing something on the platform roof, there were cables everywhere, so I only took a photo of the departure board, where a 10-minute delay caught my eye, the same one shown in Tesin – and the train actually had a bigger delay. In the main hall I went into a newsstand and asked if they had a SIM card from a Slovak operator. I was sent to the newsstand all the way at the back, they said maybe there, because here they don’t carry such things.
Now I know why: in Slovakia, even with a prepaid card, you have to show some ID when activating it, ideally your ID card, and you need an internet connection, a computer, and so on. From a distance I saw the logos of O2, Orange and other operators, and I thought I had it made.
I asked again and, for a change – only top-up vouchers. But she described the way to the town center. I didn’t pay attention and just went in the direction she pointed. Barely out of the station, a fair-skinned man of about 35-40 spoke to me, started smiling and said we hadn’t seen each other in a long time.
I had no idea who he was and had neither the time nor the courage to ask, so I asked where I could buy a SIM card from a Slovak operator. He said in Czech that he wasn’t from around here and couldn’t help me. So we exchanged smiles one last time and I went wherever my feet took me. In 5 minutes I was at Kaufland, where I headed to the newsstand, but again only top-up vouchers. I had to wait about 5 minutes because the young woman in front of me was handing in several lottery tickets.
Right next to it towered the “tower” of Tesco, so I went there. There were 3 steps and a bollard, on the 2nd step stood a stroller and next to it 2 girls of about 25. One was trying to get the stroller over to Kaufland and the other was there just “for decoration“, because not only did she not help, she even seemed to find it a bit funny. In 3 leaps I was there and asked whether I could help them with it. They were thrilled, saying they’d otherwise still be there tomorrow morning; I grabbed the front wheel handles and we carried it down. =)
In Tesco I didn’t see any O2 shop, as I had been told at Kaufland. It was a very small Tesco. At the information desk an older lady was dealing with a grandma who apparently wanted to return a Becherovka because it had rung up more than it was supposed to cost. After 10 minutes of full-on processing and paperwork it was my turn. The lady had apparently never heard of LTE networks in her life and generally didn’t understand me at all. In the end I had to settle for simply being able to get online. She had no clue what was going on.
She called over almost half of Tesco to see if they could advise me, but I just couldn’t get across completely basic terms like LTE, 3G, etc., and I probably seemed to everyone like someone from the 28th century AD or something. =D She took me into the Tesco store, gave me a few leaflets to read through and, if I liked it, to buy. I read through everything and it was great, much better than the offer of the Czech Tesco Mobile. 3 of the 4 self-checkouts were free, so I paid with a 10-euro note, and a friendly smiling lady told me that I had to activate the SIM card at the information desk, otherwise it wouldn’t work.
Back at the scene of the crime. And more incomprehension. I handed over my ID card, filled in a ClubCard application, signed a contract with O2 SK, whose network Tesco Mobile runs on, and received 3x ClubCard cards of the Slovak Tesco :D. The lady was friendlier now; you could tell she was more practiced at this than at LTE networks. Outside I put the SIM card into my phone, set the APN to standard internet and was soon uploading photos to Facebook =).
Near Tesco stood a measuring car for electric traction equipment belonging to the Czech SZDC, which I had already seen once at the station in Bohumin and once in Tesin, being pulled by a Class 380 locomotive, the most modern locomotive from Plzen’s Skoda, racing along at at least 130 km/h back then. This is my first photo of that special car. The worst part was getting across the road.
There were lots of cars and little time. And not just cars – every second vehicle was a truck. On top of that, there had been a crash somewhere, and for 3 hours traffic practically didn’t move. The first 2 caches were easy, namely these:
- Sutok Kysuckych riek 3. Ciernanka – Kysuca – the only problem here – after logging it, because of the heavy muggle traffic, I put it back into the first hole I saw. But when the wider top wouldn’t fit in, I knew I had it wrong. I couldn’t pull it out by hand anymore, so I had to use my teeth.
- Spomienka na stare detske dopravne ihrisko – I gathered it had probably been some kind of children’s traffic training playground. However, I didn’t see anything resembling one anywhere. All around there were only garbage dumps where dumping new waste was forbidden, but through the torn-down fences you could see that some Slovak citizens don’t lose much sleep over it.
The next one was ” Dvojkriz nad Cadcou “.
The GPS guided me perfectly along well-trodden paths, but that’s because a red hiking trail ran there, and since it was well marked, I never got lost, even though I was paying attention only to chatting on FB. As I was walking, Lenicka from Prague, whom I had visited a few times long ago, wrote to me that “she’s thinking of me and is fond of me“.
I reached the cache, which was at an altitude of 551 m above sea level. There was no hint, but it wasn’t needed either; anyone with a bit of sense, or an experienced geocacher, knows where to reach. I left 4x of my CWG there, along with a travel bug I had picked up in Hradec Kralove when I was there with Sany, and happily listened to a few Slovak songs, I nearly bounced along to them. Dvojkriz nad Cadcou was probably the first cache that was a bit higher up. After that things went on in the same spirit.
I walked the mountain trails there, listening to the radio stations Vlna or Europa 2, and it all seemed great to me, especially the radio; everyone says the Slovaks are “idiots“, but I found the information pouring over me interesting. Then again, it’s true that in Czechia I’ve heard just about everything, so the bad overshadows the good. The next one was Bryndzarovci – nothing difficult, but a nice one.
The box was in the roots of a tree under a stone, nothing special about that, but the artistic design of the logbook was lovely. Here my mom called asking when I’d be home, so that I’d make it in time. I told her at least 1 more cache and then I’d head toward “stanica Cadca“. The last cache, D3 Tunel Horelica wasn’t very easy to get to. The main traffic artery in Cadca was jammed again, and I walked along it on the sidewalk for about 400 m, then turned off and continued on local roads. I passed a barrier, and there was another one on the far side, where the road joined the expressway in a rather unusual way.
What was interesting about this cache was how many CWG it held. About 8 – 2 from every Czech. So I added 2 of mine and the box could barely be closed. It was already dark, and I spent a long time there; I just can’t remember now whether I was on the phone with someone or texting on FB. I tried calling later, so probably texting.
Because of the darkness I headed back to the station, hoping to catch the Express that left around 7 PM. As I approached the station, crowds of people came pouring out. I hurried, not running, but walking as fast as my legs would carry me. Even so, I arrived a minute after the train had left – it had a delay of about 9 minutes at D3 Tunnel Horelica, but made up about 3 minutes of it, and that “broke my neck” :(. But I didn’t have to wait very long; at 19:43, I think, a local train left for the Czech Republic border. It was already standing there when I arrived, but nothing said that it was the one.
It was an old railcar – a single small car – ZSSK. As soon as it appeared on the board, I got on, and 15 minutes later it left. We almost got off – me and some guy with a girl – one stop too early, but they noticed in time :D. I was still texting with Sany, who wasn’t in a very good mood; she wrote that she would probably delete her FB because someone may have broken into it :(. We arrived at Mosty u Jablunkova on the same track where the Czech City Elefant was already waiting. I sat down and 3 minutes later it moved on. In Ropice my brother picked me up, and I was home around 9 PM.
It was a beautiful day, the first time I was in Slovakia on my own, and it definitely didn’t seem to me that Slovakia is bad at anything.
I enjoyed it to the fullest :). Here are some photos from Slovakia, but the ones related to specific caches, and for example the photos of trains and stations, are in other albums; there are few or none of them here 🙂 404: this website went on a hike and never came back.