Day 16, Leg 13

Today couldn't have been more of a contrast with two days ago.  I'm at the awesome Libertar Pension, which is the polar opposite of the filthy, skanky, nastily managed Havana Motel (although you do pay for the higher quality at Libertar:  W120,000).  Where the 44K trek was long and dreary, today's walk was relatively short, bright, and beautiful.

I ended up arriving at Libertar around 12:30 p.m., and the lady who came out to greet me was friendly and accommodating.  I'm even in Room 201 again, like last year, so my phone was able to connect to the room's WiFi instantaneously.  

I would love to come out this way under more relaxing circumstances, just to chill for a few days.  Libertar sits next to the Gumi Dam (구미보); there are parks on both sides of the river, with the dam connecting both parks, and when the weather is gorgeous, as it is today, everything is bathed in splendor.  I had the rare chance to eat an early lunch and get most of my YouTube-watching done right away. 

My feet have obviously healed enough for an 18.6K walk (relatively little pain today, once I got going), but tomorrow, we're back in the shit with a 35K walk and another two-night stay. I'm thinking that my left foot's blister ought to be mostly better by next week, which is when I'll be doing a nasty 42K walk. Not looking forward to that, but at least that walk will be along a familiar path, and it'll be 2K shorter than the nightmare walk.  After that, I'll have no more super-long walks to dread.  In terms of other "last"s this trip, Libertar is the last establishment to which I'll be calling (or rather, texting) ahead to make reservations.  

Signs for my destination, the Nakdong River Barrage (낙동강 하구둑 or 하굿둑), are now in abundance, and as per usual, I can't trust the distances listed on them because they keep bouncing around inconsistently.  Trust only Naver Map, as Confucius once said.  This fuels my suspicion that it's physically impossible to measure distances accurately anywhere.  Even Naver Map can be dodgy.   Nothing on this planet ever remains in exactly the same relative position with anything else; everything is always shifting. 

I'm not going to bother doing all of my laundry this evening; I'll be spending two nights at my next destination, so I'll do the full wash there.  (My poor, abused pants never get washed except then when I'm doing a two-nighter.)  Tonight, I think I'll turn in early, sleep an hour more than usual, then leave Libertar by 5:30 a.m.  In theory, anyway. 

Here are some pics from today's walk.

The moon and, barely visible, Venus:

By this reckoning, I'm well past halfway:

Animal tracks.  Dog?  You decide:

Like last year, I get a kick out of these pics of drowning kids.  They always make me laugh:

There are so many photos of abandoned gloves that I haven't put up.  You'll see them all when I publish the full-scale photo essays after the walk is done:

Daegu is within reach:

A traveling companion who's as fat as I am:

Not a dog this time:

See the dam in the distance? 

So the first sign says "Welcome!" and the next sign says "Just don't do anything fun while you're here."  Not that Koreans are inclined to observe posted regulations.

Another suicide-hotline sign:

I had to wonder whether this structure rated as a shwimteo:

I saw a bunch of these burial mounds during the 44K walk.  The rays of sunshine are an artifact of my phone camera's lens, not a testament to my skills as a photographer:

Every dam has an admin building:

My pension from a distance:

Did you like the two photos of animal and human tracks in the concrete?  I had a chuckle when I saw the animal (dog?) tracks, then another chuckle when I saw the human ones.  A lot of people and creatures are assholes when it comes to drying cement.  Some of us just can't help ourselves.

Here's a thing I'd been pondering:  while walking along the Han River section of the trek, I was walking against the flow of the river.  While walking along the Nakdong, however, I've been walking with the river's flow.  What gives?  The answer to this mystery, I think, is that it's the Baekdu Daegan mountain range that determines the rivers' flow.  North of the range, the water flows toward Seoul; south of the range, the water flows toward Busan.  This doesn't explain the behavior of the North Han River, but I'll think of an explanation for that at some point.

And now:  time to grab some extra water bottles for tomorrow, do a limited bit of laundry, then settle in for the night.

Saint Ibu of Profen, protect me from the coming dolor....

PHOTO ESSAY: