Hiking @ Joutsijärvi! And hiking and hiking and hiking...but survived!

Last Saturday it was time for a looooong walk: my colleague Annukka asked me if I want to join a hiking trip arranged by a friend of her in Joutsijärvi. In the end it was five of us: Annukka, her boyfriend, Petra (a friend of Annukkas), my flatmate and I. The trip started at 9.15 in the morning, it took us app. 35 minutes by car to get to the area of Joutsijärvi. We started around 10 o'clock with our 'hiking mission'. The plan was to circle the whole lake, and this track is about (don't be shocked) 30 km... Yeah, right, the '0' in that number isn't a typing error, honestly - again in words: thirty kilometres! Well, but I am still alive and I have to say: it was worth it!

The track was very, very fascinating - the surroundings and the condition of the soil vary a lot and it's never getting dreary. First we had to go a few minutes on a street covered with grey stones, but then we were leaving the street, entering directly into the unspoiled nature. We were hiking through parts of the wood with a lot of rocks, then again green parts with very soft ground, covered with moss. There were parts in the wood with a lot of rocks, then again sections with very soft grounds covered in moss. Sometimes we had to walk on little 'wooden-bridges' (as you can see on one of the pictures), especially in the swamp areas.

We passed  a few smaller lakes (or better to say: little watercourses) and some nice places to rest and to recover. You can find fireplaces to have a little BBQ, wooden houses to sleep there overnight, tables and benches. In total we had three breaks: one to have some sausages, another to have a cup of tea and the last one to eat some noodles. Therefore a very big THANK YOU to our dispensers!

Another thing quite funny was the necessary 'little boat ride' we had to do twice for continuing our tour. We  used these boats to get from one side of the wood to the other... And suprise surprise: we did NOT get wet, although sometimes it was very, very close :-D Those boats were chained on strings which connect both parts of the woods over the river. It was very groggy and the boat seemed to be quite old, but it was fun though, and a bit of a thrill! Well, the point is, this trip was for me not the normal 'forest-trip'. I mean, of course, I did a lot of hiking trips before, but then they took maybe 3-4 hours with very (veryyyyy) low speed and mostly on prepared forest trails. And compared to that, this trip was something different and new to me - a trip back to real nature.

Last but not least, I want to share a little story - let's say a myth - with you: as I said to Petra that after my opinion, Joutsijärvi has some pretty scary parts, which are kind of mysterious, dark and foggy, according to that she told me a Finnish myth about the 'Maahinen'. Maahinen are man-like creatures living in subterranean dwellings, mainly located in the forests. But they are living a so-called life upside down: they are walking on the same ground as human beings do, just mirrored. According to a rumor, the 'world' of the Maahinen is like a paradise: nature is rich, exclusive food, beautiful housings and so on. Of course, that sounds invitingly and alluringly to people, but there was a rub in it! So, people got the idea to enter Maahinen world, to take some of the beautiful things from their and then returning back to the 'real' world. But of course: there's a fly in the ointment! If people succumb to the temptation of entering the 'other world', there is no more chance for them to return to their world - never ever. On the one hand, life of the Maahinen seemed almost perfect, but on the other hand, stepping into their world can be compared with a confinement for the rest of one's life. Therefore people were scared of (probably) meeting them in the woods or even getting captured by them. I hope, I could explain this myth in a right way - if not, please correct me or tell me that story again!

WANTED: those 5 persons are suspected to have killed at least 2 Maahinen!