In Estonia, besides the DIY 🗼, we also visited an official one, in the village of Tindi, near the town of Rõuge. The Pesapuu watchtower is designed to look like a bird's nest, or rather two. The height is 30 meters, and with the surrounding lakes, there's plenty to look at. Fun fact - there's a small notice hanging at the entrance. The gist of it is that the main construction contractor, having received money from the client (the municipality), didn't pay the subcontractor who actually did the work. The amount is around 100k euros, and visitors are asked to donate to compensate for the fraud. A weird move, for sure, but understandable. Nevertheless, I didn't donate. I do that pretty rarely, usually in person and directly to the individual. I am, however, subscribed on Patreon to two guys, writer Alexander Wales and YouTuber Grisha Mastrider with his channel "book dude".
Not far from the tower, with some difficulty, we found an eatery and grabbed a bite. Besides the usual grilled veggies and meats, they also offered large beans stewed in a cauldron over a campfire. In Latvian, for some reason, they're called pig beans (cūku pupas), and in Russian, horse beans. My brain is a bit broken, so I immediately started thinking about how the expression "horse-sized" originated from the size of a horse's genitalia. The beans were very tasty, albeit at a very European price - 5 euros for a small plate. More of a tasting portion than a full meal. After lunch, our teams split up. One headed to our campsite taking the MTB route, and the other via the asphalt. As you know, the motto of the "Snowdrop" tourist club is: "It's time to split up".
On the way back, we unexpectedly spotted some long-distance gravel race. First there was one biker, and then a whole flock. All with bags, meaning you can tell they're riding from afar, and still have quite a way to go. This is trendy right now in the gravel community, these "self-reliance" style events (For example, the Lithuanian https://www.borderepic.lt/). Self-reliance is one of the key points of the Burning Man manifesto, by the way. Many think that Burning Man is just about crazy installations and freaky crowds. No, there's a whole idealistic philosophy. https://burningman.org/about/10-principles/ Which, like all utopian ideas, struggles a bit when colliding with real life.
