Sunrise at the seashore, what else do you need? Early in the morning, at 6am, some of us went swimming at the beautiful shore in Paernu. Refreshed, we had a spontaneous meeting with the Governor of the region, and he even ran with us for some distance. Afterwards we ran relays with local kids for quite a distance through the beautiful landscape of Estonia. As we came to the border between Estonia and Latvia we all agreed that we all would love to spend more time in this country. Although highly developed, it is still somehow simple and peaceful: definitely a place worth visiting.

After an easy-going border check, we were welcomed by the children of Ainazi, a small village. The Mayor took the torch and Annette, a member of our international team, translated his good wishes for the World Harmony Run. We also visited the hospital in this village for children with special needs. Those kids were probably some of our most grateful participants. Jan was surrounded by them and was asked to give out signatures on the World Harmony Run leaflets.

A few kilometres later we crossed the border of Staicele: the village of the stork. The woman responsible for tourism, the Mayor, and all the other citizens of Staicele - especially the kids - made so many preparations for our welcome.

They brought their own big garden torches, which they ignited with our World Harmony Run flame. Then the adventure tour through the village started. At first we hoisted the World Harmony Run flag on their flagpole.

The children invited us to try their one-man slide cable car across a small pond. The Mayor said some kind words, and we had coffee and snacks. Next stop was the church, then over a rope bridge to the construction site of their fond project: the stork palace. There we planted oak trees: each one representing one of the various different nationalities of our team members.

We circled, sang a song, and gave our greetings, blessings, and good wishes for the future. Led by and followed by kids, we finally crossed the village border and waved good-bye.

The remaining kilometres for the day led us through Aloja, Urga, Vilzeni and Matisi, all places full of nice people and good runners. The run turned into one big celebration with lots of food, performances, and even horse riders accompanying us.

Finally we reached Valmiera. A bus full of enthusiastic runners from the city, who had joined us already during the afternoon, and a group of kids, ran with us to the final ceremony, where the Deputy Mayor greeted us. He was wearing his new tracksuit, so he couldn’t really escape and had to run a couple of metres with us!

---

Distance: 170km

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

< Estonia 27 July

Latvia 29 July >