A nature escape in the Ardennes

It was a bit too much of a shock to return to Brussels after three weeks of tranquil holidays in Finland. Therefore I immediately needed to plan a little nature escape in the Belgian Alps, the Ardennes in the very southern part of Belgium close to the borders of France and Luxembourg (actually, you cannot get much further away from Brussels inside the Belgian borders).

 

Sometimes the trails signs can be a bit confusing...

Though I found out that Belgium also has the system of GR (or grande randonnée meaning great hiking) like France, I couldn't find any of the guidebooks of the trails in bookshops in Brussels. The one outdoor sports equipment shop where I went to buy a new mattress had a great collection of guidebooks and maps - for France! The Belgians are really not great in selling their travel destinations to people. So I try to do some of that promotion here...

In any case, after a lot of research on internet (yes, during work hours!) I found the trail that I wanted - and most importantly was able - to do. I combined information from several websites in Flemish (!), English and French to get a bit of an idea where the GR16 or Sentier de la Semois,  "one of the most beautiful treks one can possibly make in Belgium", passes. Taking into account the available public transports, my only choice was to start in Herbeumont and finish after two days of hiking in Bouillon. The best source of information on the distances between various legs on the trail was in Flemish, but at least I could have an idea of what is feasible in two days.

I took a train from Brussels to Bertrix on Friday afternoon (via Libramont, 2h30min, weekend fare for return ticket only 22 EUR) and then a local bus 163A (30 min, fare 3.20 EUR) from Bertrix to Herbeumont's Champs de Monde camping area.

Camping Champs du Monde.

The camping site was in a great place under an old train bridge over the river Semois. I was welcomed by super relaxed staff, two Flemish slightly drunk brothers-in-law who immediately invited me for beer and French fries, and a thunder storm and lightning. The camping site seemed to be the place to meet real Belgians and I was delighted about this opportunity. 

The Belgians seem to love their camper vans, to the extent that they build wall and roofs around them...

It has been a long time since I last stayed in a camping site. This one had a very nice atmosphere, but I still find it weird how the Belgians or the Dutch spend their holidays camping. For me camping is just an alternative way of accommodation, not the content of the holidays as it seems to be for the Dutch especially. Indeed, when I was first afraid that the hiking trail would be full of all the people staying at the campsite, I didn't yet understand that these people mainly enjoy activities at the campsite. They don't hike. 

This fundamental difference between me (the Finnish?) and them became clear on the empty hiking trail when I passed through many full camping grounds where people were sitting in their sun chairs in front of their massive camper vans and tents with full equipment. Also, those six naked middle-aged men and a woman (and a dog) probably weren't expecting to bump into anyone on the trail...

Countryside views.

Well, I also enjoyed the cosy camping sites, like the Camping Maka, where I spend my second night. As I arrived in the early afternoon I had nothing else to do than enjoy beer and sun in bikinis by the beautiful river Semois, and I gladly remarked that I'm nowhere close to being a real elitist.

And the hike, I wanted to write down the story, so that anyone else wanting to experience the Ardennes could do it with less pain of organizing and finding information.

Day 1: Herbeumont-Auby (24km)

The start of the hike, of the Herbeumont-Auby (Camping Maka) passage of GR16, should have been in Herbeumont, but I couldn't find it. I had arrived with poor information on the exact location of the trail but I had hoped that at the camping site the staff would know the place or that I would see the signs somewhere. But believe it or not, they didn't know. 

At 8 am on Saturday morning I started heading through Herbeumont village towards north and my destination of Auby-sur-Semois and, further along the river, Camping Maka. This decision was, however, a mistake as I later learnt that the GR actually first makes a detour towards south to the other side of the river Semois before heading to north after passing by Le Tombeau du Chevalier in the hills inside the loop that river Semois makes close to Herbeumont.

The quality of the map I was using together with Google Map (and the worry of running out of battery...).

Well, instead I followed a poorly drawn map of which I had taken a photo at the Grand-Place of Herbeumont. The map indicated "Sentier de la Semois", but obviously it wasn't the Sentier de la Semois that I wanted to follow. However, I followed the path marked with red diamonds (even though I knew the GR16 would be marked with red and white stripes) to a nearby hill, La Roche aux Corbeaux at 324m altitude, with good views of river Semois. It wasn't that bad, but afterwards I had to walk along the national road that wasn't that pleasant. However, I soon arrived to the village of Mortehan and finally saw the red-white signs of GR16. From there onwards, having missed probably 2/3 of the correct route, I was on track.

A time for a forest haiku (for a singing wanderer):

                        Laulaen kulkee /

                        Vaeltaja metsien /

                        Karkoittaa villit.

A little chapel before Cugnon.

The trail was now much more pleasant, although it wasn't exactly an escape to the wilderness (I even had a coffee in bar on the route, in the village of Cugnon). Nevertheless, it was refreshing to get a glimpse of the Belgian countryside that I have so far completely overlooked. The scenery of the river Semois was beautiful and altogether my hike of around 5 hours from Herbeumont to Camping Maka was relaxing but also physically demanding enough (but by no means difficult) even though I didn't for sure do the full 24 km, but more like 15 km.

River Semois at Camping Maka. The water was warm but only knee-deep. Should be a good spot to fish some trouts as well.

The wilderness seen during the hike in the Ardennes:

-a very big snail

-two dead mice

-a squashed frog

-a drifted wood that could have been a hippo

-a family trekking with their donkey

-a fox stearing me straight into the eyes, inspiring a haiku: 

                        Kettu loikahti /

                        Tuijotti suoraan silmiin /

                        Minä sanoin wau!

-Dutch people floating on the river

Day 2: Auby-Bouillon (25km)

On my second day I left the camping around 7h45 when nobody else seemed to be awake. This time it was much nicer to start the hike since I knew where the correct path was. It continued just outside the camping site following closely the river Semois again. The views were beautiful, and the walk was nice while a bit residential up to Dohan, a little village that I reached after around one hour. 

From Dohan there is a 5.5km loop that doesn't take you anywhere closer to Bouillon, the end point of the trail. I didn't know this and I was a bit exasperated when I realized after 1.5 more hours of walking that I hadn't advanced at all (it had started raining in the meantime). The loop by the river, south of Dohan, isn't that bad after all, but if you're tired you might want to skip it and continue from where the loop ends, somewhere around the N816 national road north of Dohan. From there the trail dives into a deeper forest. 

I had expected that the forests in the Ardennes are not real forests like in Finland, but they can get pretty dense, green and wild even though they are pierced by many forest roads and the civilization is never very far away.

The loop of Dohan takes you for example to this hill.

At the end of the forest, you cross the N865 and a little pond with birds, and the path leads you to a steep hill through the forest to something maybe called as Col de Buhan, the Buhan hill. This is also a loop and after reaching the top of the hill, you are slightly annoyed to walk back down (next to Les Enclaves road). Well, luckily on the path, you can find a lot of blackberries! 

After this loop, there is no more steep hills on the path to Bouillon, but you get to walk through various types of forests and meadows. I recommend you take with you little box that you can pick blackberries, because the path is surrounded by big bushes of them.

At 14h30 I suddenly entered the town of Bouillon bustling with people on holidays. It was a bit unexpected because I didn't know where the route ends. After crossing the big E46 highway (there's a bridge!), you only need to walk a few hundred meters and you arrive to the town. I didn't have time to drink one last Godefroy blanche, but I easily made it to the 15 o'clock bus number 8 heading to Libramont train station (45min, 3.20 EUR).

A good hike all in all despite the little practical troubles with maps etc. Walking alone and having so much time to think makes the time pass so slowly that I felt I had been away for much more than 2.5 days. Recommended!

Practical info:

For information on the local buses, check InfoTEC.

Camping Champs du Monde: price 11.50 EUR per night for one person and a tent.

Camping Le Maka: price 21.50 EUR per night for one person and a tent.

My other hiking and walking escape stories:

Mont St. Victoire (Provence, France)

Le Cap Gris Nez (Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France)

Jotunheimen (Norway)

Parc National des Volcans (Rwanda)

Cape Ann (Massachussets, USA)

And this reminds me that I should definitely write about the hike in Koli, Northern Karelia, in Finland where I did a great  60km trek last summer... Coming soon...

Life out of balance

The Helsinki Festival had a special focus on the American composer / pianist Philip Glass this year. I went to see his beautiful piano recital, but of more interest was the film Koyaanisqatsi for which he had composed the music. The festival also presented the film in the Music Centre of Helsinki with live music, but I opted for the cheap version in the cinema (perfect!).

The film was absolutely gorgeous and the theme was obviously close to my heart: the exploitation of the planet by humans, the consequences and the craziness of it all. The film is directed by Godfrey Reggio and it was made already thirty years ago. However, the theme is even more actual now. In fact, it is devastating to see how things have only got worse. When will we learn that our way of life is not good for us or our surroundings?

The word 'koyaanisqatsi' is Hopi indian language, meaning 'life out of balance'. How wonderful that they have a specific word for that, it is a truly useful word. The film excellently portrays how life is out of balance: that is, humans and the nature are not in balance and humans are not in balance with themselves.

The film starts with amazing images from somewhere in Arizona or Nevada desert. At first, you think that it will be a film of the beauty of the nature. But suddenly, the tone of the music changes and emerge the tractors, the huge machines turning around the soil, explosions, oil rigs. Exploitation of the planet. After the beautiful images, it's a shock. The film goes on to show images of cities and human constructions. 8-lane highways in the USA. Skyscrapers. Big cities. You are simultaneously aghast but also admiring the capacity of the engineers to create and manipulate our environment. A capacity that is so grand that it makes you a little scared as well. 

However, all these constructions and destruction of the nature doesn't seem to make us happy. A sequence of the film with fast and almost psychedelic music and images makes you think of the craziness of our busy and stressed out lives. Like ants working working working without any idea why, no time to think what we are doing and why. And could there be any other way. We don't treat only the nature in a shameful way but also other nations, other people.

The films ends with the explosion of a spacecraft,  I guess the images were of Challenger exploding after its take-off. It was a great symbol for the capacity of the humans to create unimaginable things, but also how this engineering intelligence and greediness lead us to our own fall.

Nature Overtaking Civilisation

As I wrote in my previous entry, what made Angkor temples interesting and exceptional was the tight connection they had to the surrounding nature. While archaeologists have tried to cut back the jungle in most locations of the Angkor complex, Ta Prohm temple is unusual in the way that the roots and huge trees are growing from the ruins making it a magical place to visit.



This special character has of course made it a favourite stop for tourists but despite the crowds attracted by the afternoon sun I was amazed by the beautiful golden shades in the stones and bare trees. Some tourists might have been more interested in the exact location where Angelina Jolie was playing Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider film a few years back (see above).



Also the less visited Preah Khan temple has this magical feeling due to its proximity to nature. This isn't an archaeological decision as in Ta Prohm but the temple is still waiting for restoration as can be guessed from the frail walls about to collapse.

Back to the Nature

So far, the most important lesson from my traveling in Southeast Asia has been: "Never eat bananas in Europe again". They just wouldn't taste like the delicious little bananas found in here. The other day, when I was motorbiking through Cambodian countryside around Battambang with my local guide Thaa, I got a rather more sophisticated though (following Rousseau's thinking, I guess).

Seeing smiling people everywhere in the small villages, I couldn't help thinking that the Western people's depression or both mental and physical ill-health are to some extent due to our alienation from the nature. Seeing people living by the seasons, according to the natural cycle of life, understanding (but not controlling!) the immediate environment around them felt so right; the way it should be.

Probably this sounds, to say the least, hypocrite, as I am in a very poor and underdeveloped country, but I truly felt a bit jealous seeing these people in villages (lying in hammocks, carrying wood or gathering their skinny cows from the field). Not that I want to be a peasant or anything close to it but I would like to have this tight contact with the nature. I'm fine with settling for a good-sized vegetable garden, a few hens and a goat, but growing herbs on the balcony just isn't enough. (Read from my previous blogging a year ago about the great book: "Animal, vegetable, miracle")

I remember being criticized by two friends of mine about traveling in poor countries, how it is some sort of voyerism and unethical. "You just want to see poor people and think how exotic it is..." This was the line of thinking. Having now travelled in Laos, a country among the 20 poorest countries in the world, and Cambodia, another very poor country where the majority of people still live with less than 2 dollars per day, I still can't agree with them. From the point of view of my studies about human well-being, inequality and poverty, it has been enlightening for me but at the same time I feel that tourism is one of the greatest ways for these countries to escape poverty (rather than illegal logging or growing coffee, tea, tobacco or opium for the rich countries). In fact, local people working with tourists are better off than the average. For example, I gave Thaa, my guide in Battambang, a day's job that he was greatly thankful of as there are not so many opportunities for work in the region.

I waved at around three hundred children during my nine hour boat ride from Siem Reap to Battambang, they were all very excited about seeing our boat and our blond hair and fair skin, and I can't understand how my being in a tourist in Cambodia would somehow be unethical (for god sake, child prostitution and sex tourism are unethical!) as I'm trying my best to be friendly, teach locals some English, buy more expensive fair-trade local products and give people a work. I asked a man in Siem Reap (the city next to Angkor temples that see more than 1 million tourists a year) how the city had changed during the last decade when the tourism started to take off. He replied that the change was immense, but for the better, he had a work now, they could build new roads and schools, he didn't consider the flow of tourists as degrading the quality of life in the city, so the situation was not comparable to Florence for example, the city of Siem Reap wouldn't flourish without the tourists.

Of course, as in Vang Vieng in Laos, tourism can bring some bad side-effects (drugs, stupidity, noise pollution). But for example the case of prostitution, in Cambodia (with hiv) it became a greater problem with the UN coming to the country with its mission after the Khmer Rouge years and the civil war, only later the toursits started "benefiting" from these facilities (child prostitution being a real problem in the country, Cambodia being the new Thailand in this sense). But this deserves another blog entry altogether, coming soon, maybe when I'm back home to reflect upon these issues more carefully. After all, I only have one more week in the continent.