As I only had 16 km to go (the next campsite after that is 26 km on, so that was a no go), I took it easy this morning, taking my time having breakfast and packing. Then it took a lot longer than I wanted, because my belly was acting up, so I spent some time relaxing and waiting for it to settle down. All in all, I got back on the trail at 10.45, which felt ridiculously late.
First, I had to walk all the way past Wasserbillig and Mertert. Along the river, which was nice enough, but it was a somewhat typical next-to-the-river town for tourists. Bought some supplies at a store, which sold mainly tobacco. Really weird, people buying cigarettes, at least 36 packages at a time. I don't know that from the Netherlands, or France, or anywhere else.
In Mertert, I heard some loud music, then rounded a corner and suddenly found myself on a sort of flea market.
It was getting really warm. After Mertert, I had to walk uphill, tarmac, in the sun, and it was very tiring. I took a lunch break in the shade of some trees next to the highway. Not really ideal, but I just had to get out of the sun for a bit; my energy didn't work after my belly had been misbehaving this morning.
After that, I spent a lot of time on tarmac roads through fields, fully exposed to a pretty hot sun. Eventually, I got to where there were at least a few trees here and there, and I walked from shadow to shadow, standing still for a few seconds every time, gathering courage for the net stretch of hot sunshine.
At some point, I finally entered a forest. But I couldn't find that spot on the map, so I asked the gps track. It said I wasn't on the route anymore; but there still were markings, so that was weird. The best way to get back to the route followed the markings (and passed a little river, which I used to cool my feet and hands a bit), and when gps and marking agreed again, I still couldn't find the marking where the gps said I should have been. Best guess is the route was changed and the gps track doesn't have that update yet.
Some more nice, lovely forest, then crossed another stream (I think it was the same one, but bigger now), which I again used to cool off a bit. I would have liked to stay there longer, but I was almost out of water, and Manternach was still some distance away. Through a beautiful forest (and thankfully not full sunlight), but the thirst made it uncomfortable going. Took way too long for the amount of water I had left. When I finally reached Manternach, it turned out not to have a shop, gas station, café or anywhere else I could get water, though I spent some time in my desperate search for it. In the end, I saw a house where the door was open, so I walked up to it and asked if I could refill my bottles. When I got them back full, I immediately drank so much of the small bottle that the person filling them went back inside to refill it again.
I took a break after that, hoping for a little less heat on the last 5 km to Grevenmacher. No such luck. And the first 1/3 of that was again uphill on tarmac through fields, completely exposed. But after that, I got to a forest, which made it much more pleasant. The whole forest had a scent to it, almost like honey, that was odd.
Out of the forest and some more descending roads towards Grevenmacher. I passed vineyards, where a small tractor was spraying something nasty on the grapes. It immediately made me wonder why I even eat fruit and vegetables from conventional (non-organic) agriculture (I have the answer to that; I can't afford to buy only organic food), and why I sometimes don't wash them.
Down into Grevenmacher, then left the route to find the campsite, taking a bit of extra time to locate a supermarket for tomorrow, and buy some bread and ice cream at a gas station. Its thermometer, in the shade, at around 18.30, said 29 degrees. Once I looked up the weather forecasts for the coming days, it turned out to have been 32 degrees today. Small wonder I found it so hot and drank so much.
When I was sitting at my camping spot, someone came up to me to offer me their surplus of food. Of course it had meat in it, so I passed, but I really appreciated the offer nonetheless. It was really cool of them.

Geschreven door Jewaontheroad