Official sources state that CHKO stands for “Chráněná krajinná oblast“ (Protected landscape area). What does it mean in reality? Is it really nature untouched by a human hand with virgin meadows and immaculate healing water springs?
I would dare to say that CHKO, especially with CHKO Beskydy, which I’ve visited has a different meaning. My translation is: Concrete Half Kingdom Overall.
It is undisputable that it has its natural qualities and features. However, I was surprised by a sheer number of buildings stretching deep in the protected area. I hardly remember walking for a few kilometres without passing any building or seeing sagging electrical wires on concrete poles. I think the purpose of visiting nature is to have respite from civilization. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen in CHKO Beskydy. It is not Caucasus in Georgia where you walk for 20 kilometres without meeting anybody feeling elated and as an adventurer (Until you run out of water and then you wish to meet somebody and return back to civilization.)
Aloof people
I was really pleased by friendliness of people who I came across at the hike. In fact, I had a pleasant conversation with each person I met. We had something to talk about. I was even offered a friendship (on Facebook).
This is in a stark contrast with a hike from Podradni Lhota via Kelcsky Javornik to Bystrice pod Hostýnem. I have done the hike more than 20 times. In the winter, in the summer, in bad weather and in good weather. The majority of hikers and locals (almost all of them) I met were very aloof. My conversation with them was like me being a panhandler at a dirty train station.
You react to such a person by nodding while checking hot news on your attention thief device called a mobile telephone. Sometimes I had a feeling the telephone was a Teleportation Pants Hauling One to a Naughty Erotic saloon. Because I had no other explanation for not being able to catch their attention.
After hiking on the path 20 times, I can state it is statistically provable (empirically quantitative with a qualitative inquiry as a scholar would say).
Natural spring wells
When you hike for multiple days, you think about where to get water. Water you cannot survive without. There are marks on a map with such spring wells. How do they emerge? Who takes care of them? Who put taps there so you can pour yourself water? Or do taps grow naturally?
I was relaxing at one of such places when a man came over. The man was a man who built the well (see the photo below). He had cleaned a depression in the ground and laid a water pipe. He also added the tap with a small roof above the depression shielding it from falling leaves and needles. Big thanks to him.
The water in the well had a bitter taste and two degrees. I don’t mean temperature by the degrees. There was another man with the man. He was sitting on the edge of the well and was drinking a glass of beer. He seemed to be quite drunk. I surmised he dripped a little bit of the beer to the well once in a while. I couldn’t see it from the spot I was sitting because my view was obstructed by the small roof above the well (Editor’s note: Therefore, this is an example of an empirically unprovable claim as a scholar would say.)
The second spring well is situated at 2/3 of the hike.
Bears and communists
I met a few tourists and locals who told me there were bears in Beskydy. Especially when I told them I would set up a tent in the forest. One guy who had met a real bear once in his life was very persuasive. If this claim is misleading or not is hard to say. However, if we take into account claims of politicians: “I don’t take and utilize subsidies which I approve myself at all.”, then we can say that the bear claim is true.
In the night, while sleeping in my tent, each sound, whistle and roar was a certain sign of a bear.
The only bear I saw was the one I looked up on Google. Or if I had visited Hotel Vsacan, a communistic and functional building, I could have probably seen one as a stuffed specimen. The one waiting for an armed delegation from a friendly neighbouring country (For the purpose of a peacekeeping mission of course.)
