Day 41 - Another long day of hiking

I figured it out, after todays hike, we have hiked a total of about 13 hours since we've been here. Today started out a bit more relaxed...the sun was not calling our names, there was a huge fog that was looming over the valley, every so often we'd catch some sun and blue sky, but that wasn't too often. We mosied our way to the village over (this was about a 30 minute hike UPHILL) and bought some lunch at the local co-op, then we found the flea market we were looking for...it was about as good as the festival that was there lastnight. This place had one of those human sized chess boards that Mark worked me on last time we played on one in Hallstatt. Well, we played 2 more games and I got worked again. He's getting really good!
Then we went to the tourist info and found out some information for tomorrows departure. I pointed to a picture of a man playing one of those long horns that you see on the Ricola commercials, "Where do we see one of these guys playing?" I totally didn't think that she'd give me an answer, or at least one that I wanted to hear. "I think he's playing until 2, you could make it there in 30-45 minutes. We were off! This hike was straight uphill and exactly 30 minutes. We were both sweating buckets by the time we got to the top, just in time to catch the music we were looking for. The horn guy was joined by 4 other instruments...what a sight! We ate our lunches and listened. Then we continued our hike all along the hillside. We were fortunate enough to stop and watch a couple of farmers herding up there cows for milking. I tried to ask him if we could help, but it didn't sound like he needed it. Oh well, I tried. This task of herding in the cows was quite the sight to see. The cows were ALL over the hillside and they didn't seem to want to move at all. The farmers had to hike all over the place to go and literally get the cow and bring them down the hill. Mark and I almost got charged by one...do cows charge? This one sure was acting like he did! Pretty funny sight to see us running from a cow. :) The hike continued on and on and on and my knees were not liking all the downhill pounding, they were quite relieved to find level trails near the end. It started to rain on us (I had said to Mark that I would love it if God sent some rain...just that next second, I felt a drop on my head...that's a quick answer!) We made it back and had a salad and pizza for supper. We're pretty bushed, I think it will be an early evening for us. We showered and found out that our little, chinsy, wonderful chess board is missing. Tomorrow we're going back to our previous hostel to find it. Hopefully we'll be successful. Night!