I left their house and headed West. I had asked the direction of the 'Dead Fish' and was now going there, to train my navigation skills and establish one of the few open connections that I have to this place.

It was a windless day; the air once again got extremely hot. I wore a hat that Meir gave me in addition to everything else, warning me of possible sunstroke if I didn't wear it; a 'blue shirt' which he also eventually forced on me; I had my backpack with the notepad and my hoodie in case of a night.

I went on for two hours. I was making notes whenever I felt, that there was something going on around me, but nothing of actual note came into my sight at this time. I messed up my navigation again and missed the 'Dead Fish' to the left by some 1300 feet. Lucky me, I still notice the black outline of its roof and eventually went there.

It was as dark and cool as yesterday. No customers were in this time; I approached the counter and asked Dow if he could provide me with a meal today. He looked at me thoughtfully and eventually gave me the same fish soup.

“Tea?” he then added suddenly.

"No, I'd rather have water.”

“No water today. Only beer.”

“Okay, then tea, please.”

“No tea as well. Only beer.”

“Then I'm good, thank you.”

“Why the hell do you ask me about tea, if you don't have tea?” I thought to myself while eating the soup in the far corner of the shop. “And where the freaking hell do you get this fish from?”

After the meal, I decided to take the chance and ask the keeper if he possibly provided some lodging as well. It turned out, he did indeed have several guest rooms.

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“How much?” I asked, expecting the price to be somewhere in the hundreds. He looked away in the dark, thinking.

“Well, a hundred and... thirty.”

“A night?”

He pondered for another minute.

“Yeah. A night.”

“Got it. So long.”

Putting my hat on, I felt like a prideful gangster leaving the shop after making a deal. I did not make any deals, though, except one that I made with myself on never stepping foot into this institution again.

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That day I walked as many miles as I had never walked before. I tried to not go very far from my hosts' house, knowing that I might have needed to get back there inevitably. When the sun went down again, I did eventually return, not having any notable results.

“That's fine,” Maisha said when I once again crossed her pick-up's way. “Let's go home, honey, we've got an apple pie today!”

Once again I was greeted like a dearest guest by the family and by both dogs. Their older son Karl – a tall and muscular young man – was in as well this time. He was studying in the 'city' and wanted to go back to London to study there.

We had baked in honey and mustard pork, pasta, and fresh salads, followed by the aforementioned apple pie for dessert. We all agreed to have some wine, and Meir brought a bottle of Tuscan dry.

I heard more about the family. Uncle Jan, who was mentioned last night, was in fact Meir's brother. He wanted to climb the mountain too. He wanted to ask the goddess for nothing else than literal immortality. He could never find his way, which led to him first drowning in booze, then going nuts.

The man in the hood was, apparently, familiar to them too.

“His name is Ivan,” Meir said, “we were in touch for some time when we arrived, but then drifted apart. From what I know, he has not reached the mountain yet, and I was told, he is very miserable because of it.”

“He did look miserable,” I mentioned.

I was told some more about the 'Dead Fish'. Dow had opened this shop a long time ago, even before Meir came here with Maisha. He made his shop as visible as possible to newcomers and everybody else and uses this advantage to charge twice or even thrice the normal price.

“Now, I understand,” Meir said, leaning closer to the table, “that circumstances may leave no other choice at times, but my sincere advice would be to try and stay as far away as possible from this bloody rip-off.”

At the time I could not agree more.