I was too much south of Greenland to see the landscapes I was imagining and also to have a chance to approach the polar bear, but this, I knew it before I left. What I had doubts about was the 'aurora borealis' as the best season to see it is during the winter. I had rather an attitude of a 'looser' so I got pretty stoked...
I was joining a group of 10 other people I did not know, all spanish. From Valencia, Bilbao, Madrid,... for an organized trip involving camping, travelling in a Zodiac, hiking, walking on a glacier and kayaking.
The guide and her assistant were from Argentina, Sonia and Adriana, both lovely persons. Our group quickly split into two, one group with 2 couples, and us 7, Marisa, Paco, Juan and Pilar, Marcos and Sole and me, the only foreigner...
I really had a ball. We did not stop laughing, chatting, sharing our travel adventures around the world and fighting to have something to eat as many were just like me, greedy as!...
So here I was, flying to Iceland first. After a very short night (3 hrs), we headed to the Blue Lagoon for a 2 hrs visit. It was actually hot baths and the opportunity to get to know each other. Quite a nice way to start the trip, enjoying warm waters while we could before having to deal with no shower at all! All groups vere mixed for this day as Tierras Polares were organizing 4 differents trips at the same time. It was almost too bad to leave the others not part of the same trip...
We boarded on the zodiac with our captain Lars, a really cool Innuit guy who would be driving us all around the places for 2 weeks. It rained all the way, not that heavy but enough to make us wet...
On the way, we saw the first icebergs,
watched innuit kids fighting their own way...
We then headed to our first campsite, Uunartoq, which means 'place of hot baths'...
We set up the tents then had before dinner a hot bath in a place surrounded by mountains and fjords. Amazing...
News were given at night of a very strong wind storm coming close so plans were likely to change, early departure was even possible at dusk... the angels were with us as the wind started later and we left with the sun, oh yeah, all spirits high due and everybody admiring the sceneries.
Captain Lars and Sonia, our guide
We finally reached Nanortalik, where we were supposed to provision and check the next forecast.
The storm was still on but our guide decided to head to our next campsite, Tassermiut, where we arrived after a very windy ride. If we had to be stuck somewhere, Sonia said we would be better over there than staying in Nanortalik which was just a village.
How right she was! Tassermiut was definitively the campsite I loved the most. A little sand beach, a gorgeous river, impressive peaks all around...,
fabulous set up for camping,
and the surprise for Miss Sophie, passionate mushroom seeker... 'cepes' everywhere for God's sake!!! I could not believe my eyes, some were really huge as there are no animals to eat them. I kept on screaming, raving about it, a big grin on my face, thinking of my Mum and Granny so passionnate about them too, and of how envious they would be to see them growing all over the places!
while Marcos was fishing nearby
This was the first night we had a clear sky so we all hoped this would be THE night of ‘aurora borealis’… nothing! The night was pretty restless as it was so windy it was damned noisy inside the tent. The wind storm was on!
We got up in the morning with a cloudy sky…
Once there, we decided to keep walking to get closer to the glacier, and were stoked to see our first arctic hares. The first were pretty far away but then we had another chance with two others we met on the way to which we could get really close as they are inquisitive animals. It was a magic moment for me: they are so cute, all white with black eyes, just like cuddly toys.
I think I was no more than 2m away from it when I took this last picture!
The day after, it rained all morning so we started our day hike at noon, to go and see the Ulamarsotoq. This peak is 1400m high and a famous climbing wall, 300m higher than the Yosemite, and the best in the Artic! Pretty impressive indeed…
It was a pretty easy walk. We could get really close to the glacier again and saw bits of ice splitting and falling down with a big sound.
We got up in the morning with clear blue sky and I was a bit sad to leave this awesome campsite, with fantastic sceneries, free food everywhere and a fantastic cook! It was very windy, 25knots or more, but we made it to the start of the glacier where the sea of ice starts… pretty cool.
When I first saw it the day we arrived at Tassermiut, I could see something in a distance. I first thought it was clouds as it was misty and cloudy, before I realize it was the Islandis I could see... pretty amazing!
With the wind pushing us this time, we had a pleasant ride, enjoying the sceneries and saying good bye to Tassermiut on the way back,
We then reached Tasiusaq, a small village of 80 inhabitants who had a tragic story. 140 years ago, all the people starved to death... Its name means 'like a lake'.
It was such a lovely village with its colored houses. I wanted to take pictures all the time... actually I did!!!
We saw fish drying outside
Then walked along the shore, a very pleasant itinerary, pretty easy and flat.
The seal below is the only one we saw during the trip!:-)))
We had a fun session setting up the tents as the ground was not flat at all. We were putting up ours with Marisa when I had a crack up looking at Sole and Paco: their pegs were sticking out, not looking right at all! We had finished ours when they complained we were too close so we had to move our tent... I had to go inside and test the ground moving from inch to inch as they were holes everwhere but we finally got it sorted! Then we helped Paco put up his... what a laugh! In the end, we had to put up Marcos and Sol's tent again as the pegs were wrongly assembled ... Same for Paco's... man, instead of 3 tents, it was as if we had put up 6!!!
Never mind, you always learn by the mistake :-)))
We watched a cool sunset,
then Marcos came back from fishing with 2 salmons and a trout, and we had a yummy dinner! The salmon was actually less pink that the one I was used to eating and delicious!
In the morning, we put the tents down (fastest that way!), then rode to Nanortalik, seeing on the way nice icebergs.
Nanortalik means 'place where the bears live'... unfortunately we've seen none, but the last one was a Mum and her two cubs in 2008... lucky people!
The day started pretty cloudy and cleared up when we arrived at Nanortalik. We had a pretty interesting visit at the museum, really worth the visit. It was made of 9 different houses showing us how the Innuits lived in the past, explaining their culture, habbits, displaying pictures, tools, kayaks...
The photo below is an example of their summer house, a Tupek where 10-20 people could live:
Then I wandered around the village, taking heaps of pictures while the sun was shining. The light was beautiful, the light I like the best, at the end of the day.
At the top of a small hill, I met an old Innuit who smiled at me. I took a few pictures of the village then turned to him. He talked to me but I could not understand what he said. I gestured showing the camera and pointing at him. He seemed ok with that so I took his picture and showed it to him. He gave me a tap on the shoulder and told me something...
I smiled and left, laughing inside as I'd been told the Innuits were pretty into sex, even the old people, so imagined he'd told me something dirty hahaha!!!
Anyway, whatever he said, it was pretty cool to meet him and have him pose for me!
I was feeling ecstatic, so happy to be here. The air was pure, it was quiet, calm, I felt in peace with the place and the world, feeling totally relaxed. I absolutely loved these houses, so simple, made out of wood and enlightening the scenery with their colors.
We were hosted in a house beloning to the tour operator and with a real shower, hurrah!!! Of course, I drew the last position for the shower... never mind, after 4 days, it was so good! We had dinner in a restaurant, Sole and I had a trout while the other were having beef. There was a party somewhere in the village but at the time we went past, nobody was there and we were all tired so went back to the hostel. We did try to look for the aurora but still nothing... There were two rooms so 6 of us slept together and Paco the snorer went with the other two couples :-)))
In the morning, Paco, Marisa, Juan, Pilar and I went for a walk to the ancient village of Sissarissaq. The weather was pretty cloudy again but it was nice to just exercice again. We walked past the cemetery,
then reached the former village,
Back to the hostel, we had lunch, left the place clean for the next group and walked to a new boat, faster, which was supposed to take us to the next place. Ours seemed to have a problem. On the way, we stopped at a sign showing the next villages around,
then reached our destination. We were in a building, chatting when we've been given our boarding passes. I looked at it absently, wondering why it said Air Greeland, then watched the TV, not understanding why they were showing planes... when suddendly I heard my friends explaining: a helicopter!!!
I was out of my mind! What a surprise! Sonia played the trick so well, she imagined this story of a problem with the boat to keep the secret and the surprise! Well done mate, I love surprises and this one was one of the best of the trip! I'd nevere flown in a helicopter and was very excited, looking forward to this new experience.
We were all like kids, big grins on our faces, stoked, and had a fantastic flight.
The take off was pretty cool, the engine revving faster and faster until the helicopter rose, then it went a bit down (I loved the sensation and wished he'd done like in the movies!) and off we were! It was amazing, we flew close to the fjords, too bad it was a bit cloudy but still, we all had a great time!
And look at the mistery below... where did this heart come from??? !!!!
45 minutes later (instead of 6 hours in the Zodiac!), we landed in Qaqortoq, which name means 'white'and walked up the village to Heidi's guesthouse. A lovely place with bunkrooms, a fantastic kitchen and lounge with a fantastic view over the village and sea.
We were all dying of eating veggies, a bit sick of the usual salami, chorizo, pates, canned herring and mackerel we had for lunch every day! We went shopping at the supermarket and people being very indecisive about what to buy, I got in charge of the operations and supervised the logistics (profesionnal deviance)!!!
Back at the hostel, people started having showers and I don't know how I ended up started cooking by myself. .. surely because I am hungry, as always!!! Progressively people turned up to give a hand. It was cool. Paco and Joan cleaned the potatoes while Pilar and I were slicing onions, mushrooms, capsicums, to bake them together, then we sliced also zucchini, cuncumber, tomato, and lettuce to make a big side salad with corn too. We had some yummy pork and chicken with them and it was absolutely exquisite. A banana/vanilla/chocolate ice cream and some strawberry yoghourt as dessert and we were absolutely happy!!! It might seem stupid to you maybe but I can tell you that after a week of the same sort of food, it was like heaven to have some veggies! Sonia said it was like being at home and was delighted! So was everybody else, the potatoes, mushrooms and onions were delicious and there was nothing left but a bit of the salad.
We finally left the place to go to the local bar, the 'artic cafe' around 00:30am. It was saturday night, we could not miss the last opportunity we had to party! The place was packed with locals, and we had a ball.
As soon as we got in, a woman came to talk to us in english. She seemed eager to communicate. That was cool. The music was pretty good and we ended up dancing like crazy, well me at least :-)))
Quite many people were drunk, some guys were having a peak, staring at girls as if they were about to choose one!
A few women, mostly drunk came to dance with us, I could not get rid of one, really nice but a bit too pushy telling me 'stay with me', 'dance with me'... so funny. My friends were laughing so much when I started to make her spin so fast that she lost her balance... poor woman, she was nice though but too drunk for me to understand her english and was spitting when talking!
In the end, the dance floor was more and more crowded, they seemed to be playing the most famous Innuit songs of the moment and we just pretended we knew them too, singing, clapping and screaming the way the locals did! So much fun! They grabbed us to dance all together, forming a circle and after that, we decided to go to bed.
I would have really stayed all night but it was already 2am and we had a pretty early start in the morning. Such a cool experience though, I loved it!
After breakfast, we had a very interesting chat with Heidi, our host, who talked to us about the Innuit culture and taught us Innuit words. She was very moving and we all realized what a different world they were living in. She brought up the fact that the Innuit culture was slowly disappearing, victim of the 'modernization'; talked about alcoholism, which had caused lots of trouble in the society and was slowly being fought against, about the language not spoken that much anymore with all the immigrants living in Greenland. I was impressed about how people could have been survived in such tough conditions and could adapt.
I felt sorry again to be 'white', sorry for them, and sincerely hope they will be able to protect their identity and keep their strong social structure. I think we all lived a magic moment with Heidi, happy to listen to her speak of her world which we hope will keep existing again...
Then we had free time so we explored the village. We admired the stone sculptures spread around the villages: they were around 500 I think.
walked along the river.
We played the tourists... in fact this frame was for other tourists arriving from a big cruise ship called The World, but we seized the opportunity for a funny picture!
Then made it to Qaleraliq. Such an amazing site. That's where we were supposed to have our walk on the glacier and hopefully watch the 'aurora borealis'... :-)))
The glacier in the back ground
The domes of the tents, in plastic and view over the glacier!
A few caribou horns here and there
The time to leave our bags in our tents, then Juan, Pilar, Marisa, Paco and I decided to go to the top of a mountain nearby before the sunset.
The hike up was not that obvious and we had to climb using our hands and being careful of the slippery stones... but arrived to the top, Juan and I being the first had the chance to see an artic fox, all white, running away as we got there! Too bad we did not have time to see it that well not to take a picture!
Going down the moutain on a safer ground, we got stunned by the fantastic light of the end of the day. All the bits of iceberg on the beach looked like glass sculptures... truly amazing.
After a yummy homemade onion soup, and just finishing a good dinner, people smoking outside called us... this is when we saw our first Northern Lights... imagine our joy! I quickly realized that my camera was not good enough to take good pictures so I just watched the show, looking at the sky slowly clearing up with bits of white patches, then green, all this dancing...
I find it hard to explain how it looks like, it's unlike anything I'd seen in my life before. I celebrated it with Sonia and Adriana eating some dark chocolate I had bought for the occasion and drinking red wine!!! :-))), cuddled in the sleeping bag. We just remained silent and seized the moment... mystic!
You want some pictures? Not yet bros... this was only the first, not the best 'aurora' so you'll have to be more patient, hahaha!
After a very cold night (close to zero I think), my head poking outside of the sleeping bag without a binny being not a good idea, we left for our walk on the glacier with crampons.
I had had a previous experience in New Zealand and was expecting something way better... I have to say that I was disappointed as we did not go very far and what I saw was far less amazing than the Fox Glacier.
Our guide seeing me upset told me that the glacer being over 1 million square kilometers in Greenland, it could not prepared for walks by staff like in NZ where 30 people were daily working on it for tourists... Fair enough bro! It was wild, only us out there, nobody else and it was still beautiful!
We had a picnic on the 'beach', ie on some warm stones where we felt like seals warming up, really nice!
Then it was nice to approach the biggest glacier of the three. Man, that was pretty impressive. Walls of ice, thousands of gulls flying all over the places, and the sounds of the ice breaking... Every 10 seconds at least, a big block was falling down. It was just pure delight to watch this. Lars turned the engine off and we all listened and admired Mother Nature.
Happy Sophie!
The girls' team!
Adriana, Soph, Pilar, Marisa and below Sole
On the way back to the campsite, we saw an amazing blue iceberg
to which we got really close and around which we revolved. Funny to see the color change, and to our biggest surprise, they were some creamy whity shapes inside the iceberg, looking like polar bears! I swear it's true, I just could not believe my eyes and I was not the only one seeing that! I could even see their black eyes and claws... there were some big ones, like adults and small ones like cubs! I still do not understand what I saw that day, that will stay a mistery, how simply the color of the ice could give me/us that impression. Hallucinating!!! And I was not on drugs... :-)))
Back to the campsite, our dear Basque girl, Marisa wanted to have a swim. I thought I would give it a go too but I was too much of a 'pussy': it was icy cold! Maybe between 5 and 10 degrees! She was nuts, respect mate!
Just after dinner (what a good organization really, awesome timing all the time!), we had another amazing 'aurora'. Then after an hour waiting, Sole and I decided to go to bed. Screams called us outside. I could watch the aurora from by bed and thought there was nothing special, just lazy to dress up again now that I was started to be warm in my sleeping bag. The people kept on exclaiming so I got out... honestly, I will never forget this night! The most amazing show I'd ever seen in the sky was there... Photos by Paco.
The lights were pretty intense, green and from a straight line, started dancing to form an S... S like Sophie. I screamed out, amazed and hysterical! Then it turned into an M and kept dancing...
Only a bunch of us were out there, screaming like hell but where were the others?! I could not believe they would still be sleeping with the noise we were making! How come they did not show up?! I called them at the guides' tent but nobody came out. Never mind, we kept watching, hallucinating when we saw the whole sky dancing, from one side to the other one, getting green, then a bit pinky and yellow, changing all the time. It was THE AURORA!!! Thanks angels for showing me this, this was an ecstatic moment, magical, unbelievable. My eyes, my soul were just full of happiness!
At breakfast, we were still commenting what happened the night before and those who got too lazy to get out or thought we were just having fun, were now lamenting and wondering how they could miss it!
The sky was amazing when I got out of the tent...
It was a bit cloudy but nice to go for a walk.
We saw our first 'caribou', very elegant and scared, with their beautiful horns,
then almost stepped on an artic hare, around a corner,
as we were climbing to a panoramic view, the best according to Sonia!
It's true that the view was fantastic over there so we decided to have our picnic and then made our way down. This time I felt ready for a swim in the lake. The water was bloody cold but not as bad as the day before in the fjord. I did not stay long though...!
On our way back, we crossed a herd of caribou,
then ran down a sand dune, admired the lush green of some moss,
and watched another beautiful sunset. What a place really!
Juan, Pilar, Marisa, Sole, Marcos, Paco
and Sonia below
I think we were all sad to leave this magical campsite for all we shared over there, and for the wildness of it.
One of the guides made us a speech about the Innuit culture, which was very very interesting. He talked about their hunting tehcniques and tricks to catch caribou, whales, seals, foxes, hares. How clever they were and how much they had observed the animals to get to kill them, using each time a specific technique for every animal.
The last aurora was really good... but could not match that of the night before... I think we were becoming a bit fussy hahaha!!!
We left in the morning to get to our last campsite, Qassiarsuk.
On the way, was scheduled the visit of a village called Igaliko, where the Vikings had settled up, walking along the 'path of the kings'.
Always these stunning icebergs on the way
walked along the fjord,
meeting the same lovely colourful houses
a few ruins
and back to the boat to go and ride amongst the icebergs as far we could close to the glacier called Qooroq.
According to Lars, we've been pretty lucky this time and could approach it from very close. Again, the ice distords perceptions as when he asked me how close I thought I was from the glacier, I said 500m, and it was more than 3km!!! How could that be?!
The closest we got, the most amazing, until we touched the ice and got blocked. Then, as magicians do, Sonia'S hands revealed a bottle of Bailey! With some fresh ice of course and glassed for everybody! How cool that was! It was a good way to celebrate a fantastic trip so far!
We arrived at the end of the day at Leif Ericsson's hostel, where we would have the luxury to have showers and real beds, hurrah! It was actually quite a neat place, smaller than I imagined. I was mixed between joy and sadness as this was our last stop... It was burning hot inside with the heating. A beautiful rainbow illuminated the sky and the sky offered us again a fantastic sunset.
I woke up early in the morning, 7ish am, then saw the sky was clear and decided to pay a visit to the statue of Mr Ericsson, son of Eric the Red, founder of this viking town, which was not far away, just up the hill.
How much I love these moments, all by myself, making the most of the instant, living to the top! I was feeling really happy, the views were astonishing, the light of the morning beautiful.
After breakfast, our group went for the daily walk to the Sermilik fjord where we would have our kayak afternoon. We visited the village on the way:
the reconstitution of an Innuit winter house, made of stones (not ice), with a tunnel 20cm high and 5-6m long, always built close to the sea to watch for possible animals to hunt and for the heat to come up to the main room where everybody would leave their bear and seal skins to sleep together.... and more :-)))
We also saw the reconsitution of a viking house where all the traditional costumes, the tools, skins were shown,...
Hello!
then reached a place with a fantastic panoramic view. The place was amazing, really green, with small lakes or ponds everywhere
And the grass was so green on this beautiful sunny day!
After lunch, we were in for some action and kayak! The guide briefly explained how it worked for those who had never tried and off we were. Being 7, I was the one being on my own as I've already had some experience rawing. I was quite at ease so took my camera, not afraid at all to capsize, knowing how steady these kayaks are.
I really hoped we would make it to the big icebergs and would not stay amongst the small one. I was to be upset... although it was really cool and fun, above all to watch others doing zig zags, we just stayed close to the shores... I imagined a fjord full of huge icebergs, us rawing very close to enjoy the colors of the sounds of the ice cracking and moving... nothing like that really! I should have know they would not let beginners approach them that close... how naive I was!
Mr Ericsson was still there,
Sonia drove us in a van on the other side of the fjord to the start of the hike. The colours were fantastic, the autumn already there, with tones of yellow, orange, green, red...
Everybody was chatting happily, taking the last pictures. We climbed up the waterfall, slowly but surely as the path was slippery,
making it to the top to enjoy the view!
Once there, as always, Sonia asked us if wanted to keep walking, and as always we all said yes! So we went all the way down to the glacier.
Sonia had the good idea to ask the group to be silent for 5 mn so we could watch and enjoy the scenery without anybody disturbing. Breath in, breath out, magical!
A last picnic and all the way down. Paco slipped over and after we were sure he was ok, I just could not stop laughing when I heard Marcos describe the whole thing: him above Paco, watching him falling down without doing anything to stop him, and me under Paco watching him too without moving an inch... it was so funny, the sequence was just being replayed in my mind...
We enjoyed the last bit, taking the time to take pictures, admiring the beautiful colors of the autumn.
So here we go... we are all watching what's on the table.
The rest of the meal is way better. I love the caribou, and the meat of whale is not too bad, but very gummy and tough. They also serve us an excellent fish called 'wolf fish'. Time for dessert, yum I think! Here comes a sort of mermelade/cream, red, made out of plants. It is not really what I call nice... and I decide to stop eating it after a few spoons... Man, I was glad I was not born Innuit! They did not have other options so it was survive with what they had or die!
In the morning, we leave with a beautiful sun and the water looking turquoise as I had never seen it before. Lovely!
We take the plane at Narsarsuaq and just live a dream. We fist start to fly between the fjords, really close to the peaks, then above the famous 'Islandis'. That's when we all discover that Greenland is about: thousands of square kilometers of ice, snow, moutains. It's magical, beautiful, unreal. We are all over the moon, watching through the windows, going from one side to the other one in the plane, taking pictures, exclaiming... what a sight!
The night is pretty short again, only 4 hours of sleep then I fly back to Barcelona, my head full of pictures, of sensations, of moments of happiness, friendship shared with my new friends.
What a beautiful trip! Thanks Paco, Marisa, Juan, Pilar, Marcos, Sole, Sonia, Adriana and Rafa for sharing all this with me, for your laughs, your sense of humour, your jokes, your teases and for being yourself. Without you, this trip would have not been the same. Hasta pronto amigos!
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