I expected to have a horrible jetlag flying over from Europe, as I’ve always had, but it never came. I used to feel slightly retarded for a couple of days at least, then slowly regaining my wits just as I had to fly back home, but not this time. This time I was on the same level throughout 😀 (I hope it doesnt mean that.. )
I felt great despite eating all the food there was on offer, not sleeping much and in general disregarding most of the advice they usually give to get used to a new time zone as fast as possible. I even woke up voluntarily at 5am almost the whole week throughout, and did sports, which is.. pretty unheard of.
It must be the air.
A week later I came back to Germany and the normality ensued quickly.
Since the glorious days of “Drop Dead Gorgeous” [and “Kath & Kim”, Australian one] Ive been a huge fan of a good mockumentary. How many a good laugh I’ve had watching “The Office” [US one], ah the good old days, the cheerful rock tune layered on winterly Scranton and the dull office life makes it so comfortingly warm in its routine.
As our eldest was born, it was winter. I took a long parental “leave” under completely unrealistic, in hindsight, expectations that this would really look more like a vacation and not more like some sophisticated form of torture.
My days back then looked like that:
02:00AM fall finally in uneasy sleep 03:00-06:00 wake up a number of times as luck may have it – with a very heavy head 07:00 stumble out of bed, disoriented, nauseous, drink a cup of tea 08:00 bring the Child over to the childcare lady, remains of my energy spent to dress up and to walk 800m 08:30-12:00 binge The Office on my laptop in the kitchen, and drink tea, eat minced meat straight out of packaging 12:30 pick up the Child from the childcare 12:30-12:00AM endure a seemingly never-ending struggle with a tantrum-throwing toddler rarely interrupted by short periods of easily disturbed sleep 12:00AM-2AM The Office!!
This all improved after a year or so, and the tantrums are long gone – but my love for Dunder Mifflin Scranton team is there to stay forever!
Anyways, imagine my amazement and disbelief as I stumbled upon the in-the-good-sense weirdo lady in the “Cunk on Earth” on Netflix a couple of days ago.. Jesus Christ she IS good.. Pitch-perfect delivery. Funny wordplay.. “My mate Paul” OMG.
And of course this gem of mockumentary humor:
Getting up close indeed.. 😀
NB: Pump up the Jam ahahah I was rolling on the floor first three times this thing appeared out of the blue, but then it kind of stopped being hysterically funny. A very smart decision to keep it all to 5 episodes 😉
Okay… so sometime early 2021 I promised myself I will continue writing about my Iceland trip back in 2016. Well, its February 2023 and I am just about to continue where I left off back then!
What happened in the meantime..
Corona craze
We kind of survived that mostly fine. I remember the second year the doc said there was some blood in my urine, so I went to the urologist. That happened to be a (fairly attractive) woman. As I complained about a my corona blues, she paused, looked at me and said “Its kind of common now” and dismissed me straight away. I asked for a testosterone test, though, which was according to her then just fine.
We didn’t vaccinate and endured some minor social pressure. The older ladies at the swimming pool reception looked at me and sighed very disapprovingly as I showed them test results and not the (socially approved) vaccination passport. And obviously I still cannot enter US for that very reason. But well.. Writing from early 2023, all that vaccination efforts seem to be.. superfluous? Everyone I know, whether vaccinated or not, got corona and it was more or less pretty similar to what I’ve got as an non-vaccinated.
Because about Christmas 2021 a friend come from US though and stayed with us for a few days. He brought a lot of good presents with him, but more importantly for todays blog post also the latest Corona strain. So due to that the New Year Eve 2022 and most of January were pretty bad. All four of us were positive and paid a visit to our doc the moment they opened. With a weird buzzing in my head, lack of energy and a peculiar feeling of emptiness I felt pretty shitty most of the month.
2 weeks in quarantine closed up with my boys – was kind of tough. We tried to do something useful – ramped up English lessons, Paul started to play piano, our neighbors brought groceries so all in all it was manageable.
Neither of us got the long covid. But drive for sport I regained – partly – only a good part of the year later.
War in Ukraine (on-going)
I remembered complaining to the pretty urologist back then about the alleged impact of Corona on my delicate psyche – and on my testosterone; well, had I just known …
We are moving to the mountains and lakes (yay!)
No point to wait if the world is rolling to its end, I thought some day.
…And WordPress updated to some really counter-intuitive thing
Ever wanted to be that man in 2001: Space Odyssey? This game is for you!
Another mind-blowing game I played on the Oculus Quest. I just sat on a couch, around midnight, and couldn’t stop until the headset run out of charge and my head set in spinning like after a barrage of bad drinks. Pure entertainment!
A few days ago I went to a new fitness studio, fittingly named “Old School Gym”.
Now, to digress, I used to view myself as an above-average fitness level kind of a guy. I thought pretty high of my ability to handle high-intensity, high-power exercise.
Until that very moment.
More precisely, I went to Old School Gym’s Kickboxing session which the owner, whos name is Max, described rather humbly as a nice warm-up exercise with some kickboxing elements in it.
And I definitely warmed up. You know its getting tough when the sweat suddenly starts to fall in ones eyes, but this time it was just the beginning. At some point it became my partner’s sweat, I noticed but didn’t care. Everything became covered in sweat. I literally couldn’t see because of it flooding my eyes, getting into my nostrils. At some point I couldn’t gather any breath between those mad, ridiculously intense sets, loud, sudden laughter of the trainer mixed with the animalistic grunts of other people all just flooding with sweat, bloody in the face, jumping and kicking violently; this all put me in a weird delirium-like state.
It was pure suffering. WHO ARE THESE TITANS?! – Was the only thought in my head as I watched other guys, most of them in their teens and early 20s continue the exercise as I slumped down on the sweat-covered floor, having given up with that over-exhaustion stomach sickness, simply looking at this feast as man who, having finally accepted his death, looks for the last time at life’s unnecessary rumble from somewhere far away, just about to transcend in peace.
The taper-off activity consisted of 150 pushups, 200 rapid stomach presses and 250 back crunches to be done in about 10 minutes.
If I ever make through this training in full without slacking, I’d buy myself a treat!
I had one full day in Sisimiut after having arrived the evening before. My flight back to Kangerlussuaq was only the next morning, so I had enough time to check out the town, eat, sleep, scratch my Greenland Fly bite and just do nothing.
First things first, I went to the café, only to found it very full. There were no seats free, neither I thought they were making fried eggs, mostly there were sandwiches and basic bakery.
Around 09:00 this cafe was rather busy
So I headed down to ‘The Seaman’s Home”, the other hotel in the town. Its canteen felt luxurious.
I ordered a couple of fried eggs with bacon, poured myself a cup of filter coffee and sat down on a sun-lit table beside the window.
The lady on the counter brought out the fried eggs and disappeared in the kitchen. It was quiet, as the guests must have had breakfast already, – this quiet sleepy time after early morning hustle.
I couldn’t muster neither much intelligent thought, nor an ambitious plan for the day, so after an hour I got up and went to the Museum.
Usually, visiting museums is the last thing on my check-list. But what else?
Going up the Nasaasaaq mountain (784m) That would have taken a better part of the day, but for the first time in history of me I bailed on a mountain hike as the first choice for the daily activity 😀 My legs were still sore, and the shoes still felt small
Going up the Palasip Qaqqaa mountain (544m) Same reasoning. I just wanted to do anything BUT walking
Taking a ship tour to visit Assaqutaq – the abandoned fishing village I think I just woke up too late for this that day, otherwise that might have been a good idea
Sisimiut Museum – yeah! Also, as I approached the town yesterday, I’ve exchanged a few words with a woman walking in the same direction. She would have come from Iceland for a museum project in Sisimiut. So I took her recommendation, and that was a good one.
This church has been ordered in Denmark and paid by Greenland with 80 (60? 70? anyways somewhere around that number) bags of whale blubber. “They just built this church in Denmark first, you know, to see if it fits, and then sent over to Sisimiut disassembled as individual logs. They had to order everything from Denmark, because there isn’t much wood around here. “, a friendly guy at the museum explained. “It was the first church that Greenlanders have paid for themselves”, he added.
The “old town” of Sisimiut was comprised by about dozen wood buildings, all painted in cheerful, bright colors. I was there alone.
One of the buildings was the inuit way of building things – the turf house.
Flat stones and turf. This roof was probably an addition of later times
The model of an inuit home. The roof will be left opened during the summer, just like that, for the rain to clean up the house as its inhabitants move out inland for the summer hunt. Very practical!
In general, from those glimpses of native population’s culture, I understood they have always been quite practical people.
The old school. I like the “Map of the world” hanging on the wall. Where we are, children? We are here, right in the middle. But there are also people to the north, AND probably to the south!
Terrace homes
Luxury terrace homes
Ostentatious terrace homes
I didn’t do much that day, other than shopping for souvenirs (like seal’s skin gloves, forbidden elsewhere) and checking out local supermarkets, so I returned home early and went to bed.
Sisimiut in the evening, 09th Aug 2019
Next day late morning I got to the Sisimiut airport, which consisted of one small building with a tower, and boarded the plane back to Kangerlussuaq.
Waking up at the hut around 08:00, I discovered the Norwegian lady already gone and others still soundly asleep. I did my best to quietly take my stuff out and to start off without breakfast. After hugging the lake’s shore for a while, the path turned leftwards and went up. It was the last ascent – of about 400m – on the trail.
Leaving the hut (and the smoke) behind
After the ascent it went for may be 6 km on the plateau (which was surprisingly wet and swampy – there were still patches of snow in the nooks and crannies above) and then started to descend.
It was hard to walk, and despite almost feeling my goal nearby and rejoicing because of that, I still felt really tired.
I had way too much battery power left so I took headphones out and turned on Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged, which was one of very few albums that happened to be stored offline on my smartphone (this logic here probably needs an explanation…so let me digress)
Batteries and electronics
I was carrying my Samsung Galaxy S8 with offline OSM Greenland maps loaded previously and accessible over an OsmAnd app as my main cartography tool (which by the way has worked out beautifully!). As reserve I had the GPS watch, Garmin Instinct, with the trail loaded on it with huts as waypoints, primarily to use if smartphone dies or if I lose path under rain or snow etc, if its not possible to take the smartphone out and use it. I didn’t have any paper maps this time, as they proved quite useless last time I needed them – the moment I took the map out its paper disintegrated under the rain and turned into a colorful mash. The paper map’s level of detail was too small to be actually useful to find a trail.
I also used the same smartphone to take pictures.
Clearly there are no electricity outlets along the trail, so I used one 22000mAh powerbank and one 11000mAh as a reserve.
I put the smartphone in the airplane mode, which deactivates WiFi, cellular and Bluetooth connectivity, thus eliminating a lot of energy usage. I made a lot of pictures and longer videos, and not that often, may be once per hour, checked out the position and the map – not because I needed this information – path was clearly marked most of the times – but more as a civilization’s urge to fiddle with a smartphone just now and then.
The built-in battery charge on Galaxy S8 managed to hold for almost 3 days in this mode, so I had to recharge it (only) twice from the powerbank. I used the smartwatch to track routes – primarily to track the distance walked – setting a pace – so it had to be recharged nightly. The watch aint big deal, its battery is tiny.
I also carried a rental Iridium satellite phone along with its own reserve battery. Beyond a dozen texts home and a few calls – when I stopped being too cautious about the charge – I haven’t used it that much. Iridium phone ended the trip with most of its battery unconsumed.
Plateau
Anyways, on the last day I decided there’s no point to be very cautious about charging anymore and so I turned the music on.
Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged held me strong for the plateau stretch.
Many hands began to scan around for the next plateau
Some said it was Greenland and some say Mexico
The best views. I just lay there for an hour, listening to music and finishing up what was left of the food. I also made coffee. The highlight of the trip!
A reddish AirGreenland propeller plane passed overhead. I smiled at it and waved a hand.
I think the last two days offered most beautiful views of all
I really enjoyed the descent to the Sisimiut, it was quite a treat. How did the trail look for those travelling in the other direction?
The path goes down, and down, and then..
..Sisimiut slowly opens
The town is on the rocky island ahead in the middle.
About 20km onto the day’s hike, I made another pause with Sisimiut already ahead of me, but still in some distance. I put the backpack down and disabled the Airplane mode on the smartphone. As if I were back in Germany, it found 3G at once and went on to get emails. Wilderness ends, officially.
Sisimiut’s Suburbia
A “Dog’s City”. Sledge dogs have been forcefully relocated to the city of their own
There are cars and roads
It took me a good part of an hour to walk through the town to the AirBnB
Its hilly! I suddenly felt the backpack again
Playground
AirBnB had literally the best view in town
Around 19:00 I sat on the rock terrace and ate a bucket of blueberries, looking mindlessly to the sea against the blinding Greenland sun and feeling quite happy, until the chilly, sea-scented wind forced me back inside.
Waking up in the morning, I was in a good mood – it was going to be the penultimate day on the trail. By the end of tomorrow I would finish in Sisimiut and hopefully get a warm shower. And drink a can of Coke. And have fried eggs for breakfast..
The trail went along a broad, quiet valley, hugging the stream, which later turned into a river – and it would do so for almost the whole day. It wasn’t a hard walk – a long, light descent on mostly dry paths.
I haven’t seen any arctic foxes, they must have been hunted out by this eagle
An easy walk
About noon I reached the next hut (NERUMAK) and met – of course – the polish guy. This time he just arrived.
Its the last time I saw Karol
We exchanged our emails and I moved on.
Following the valley downwards
The stream turned into a river. The river turned into a gorge
Another river on the way, this time of the year I just crossed it over stones on its bed – that wouldn’t have worked in the spring.
There were fish in one of the few pockets with deep water on that river
While crossing the river I was surprised to see quick, big, pink-bellied and rather fat, tasty-looking fish darting to and fro in one small pocket of deeper water on that lake. The fish didn’t seem to be able to escape; may be they were actually trapped in there. Based on quick Wikipedia search later on I determined this fish to be the ‘arctic char’.
I stopped on the shore by those arctic chars for lunch, wishing I would have gear to catch at least one char and check the char’s meat out. There was fishing gear in one of the huts! But of course nothing on me. Instead I ate two fish tins, SO YUMMY!!
Then I moved on and left the chars untouched.
The gorge opened up into a smoky water landscape
First burned earth – on the other side of the river. Smoke became very much noticeable, but it didn’t really bother me
I can only imagine how this place looks when show is melting
This jacket smells of smoke until this day. I didn’t mind: about 2 days into the trip my hygiene standarts relaxed dramatically (so to speak), so smoke wasn’t the worst
The river led to a big lake, the hill on the right is black with ash. The huts are over the hill beyond the lake
Sometimes the path went through real forests of these dwarfish trees. The hut on the top is closed
As I went up the hill beyond the lake, I discovered a few things:
The hut right on the top looks proper, but on closer inspection it was closed. Building materials and tools inside, it wasn’t ready yet
Another hut on the right beyond the hill is livable, but – according to travelers – firefighters occupied it for the time being – first week August 2019
The GPS mark for the second hut on the hill, a few hundred meters from the closed hut is wrong: there is nothing there (wherever I got that GPX track from, I don’t remember anymore)
The actual fires – several clearly visible smoke columns raising from the burned land – looked fairly harmless. It was more of a smoldering situation than an open fire
Beyond the hill on the other side. The hut to the right is closed. The hut on the shore was for firefighters (but otherwise available). The actual hut is about 3 km to the left on the heights
A nice panorama taken at about 19:30
After about 40 minutes I reached the last hut before Sisimiut, having wasted some time to go down to the closed hut and find the way back.
KANGERLUARSUK TULLEQ
Expecting the hut to be empty – after all, I left the polish guy behind – to my great surprise I found it occupied by three women. I don’t think I was very presentable at that time of the day (around 20:00), but they were kind enough to let me in and take the lower bunk.
I was quite glad because I was really, really tired and didn’t want to mess with the tent at all.
I really don’t remember how I started the day, but I think it started well.
The weather became more cloudy and mornings were fresh.
The path went along a stream, which just recently had been a river
In general, the surroundings became progressively more interesting and varied as I moved on towards Sisimiut.
Looking at all those half-dried lake beds, dried out vegetation, small streams in lieu of powerful and water-rich rivers I kind of wished I’d go earlier, in the middle of the spring’s natural beauty and it’s rapid change. Yes, there would be mosquitoes, and swamps, and knee-deep snow, and probably the nights would have been much colder, and it would have taken more time, but that would be – I thought – a much more exciting trek.
Or may be autumn? That’d probably be September. As I walked, I somehow wished the weather wouldn’t be that perfect and that dry.
Neither would have I gotten a sunburn
I almost enjoyed walking now, my backpack being at least 4kg lighter.
About 8km from my camp I reached the next hut. There were actually two of them, a few hundred meters apart. I first went to the hut on the hill. It was empty, and boasted the craziest views.
INNAJUATTOQ (I). The slightly surreal haze is the smoke from the tundra fire ahead
At the hut I made a short pause, and familiarized myself with the book that somehow caught my attention.
Clever text layout to catch one’s eye 😉
Gurus
Uncharacteristically, I read the book’s foreword. The idea of the book was intriguing. With all those ‘gurus’, cult leaders and spiritual ‘masters’ around, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff?
Answer: let us examine these gurus’ lives and actions, and the beliefs they teach and see if these two actually overlap? Do they do as they preach? Walk the talk? MUST BE FUN 😀
Now, personally I can’t really make up my mind. Viewing most religions with utmost skepticism for as long as I remember, I think a cult exists for very pragmatical and down-to-earth reason that have nothing to do with supernatural, for it simply gives people what they need most: identification and need to belong. The substance of the ‘teaching’ is immaterial, because it’s not the product.
You pay – to be part of it.
On the other hand, the Unknown is immensely captivating. What if it IS a genuine discovery? It’s not that it has never happened before. Electricity and magnetism would be a complete quackery to a Middle Age man, but it indeed does very much exist.
Anyways..
The book examines lives of dozens ‘saints’, ‘gurus’ and similarly shrewd individuals and arrives to a conclusion which I will omit here.
Obscured by dust and smoke, lies a mountain on the lake
After a short rest, I moved down the hill to the second hut – INNAJUATTOQ II – it was right on the lake shore.
There I met, as usual, the polish guy, the french couple and three Swedish guys who decided to take a day of rest and relax at the hut. This thought crossed my mind too – the hut was large, equipped and clean, located on a beautiful shore with surreal mountains floating on the lake’s waters.
But it was only early afternoon, so I pressed on.
Looking back, the INNAJUATTOQ II (and INNAJUATTOQ I nearby on the hill to the right – its almost obscured from view)
The path went upwards and smoke became very visible.
Having walked for about 7 or 8km from the hut, and reached the watershed, I decided to call it a day.
If there is a fire ahead, I better face it in the morning.
I had a nice talk with the polish guy – his actual name was Karol – and his daily routine was quite an eye-opener. So Karol would wake up at about 4:00 in the morning (he would stay at the huts only), shortly afterwards he would start on the trail and walk briskly almost without pause, reaching the next hut by late morning – whereas I was dragging myself there around 19:00. THATS SO CRAZY, I thought, may be he is weight-saving genius, or has some really sophisticated gear? He has a tiny foldable scooter? He can fly? I was trying to find an explanation. ANY EXPLANATION.
Nope.. similar equipment as myself, no scooter 😀 I think he also had more supplies to carry too.
I made a mental note to myself to train harder. And whine less.
…
The day started pleasantly. I ate breakfast in the hut and departed around 08:00 in the cool morning air, the early sun finding its way through thick, gray clouds.
For the first time, I enjoyed walking.
I remembered what Karol told me about other people on the trail that were walking semi-synchronously with us – some were half-a-day ahead, some were not far behind – where they go, what gear they have, where they stop and all kind of trivia regarding the route ahead and beyond. Interesting? You bet!
Was it the environment, or the absence of communication otherwise, but I was happy to meet anyone either from opposite direction (only 4 people during the whole course) or at the huts. It seemed it belonged to some unwritten but strictly followed code to stop, introduce oneself and engage in a mutually pleasant conversation about the trivialities outlined above. Were there mosquitoes? And did they bite? Oh, that’s the creme you used? Sure, Id like to try!
It was very endearing.
So that was the party that moved roughly in the same batch over the course:
The polish guy
A French couple – reticent, but with quick, elegant pace
Three strong Swedish guys – the empty 1L whiskey glass bottle converted to a flower vase at the hut was theirs
One Norwegian lady – at first I heard rumors from the polish guy about one female traveler who would reach the hut, and first thing CLEAN it 😀 Then the same from Swedish guys. These stories were told with warmest regards and kindest feelings to her service. And the best – indeed, she existed!
Two German ladies that found each other over reisepartner-gesucht.de for this trek, something that I failed to do (but I didn’t know about reisepartner-gesucht.de)
and myself
All went with different speeds and different schedules. Of all, I probably was the one who got up latest, and ended up latest as well – so most of the days I passed by either the polish guy or the french couple as they were setting up camp and we’ve never failed to exchanged the latest news and events of the day.
…
The path became more varied and about an hour a majestic perspective on the broad river valley opened from above.
Descent into the valley
WELCOME, – that were mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes
The ongoing drought made the valley just about as dry as it gets. A lot of grass patches were dust-dry. Circular, dried out lake beds with moist mud patches instead of water.
Other travelers were there too
Despite the dryness, the mosquitoes appeared out of nowhere and followed me diligently through most of the valley. Their behavior was weird: they followed mostly the face and were more of a nuisance than a biting force. They ignored open legs and arms and were mostly trying to get in the eyes and ears. Anyways, the mosquito net was very effective against them.
I wore this dorky foldable cap specifically for this
In retrospect, this patch of the trail was the only one where I needed the mosquito net at all. Some people just went straight through without the net.
This experience must be specific to this very, very dry period with no rainfall for a month or so, that happened in July and August 2019. If its wet, it should be horrible: the river valley turns in one massive swamp, mosquitoes bite viciously, and you walk a lot in water.
This time I just walked over on a dry, sometimes moist, and in very few cases ankle-deep surface.
Happened only once: shoes off to cross The River
After a few hours walking along the river the path turned to the right and an majestic panorama opened.
In real it was more majestic than on the photo. The inlet center ahead (on the pic) goes into the ocean
This is, by the way, is where Mayaq was about to be picked up by the boat from Sisimiut, I figured.
EQALUGAARNIARFIK, early afternoon
I was waiting for this my whole life: finally there it is, a word that doesn’t have a “U” after the “Q”. The hut was based right there after the turn.
At the hut I met the polish guy (I can just reuse this sentence), I was quite happy to see him. He went on to stay there for the night, but I continued after a pause for the lunch.
Despite prior warnings, this hut did have access to fresh water. The canyon nearby being completely dry, about 200 or 300 meters further down there was a tiny stream of clear, cold water.
DONT FOLLOW THE BULLDOZED TRACKS TO THE RIGHT, – with this advice from the polish guy we parted.
Of course I didn’t follow the bulldozed tracks to the right (they descended to the lake while the actual path turned left), but I managed to lose the trail anyways. I think it wasn’t clearly marked where I deviated, so I went downwards instead of upwards to the left. What followed , was an intriguing and quite exciting hike by the lakes.. After about 4 hours I found the trail again.
‘Alternative’ trail was nice. Lakes were cool. There were camping spots too
Don’t go where this photo is pointing to (the lakes), the trail goes to the left
I realized I am off the trail only at the lake. AH WHAT THE HECK, I thought, too tired to go back uphill
Surprisingly there was a narrow but recognizable path on the southern side of the lakes. People were going here before me
The last lake was really, really dry. You can see how much water it lost!
Past the big lake, ACT goes on top of the hill to the left
Now the trail is on the other side of the lake, but no paths here. Walking was slow and quite hard because of vegetation
Back on the trail around 20:00, phew that was hard
Camped as soon as I could when back on trail
Mashed potatoes with fish, OMG the tastiest dinner ever
Utterly exhausted, I made tent as soon as I found a good spot, ate and fell soundly asleep.
