Saturday 1 st of August 2015. Still Kilpisjärvi in Finnish Lapponia.

1- 08- 2015   |  
Harrie Huijben
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Hoofdingang hotel Kilpisjärvi

Main entrance hotel Kilpisjärvi.

Mijn slaapbarak met gemeenschappelijke keuken en tv-kamer

My sleeping lodge with common kitchen and tv-room.

Enige wifiplek, de hotellobby, waar ik dus veel tijd doorbracht

Only wifi-place, the lobby of the hotel, where I spent much time.

Last night, while I was eating two types of pasta, which I found in the common kitchen of my hallway, along with thick sausages with ketchup, which I still found in the refrigerator, a lady a few years younger than I am showed up. My name is Mirja, of Miriam. I’m baptized Henricus, but my better friends may call me Harry. Finnish Mirja had got the room next to mine. I eat my slef prepared diner, take care of Tosca, try to get some pictures from my handy in my blog, in vain. At 11.30 pm Finnish time (in my experience only 10.30am.), I knocked on Mirja’s door, which was open. Mirja, there is a music band starting at 11.30 in the main building bar. I’ll have a drink for 45 minutes or so and then for me, “old chap”, it’s time to go to bed. Want to join? She had told me that she was cello musician and gave music lessons to the disabled, among others, Somewhat doubtful she joined me to the band. Obviously deafening noise. You could not discuss one word. Now she had to be used to those pupils with a speech disorder. But I was not enthusiastic about an evening sign language with someone I do not know. I did not like that much. There were some crocked chicks sitting together at a table, some big, pastey, rough Finnish doods at another table. Within 10 min, we were back in our own building without drinking one beer. We installed in our barack’s common sitting room, she took a bottle of Italian Pinot Grigio out of the car and we talked for a couple hours, fascilitated by the vino. I understood her poor English badly, or was it my ears? All kind of topics: music, children, mountain hiking, etc. etc. I often just nodded, as if understanding, which sometimes was not the case, according to a follow-up remark or question from her. Like most of the guests here, she plans to walk for a few days and then go home again. She complained about arthrosis in the feet, carrying food for 10 days. With her heavy overweight, she was not going to make it, I think. That insight enabled her to leave me part of her food supply. Not bad. After having breakfasted together this morning in the restaurant (at the hostel price), she started packing and left.
 I did some shopping, like buying food, found a new rain cover for my backpack in an outdoor shop, which I am very pleased with.

I re-enter the main building lobby to further detail my route. Several times the electricity of the building broke. That’s pretty difficult, because it will take 10 minutes before Wi-Fi is available again.
 A friendly looking man, with long hair, brown eyes and a stubble beard above his little white board, speaks to me. Have a seat, I invited him. He was a reverent, he said.  I had already noticed it by his collar, I answered. We talked for an hour or so about hiking, viewing hiking maps, pilgrims and pilgrimage routes. Again the electricity power breaks down a second time. The girl at the front desk, for whom I had been the perhaps fascinating view (or not) since a few days, had to smile. Yes, life is o.k. here.
 I look forward to the next discoveries in the weeks to come. But I have my doubts about the long mountain routes of sometimes more than 30 km, with a heavy backpack the first days. Only after 8 or 9 days will I reach a place with provisions and electricity. So that means I’ll have to drag a lot of weight again. It also stays cold, windy and wet with very low cloudy clouds. The coldest summer since many years. “Other years the weather in summer in Laponia” is always nice”. Yeah sure.
 From Jan, who accompanied me in Spain and his Hanni I received an email about someone’s blog who had been to Cape North years ago from Friesland (Netherlands). In these areas, he had had the same experiences I have: Bad weather, cold, wet, deadly and deadly tired, sometimes eating too little, while that person on average walked shorter distances. Often only a few kilometers a day. That makes me somewhat less anxious about my own body. Many people here experience their limits. And that is also what I wanted. So this won’t be a trip that has an easy finish. It continues to be hot.
 Now, I am used to this because of my former work. We often worked for very long days and weeks with a minimum of sleep, under high tension and there was no time for coffee breaks and cozy cuddles with grandmothers, like people seem to imagine about a general practicionar’s job. Especially when the companion at work or colleagues were on vacation. Childbirths added to my work, road accidents, suicides and a vast rayon, which ranged from Simpelveld to Cadier and Keer, an area of ​​15-20 km. cross-section over inland roads, without handy or gps. Actually very inconvenient when I was in a hurry. Morality of this story? Don’t complain too much about stress and just keep going on. Just carry on. Former collegues Jan M. and Paul H. of my sports club can acknowledge this.
 Meanwhile it is 3 pm and I believe I got the pictures of July 28th and July 29th on the blog after a few hours of trying and delayed by electricity break downs. I finished a pasta, with thick saucages still in the refrigerator, supplemented with Mirjam’s tomatoes and sausages.

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