Today is dedicated to organizing and planning. It will not interest others, but I’m writing it down, not to forget.
The remaining 629 km. from here, Abisko, to Cape North is divided into three pieces:
1) 188 km. From Abisko to Kilpisjärvi
2) 186 km. From Kilpisjärvi to the capital of the Samen, Kautokeino
3) 355 km. From Kautokeino to Cape North
That can be covered in 3.5 weeks, say 4 weeks. Then I can arrive at Cape North around the 18th of August , exactly 10 months after the start of my trip on Oct. 18th. 2014 in Tarifa-Spain.
However, after the first piece, in Kilpishärvi, after 7-8 days, will be the first possibility to get food again. Holy shit. Tosca eats at least 3/4 kilo a day and more. So up to Kilpisjärvi I definitely need to carry at least 10 kg. extra. That does not even fit in my backpack. I also have to buy a burner and cooking boiler extra because I want to carry only dried fodder for myself, such as pasta, or dried foods. These are less heavy than all kinds of canned food. And for cooking that dried-up stuff, cooking equipment is needed. Also, there is only one option left: walking for a week without one resting day and without extra food supply. Then I’m faster in Kilpisjärvi and so have to drag all that weight one day less. I’d better go soon to Kilpisjärvi and stay there one day longer than to walk slowly with that heavy plunger and meanwhile being deprived of electricity and other amenities. The same considerations apply to the two pieces after Kilpisjärvi .
The first two parts resort under the Nordkallotleden, a total of some 800 km. international hiking trail through Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish Lapland. There are at least cabins, with or without a guardian. But the third piece, the 350 km. from Kautokeino to Cape North has no cabins and there are hardly any settlements. How to spend the night there and how to get food, I’ll have to find out tomorrow or after tomorrow.
And then the question remains whether I’ll meet German Jan. He is also on his way to Abisko, where I am now, but he is coming to Abisko by a longer route, called Padjelanta, leaving him behind me some three days. Just like me during the last days, of course, he has no phone range. So I’m not sure when he will arrive here. I would like to walk along with him, the next two pieces, 376 km. to Kautokeino, for safety reasons. Jan has a decent GPS. And that really helps. And if we encounter a bear, then probably the bear is frightened when he sees me. That might help Jan. After 375 km, from Kautokeino, our roads will split again.
So reasons anough to take a few days off here in Abisko. Moreover I want to send unnecessary items home, if at least there is a post office here. And finally, I have read that in Kautokeino there is a museum about the culture of the Sami, the Indians of Europe. An almost forgotten and anyway very much neglected minority population whose culture is collapsing in the major Western consumer society, which is becoming one great grey, unitary blend .
What brought the day? Clothes in the loundry machine, searching for food packages and and cooking gear, planning the route for the remaining 629 km. It takes many hours to find out which photos of the last few days belong to which day’s blog and what place names belong to it. SMS, phone, dog care. And then I’ll spoil myself tonight with a meal at the cabin / hotel restaurant here. A beer: 9 E! I ordered a cup of delicious mushroom soup, but probably it was intended for leeky bones, so small. Two pieces of herring, with three small potatoes and some stalks of parsley-like stuff. Haute cuisine, but not for hungry trekkers! Then one more ice cream: 2 half balls in a sweet sauce. I asked if they had some bread, so that after dinner at least the bottom of my stomach would be covered. I got two pieces of bread. I thought Holland was known for being greedy. Eg. The sliding piece of cheese. Every time you bite into the sandwich, the slice of cheese moves back a little so that after finishing the sandwich you can use the slice of cheese again for the next slice of bread. Well, here they are good at it too! I also took the two pieces of bread from the basket of the neighbors after they left.
So today nothing spectacular, just a lot of infrastructuring again. What I won’t get done today I will do tomorrow.
Nota bene (by the way). Whenever I cross a border, I appeal to donors to think of Mama Alice. Tomorrow I will cross the Swedish-Norwegian border. In about a week I will go to Finland, to come back to Norway shortly thereafter. For those who do not know: With my trip, I support Mama Alice. An organization set up by “our” Fréderique Kallen from Hoogcrutz-Noorbeek (Nl). Fréderique lives and works in Peru and, with her organisation Mama Alice (named after her deceased mother), she saves street children and supports them, in Peru. One of my daughters-in-law also is from Peru, and so I feel a connection between my residential area and the country where two of my grandchildren stem from, at least half. We have already collected 10,000 E and I hope we get the E 15,000.
