A wonderful start...

After two weeks of silence, here´s a little story to let you know that we are still here and what we´ve done in the meanwhile! (Here currently meaning Oslo, and we will take the train to Trondheim this afternoon) :)

After the hard work and stress to get everything done before we left, and the, even more difficult than we thought, goodbye from our friends and our old life, Marjolein´s parents came to pick us up from Bremen. A small stop at Hamburg to bring Abby back home (dog of Jan´s sister), we were on our way!

The first night we spent in Sæby, in the youth hostel. After the little disappointment of not getting the room that we thought we had booked, we went into town. Being told that the city was empty and all stores closed, we unexpectedly stepped into the middle of a summer festival, with lots of people, music and laughter! A nice surprise, and wonderful start and an encouragement to never stop exploring and stand open even or especially when frustrated!

9 hours of sleep, a 7 hour boat trip and 4 hour drive later, we arrived at what my parents call our Norwegian home in Nystuen. We know it is maybe a funny thing to start a worldtrip with things you already know, but it´s definitely served it´s purpose. So still surrounded by people we love, we had some time to relax, get used to the environment and SLEEEEEEP. Just what we needed. Get at ease and get our things together. Therefore the first photos are from Nystuen, which is that beautiful place near Tyinkrysset, where we also went in winters for skitouring and kiting.

So well-fed and well-rested (thank you guys :)) we started on our hike into the majestic surroundings of Jotunheimen, home of the Norwegian Giants (August 7th). And it´s been 11 days of nothing but magic. No phone reception, nothing but mountains, water, sun (a little bit of rain), stones and snow. Waking up (with the sun burning you out of your tent) to a view that is not possible to describe is just paradise to us. We´ve must have seen hundreds of mountains, each one of them being a different magical sight.

In the end we made a tour of 123 km in total, with a little over 6000 m ascending and descending! Over 45 walking ours (we know, the speed is not incredible, but imagine yourself crawling over big rocks with a 17-23 kg backpack :-) on our shoulders). For those of you who´ve been here too, the route we took was: Eidsbugården - Gjendebu - Memurubu (over Bukkelægret) - Glitterheim - Glittertind (2470m) - Spiterstulen - Leirvassbu - Gjendebu - ferry to Gjendesheim. (more to be found on www.turistforeningen.no or www.ut.no if you are inspired to plan a trip your self). We used the huts as a nice break on mid-day to eat some wafels (good shit :)) and dry our socks. We spent the nights in our tent underneath bright lighting stars at the foot of mountains glaciers and lakes with different shades of green. Each camp having it´s own magic. We spent one night on top of a mountain ridge with the view over whole of Besseggen, one night at a beach between the mountains, one night underneath the glaciers, they were all special!

At Glitterheim, we met our friend Elling from Oslo, and we hiked the next 7 days together (not that you wonder who the 3rd person in the pictures is!)

One of the highlights of the trip was definitely our ´topptur´ to Glittertind, the highest or second-highest peak in Norway (in competition with Galdhøpigen, depending on how much snow is left on the mountain). A sunny day, almost without any clouds!!! From the top you have a fantastic view over all of Jotunheimen and furtheron.  

Another highlight was the Leirvassbu hut, scenery of the Fritt Vilt I movie (Cold Prey). Freaking scary for those who´ve seen the movie, but a really beautiful place inside, with old Norwegian painting, furniture and timberworks/art. Wouldnt mind calling that our home :).

We encountered a little drama when we met a woman urgently in need of a doctor. She had been walking for over 5 hours, bleeding quite heavily, but no phone reception. Luckily we did (the only place of the whole tour!!), only a 20 minute walk away from Spiterstulen. Seems like everything turned out ok, but it made us again realise how far out you actually are (even though you are just 20 min walk away from the next hut or tel reception. If something happens out there in the mountains, you´re simply on your own. We were happy to be three who´s biggest problem was dealing with mosquitos and blisters. Just take a look at the photos of the happy campers in Jotunheimen (sorry that it is 76, we had a hard time picking photos from the 1100 we took only on this trip).

We really got used to the outdoor-living! Bathing meaning swimming in 5-10 degrees water (panserpung :D). Cooking meaning heating up water and pouring it into a package with a powder of undefined composition. Sleeping meaning lying on a thin matrass that started to deform after day 7 and is now declared as ´deceased´. Breathing in DEET in the fight for mosquitos and trying to dry your socks everytime as you find out your shoes are not waterproof anymore. :-) Great fun!!!  But seriously, we really got the hang of it; its´s utter freedom!!! So it was strange coming back into civilisation this weekend! Ellling and his girlfriend Gørill have been so kind to host us here in Oslo. Having a real bed to sleep in and really great food!!! is also worth a lot!! Thank you two already so much for your generosity and hospitality!!!!

The last photos we posted are from this weekend, where we went out swimming in the Oslo forest, and found chanterelle mushrooms!! Our first found and picked ever (what norwegians call) ´sopptur´, which is like a little treasure hunt!

Now we´ve got to get packing and going, as our train leaves in 2 hours. Hope you enjoyed reading, and remember: there is treasure everywhere!