Day Four, Day Four, my love/hate relationship with Day Four…

The day started out with the usual breakfast (“break”, marmalade, coffee, Nutella, etc.).  And then the hike started.

The beginning of the hike was nice enough.  The terrain was pretty weird, sandy, and desert-like, which was unexpected.  We reached Lake Tasersuatsiaq with relative ease, and I started to feel pretty confident that I would be okay for this hike.

Not long after that, my confidence began to leave.  We started the 400 meter trek up the mountain to reach the viewpoint at the top.

Two things about this: if you have ever hiked on any kind of incline with me, you probably know that I hate going up (ask Martin about the mountain across from Machu Picchu).  And when given a measurement in meters, my American brain immediately converts it (quite wrongly) to feet…and 400 meters is not really the same as 400 feet when you are going up the side of a mountain.

The last part was the steepest, naturally.

But I made it.

We ate lunch at the top and enjoyed the views for a bit.

When it was time to hike back, our guide, Jara, mentioned that there was an extension hike we could do, and that our group was in good shape and so could manage it.

HA!

I learned another valuable lesson after we got back to camp:

When agreeing to a hiking extension, always always always ask what type of terrain will one be hiking on and how long is the extension.

I failed to ask either of these questions, you see, and very much regretted it later.

So the extension of the hike was as bad, if not worse, than the steep hike itself.

First of all, it felt like it would never end.  As well, we hiked “up” more that I thought we would/could.  And we also hiked down, which I prefer, but the rocks were so big and rolly that I had to focus so hard on not falling that I really didn’t enjoy that part either.

And the whole day, my throat was killing me.

When we finally got back to camp (after I cried a little bit to myself at one point in the hike – no one saw me, which is part of the bonus of being dead last – no one sees what you are doing most of the time), I thought I was going to collapse and then realized that I actually had a bad cold.

So, I went straight to bed.

And thank God for traveling with the uber prepared Germans…Alice had a whole pharmacy of nose/throat/cold products with her and gave me a variety of items to help me.

I spent the rest of the evening in bed reading my book.  Which was a bummer because everyone else drank wine by the glacier.

Following our pillaging of the Greenlandic supermarket, we made a fast getaway on our Zodiac boat with J.J.

But first, some orientation on the map. We are leaving Narsaq and are heading to the Qalerallit camp. The first map picture is the wide view which includes Qassiarsuk and the second map view is a closer look at the area from Narsaq to the glacier front and camp.

J.J. took us to the front of the glacier.  This was my first experience being up close and personal with a glacier meeting water so I was pretty excited.

And J.J. made it his mission to make it even more exciting.

J.J. drives a Zodiac boat the way that Dale Earnhardt drives a stock car for NASCAR.  Footage of this event may or may not be forthcoming because I decided to try out my GoPro for this part of the trip (and because J.J.’s driving made me fear for my ability to keep my cell phone in my hands).

And get this: the GoPro froze.

What the heck?

Spoiler alert: I used my iPhone for the rest of the trip, and it didn’t freeze.

One would think a GoPro would be a bit more hardy.

So, if I can get the footage from there to here, I will.

In the meantime, suffice to say that being that close to that much ice is just beautiful and awe inspiring.  And J.J. got us close…real close.  His instructions were “I will let you stand up to take pictures now, but when I say sit down, you sit down immediately”…and as close as we were to the glacier, I took his directions seriously.

 

So after a night in the house of Jesus (who showed me this paddle that he turned into a light – the paddle had been used by the company’s owner, Ramon, who went on a trek from the south of Greenland, through to the north, and then to Alaska!), we hiked back to Qassiarsuk taking a slightly shorter route along the road.

After a day and night without running water, everyone was excited for a shower, particularly since we would head to the dome tent camp for three nights with no running water again. As we had a firm leaving time of 10:45 on the boat, we walked quickly to get to the hostel in time for nine of us to use the one shower.

Neal, the boatman, picks is up to float us over to Narsaq where will have lunch and tour the town before heading to the dome tents.

Narsaq is a settlement of 1,500 people. And just as we approached the harbor, we ran out of gas. The boat does have paddles so we could have made it the rest of the way on human power, but luckily we don’t have to try it because there was just enough gas on one of the containers on board to get us to shore. I was picturing some Panamanian gas siphoning action…but we didn’t have to resort to that. (I realize that statement means nothing to most of you, and I am okay with that.)

It is here that my group first experienced the Greenlandic supermarket.

It was life changing.

Well, that might be overstating it a tad, but it was an experience that became a guide for the rest of our time together.

You see, this group enjoys wine. So having access to a store that sells this was pretty exciting.

After lunch and town tour (did you know that the houses are different colors for a reason? Different colors symbolize different functions.)…we headed to the grocery store.

I think everyone purchased at least one bottle of wine; I bought a box. Mainly I bought a box because you get more wine for the weight, and if I have to carry my gear, less is better!

We piled back onto the Zodiac, this time with JJ as our captain and headed to the glacier front.

We walked to the boats and put on our kayaking gear: waterproof jackets and spray skirts. Only double kayaks so we had to partner up; I went with my new roommate, Berit, who had never been kayaking before. So I promised her I would do the steering from the back.

We kayaking for about three hours in the fjord. It was just so lovely, like kayaking through a sculpture garden made of ice.

(Notice I do not use the day of the week in the title because of the phenomenon of “Greenlandic Travel Time”.)

To orient you, today’s post is about hiking from Qassiarsuk to Tasiusaq and then kayaking there. Here is the map:

Breakfast in the hostel (and this soon became the daily breakfast): meat and cheese slices (no thanks), various jellies (everyone referred to as “marmalade”), some kind of fruit membrane (sounds gross but was okay), Nutella, and “bread” – and when I say “bread”, I really mean crackers.

Anyhow, after breakfast, we set off for our seven mile hike to Tasiusaq. It was a pleasant hike through rolling hills, as pictured:

So the yellow house was not a house but a hostel run by Jesus (Spanish pronunciation – I am not being cheeky here). There was no running water and the toilet was a “gravity toilet” which collected liquids in the front and solids in the back. (And jus like everywhere in Greenland – throw no paper in the toilet ever.)

I shared a room with Berit.

The area we stayed was a settlement of six people. There was a farm with a couple of cute dogs that we were under strict orders not to pet (!) as they had to stay with the farm and not get wooed by the tourists.

After some time relaxing, we headed to the water to kayak.