Something Tu valu!

Hah! I received a mysterious package in the mail. From Australia, with a fairly significant customs duty to pay. I had not ordered anything from Australia, but I just had to pay up and find out what this was. It could be a marsupial. I've always wanted my own wombat. Unfortunately, the package contained no such thing. On the contrary, it was something to put in a pouch. Please welcome the new one dollar coin of Tuvalu, as seen from its royal side:

On the back it looks like this:

And this is where I enter the picture. When I was in Tasmania a couple of years ago, I took this photograph:

Behind the beautiful Dove Lake you see Cradle Mountain. I visited here when I hike The Overland Track, a super 100 kilometer trail that took me more or less from the north to the south of Tasmania. You still can't see the connection between me and the coin, you say? Well, take a look at this:

Do you see? My photo is on a Tuvalu monetary item! For reasons I shall never understand, the designer of this coin must have felt pretty sure that I would sooner or later discover that they have borrowed the peak of a mountain from one of 1700 photos I took while in Tasmania. Let me just be clear about this: I just took the photo. I did not build the mountain first. Oh well. Funny stuff. Despite the customs payable, it was really nice of the antipodeans to send me a silver coin as payment for my part of the job of bringing this coin to the world. It may sound like a small pay, but let me remind you of the mess that was unleashed upon the world for the price of just 30 silver coins! Which is just 29 silver coins more than I have now received. I'm quite pleased. And soon my Morocco photos are done. I promise!

Trophies from Troms

Summer is long gone, especially in Northern Norway. It lives on only as memories and photographs. In July I spent ten days discovering a new national park and an old island society. Rohkunborri and Senja. That's right. Even in Norway there are places where even just their names make you want to go and see them for yourself.

The first part of the journey I did with my father. He wanted to revisit a number of mountains he last saw up-close fifty years ago, and he needed someone to go with him. "Someone" turned out to be me, and we accomplished everything we planned on. We made it to the top of Stor-Ala, we hiked the Sørdalen canyon all the way to Sweden and back, and we stood on the top of Istinden. I don't know if it was better in any way fifty years ago, but looking at my photos from this year's trip, I doubt it.

While my father stayed in his childhood town and showed off his blisters and bruises, I went by myself to the island of Senja, a mountainous place surrounded by the ice-cold Arctic sea. Although it's close to a statistic impossibility, I got two days in a row reaching more than 30 degrees Celsius there. It was so beautiful that I almost didn't let myself sleep. Day and night I explored the island, enchanted by the local nature. Crazy tooth-like mountain peaks, intensely green hillsides, porpoises playing in the sea, eagles just sitting around, smiling fishermen and locals that clearly were not used to tropical temperatures, dressing in military boots and underwear to go to the beach.

I couldn't get enough of it. I will have to go back and continue my trip eventually. Senja is just as mesmerizing as the more famous Lofoten islands, but it gets dramatically fewer tourists. Do give it a try if you ever get the chance. Bring a tent, so that you can sleep wherever you like and whenever you need it. It's quite easy to get there. Just fly to Tromsø or Bardufoss (cheap flights from Oslo), rent a car and get going!

All right. Done with Troms. Who's next? Oh, hi there, Morocco! (I'll be back shortly with more.)

One night in Oslo

After months filled with travels and work, I now have six weeks in which I will try to catch up with the piles of photos I have gathered the last few months. They contain scenes from Merzouga and Nikosia, Rohkunborri and Okefenokee, Senja and Savannah, Belfast and Brønnøy, and lots of other places where pixels can be made. The results of this work will soon appear, but because I'm so stupid, the first thing I did when I finally was done at work for a while, was to go out and take more photos. This is what a long evening looked like to me, when Oslo decided to open all cultural doors to anyone, for free. Sometimes it's great to be a tourist in your own town as well.

The shortest route from my apartment to the city centre goes through the park surrounding The royal castle. The castle chapel was open, so I went in and had a look around. It's nice, but photography isn't allowed there, so instead here you have a group of uniformed men wandering through a forest where there are still insects hovering beneath the branches at sunset. Soon they will be gone, then the leaves will turn yellow and red, and then winter will come.

The parliament building, Stortinget, was also open for the public, but the line was too long for me. I wandered on, past this statue, which I'm pretty sure has had something added to it lately.

The autumn sun hung low, making life hard for anyone driving towards the west. Beautiful light, although it makes crossing the street an uncertain undertaking.

My first proper target for the evening was, of course, the Freia chocolate factory, where this stork waded in the rising shadow of a nearby roof. Those birds are amazingly good at standing absolutely still!

Ever since the factory was built, the management has tried to provide intellectual stimulation to the factory workers, usually in the shape of sculptures and paintings. I hope these two cats are not too involved with the chocolate production.

This is probably the most expensive bits of what Kraft Foods International Limited Unlimited Corporation got when they acquired the chocolate factory a few years ago; a large dining hall with enormous Edvard Munch paintings on the wall. It's art on par with what you can find at the Munch museum and the National Gallery, but here it's just something in the background when factory workers sit around and have their lunch. And yes, there were plates full of chocolate on every table.

After I filled my backpack with chocolate in the factory store (you get a LOT of chocolate for your money there!), I returned to the city centre. A crazy old man has collected minibottles in every shape and colour throughout his life, to the degree that he's in the Guinness' Book of World Records now. These are The seven dwarves as bottles, with surprisingly un-red noses.

In the less innocent corner, I found this Adolf Hitler bottle. A particularly strange thing among numerous just suitably strange things.

Recycling bottles can also be done through making lamps from them. Just as nice as crystal chandeliers, especially if your vision isn't very good.

At the mini bottle museum there's also a scary section. There I found this guy, who I suppose should have ordered a mop or something in addition to the vodka he's got in his hand.

In the utterly, utterly most seedy part of the museum, I found this bordello, where you have to touch a woman's breast to get in and a penis to get out again, this girl is in bed, trying to distract people from all sorts of red light thingies around her. She plays her part fairly well.

At the museum I also found the absolutely most scary thing I've ever exposed my private parts to. The old saying "Don't stick your dick in crazy" came to my mind. I quickly finished.

I visited the university's hall of ceremonies, where the Nobel Peace Price has been given out many times. I enjoyed a choir concert and a lecture about the paintings on the walls. These are works by Edvard Munch as well, and they will probably stay here, as they measure up to 55 square metres in surface area. The lecture was given by a women with screaming red hair and the inability to say the letter R. This guarantees she must be an art expert to me.

Nearby is the House of Artists, where a large exhibition was going on. They're not very modest, especially when you compare it to what was on display.

This is a typical piece of art from the exhibition. It looks like some kind of textile-based jellyfish, I think, and it carries no apparent message to the world. It's probably still for sale if you're interested.

The Oslo Opera House also had some lectures and performances to see, but like always it's the building that is the main attraction here.

The last thing I did before heading home was a fireworks display in the harbour. It was much more impressive than this photo conveys, but firework pictures has everything to do with luck, and this was the luckiest I got that night. Such is life.

After the fireworks, the air was filled with smoke for a while. If you look closely, you can see the Big Dipper. That's it. Awaiting me now is, hopefully, a few days with cold and lousy autumn weather, giving me ample opportunity to stay inside with hot cocoa, editing photos. Soon I'll be back with more visual thoughts. See you! #8D) Bjørn

CELEBRATION!

Oops! Did I startle you? I know, I've been all quiet for a while. But today it's my birthday, and my gift to and from myself is a day off from work. Hence, I've got time to catch up with you guys.

I am 14244 days old today. This makes me almost twice as old as the World Wide Web, a young rascal of 7323 days. Not to mention Justin Bieber, a newcomer with only 6385 days to show for himself. Hm. Anyway, I'm quite satisfied with both my age and my condition, thank you very much.

Not related at all: An old wreck of a house I found this summer

Since my last blog entry, I've gone to Morocco and returned alive and with fairly clean underwear. It could have been different. Just before I walked off my bus from Casablanca to Marrakesh at the end of my trip, a suicide bomber decided to push the button in a restaurant on the famous Djemaa el-Fna city square. If I had taken an earlier bus, I would have been there or very close right then.

Mourning in the Maghreb
Walking around in a sad Marrakesh wasn't the best ending of an otherwise great trip through Morocco and West Sahara. Soon I can show you guys the highlights of that journey. I'm working on the photos right now.

To experience a distinct contrast from the cave people, shepherds and berbers, my next expedition became a two week stay in Walt Disney World. Not so much to do the rides as to observe Americans doing what they appear to prefer to spend their short vacations on. What is it that makes people in a society built on convenience gather in crowds so large that they typically end up standing in line for hours just to do something that is likely to make them throw up some of the 150 tons of popcorn sold and presumably eaten in the parks every year? I still don't know, but I figured it was worth giving understanding it a shot.

A few days of high-season Disney made me somewhat people-shy. My medicine was to go hiking in the vast mountains in the arctic north of Norway.

Previously a tree in Rohkunborri, now just a photo shoot

The last year I have been to many excellent places, but neither quiet mornings in the jungle in Tikal, a crossing of the Pyrenees under the autumn sun, exciting bugs hiding unsuccessfully from me in the Sahara, the Titanic shipyard in Belfast ("She was fine when she left here!") or a VIP passes in theme parks can compete with a midsummer spring in the north of Norway.

Okay, so there may have been some ice-cold fording of glacier streams, fist-fights with horseflies and a wee bit too many too steep hills, but that is all forgotten now. What's left are just the beautiful memories of enchanting days and nights with no sunsets.
A nocturnal lake on Senja island

The photos from these hikes are the next ones on their way into my gallery, so just you keep checking back. And even though the one day in the year when I turn older has come, rest assured that I'm still the same Bjørn. Which means, soon there will be more to read and see here.

Relevant photo: The small town of Celebration, built by Disney as a mini utopia

Please visit again soon, and have a great day, you too!

Bjørn

Orange you glad I'm leaving?

That's about all I know about Morocco. They haves oranges. Lots of oranges. And sand. Even more sand than oranges. In 1956 they had 8 million citizens. Today there are at least 33 millions of them. Eating orange must be much like taking Viagra.

Now I'm off for three weeks in Morocco, where I will probably gather some new information about the Moroccans and their doings. For now I am content with having found out that the North African revolution quickly passed in Morocco. The king must be a fairly smart guy. After just a handful of self-immolations and some protests in the streets involving tens of thousands of people, he decided to promise them a new constitution. They'll have a referendum about it this summer and at least until then it should be perfectly safe to visit the country.


Especially if you stay away from the southern part of the country. Or, the southern part that Morocco thinks is Morocco, but which most other people considers to be a country on its own, Western Sahara, and presently occupied by Morocco. Only half a million people live there, giving them half a square kilometre of land each to thrive on. My own country, Norway, is really sparsely populated as well, but we only have a fifteenth of that much land each.

Which is good news. I'll be drinking a lot of water as I wander about, and sooner or later I'll need to pee. With all that area, I should be able to find a spot to do so without being disturbed. It doesn't even matter that I probably won't find a bush or tree to go behind. From what I imagine, I'll be seeing a lot of open, sand-filled scenery during the next three weeks. Fortunately that's something I love.

I'd also love to give you more interesting facts about Morocco, but since I've already told you everything I know, I'll have to get back to you later in my blog.

On this trip I'm planning to assassinate my camera. It's already half-dead, and I've decided which machine shall be my next travelmate. It's this beauty, a grandchild of my present camera. But let's keep this piece of information away from my trusty old camera for now, shall we?


What else has happened recently? Hmm... Oh, yes, the photo above, taken by me in Tasmania a couple of years ago, will later this year become the background of a new coin, official tender in Tuvalu! It's part of a series, where this is the previous coin, so I suppose "my" coin will be quite similar. I just hope that the eagle that will go in the foreground won't steal too much of the show. Whether it does or not, this is so cool, and so weird.

Anyway, I'll be going now. I'm already looking forward to going home. #8D)

Bjørn

PS: Remember to water my plants!

The Jaguar Express

There's a lot you can do on a two week trip to Cancun. Especially if you just take a plane there and then escape from Cancun as quickly as possible. Incidentally, that's also the only sensible thing to do when going to Cancun.


Rarely have I encountered a worse traveler's hell than Cancun. The room rates are crazily much higher than what you'll pay for way better rooms just a few bus hours away. Restaurants and taxi drivers have adjusted their prices accordingly. The beaches are besieged by pasty, fat tourists who think the city is an American colony that has nothing to do with Mexico except climate-wise. Throughout major parts of the year there's nowhere you can turn without witnessing tequila and taco gushing out of mouths and noses of stupid people who just the night before encumbered themselves with tattoos on their foreheads.

Among the star attractions of the city I'd like to mention the tigers. They're kept in tiny cages and have had their teeth and claws pulled out. It must be that way so that tourists can cuddle the big cats in relative safety. Oh, and talking about predators; because the drug barons in the area have the habit of dumping bodies in the sea, the sharks of Cancun have learned to gastronomically love people.


The beaches of Cancun are lovely, but that fact is well hidden except right after a particularly bad hurricane has visited the region. Then the coastline returns to its pristine state, with picturesque, idyllic sandy coves framed by good-looking rocks. Then the city council puts everyone to work, covering it all up with insane amounts of sand trucked to there from a place that probably could use the sand a lot better than Cancun does. Why, oh why? Because that's how the Cancun hotel overlords thinks lazy and sun-craving tourists want their beaches.

So, what is the alternative to becoming a part of the problem that is collectively named Cancun? Well, the best you can do is to go somewhere else. In December 2010 that's exactly what I did, and here's my photo journal from my fairly successful escape from Cancun.


Just two-three hours to the south there's Tulum. Buses that probably are much more comfortable than anything found in your own country take you there, and when you arrive you'll find Mayan temples that weren't designed by Disney and beaches that are enchantingly pretty despite the fact that they have never been touched by a landscape architect. And they have dragons there! Tulum is so worth a thorough visit.

Keep going south for four hours or so, and you'll be in the border town of Chetumal. True, there's the unfortunately named Hotel Ucum, but apart from that it's a decent place to stop, with a brand new amazing Zoo and a real Mexican town feeling to it.

From there you can easily travel to Belize. It's a country that you may not have heard about, but you should go there anyway. From Chetumal there are inexpensive direct boats to the island paradises of Belize, located right next to the second largest barrier reef in the world, or you can just get on a direct bus to Belize City.


Belize isn't part of the actual Caribbean, but this fact has not been shared with the people living there. In Belize everything is done in slow-motion, people speak as if they all went to the same language course in Jamaica, and the strangest things can pop up anywhere with no warning at all. If someone tells you that Belize "is too dangerous", they've probably just misinterpreted some statistics. The country has only three hundred thousand or so citizens, which means that you don't need a whole lot of criminal action going on before it looks really bad per capita. Don't worry about it. Tourists are safe in Belize.


The islands are particularly safe. As long as you don't trip over a turtle or is hit by a playful dolphin you'll probably return to the mainland with no damage. Go for walks and snorkel the reef, observe strange birds and animals, talk to the locals. They're always short of gullible conversation partners, especially now that the Americans hardly can afford traveling abroad any more.

If you're still not convinced, the national motto of Belize should do it. "Sub Umbra Floreo". "I blossom in the shade". I'm not kidding, it's right there in their flag, just check it for yourself! And people live by the motto. It's in the shade beneath the trees you'll find the locals, and if there's something that is likely to make people agreeable and fun to talk to, it's gotta be lazing in the shade.

When you've had your doze of sun and sand, you can quickly move across to a different world entirely, namely Guatemala. Six hours by bus from Belize City will take you to Tikal, quite possibly the easiest place in the world to pretend you're Indiana Jones. Located right in the middle of the jungle it's an enormous Mayan city with no inhabitants. Unless you count the jaguars, the coatis, the howling monkeys, the toucans and the parrots, of course. There are lots of them in the abandoned and only partially excavated city of Tikal.


If you want to live and travel cheaply, Guatemala is the place for you. There are heaps of places to visit and lots of things to do. Not everything is handled professionally, but it's generally done charmingly. Compared to what you pay, it's always amazingly good value for money. Just make sure to do your own conservative estimates of how close you should go when a local wants to show you a crocodile, a snake or whatever else they may have around.

You should also appreciate being fascinated by people who wear traditional clothing simply because they have no other garments. A great place to observe and interact with them is by traveling with them, on the chicken buses, school buses from the USA that are so old that they cannot be legally used in North America any more, so they're sold to Guatemala.


After Tikal it was time for us to travel back towards Cancun. To avoid actually visiting the city, we decided to wait for our plane home in the old Mayan city of Chichen Itza, three hours away. The contrast to Tikal is enormous, despite the fact that the two places originally must have been quite similar. Chichen Itza was recently named one of "The New Seven Wonders of the World", even though Tikal is many times more magical and impressive.


The problem is that the "New Wonders" were chosen based on an open vote on the Internet. The winners in such cases will always be the one with most visitors. And Chichen Itza has a lot of visitors, all eager to say that they've visited a New Wonder. Most of those who go there are people who reckon they should experience "something cultural" before they go home, after having spent almost their entire vacation cuddling toothless tigers, burn in the sun and eat too many burgers and steaks. There are so many people like that, that Chichen Itza has degenerated into a weird mix of theme park and historical monument. The local Mayans can hardly wait for 2012 and Judgment Day to arrive.

Oh well. I really just wanted to tell you that the photos from my trip are now available. Have a look and decide for yourself whether a trip to Cancun without visiting Cancun maybe would be good for you, too. If so, go in December, January or February. The temperatures will be nice, allowing you to explore in comfort, and there will be no hurricanes getting in your way.

Happy trails!

Bjørn

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional

At last I'm done with the most strenuous part of my pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago; preparing my photos from my journey so that there's a chance you will enjoy browsing through them.

And I really mean that. Walking hundreds of kilometres may sound demanding, but when all the facilities are as super great and the trail is as easy to follow as the Way of Saint James is, it's a trivial thing. You want some proof? Try the many pilgrims in their 70's and 80's you're bound to meet on your way from France to Santiago de Compostela.

Have a look at these photos, and see if maybe they'll make you want to discover the wandering bug living inside you!

True, during the first few days I hurt in many places:
* A sunburn on my left side, which is the one that gets hit all the time when you walk towards the west.
* Sore corners of my mouth, a result of eating way too many crisp baguettes.
* As my toe nails kept falling off, the nerves from my feet complained a bit.
* A sore throat resulted from the sudden changes from chilly mornings to hot mid-days.

The good thing about having numerous issues with your body is that you can't be annoyed by the same problem for long at a time. And even better; all your pain will gradually decrease, until suddenly one day after a long walk you'll discover that nothing hurts anymore. The only thing stopping you from continuing the walk is that it's getting dark. By then your body will be a walking machine, and you will feel slightly super-human. It took me about a week to get there, and it was worth it.

Anyway, you don't have to walk the entire 800 kilometres in order to be a qualified pilgrim. A hundred kilometres by foot is the minimum requirement, and then your time and ability decides how much more you will add to that.

If you for some reason can't walk all the way, I think that you should at least not just walk the last 100 kilometres to Santiago. That part is more frustrating than suitable for getting you onto the VIP list for entrance to the Night club in the Sky. Unless you enjoy walking in a flock like a sheep, that is.

The scenically most rewarding day, to me, was the first one. It's a walk across the Pyrenees from St Jean Pied de Port in France to Roncesvalles in Spain. While the experience is highly dependent on the weather you get, there's nothing like this landscape and natural drama anywhere else than what you find here.

Following that there's a really nice hike through forests and along rivers all the way to Pamplona. The next 500 kilometres, though, to Ponferrada, can easily blur into a long, grey memory consisting of fields, villages and churches that may be hard for you to tell apart. I mean, it's certainly all nice enough, but it soon gets old, which is also what it all happens to be.

If you're lucky and socially able, you may find company and conversations that will carry you through this part. If not, you had better have lots of sins and problems at home to think about, or at least an MP3 player loaded to the brim with goodies.

I can recommend the roughly hundred kilometres between Ponferrada and Sarria, but after that you may want to check out Spain's public transportation, or find routes to walk that strays off from the official short and overcrowded pilgrim trail.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not dissatisfied with the final bit of El Camino de Santiago. All in all I was delighted by walking it. I met people along the way who I enjoyed getting to know. I saw varied and breath-taking landscapes as well as intriguing villages and churches. My Spanish was improved and I understand much more of the way Spain works than I did previously.

Still, to me, the by far best part of walking the Way was mastering the long days of walking, and the fact that they made me feel stronger than I have felt in years. For the better part of a decade I've had a problem with my knees. During this walk I must have rebuilt some supporting muscles, so that now I can again easily walk uphill for a whole day and not feel any pain in my knees at all. That result alone is worth twenty-three days of walking, I think.

Although it's not at all my favourite long walk, I'll happily recommend the Camino de Santiago if you want to try it for yourself. Let me know it if you need more information to get going.

Buen camino! #8D)

Bjørn

There He Goes Again

As mentioned in my last post here, I've been walking. From France I walked 809 kilometres along the Camino de Santiago. It took 23 long days of walking. I logged the trip with GPS here, but as usual I'll also upload the more, I think, interesting views I had on the trip on-line.

Actually, the photos should have been available to you now. After all, I've been at home for about six weeks now. But they're not ready yet, and now I'm off again! I just told the tap in my bathroom, and this is the expression it made when it heard I was going to Cancún without finishing the gallery from my previous trip first:


If I had two more days before the plane leaves, I would have finished the gallery. Instead a few quick glances at the trail will have to do for now. The full gallery will show up here probably just a few days into 2011.

As I suspected, the pile of photos I gathered along the trail consists mainly of fields, forests and churches. It's really, really difficult to take photos that haven't been taken thousands of times before along the Camino. Here are some of my attempts:


The climb up from the French side of the Pyrenees offered the most stunning views along the entire trail. It's too bad, really, that the best bit of the trip is put right at the start of it. Fortunately, I did not know this, so I just enjoyed the views and figured it was a taste of what was to come. It wasn't, but to be fair, there were a few nice bits of scenery later as well.


Coming down from the mountains on the border between France and Spain I was met by this cozy forest. Just a few days before, hikers had to be rescued down from the cold and misty mountain by helicopter. Some of the evacuees may well have planned their trips for years. It's not fair that I, who had not planned anything at all, was given this great welcome by the Roncesvalles forest.


A 300 kilometres long boring bit is what awaits you after a few days of beautiful and exciting surroundings at the start of the trail. Here you will often be tortured by the view of several kilometres of trail ahead of you, with no signs of any shade, water, nice views or other refreshing elements at all. People with all kinds of handicaps walk the trail. If I had to walk it with a serious handicap, I think I would have walked as a blind person. Not seeing the trail may be a good thing.


A week or so before the finishing line, I found this group of cows grazing in an opening in a forest. Other animals than domestic ones are rarely seen. I saw some deer, rabbits, a fox and a dozen squirrels. That's all. There's no need to worry about being eaten by dangerous animals on this trail.


There's a real danger you'll overdose on churches and religious art on the Camino. If you're eager enough, apparently you can enjoy seeing about 1800 churches along the eight hundred kilometres or so of trail. That's less than 500 metres between the churches, on average. Crazy catholics! Anyway, some of them are really worth stopping for. I liked this one a lot. It's the Cathedral of Léon.


There are more pilgrims than pilgrim sculptures along the trail, but that's just with a narrow margin, I think. I photographed this one outside the Cathedral of Burgos an incredibly early morning with an intense sky above it. The clouds were menacing, making even the sculpture look sort of scary.

There you are. That's all I have for you now. In a month or so you'll get more. I'm pretty sure the final collection will include several insect close-ups, vineyards wearing autumn colours, ancient bridges, cobwebs at sunrise, a butt from a bordello, graffiti, mountains, more mountains and the valleys between them. You might as well preparing mentally for it now.

Until thne I'll be in Mexico most of the time. Or in Belize. Or maybe even in Guatemala. It'll be a great end of a most satisfying year of travel.



Merry Christmas to you all!

Bjørn