Tromsø

Hello from the Arctic!


I'm writing from a homely hotel 10 minutes walk from the center of the town called ABC Hotel Nord and it was the first hotel I called upon when I arrived in Tromsø albeit the second that I stayed in. This very hotel was fully booked so I had to walk to find another hotel, AMI Hotel which, thankfully, had vacancies. I quickly dropped off my belongings, eager to start looking for the northern lights, and found a group of people in the lounge area discussing over a computer and pointing at maps. They were all friendly and offered me to join them on their search for the northern lights that evening and with the conditions perfect to view the lights if they did turn up, I couldn't possibly turn their offer down.

My lips had frozen solid so this wry smile is all I could manage.

I agreed to join a Lithuanian couple Vida & M (his full name escapes me) and an Australian girl, Louise, on a hike towards the hills away from the city. Within one hour of walking M had spotted a suspiciously green cloud which quickly distinguished itself as an aurora to our delight. The activity was forcasted as low so the band never waved or focused, as you often see in pictures, but it spread across the whole sky and 3 more auroras briefly joined parallel to it for about 15 minutes. I was even fortunate enough to see a shooting star travel within one of the aurora! The aurorae faded but we continued out trek up into the hills in hope of them appearing again but unfortunately we were unrewarded.

Filipe and I after signing the guestbook.

The next day I moved over to AMC Hotel and agreed to meet Johan and Filipe, two guys I met through couchsurfing.org, for a walk into the hills on the mainland (Tromsø is on an island located off Norwegian mainland) hoping to get an excellent view of the lights, but as we met at 6pm the sky had already clouded ruining our chances to see the lights. Undeterred.. we went hiking up a barely visible path in the snow and through snow covered trees in a stream valley. Johan is Swedish and had spent 5 weeks cycling and camping accross Sweden and seemed to be able to read the land well as he guided me and Filipe around frozen lakes and kept us on the path when we were wandering off. We came across another group of hikers who told us of a guestbook we could sign if we made it far enough up the valley so we made that our goal and after 2 hrs of walking we etched our names into the near frozen book. Filipe, a Brazilian who had spent time in the military, decided he wanted to make it to the top of a ridge that over looked the guestbook spot so we scrambled up a snowy and rocky ridge that was harder work than getting to Cribs Goch on Snowden. We didn't make the top, as most hill climbs have a habit of fooling you with another summit once you reached what you believed to be the summit, and we decided turned back to ensure we made the last bus home. So we turned, took a short run up to gain some speed, and slid on our backsides for as long as we could until we reached the bottom of the ridge.. great fun!

Filipe is a couchsurfer but had no place that night so I offered him to stay in the spare bed in the room I was staying in at the hotel. He agreed and he had some great stories to tell and lots of good information to share on couchsurfing. He is so committed to couchsurfing and refusing to pay for accommodation, that one night in Bodø, another norwegian city in the Arctic Circle, he started collecting cardboard to sleep on in the street as he could find nobody to host him. He did, at the 11th hour, find somebody to host him but I still admire him for his commitment!

Tromsø at midday.

The perpetual night is hard to get used to, I constantly feel like its time to go to sleep yet to turn to a clock and see its 3 30 in the afternoon. It does get lighter around midday but its looks like evening light as the sun doesn"t rise above the horizon. I'm currently thinking of heading to a place inland called Narvik so I can see some Norwegian fjords but more immediate plans include meeting Johan once more to brave a dip in the Norwegian sea!

Farvel!