day 18 - byeee

Nothing much today except running around the city in the rain with a gigantic cardboard box balanced on top of my bike seat. (Ungainly, but it beats carrying the bike inside the box.) I disassembled the bike in record time, navigated airport bureaucracy, and eventually escaped town. Good riddance Oslo, fare thee well Norway! Well, it's done. Overall it was an incredible trip, probably my favorite ever. Now that it's over, would I do anything differently? I'd start my rallarwegen trip from the trail's true start 20km earlier. It was really the highlight of the trip and it seems stupid in retrospect to have truncated it. I'm not entirely sure I'd go to Bergen. The city, accessing it, and leaving it were the darkest (literally and figuratively) parts of the trip. As small cities go, I much prefer stavanger. Having a partner along would have saved a lot of money. Doubles in a B&B are typically cheaper than a hostel for two and self-catering scales better with numbers. (Try to buy salad components for a single person sometime.) Some of the long evenings at less-social campgrounds would have been less lonely with a friendly face, too. I think I made the right call by not bringing camping gear. The extra weight would have been a killer on those tough climbs. I was already aching enough from the exertion of all my manly activities and didn't need to add back pain to the cocktail. Also, it rained a lot. I'd bring: * gloves - it gets cold on an alpine plateau at 30 kph in the rain * Calf-length cycling pants - my knees got cold too * silk sleep sack - hostel sheet rental charges killed me. I'd not bring: * Pedal wrench - weighs 1+ lb, never used. What was I thinking? * Kryptonite lock - nobody here uses anything heavier than a light steel cable. More often than not, I locked the bike to nothing more solid than itself. My crime-ridden boston ethic made me carry 2+ lb more lock than I needed. Things I will need immediately upon arrival back home: * razor - I'm way too fuzzy * deodorant - I'm way too stinky * shiraz - it's been nothing but tap water and tea since arrival I love this place and could see myself living here quite happily. The obvious obstacles are money and language, but with a norwegian salary for the former and german background for the latter I should be able to handle it. I'd also need to see what 5 hours of daylight feels like in the winter before making any major decisions. In the end, though, the rocky mountains, awe-inspiring fjords, and warm people make this land feel like Home already.

day 17 - oslo again

Oslo is much more pleasant when it's not being rained on. Rather than last time I was here, the city is vibrant and living. Originally, my opening phrase for today's entry was going to be "one day in oslo can make a hard man bored", but I'm glad now that I've had a chance to wander randomly. I started the day early with a long cycle down the fjord, passing bays and lakes all the way. The bike path out of the city is right next to the congested main highway in, so I had a hearty laugh at all the lemmings packed in their shiny metal boxes.* On the return trip, I climbed Karlsborgveien** to Ekeberg park. I was promised ancient rock carvings, but all I found was a posh restaurant and and an impressive view of the rather unimpressive town. I also passed by what's left of Mariakirche and have concluded that the Irish know how to do ruins much better. * Lemmings are Norwegian. I never knew that. They are also apparently vicious and attack without provocation or warning. Stand clear. ** In vienna, I have a Platz and a Kirche. Here I have a Borg Vein. That's much cooler. The rest of the day was devoted to wandering around the city. Most of the museums are closed on Mondays, so I only got to see the Munch museum. Ever since well-armed theives calmly walked out with "The Scream", the place has been transformed into a high-security prison of a museum. Most of the work is behind bulletproof glass, access is strictly controlled with airlock-style barrier gates, and the x-ray check is mandatory. For all that, the collection is a good one. I especially liked "Angst", a clear inspiration (and probably superior work) to Scream. Near the parlaiment building, I ran into a yearly ritual of all the schoolchildren selling last year's books to their underclassmates. By convention, on the first day of school they all arrive at the same place in the park and set up an impromptu bazzar for a few hours. It's a crazy atmosphere, especially now that the "legitimate" booksellers have co-opted the event with their own tents, music stages, rock climbing walls, and mobile phone shills. There may be class selection bias here, but based on the students milling around it looks like the next generation of norwegians is going to be much more diverse. There were still plenty of blond-hair-blue-eyes types, but also lots of saris, headscarves, turbans, and darker skin. My hostel is in the immigrants' neighborhood of Oslo, which gives me access to more cheap kebab and curry shops than I'll ever need. Some of the public art is inscribed with arabic characters, as are most of the storefronts. Enough immigration might just improve the cuisine of this place. The architecture here looks like a less-baroque version of high vienna style. This makes sense, since Norway really started to become relevant about the same time Hapsburgs were running central europe. Every european vacation I have taken since Gulf War II has involved some sort of protest. I was wondering if content, mellow norwegians would have anything to complain about and apparently they do. Their placards were all in Norwegian, so I can only guess that the all-white crowd was either in favor of or against racism. It was a little hard to tell. The police handled the situation in a typically understated way by standing at the side and waiting until the protesters ran out of slogans and went home. My shared hostel room last night was full of Germans and Japanese. Tonight, it's a bunch of Italians. The Axis powers have re-taken Oslo and there's nary a russian or brit around to help me fend them off. (I have also for some reason been placed in the women's dorm. It was a bit strange to shuffle in at midnight last night and only learn this fact upon waking up. But probably stranger for my roommates than me. 'Where'd HE come from?') I had hoped to return with Amy's weight in moose and reindeer sausage as gifts, but this delicacy so common in the western fjords is nowhere to be found in cosmopolitan Oslo. Believe me, I've checked everywhere.

day 16 - toget

Not much interesting today, mostly rail travel from Stavanger to Oslo. While waiting for my afternoon train I took a morning bike loop around the bay and visited a few museums. The bike ride put me over 1000 kilometers (1 Megameter?) but was otherwise remarkable only for being the flattest bit of cycling for the entire trip. The maritime museum was the usual collection of scale ship models. The stavanger museum was an unusual grab bag of local historical dioramas, preserved animals, and artifacts from other cultures. The sardine canning museum was cooler than it sounds. I was inspired to purchase my first-ever tin of sardines, which was sufficiently unimpressive to make me wonder how this foodstuff sustained the entire regional economy for a century. Also, I ran across a bunch of viking SCA equivalents having a four-way knife fight melee on the grounds of the hospital. (Convenient, if someone gets too excited.) Now I'm on the train speeding eastward through a much flatter Norway than I've heretofore experienced. For some reason, I was originally assigned to coach 4, the "family car" complete with playroom and diaper changing tables. Thankfully, the conductor re-seated me out of my own personal hell. To save weight, I brought no razor along. Two weeks later, it's strange when I see myself in a mirror and the dude looking back at me has a moustache. Hey, that's not me. The tattoo took about a month to get used to. The 'stache won't last that long. We just passed the Telemark canal and I can't say I'm all that impressed. I had originally planned to bike part of the way back to Oslo along its length. Instead, I spent more time in the Hardangerfjord and Lysefjord and I'm glad I did. I had wanted to take a photo of me engaging in a wicked telemark ski stance near an appropriate road sign, but that's probably not work the detour. Norway has been a real challenge to my libertarian economic model. Taxes are out of control and the government pursues all sorts of distorting labor and social policies. My gut is telling me that this place should be heading for dysfunctional implosion, and it's possible that without its north sea oil revenue that it would be. Still, even I have to admit that this sort of socialism does Work. I haven't seen any homeless or obvious signs of crushing poverty. I haven't really had to worry much for my personal safety or about my property being stolen. It's all very pleasant for a visitor. Am I changing my opinions? Heck no. What's good for the guest can be galling for the actual wage earner. But I'm not going to claim that other models don't have their good bits. Big day today - my Pilot informs me that this is the first night since arrival with an actual astronomically-defined sunset. Too bad my first patch of black norwegian sky is going to be hanging over Oslo.

day 15 - kjerag (sans bolten)

Cold pizza - the breakfast of champions.

The reason I stayed overnight in this isolated village is to hike mt kjerag. I had hoped to score a ride in the BASE jumpers' van, but strong easterly winds ensured that they were spending the morning sleeping off their hangovers. Instead, I walked the famous twisty road from town to the parking area. Not a single car passed me during the entire ascent. This was bad for plan-B (hitch a ride) but at least it meant that I had the road to myself, especially during the 1100m tunnel. Once again, by reaching the parking area under my own power I felt like I had accomplished something before even starting.

The BASE jumper manual describes the hike as "wake-up hill, warm-up hill, hell hill". Hell Hill wasn't as bad as advertised, mostly slabby alpine moseying among the boulders. The weather here is generally even worse than the White Mountains, so treeline is about 800m. With vegetation limited to lichen, the views of the other bald peaks were totally unobstructed. It felt a lot like Colorado, except that the other summits were a lot closer.

kjerag
Originally uploaded by wolftone.

I had hoped to reach the "kjeragbolten", a narrow crack in the mountain with a boulder wedged in it. Thrill-seeking hikers stand on the boulder and have their photo taken. It's also where the jumpers do their thing. Unfortunately, the ferry schedule forced an early turn-around time so I didn't reach all the way. Still, I found a very nice lookout with great views down the fjord. With the sun still rising behind my back, it really showed why this is called the "light fjord". Eidfjord was steep and sondrefjord was tall, but this is probably my favorite.

The entire hike out, I didn't see anyone else. (A nice change from the carnival atmosphere of the Preikestolen.) By the time I cleared warm-up hill on the way back, the trail was a steady stream of sweating tourists asking me if they were there yet.

From the valley, I had seen a UFO-shaped building clinging to the ridgeline and assumed that it was a stavanger oil magnate's summer home. No, this is Norway. It was just the best visitor's center in the world.

A nice German couple gave me a lift in their Mercedes back to Lysebotn, so I didn't have to run down the road for more than 1k or so. On the way, I passed a team of local cyclists who were ascending the trail and yelling encouragement to each other. On a sustained 10% grade, I'm not sure I'd have enough air to do anything but mumble profanity.

When a ferry discharges its passengers, they leave first through the front vehicle ramp. Their look of benign bewilderment as they regain land-legs consistently reminds me of the last scene of "close encounters" as the abductees are returned to Earth. The effect works best when the boat is backlit by sun. If only the ferry company would construct a long-limbed alien puppet on the vehicle deck. I am now on the mothership, drifting back towards stavanger. While I napped, clouds have appeared and it's raining. Now I don't have to feel too bad about sitting indoors and not fully appreciating the fjord. My fellow passengers include a poorly supervised boys' soccer team engaging in some sort of Lord of the Flies survival/domination game on all 4 decks. The kid in the glasses should watch out.

day 14 - slow boats and fast drops

The hostel has a map with pins showing home locations of all guests. These things usually end up showing a representative population distribution for any given country. The US map contains two anomalous clusters: One is the minneapolis/st paul region, probably heritage tourists. The other is Denver, which might correspond to general outdoorsy, mountain-lovin' people. Also,the Europe map is so studded with pins upon pins as to be a completely useless mass of multicolored plastic. (Though as far as I can tell, every single guest at the moment is german-speaking.)

Another net-downhill day of cycling, and this time I didn't need a train gain my altitude. Back to the ferry terminal via the much longer and supposedly flatter coastal route. (Though I think that the multiple smaller climbs probably sum to as much altitude as the one big climb of the inland route. It's impossible to predict these things, even with a topo map.)

I'm on a 3-day hop-on-hop-off pass which gives me the flexibility to define my own trip. This is nice since I'm not exactly doing the usual one-day putter down the fjord. That said, a good deal of today was spent puttering down the fjord. I'm glad I saw the preikestolen from below AFTER romping around on it, or I may not have gone near the thing.

I spent most of my time on the bow of the boat with an Inflated South African. Her too-large Springboks jacket blew up in the breeze like the Sta-Puft marshmallow man, making me want to find another similarly attired passenger and stage a sumo match.

The Diplom-IS ice cream drumstick carrying girl wierds me out and she is everywhere. Before I figured out that she is an eskimo, I thought she was some bizzare bird-creature.

I am now ashore at fjord's end. Lysebjotn isn't so much a town as a fire station and a campground. The campground is also the bar and community meeting place. As I ate dinner, a local hydro power plant worker told me that because of the high valley walls this town doesn't see the sun from november to february. Enjoy it while you can.

lysefjord
Originally uploaded by wolftone.

The nearby kjeragbolten is popular with BASE jumpers, so they cluster here and fly kites when it's too windy to hurl themselves off the 1000m cliff. They're a pretty chill group who act and talk pretty much like climbers or paddlers, though there's a touch of punk-outlaw sk8er culture mixed in. One jumper lent me the guide to this exit area, which extolled the advantages of the "E" (earth) portion of the sport because its actual legality allows daylight operation.

day 13 - We don't need to stinkin' guardrails

Chain clean, brakes adjusted, precious front tire at 100psi. A full night's rest, a big breakfast, and 2 ibuprophen. The bike feels like a million kroner and so do I. (Sadly, at current exchange rates that will only buy you a cup of coffee and a chocolate-free croissant.) A brief ferry ride across the channel and I'm ready for today's adventure under clear skies and shining sun.

Bike ride to priekestolenhutte: challenging but a lot of fun with a bridge over the lysefjord, a big climb through a pleasantly chilly and well-lit tunnel, a roller-coaster 75kph downhill, and another nasty climb to the hut. But today's bike was just a means to the end of a really cool hike.

preikestolen
Originally uploaded by wolftone.

Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock) is 604 meters directly above the fjord. And I mean directly. It's actually an overhang, so one bad step means a very long fall. Three precarious edges look all the way down the relatively straight and steep lysefjord ("light fjord") for awe-inspiring views of nearly luminous mountains. This is exactly what I had in mind when I said I wanted to hike a mountain above a fjord.

Despite a one-way two-hour journey over boulder slides, this is one of the most popular hikes in the country and I saw all sorts of people in all sorts of footwear on the way up. I started to be able to guess nationality from a distance solely by the shoes folks were wearing. (Myself, I wore tevas despite the prominent "no sandals" icon on the trailmap. Considering that said icon was right next to "no high heels" I figured I could do worse.) It was a very diverse crowd at the end doing a diverse range of sane or stupid things near the certain-death drop. I am shocked that there are no guardrails here, but it really would spoil the view and the local authorities claim that nobody has ever fallen.

Desperate to leave the crowd, I bushwhacked my way in search of the true summit 100m higher. Half an hour, one near-blister, and several semitechnical climbing moves later, I added my own stone to the enormous peak cairn. The views were largely the same, but the sense of personal accomplishment was much greater. (Or, at least it was until I had a Bad Eagle Scout moment and almost got lost on the reverse bushwhack down.)

Tonight's housing is at a DNT hut above the fjord with its own alpine lake. Any other country would put up a luxury hotel here, but I'm glad norway's values reserve this kind of spot for hostels and campgrounds. I am also unreasonably pleased that the hut will serve me a green salad for dinner. Let there be raw vegetables!

day 12 - Day of the Slug

stavanger
Originally uploaded by wolftone.

Mistakes were made.

I had considered taking the easy way with the express ferry from haugesund to stavanger, but decided to tough it out on the bike. Bad idea. Most of the road passes through an unremarkable medium-density sprawl of aluminum-sided houses, light manufacturing, and strip malls. Also, it is coldwindyraining and the road is infested with a plague of slugs. I really don't want to inspect too closely the grey-yellow goo coating my wheels. (If I'm lucky, finely ground slug corpses will seal up some of the damage to the rubber.) To top it all off, I am now stuck in the tiny town of Skudeneshavn for a few hours until the ferry comes to take me away. When I asked the tourist info guy what I should do with my time, he told me to check out the moon rock in the city park. Things just get worse and worse.

I think that travel fatigue is starting to set in. Chafing, aching all over, and being cold and hungry all the time is starting to lose its appeal.

At least the voices have stopped for a while.

----- later --------

OK, things are better now. Stavanger is a pleasant town with cobblestone streets, random public sculpture, and colorfully painted houses serving as art galleries. Also, it doesn't rain here much.

I treated myself to thai food and specifically asked the waitress for "thai hot" instead of "norwegian hot" (which has all the kick of campbell's tomato soup). She shuffled into the kitchen with a wicked gleam in her eye, and eventually returned with a plate of chicken basil that had to be 1/3 red chili pepper by weight. My nose is still running, and I am a happy man.

Since I'm actually in a city this evening, I can actually relax in a plaza and people-watch. The results are occasionally frightening. Trend to watch out for: the girl-mullet. Yes, the work-in-front-party-in-back hairstyle choice of trailer trash from high school has returned and it has attatched itself to the scalp of the more fashion-forward scandanavian women like some kind of retro parasite. Black out a few of their teeth and they could scab for the NHL. It never worked on the men who wore it and it certainly doesn't work on the women. Most cutting-edge euro fasions will wash up on the shores of new york in 2-3 years, so keep an eye out. You have been warned.

I have seriously overpaid for my hotel, but it was the cheapest remaining in town. At least the fare includes waffles and coffe every evening. It's exactly what I need to feel human again.

day 11 - escape from bergen

Bergen is surrounded by a fractal maze of poorly-signed roads, presumably designed to let tourists check in but never check out. Using the wind and pelting rain as a directional guide, I navigated the noneuclidian geometries of these paths and eventually escaped southward.

Today's plan was to head towards Stavanger and stop when I got tired. Little did I realize that there is nothing (NOTHING) in the way of tourist infrastructure for over 100km south of Bergen. This is a forgotten region, skiped entirely by the busses ever since the high-tech undersea tunnel was built. With few options, I eventually arrived in historic Haugesund having pedaled more in one day than the last several combined. Fortunately, the coastal route is flat by local standards and wasn't the soul-crushing experience of the norheimsund-bergen trail of tears.

coastal islands
Originally uploaded by wolftone.

With this area devoid of tourists, it is left mostly to the farmers and summer cottages. It lacks the awe-inspiring majesty of the fjords, but has its own raw beauty. I think of it as the hippie love child of the burren and Acadia national park Just like western ireland, there is fractured rock everywhere, plus a healthy scattering of sheep and the same inconveniently-placed electrical lines. It also has Maine's working-harbor coastal vibe with mountains in the background and a near-perfect replica of the Pemaquid Point lighthouse. Stir in a healthy assortment of purple wildflowers and you have this understated but picturesque area. I like it.

Nicely, once I crossed the fjord from Bergen's Nexus of Pain, the weather promptly improved. It seems that Bergen's legendary precipitation is highly localized. (Also, on bergen's rain: the kitsch shops sell an animated moose which wears a rain slicker and sings "singin' in the rain" in English. Who would bring such a thing back with them?)

The sheep call I honed to perfection in New Zealand doesn't have much of an effect here. Maybe the locals don't get my kiwi accent?

On one leg of my trip, I rode with a local named Lars. He didn't speak much English, but that didn't stop him from asking questions about my bike and my trip. He motivated me and kept me moving for a good 25km, even if I didn't understand most of what he was saying.

I was hoping to be able to close my travelogue with hearty praise of norwegian road maintenance by saying that I didn't get a flat tire during my whole trip. No such luck - the precious front wheel hit a small, sharp rock just before a long bridge crossing and stranded me for a while as I made the repair. I was hoping that front tire wasn't going to die on me. Every town I stop in, I ask the local cycle shop for a 20x1.75 street slick and they come back with a 45 psi BMX tire and an apologetic look on their face. Since my front tire apparently doesn't exist in this country, I'm really hoping it can hold itself together for a few more days.

My favorite geological features around here are Inland Mini-Fjords. These are little lakes with steep sides and rock islands covered with bushes and wildflowers. It's like a pocket-sized version of the sognefjord.

There has been effectively zero nightlife on this trip. For one thing, "night" doesn't really begin until after my bedtime anyway. Restaurants are expensive and there is really no distinctly norwegian food I should be eating. Alcohol is insanely expensive, so bars are right out. Not that I'm much of a clubber, but even if I wanted to go to a dance club my technical outerwear would not permit me past the dress code.

As such, my evenings consist mostly of eating a grocery-store dinner and typing in the journal as I watch the sun set. I carefully ration my music-listening since I only brought 100 songs and don't want to get tired of them. I've also been reading "Accelerando" and "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town" on the Pilot. E-books are nice for travel since they don't add weight and can be read in the dark, but it does leave me with nothing to trade at the take-a-book-leave-a-book shelf.

day 10 - bergen

Bergen gets 274 days with precipitation of one sort or another per year, so it shouldn't really surprise me that I was rained on all day. Still, if I'm going to be rained on I'd rather have it happen in the presence of museums and kitsch shops rather than 100km of open road. If Oslo is boring and drab, Bergen is lively and full of culture and history. Even active vacations need to take time out for some moseying. After yesterday's death-pedal, I've earned a rest day.

Bergen is norway's second-largest city and has been at various times its spiritual, political, and economic center. I spent most of the day walking around the city, unsuccessfully searching out a chocolate croissant and checking out the UNESCO world heritage sites. The latter involved an english-language guided tour so I was introduced to all those American tourists I haven't seen further inland. Most seem to be folks with scandanavian roots and "oh-yah" accents from somewhere between Fargo and Lake Wobegon. Some have even tried Lutkefisk, which is a level of adventure even I won't stomach.

The old and highly flammable Bryggen section of town was ruled by the german-based Hanseatic League for about 400 years. This was about 1000 bachelor merchants clustered tightly and "forbidden" to mix with the locals. (That said, the fine for unauthorized use of the courtard as a toilet was larger than that for fathering an illegitimate child by a norse mistress.) Touring the old chapter houses, all I could think was that the organization was a frat house writ large. There were initiation rituals, a hierarchy of belonging, tightly-enforced internal rules, and copious amounts of beer. It's telling that the three highest positions inthe organization were the supreme leader plus the wood-master (to keep everyone warm) and the beer-master (to keep them drunk).

I also stopped by the energetic Torget fish market to purchase ingredients for tonight's dinner. Some of the fish on sale were really, really ugly with huge toothy underbites and flat, squashed faces.

ugly fish
Originally uploaded by wolftone.

Dinner, yes dinner. I always believe that you should try food when away that you can't get at home. Here, that's minke whale. The guy at the fish market sliced me a generous hunk of the dark grey-red meat and told me that it goes best with potatoes. (This does not help. In Norway, people think that a chocolate milkshake goes well with potatoes.) Since this isn't exactly something you'll find in Joy of Cooking, I decided to serve it with garlic and mushrooms on a bed of pasta. As I was about to eat an animal which may very well be smarter than me, I paused for a moment. This is the time when some travel writers will rationalize, others will agonize, and others will memorialize the Great Dreamer they are about to consume. Me? I added some salt and wished I had a green salad and a glass of chianti. (I think. They also don't tell you what kind of wine goes well with whale in tastings.)

I'm happy to report that those concerned with commercial whaling have little to worry about. I don't think this meat will really catch on, even if restrictions are lifted. Minke tastes like steak that has been left too long in a cod locker. I always thought that "fishy" tastes came from being a fish, not a general creature of the sea. Apparently, not. Some complain about things being neither fish nor fowl, but they should consider the even greater wierdness of something being both fish and carne. It took 3/4 of a hazelnut chocolate bar to get the taste out of my mouth.

I had planned to take the cable car up to the top of mt Ulriken after dinner. With the thick cloud cover, I imagine I'd get the same view from there as the back patio of the hostel.

Big day tomorrow. I should sleep.

day 9 - viking practice

Well, that was a mistake. The tourist brochure describes a scenic "old road from Nordheimsund to O/ystersee". I naively thought that this meant that there would be, like, a "road". The brochure should have said the "old rocky, steep, thornbush-infested goatpath". My favorite features of this path were ample cowflops, barbed-wire fences with anti-sheep-escape ladders, and absolutely no scenery whatsoever. Ugh.

And why am I in O/ystersee, a significant detour from my bergen-bound route? Viking cruise. Sundays only, a local viking enthusiast takes folks out in his 1/2 scale replica viking amphibious assault craft. I may not be able to kayak the fjords, but rowing a mighty viking ship seems more appropriate anyway. The captain let me steer for a while - the boat is surprisingly nimble even when powered by a bunch of German tourists.

viking karl
Originally uploaded by wolftone.

In my day-glo biking outfit, I don't look much like a viking. But I bet I smell like one. Laundry must be done, and soon.

Here on the west side of the fjord, they grow cows instead of cherries and apples. The east side smelled much better.

The rest of the day was biking and lots more biking. We have 19 hours of daylight now and I needed every second to get to Bergen on time. This was a long, hard pull over multiple huge mountain ranges. I passed a few ski lifts by the road and even broke treeline at one point. Things were so desperate that I was hallucinating a Biker's Paradise Hotel where nimble-fingered technicians handle brake pads with care and a team of fair-haired scandanavian masseuses pound out leg knots. I was about to give up, but about 45 km out of Bergen the road flattened out and the headwind died. (Also, there was noplace to stay even if I wanted to.) Shackles broken, I raced the last half feeling much better. Some of the road paralleled a low-lying fjord which I suppose was pretty, but I was too dead to appreciate. I arrived in Bergen in just enough time to see the sun set on the westerfjord, and my hostel had dormitory space available. (In a cruel twist of fate, I chose to stay at a place situated on the highest point of a very hilly city.)

Total distance today: 150km. When you're climbing norwegian mountains with full panniers, each km feels twice as long as it is. I'm much more wasted now than after a flatter imperial-units century.

Some heavily accented New Yorker is hassling the reception staff about pizza and there is an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie screening in the lounge. Yup, I'm in a youth hostel. I'm now laundering my weapons-grade polypropeline and plan to sleep very well tonight. Tomorrow, there will be no significant biking.

folgefonn glacier

The only cycling today was a quick morning constitutional down to the next town on the fjord, then back to Jondal for the real purpose of today: glacier hike!

glacier walk
Originally uploaded by wolftone.

We are 19km and 1400 vertical meters from Folgefossen glacier, site of the aforementioned summer ski center and a whole lot of eerie blue ice. It is also the home of a guide service which helpfully rents boots and crampons to poor cyclists who didn't bring full alpine gear on their summer vacation. We spent most of the day roped together, traversing the cracked martian landscape. From high above, the ice looks like pale blue styrofoam insulation boards which have been hosed down with acetone. From close up, it looks like you're on Hoth. [Are you on Hoth? Wasn't Empire filmed here?] I was pleasantly surprised that the guide led us near and over some frighteningly deep crevasses and up some steep slopes requiring moderate ice axe technique. The liability waiver for this kind of thing would be telephone-book thick back home, but the sign-off here was most concerned with informing us that we would have to replace any equipment dropped into a crevasse. Fair enough. The close-up ice was everything I had hoped it would be, alien yet familiar. Unfortunately, the distant views were completely clouded in. Had things been better, we could have seen the ferries crossing the hardangerfjord. Nonetheless, it was a great experience and the last thing I expected to be doing in August. (It was a bit poorly timed, though: the ice caves should start opening up in a week or two. Drat!)

One woman on the hike was clearly being dragged along by her husband and was NOT having a good time at all. I suspect that she was about to cry when we crested one ridge and she saw how much further we had to hike to get home. Still, it was cool to see her gradually become more comfortable with and trusting of her ice axe as the hike went on. I'm surprised, though, that the guide didn't correct the fashionably jaunty and totally useless angle of her mountaineering helmet.

Two pleasant norwegian guys gave me a lift back to town, introducing me to more Real Norwegians. (I was also introduced to an extremely Drunk Norwegian this morning while waiting for my ride up-mountain.) I suspect that this relatively inaccessable area is off the usual tourist routes. I haven't spoken with a German or a Dutchman since I got off the ferry at Utne. (Not that there's anything wrong with Germans or Dutch.)

Lonely Planet has just reminded me that A-Ha (of 80's hit "take on me" fame) is Norwegian. Now I feel bad that I didn't include them in my travel mix, which does have some Bjork and ABBA for general Scandanavian interest. Apologies to A-Ha and their magnificently feathered hair.

This will be the first time I have stayed in one place for more than one night. It's mostly due to scheduling reasons, but the prospect of another warm dinner did have its appeal.