And off we go!

So the adventure begins. 9 new countries in just over 3 weeks. It'll be a fast paced ride with tons of new impressions - just the way I like it! (I'm the type of guy that can't do revolving doors as they move to slow for my liking..)

Arriving in Ljubljana was nothing out of the ordinary. It's your typical eastern European capital with the river running through it, lots of nice architecture, pedestrian streets - and of course "ye olde castle" on a hill, overlooking the city.

My first day was terrific! The weather was pristine and I did my own little city-walk, including a trip up to the castle to get some nice landscape shots of the downtown area and its surroundings. After a few hours I realized I hadn't done too much planning in advance before this trip so I really had no idea about what to do or what to see when at first I got to Slovenia. I did however manage to find several nice spots along the riverbank so I sat down and decided to consult TripAdvisor on one of the numerous free WiFi zones.

To my horror the number one thing to do in Ljubljana according to the almighty Internet was the Free Walking Tour (or Tour-for-tips as is a more fitting description). According to common knowledge there wasn't really anything special to see or do at all in this city. The old-town area is pretty for sure, but historical? Not so much. Spectacular? Naah.. Well, following the sheep of the net I decided I had better do the walking tour then..

..and then the rain came. After a short while I realized my second mistake on this trip was not bringing proper footwear. Beside my flip-flops all I had were a pair of canvas shoes that sucked up any moist closer than a few meters away. At least that's how it felt as I was soaked in a minute. Completing the walk with wet feet I realized why it's rated this high. The girl that showed us around did quite a sell at the end of the trip, urging anyone to go directly back to their hotel or hostel, log on the Internet and provide an outstanding review on.. you guessed it - TripAdvisor. Oh well, I did it too but it didn't get more than an average from me, which is what it was.

I decided later to consult my receptionist on what to do in the city. Being a local I was hoping she'd have more real information than what I was able to dig up on the Internet. "What should I do when I'm here?" And the response was: "Well.. we have these really good hamburgers made out of horse meat.." And that was it. Hehe - I tried getting some more information out of her but to no avail. Well then, horseburger it was! Having my shoes barely dry again I decided to take a taxi to the "Hot Horse" as I was afraid just the sight of water would soak them again. I got some complaints from the receptionist around being lazy, but shrugged it off. Better lazy with dry feet, than sporty and with a cold I thought.

The Hot Horse was indeed a  cool thing. You order from a machine with a touch-screen interface and get to watch while your order is put together behind the counter and served. The burgers were HUGE and tasted really good, though I cannot say I felt the meat taste very different from your usual beef. I would recommend them though - they were excellent. Fun fact: If you type in "Horseburger" on google, your first autocomplete-suggestion is "Ljubljana". Obviously the receptionist were right when she told me this is what people do over there. (http://www.hot-horse.si)

Exiting the restaurant and a quick couple of hundred meters to the taxi stand my feet were wet again so I decided to do the walk downtown and enter the first shoe-shop I could find. Inside I bought both a fresh, dry pair of socks and some leather and gore-tex hiking shoes and things were looking better straight away. Ljubljana however had at this point done all it could for me, so I decided to get back to the hostel, grab my gear and go to the train station. My oh-so-awesome Interrailticket was about to get it's first stamp.

Reidar reiser snart!

The first time I heard the word "Interrail" was as a young boy watching childrens televison where this character - Reidar - was going away on vacation with his friend. He had a song made up around this trip where the word Interrail was frequently used. Not completely grasping what it was I remember it seemed exciting.

Some 30 years have passed since then and finally it's my turn to go on this mystical adventure. Of course I've known what Interrail is since long ago - I've just never gotten around to embark on a trip. The world's a huge place, and it's often those areas closest to home that ends up being least explored. At least that's been the case with me. :-)

Well - here we go - the grand trip for 2014 is about to begin! Heading out from Oslo I'll be bound for Helsinki, Finland where I'll spend the first night. The connecting flight is not until the next day, but even spending one night in a hotel over there saves me a lot of money compared to a more direct flight down south. And, I might get to catch the Germany - Brazil soccer match, or the new Transformers movie. Always something to do!

My trip (the blue line on the map above) will really start once I get to Ljubljana in Slovenia (1). From there I'll take the train to Zagreb, Croatia (2) before moving on to Sarajevo, Bosnia (3). After this I'll head down to the coast of the Adriatic sea for a while and take a bus from Ploce (4), through Dubrovnik (5) (where they shot much of the scenes in Game of Thrones), until I reach the city of Bar (6) in Montenegro. Then it's up inland again to Beograd, Serbia (7), through Pristina, Kosovo (8) and Skopje, Macedonia (9). The final route goes from Tessaloniki in Greece (10), through Sofia, Bulgaria (11) before arriving at the final destination of Bucuresti, Romania (12).

24 days, 11 countries, tons of fun! :-D

One third is done

Returning from Easter holidays in Russia I went and updated "my world". There are many sites that offer ways to do this, but after looking around a bit I've found the one on traveltip.org to be very simple and convenient to use. It's also possible to create a profile that'll save your map so it's easy to log in and update whenever you've been out travelling to a new country.

I realize that I've now been to 1/3 of the world, and looking at the image above it's not hard to see which continent is least discovered on my part. Naturally this has to do with the inaccessibility and instability in most countries in Africa, but I realize that eventually I've got to cross that barrier too if I want to complete "my mission".

Later this year the plan is to finish the little gray area in southeast Europe and for 2015 I've planned on returning to Southeast Asia to clear out India and adjacent countries in western Himalaya. This part of the world has so far been my favorite so I'm very eager about this. Still a long way to go before I'm there, but it's not to early to be dreaming. :-)

To Nikita, Eugene, Anton and the rest of the great crew at Cosmo - thanks for your hospitality, and a good time in Moscow. It was great meeting you all! And to Alyona - thank you so much both for being a great guide, good friend - and providing me with a book to read on the road back to Norway.

Final stop - Antarctica. The 7th continent!

"Victory awaits him who has everything in order. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time."  - Roald Amundsen

 Aside from us both being Norwegians there are few similarities between myself and Roal Amundsen. Amundsen was the first person ever to reach the south pole, in December 1911. Now, 102 years later in December 2013 I've landed on the continent. Still by boat the way Amundsen did it, but with far more help and a far more convenience. On this trip this is the second time I encounter trails of Norwegian history in remote locations - the first being Thor Heyerdahl's footprint on Easter Island. Reading up on more remote history it seems that the need for exploration and adventure is something that have always run in my countrymens blood way back to the Viking age, and it doesn't seem to die easily. Yes, I've visited al the seven continents of the world at this time, but there are still much, much more to see.

Pulling up the ancor in Ushuaia we embarked on our trip, sailing out the Beagle Strait in absolutely pristine weather. Crossing the Drake Passage took us a day and a half - a feat that might have taken two months back in the day of the tall ships. Our guides told us they had a rating system of how "bad" a crossing is from 1 to 10 and apparently ours didn't even count as a 1. Smooth sailing! That being said there were a few people observed with green faces and paper bags in their hands so I don't think every land crab on board agreed with the apparently level 0 waves..

Looking through the window of our cabin I saw this. The water outside had suddenly turned into all ice, and the landmass of the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula started to appear. After nearly two days at the open sea, seeing this mythical continent appearing was quite exciting. What would we see? Penguins? Seals? Whales? Birds? Remains of old whaling stations? The answer, luckily, was all of the above.

Again in stunning weather we got in our Zodiacs (the minibuses of Antarctica) and were shipped to the shore to swap the rocking hull of a floating ship with some solid ground. A few days later on the trip our expedition leader, John, told us that only two or three times had he ever experienced 3 days in a row with sun and nice weather in Antarctica. Most of the time they were lucky if they had 2. We - had 4!

Our first meeting with Antarctica was this landing at Aitcho Island on the South Shetland Islands. An abundance of penguins (and penguin poo) was the first thing that met us, as well as some lazy weddell seals. On this very first encounter we saw both Chinstrap and Gentoo penguins and I think I must've shot my camera close to a thousand times this day alone. The picture above is taken from a small peak on Aitcho Island, and you can see the ship (M/S Explorer) in the top left corner, as well as some Gentoo penguins nesting. Crawling up that hill was not easy - it was quite steep - as you can see from the people on their way up. How the little penguins made it all the way up there having no arms nor the ability to fly is quite impressing and still a puzzle to me. It took a human quite a while - it must've taken them a LOT longer. Bonus was that we could slide back down on our bum. ;-)

Some of us opted for the (according to expedition staff; insane) option of spending a night actually ON the continent sleeping in tents. Personally I can't see what all the fuzz was about; The temperature dropped to around -8C and we were given good sleeping bags so I was anything but cold. Then again, we had people from sunny Florida as well on the trip and for them I reckon it was quite different from what they are used to. After all we do have snow every year up here in Norway. :-)

Waking up the next day the weather - again - was absolutely fantastic and screamed for more photos to be taken. Climbing a small peak this view was our reward. The glacier to the right were constantly moving throughout the night making cracking noises. The only thing outperforming that in terms of annoyance for a sleepyhead were the constant yelling from the penguins. Don't these guys ever sleep??

If you go to google maps and search for "Neko Harbor" on the Danco Coast of the Antarctic peninsula you'll find the spot where we spent the night. In the picture above, all the way in the horizon, you can see the Mt. Francais - the highest peak on the peninsula at 2.760 metres above sea level. It was first seen by Belgian explorers in 1898, but got its name from a French captain, Charcot, who named it after his expedition's ship when they were there in 1903-05.

After getting all our gear together we were picked up by Zodiacs and driven back to the boat. Arriving in the MUD room we were greeted by filipina Jojo that served us hot chocolate as we were climbing aboard. Great service, and a real treat for frozen bodies

And the service didn't stop with the chocolate.. later this day the staff put together a full blown outdoor barbecue on the aft deck with an all-you-can-eat buffet with burgers, hot dogs, chicken, beef, all kinds of salads and a huge table filled with different types of dessert and everything eaten under a clear blue sky amongst snow, ice, mountains, more ice and.. even more ice. Something I will remember forever! :-)

 And our filipino staff didn't even leave it at that. In the evening at the Polar Bear Bar we got a private concert from the band "Monkey-eating Eagle" to lift the mood to an even higher level. The band name might sound strange to you, but it has a deeper meaning. The Philippine Eagle, also known as - yes - the Monkey-eating Eagle is a critically endangered species of eagle living in the Philippines. There are programmes in place to try help preserve the species, and our filipino friends with their bands were one group of people trying to raise money for this. Great job saving our planet guys.

A day later we sailed down to Paradise Harbor, still on the Danco Coast, for our second continental landing. This was at the Argentinian "Brown" base where a small pier conveniently were in place and totally overrun by penguins. As there are normally less snow around these bases they are frequented by penguins and seeing them all over the place made me think of the old computer game "Zero Wing" from 1989 and the infamous quote: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US. This time - to the penguins.

With this landing we also had a Zodiac cruise around the ice coming off the nearby glacier, and this is where we found the arch pictured above. Now there are strict rules amongst the expeditions that they are under no circumstances ever allowed to drive their boats UNDER an arch as there will always be the possibility of it breaking down and falling ice hurting guests or crew members. But seeing as this tiny-tiny little arch seemed to be a perfect fit for our zodiacs.. could we resist?

 The answer was of course:  no. ^^

After our misbehaving in Paradise Harbour, we left the continent and started to head back home. On our way back we stopped at the well known (at least for many) Deception Island which is actually an active volcano which can be seen from the picture below in form of steam coming off the water being heated by the underlying volcano. This opted for a swim and a lot of us went for the "Polar Plunge". I assure you there was nothing by this that gave any resemblance to a typical hot spring. Being hotter than the environment the water in this lagoon was still at a chilling +4C.

Deception Island has always been one of the safest harbours in Antarctica. That is if you rule out the fact that it is actually the caldera of an active volcano of course.. But since early 19th century the island was a favourite refuge from storms and icebergs due to "heated" waters and shelter. First used by sealers, the island eventually came inhabited by my countrymen when a Norwegian-Chilean whaling company in 1906 started using Whalers Bay on Deception Island as a base for a large factory ship (A ship where a caught whale would be processed to remove it's blubber used in making whale oil).

In 1912 the Norwegian company "Hvalfangerselskabet Hektor A/S" built the on-shore station that can still be seen on the pictures above, first with the huge, rusty iron boilers that were used to boil down whale carcasses to extract additional oil, and second with the smaller wooden boats lying around shore. There were lots of other remnants too, like old tractors, whale bones, pots and pans.

During the great depression the price of whale oil dropped and the station ended up being uneconomic and eventually abandoned in 1931. Factory ships, like described above, became ultimately so advanced that the need for carcass processing on-shore became unnecessary. Thus the station was never reoccupied - but it's still there! Well, at least it's ruins.

Thirty-five men were apparently buried in the stations cemetery. The cemetery itself was buried by a volcanic eruption in 1969, but two crosses survived this. One of them was unreadable but the one pictured above reads: "Tømmerm. Hans A. Gulliksen. 7/4 - 71, 4/1 - 28".

In English this translates into: Mr. Hans A. Gulliksen, Carpenter, born April 7th 1871 - dead January 4th 1928. Some Norwegian history for you there!

Our final landing was on the South Shetland Islands and the "Polish Arctowski Research Station". As with many other places down here we found the huge sign posts pointing everywhere in the world, with indications to how far away it is. One special thing about this sign is that almost every pointer is to somewhere in Poland, though they did have sites like Tokyo, New York and London on the back.

The Polish scientists were kind enough to welcome us inside for a cup of coffee and some biscuits, and let us have a look at how they were living down here. They even had a small "souvenir shop" were you could buy t-shirts, keychains and postcards, and perhaps the most important of all - get your passport stamped!

As with most of our landings here were also whale bones, harpoons and other remains of the whaling industry. It's safe to say that life on Antarctica tend to get boring even for scientists so they had actually over time puzzled together what was closing in to be a complete whale skeleton. Pictured above is me sitting inside what would be it's jaw. The thing is huge! Thinking about the story with Jonah and the whale that's written in the Bible it's easy to see how a whale could swallow a man whole. I look quite tiny where I sit - I reckon 20+ people easily could be placed between those jawbones.

Like all good things, this trip also had to come to an end. Going back across the Drake Passage raised our previous level of 0 to 1, being a bit more rocky. Chris was hoping for at least a 5 as he wanted pictures of the waves breaking over the front deck. I'm not sure he knew what he was wishing for as I remember a VERY seasick Chris on a much smaller boat crossing from Denmark to Sweden a few years back. He must've forgotten that I guess. ;-)

We said our goodbyes to the penguins and to our new found filipino friends, and disembarked the ship on December 8th. It was truly an amazing trip to a place that's like no other and I would certainly recommend it to anyone that has the ability to make this investment in time and money. Will I go back? I'm not so sure. I might want to see South Georgia at some point, and I'm playing with a thought of perhaps trying to reach the south pole.. but there are other trips to be made before that will ever be a reality.

Coming home this is what met us at Gardermoen Airport. Sloppy snow, wind and drizzle in the air. Hoo-ray for the Norwegian winter! 2014 will not be a year for any huge expedition for my part as there are many things happening that makes me having to distribute my vacation throughout the year. That being said I might take a trip to Australia for a couple of weeks during Easter to visit my brother..

The next blogpost however will most likely be in July when I embark on my two-week journey by train through the Balkan states in eastern Europe!

Antarctica - wildlife and landscape

Christmas and New Years kept me from following up on the blog with the final part of our trip. Restless as I am I decided I couldn't even stay back home for New Years so me and two friends went to Luxembourg to welcome the new year. It was epic, but as with all my shorter trips - nothing that goes into the blog. There's a limit to how interesting my life is to others. :-)

I've had some time now coming into 2014 to go through most of my pictures and select a few to put online. This post is just to give a sample of the different wildlife we encountered down on the continent, as well as showing you a few shots of the quite spectacular landscape that is down there. Whenever I have more time I will make a final post telling more about the trip itself. Enjoy!

This is a map showing the route in more detail. The different points of interests are marked here, and I've tried describing under each picture below where it was taken. In total we sailed 1.700 nautical miles on the ten days we were away.

Light-mantled Sooty Albatross following the boat while crossing the Drake passage.

Antarctic (Blue-Eyed) Shag resting on an iceberg in Paradise Harbour near Base Brown (Argentina)

Floating ice and coming of night over Mt. Francais, looking out Neko Harbour.

The sun in our back crossing the Bransfield Strait from South Shetland Islands to Trinity Peninsula.

Sunsets in the Antarctic can indeed be quite spectacular. :-)

Floating ice and majestic mountains sailing through the Gerlache Strait off the Antarctic Peninsula.

Adelie penguin just out off the water near Arctowski research station (Poland).

Chinstrap penguin. Aitcho Islands. This was our first landing, and our first penguin encounter.

Gentoo penguin in Neko harbour. He's a bit upset I'm standing in his way.

Crabeater seal - Turret Point.

Elephant seal (these grow up to 6,5m long and can weigh 18-20tons!)

Antarctic furseal. This was the one species that was hunted to near extinction. Still rare in Antarctica.

Leopard seal. The only carnivore mammal living here besides the Orca (killer whale).

A small Weddell seal working on it's tan at Deception Island.

Did I mention the sunset is fantastic? Here's leaving the peninsula, heading for the Drake.

Southern Giant Petrel. The penguin egg's and baby's worst enemy..

Humpback Whale off Arctowski research Station.

Orca hunting the Gerlache Strait

Fin del mundo - the end of the world!

In order to get to Antarctica, one first has to travel to the end of the world. Most vessels bound for Antarctica depart from Ushuaia south of Argentina, and this was also our destination for the final part of this epic trip.

Even though the climate is harsh and cold, the indigenous people mostly ran around naked - apparently undisturbed by the low temperatures as opposed to their western counterparts freezing under heavy blankets. Over time the locals have developed a higher metabolism than people in warmer territories - causing their internal body temperature to be higher than normal. Apart from this they also had special techniques to combat the cold, including sleeping in a squatted position and in this way reducing how they were exposed to the cold. Another trick was to cuddle up to eachother around small campfires, which is the reason this southernmost province of Argentina got it's name - Tierra del fuego (land of fire). The picture below shows a typical camp from the early inhabitants of the area:

Tierra del Fuego, was one of the last parts of South America to be inhabited by westerners and got its name from the many campfires seen by early western explorers when they first came to the area. The British were the first to settle here, and even after Argentina got its independence, the area was still not under Argentinian sovereignity.

Ushuaia was founded in 1884 and centered around a prison built by the Argentine government to increase the Argentine population here and this way ensure their sovereignity over the province. Following the French example from Devil's Island (French Guyana), and the British in Tasmania (Australia) they created this prison intended for repeat offenders and serious criminals. And just as in Australia the prison population became some kind of "forced colonists", spending much of their time building the city and its infrastructure. They even built a railway from the prison to the settlement which is now a tourist attraction - Tren del Fin del Mundo (End of the world train). The old prison itself is now also a tourist attraction; turned into a museum after being closed in 1947 following many reports of abuse and unsafe practices.

Arriving in Ushuaia came as bit of a shock to all of us. The sub-zero temperatures and falling snow hit me quite hard wearing shorts and t-shirt disembarking the plane after 3 weeks in hot climates. "Excuse me, are you not freezing?" came from a group of americans stating the obvious, and we were quick to book a cab and get to our hostel to change clothes.

The weather prevented us from exploring too much outside on the first day in Ushuaia. Earlier on the trip we stayed a few days at the world's highest located city and got to check in at many "world's highest" venues. This time we did the same thing over again just that now it was "world's southernmost". We spent the day exploring the city and its many shops and cafes and planning ahead for the following day.

Rising early me and Lars were not able to wake up Chris even after repeated attempts. As our ride was leaving we decided to give it up, and off we went in the snow and cold. Our goal for the day was the #1 attraction in Ushuaia - the Tierra del fuego national park, and the train at the end of the world!

Arriving at the station we decided to go for the Premium tickets that included "comfort" seating, seafood sandwiches and a glass of champagne. We also got a little gift included in this offer that proved to be a 2013(!!!) calendar with pictures of the railway. Why they hadn't changed this into a 2014 calendar remains a mystery to me as the date we received this gift was november 27 - just a month away from turning into the new year.

The train was extremely small - the tracks just 50cm between them. Our premium carriage seated two persons beside each other while one had to cuddle up 3 and 3 in the coach class. Boarding the train the weather cleared up in a blink giving us blue sky and sunshine as we rolled into the national park. Our local guide showed us around and told us about birds and flowers and we got tons of good pictures. At least me and Lars as Chris was still in bed..

After a tour around the park, a run at the southernmost railway in the world and some good photo opportunities we returned to Ushuaia. Chris, who by then had been woken up, was found sleeping on a couch as he had to check out of his room and couldn't continue sleeping in his bed. There are ofcourse some hilarious pictures following this story but it's not something for sharing on the web. ;-)

Grabbing our gear and strolling down to the port we got ready and eager to start the part of our trip which was the main reason for going to south America in the first place - the voyage across the Drake passage to Antarctica, the final continent. Our boat is the M/S Expedition with the red hull at the end of the pier:

Boarding the ship, this is a picture looking back at Ushuaia from the top deck one last time before leaving civilization behind: