Life's a Stitch

Two nights in Vinstra included a visit to Ringebou’s stave church and series of art galleries in former farm buildings.

Our trip to Lillehammer, home to the 1994 Winter Olympics, was thwarted due to closed roads from recent catastrophic flooding. 

The return trip to Alesund, on the Geiranger scenic highway, completed our circle tour. The first stop was in Grotli, home to another stave church.

 

Here we learned that every waterfall in Norway was named for Svein’s family 😉as his surname translates to waterfall. For the equivalent of $24 Cdn you could zip line over the small falls in a matter of seconds. I’ll pass. 

The other expensive item was a bit shocking. We’re used to carrying coins to use public restrooms. It generally assures they’ll be clean and stocked with appropriate paper products. In Grotli the washrooms cost the equivalent of $3 Cdn ($2.20 US). You’d think this might encourage unsanitary behaviour (in at least half the population).

 

We stopped by the campground of my dreams. Set next to the river, they built a pool in the rocks.

 

 

The clouds cleared in time for the drive up to the Geiranger Fjord viewpoint at the top of the mountain. Spectacular!

 

Driving down felt like being in the cockpit of a plane.

Geiranger, most photographed fjord in Norway.

We took the ferry back from whence we came, the town of the famous strawberry cake, and were a short 45 minutes from home.

Our second experience on one of Norway’s spectacular scenic routes, this time on the Geiranger-Trollstigen (the troll’s path) Highway. 

 

Stop #1 was outside of the village of Valldall for world famous strawberry cake.

Then on to Gudbrandsiuvet gorge. 

Across the road is the spectacular Juvet Landscape Hotel, with simple but luxurious cabins built to blend with the land. Many have this spectacular view.

The scenic highway took us to the Trollstigen viewpoint, which was the highlight in terms of breathtaking views.

 

 

Yes we drove down those hairpin turns without guardrails, only stones to keep us on the road.

 

We arrived at our friends’ hillside cabin in Vinstra. This is the view followed by  the painting I gave them as a gift, based on a photo of the house taken last winter.

 

We are the guests of friends, Svein and Ragnhild, who live in Alesund (if visiting make sure you get the pronunciation correct, it is not A as in Allison, but O as in Owen). Svein’s knowledge as a teacher, history buff and former tour guide made for fascinating tours. Iffy weather was in the forecast so this day we travelled close to home. 

 

We visited the Alnes Fyr lighthouse visitor centre, and took in an exhibit of well known Norwegian artists. 

Sitting in the area that translates to “the rolling stones.”

 

Charming 18th century home owned by our hosts’ friend. 

Norway is known for its tunnels built to connect communities previously only accessible by ferry or boat or to provide easy passage through difficult terrain. There are more than 1000 in the country. Compare that to Canada, the second largest country in the world, with only 475. On the way to our next stop the 2+kilometre tunnel was unique, as it was only one lane, but turn outs were provided in case of oncoming traffic. 

12th century church in Giske, on the Norwegian pilgrim route.

We found Norway to have a great combination of interesting history, beautiful scenery and delicious food. After big breakfasts, we sometimes opted for “lighter” lunches in the form of (waffles). These are sweet, thin and much lighter than what we know at home, and are served with a variety of jams and whipped or sour cream. 

Another Norwegian delicacy is brown cheese made from goat or cow whey, boiled until the natural sugars carmelize. It tastes cheese with a hint of dulce de leche.

And tonight’s dinner was our favourite. Svein made Norwegian cod with delicious bacon butter sauce, yes you read that correctly, butter with bacon fat and chunks of bacon. Heavenly.

Come back, the best is yet to come, although it is hard to beat bacon butter sauce.

We’ve been lucky to have a reliable supply of house sitters enabling our ability to travel. Recently we flew to Alesund (pronounced Olasund), Norway to visit friends:

Since 2019 we planned on visiting each other, but a pandemic got in the way and plans were cancelled. Last year they came to Canada and this year was our turn to visit their idyllic country. Despite having our flights cancelled twice by KLM, resulting in a rescheduled trip that was two days longer than planned, the three flights were on time and we ended up with seats together in a row of two.

 

We were especially appreciative that the weather cooperated so we could enjoy the sites including two of the Norwegian Scenic Routes. You would need many trips to see all 18. These highways include elaborate visitor’s centres, walkways and adequate parking, all free of charge. It also seems there are geocaches at each spot, making it especially appealing to me. Not so much for the anticacher. 

 

The Atlantic Route:

On the way we experienced the Norwegian ferry system, much different from our BC Ferries. As they are considered part of the highways (as ours are supposed to be) the ferry to Molde ran every 20 minutes and were fast (a 35 minute voyage) and quiet, as they are electric.

We visited the fishing village of Bud:

Approaching the visitor’s centre, we crossed the bridge that looks like it ends midspan.

Looking out toward the rocky North Atlantic:

To be continued…

 

But the good thing is that it’s been camping time. Our last trip was river themed, a circle trip through BC on the Similkameem:

down into WA with two locations on the Columbia River. Beebe Bridge Park:

Wapanum State Park:

then to OR on the Deschutes, where we went white water rafting and I had painting time on the shore:

 

The painting:

Our final destination, Cle Elum, WA on the Yakima River:

Please excuse the delay in posts, when camping, we often have no cell reception and limited wifi.

Time to catch our breath. We’ve been home for seven weeks after making up for lost time travel-wise. Before we retired, eight years ago (!) I made a list of goals, and during this period at home we accomplished two: Spanish and Mahjong classes. 

 

If I had had this teacher in college, I might be speaking more Spanish than restaurant menus. I’d say we did well until the irregular verbs, which will require memorization, quite the ambitious goal at this age.

 

The Mahjong class in our town always has a waitlist and I was thrilled to get the last space. I played Hong Kong/Chinese rules years ago and was pleased that this was the same.  Now that I’ve graduated I can join the weekly game sessions.

 

C’s birthday at home gave me the opportunity to perfect, after many tries over recent years, a low sugar pavlova. 

 

Artwise, it’s been a successful time, having finished two commissions and selling one of my larger paintings at the show I mentioned in my last post. And C, not to be outdone, shipped off a commissioned river table. I almost slipped and wrote undone, as he was close during the frustrating moments working with the wood’s natural and milling induced inclusions, the nature of the beast. 

We even found time for crabbing on our town’s dock. I’m sure we got one of the only males (can’t keep the females) of legal length left in that bay.

And the evening we caught none, we enjoyed the sunset:

Presently tense might be more grammatically correct. T minus five days until my month of June solo show at Pelican Rouge in White Rock, a cafe that showcases local talent. I’ve overcome the fear of exhibiting at shows, it’s the amount of prep work involved that has me tense. We’ve forfeited the dining room table in favour of a matting and framing station. 

 

Some recent artwork, not in the show, includes a commissioned cat portrait, a kitty who sits like a human, lol:

A meeting of three artistic minds. I finished this painting from an outstanding photo taken by my niece who lives, works and plays in the Sierra Nevadas. 

Her creative Uncle Chuck joined in with a bull made from a rock picked up at our local beach plus copper salvaged from our former house and a 1970’s dehumidifier, perched on the fireplace mantel he made from local fir. 

 

It's hard to believe we have been home from South America for five months and that it took me this long to finish posting that adventure. Today we had a reunion lunch with a couple we met on the tour, who were also picking up the painting I did for them of Iguazu Falls. Many good memories shared.

In the past five months we've travelled to California for Christmas, Bali for my birthday and Edmonton for Easter. Making up for the travel time lost during covid, we’d missed the best travel years of our retirement. I will continue to write about these adventures albeit delayed.

Here is our Edmonton Easter dinner for 15:

It felt like the good old days aka the before times.

 

 

We were coached to wear long pants and sleeves to Machu Picchu due to the biting insects,  whose name in the local native language translates to “the one that makes the puma cry.” As the temperature was predicted to be 34.5C (94f), a group member asked if shorts would be ok, we were assured with repellent we’d be fine. Slathered up with the picaridin lotion brought from home, I had an uh-oh moment observing we were the ONLY people wearing shorts on our train. That stuff is amazing, as afterwards we saw people in long pants with huge welts around their ankles, and others in shorts who had used the locally available spray, quite sick and uncomfortably covered in bites. I had one bite under my collar and one on my eyelid, both spots missed by bug cream.

Our small group was given a choice of the higher, more challenging route or the lower one. Gluttons for punishment (as my mother would say), we chose the former. I was grateful for our hiking poles. Two misunderstood facts from Machu Picchu: many older websites tell you no plastic water bottles are allowed, when in fact they are, as  long as you haul your plastic. And although there is a sign regarding hiking poles, if the sharp metal tips are covered and you need them for safety, off you go. 

From the lower level you can see the resident alpacas.

We boarded the train at sunset, tired and thankfully not itchy, after  a wonderful day. This was the original intention of the trip, for C to see Machu Picchu for his 70th birthday, delayed a few years by the pandemic.

The next day we transferred from the Sacred Valley to Cusco, a charming city with an elevation higher than Machu Picchu. Looking at my Fitbit stats you could clearly see the four nights we spent there.  My blood oxygen level was between 80 and 85%. 

A walking tour included the Convent de Santo Domingo and the Cusco Cathedral. C was hesitant to participate in another, as he calls it, ABC tour (another bloody castle, another bloody cathedral). He was happy to find it one of the best tours on the trip. 

The convent was built on top of an important Inca temple, and in the museum you could see the meticulously fitted stone walls that have withstood hundreds of years and were successfully designed to survive serious earthquakes.

The cathedral, built in cooperation with the local Quechua tribe features religious statues wearing native costumes, a Black Jesus and a painting of the Last Supper where Jesus and the apostles were feasting on the Peruvian delicacy, coy (guinea pig). Photos were not allowed in the cathedral, but this image was on the entry ticket.

We ended at the public market, the most impressive on our trip. There were rows upon rows of cheese, bread, flowers, meats, fish….household staples, surrounded by outer aisles of local handicrafts and clothing. 

We ended our stay in Cusco with dinner at Mr.Cuy, where they present their national dish in a manner more acceptable to tourists, served in neat pieces, without identifying parts. What does it taste like? Not chicken, which many things seem to taste like, this time my answer is duck.

C had stuffed peppers:

The next day we flew back to Lima. The rest of our group flew home that evening, but we had a bonus day as the organizers couldn’t find a reservation for us until the next day. It was nice to have a day to walk and wander on our own. 

A long trip, the highlights kept building as time went on. Rio, Buenos Airies, Iguazu Falls, the Amazon rainforest, Galapagos, and now the delayed purpose of the trip, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu and Cuzco, via Lima, to celebrate C’s 70th birthday postponed due to the pandemic. 

 

We flew from Guayaquil, Ecuador to Lima Peru where we checked into our tiny basic but clean room for two nights.

We were lucky to have a window with an interesting street view, a 50/50 chance. 

The other rooms faced a wall. Our full day was packed with a city and convent tour, geocaching and free time.  Required geocache photo:

In the morning it was off to the mountains, traveling from sea level to 3399 meters (11,153ft) Flying into Cuzco was thrilling. The runway has a 14,000 ft mountain at one end and the airport is regularly closed due to weather challenges. Night flights are permitted  at night and pilots are required to have special training to use the airport. We seemed to fly precariously low in the high mountains for a considerable period of time. 

 

We transferred by bus to the Sacred Valley, stopping at an alpaca wool farm,

Yes, they do spit, this guy was unhappy I was feeding him too slowly and spit a mouthful at me. Not a slobbery mass, just a well aimed chunk of chewed grass. That was enough for me. I walked away from the alpaca.

We drove past restaurants with huge statues of Guinea pigs advertising the South American delicacy.

And saw women on the roadside selling boiled corn with giant kernels accompanied by a slab of farmer cheese.

We turned left at a derelict looking establishment, thinking it was our possibly adequate accommodation in the “charm category” that until this point had exceeded our expectations. 

Wrong. Bumping a considerable way down a rocky dirt road, we ended at a riverfront paradise. 

The next morning we bussed to Ollantaytambo one of the three Peruvian towns providing rail service to Machu Picchu. Our train was so late we missed our time slot for admission to the historic site. The tension level was high, thinking the delay had impacted our time there, but not to worry. To control the levels of tourism, small groups are only allowed in with a guide for a period of three hours throughout the day. 

 

Disembarking the train we saw a guide holding a sign bearing our name, always a comforting feeling. He had us booked into the next time slot.

 

To be continued