DAY 7, SATURDAY NOV 14 – SNOWSHOEING - NOT!
Today we are up around 8:30 ish. The dogs are up but they really don't bark and howl a lot but we can hear them. It has snowed some more and we feel a bit steadier on our feet with more of a snow cover than the aquaplaning of last night. However, we were going to do the snowshoeing today and they would have come around a bit after 10 to pick us up to continue up the valley to the area to snowshoe. It is a 3 ½ hour trip all around including transportation so I think that means it’s about a 2 ½ hour hike all told on the snowshoes after you get there, get back, get your shoes and some learning lessons. We had wanted to do this but the knot on the back of my head is still humongous and still quite painful to touch and I still have a headache and my knee is not happy. We talk to Runa about it and she says she will call and tell them we don’t want to go
. Feel very stupid for pulling out but not sure I can do it. My husband kept watching my eyes last night to make sure my pupils were good and not doing anything that might be a concussion so I think I’m lucky that I didn’t get that or break anything but the head sure does hurt.
So breakfast of some cheese and bread and coffee and then Runa will drive us back to the hotel. Naturally, we know that we will not have a room ready for us but we can sit and do some writing and some reading and just relax today. Runa thought that the duvets we had might not have been warm enough but they were great. Just normally they are too hot for us. Not out there. So goodbye to the dogs and back to town. On the way, we pass about 3 or 4 reindeer grazing next to the road. We can barely see them because it is snowing and blowing.
Back at the hotel, we settle in to read and write and relax. Have to get some of our stuff out of the storage unit. A lot of people are coming in and checking into the hotel for the weekend. You can come from Tromso for very little money and if you have miles then you can practically come for free. The people from last night had all made a free trip for the weekend. I finally go and ask if for sure we will have the same room and she says no because they had not looked to see that we had already been here so assigned us a room on the second floor
. Poo. Didn’t want to climb the steps.
Finally our room is ready and we drag everything upstairs although the front desk carried my suitcases. How kind. The room we got this time was so much nicer than our first room and so much larger! It had the bunk bed singles on both and another bed on a raised platform with a table and chairs and three windows that overlooked the main pedestrian street. So much nicer. Guess it was a good thing they gave our room after all.
We thought we should take a walk and wanted to go look at the church . Maybe we’ll see some reindeer and can get a photo. We stop in the mall to get hotdogs for lunch and then go out the back door of the mall which is closer to the way to go to cross the river and get up to the church. It is a long convoluted way around there.
We are walking, walking, walking and very little traffic. Maybe every 5 minutes or so we’ll see a car go by and maybe every 5-10 minutes, we’ll see a person and oddly enough, usually it is a woman with a baby carriage walking somewhere. Their baby carriages are huge prams and always have a lot of reflective tape around them
. We are within the "pink" zone where it is safe to walk but we’ve been listening all week to stories of polar bears coming into town and it is quite spooky to walk up above the town and be in the dark and by yourself and in the cold. Kind of spooked myself several times.
We get to the church and get in the bottom door and take off everything practically to get down to just our clothes and socks on our feet. We climb up the spiral stairs and the church has an attached church/lounge area that takes up most of the upper level. And in the lounge area is a large stuffed polar bear. Wow, first church I’ve seen with a stuffed polar bear in it. Maybe there are some in Canada or Alaska that have them as well but haven’t been in one yet. It’s a small church otherwise and not widely decorated like some so we don’t spend a lot of time there.
We hear one other person going up the stairs to the third floor but we don’t see anyone so back down and everything back on and back outside. We are going to try and find the cemetery and take a photo but we get to the point where we can go back to town or continue along the road to get closer to the far corner where the pink zone ends. We choose to skip the cemetery photo and go back to town
.
Had some time so looked at all the Masai jewelry they have there. Basecamp is also situated in Kenya and employs 180 women, I think she said, in making jewelry and bracelets and belts and keychains and such. 80% goes to the women and 20% goes to get new supplies. It is all nice stuff – beaded stuff. I find a nice goat hide and beaded bracelet and then my husband says why do I always buy my own stuff because then he can’t buy me anything. Not sure how he is going to do it when we are always traveling together like this. We are almost joined at the hips so how can he buy something. The front desk puts my name on the bracelet I like and puts it in an envelope just in case he can come down and get it later to surprise me – yea right.
We’ve eaten dinner several times at Kroa which is connected to the hotel strictly because it is so convenient. We’ve eaten a couple of times at Svalbard Bar which is across the way so also convenient but thought we would try something nicer so get a reservation at Spitsbergen Hotel which is supposedly the nicest hotel in the town. We’ll go tomorrow night. Might have gone to Huset but we already had their specialty of reindeer stew at the trappers lodge so no need to go now.
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