a blog from sunny tromsø!

no midnight sun at north cape this time either. it was far less foggy though when we arrived, so at least everyone could see the cliffs and the sea. our driver for the night was anders from hässleholm in skåne (sweden)! a bit weird that a skåning ends up there in the north...
when we drove back to honningsvåg around 1:30-1:45 we passed a shell gas station & about 6-8 reindeers were just laying there! of course we scared them away again, but it was still weird to see reindeers in the middle of a village.

yesterday we travelled from honningsvåg to sørkjosen, a lovely drive of almost 350 km. we saw loooads of reindeers on our way, one time we were almost 'forced' to have a fotostop because there was a group of at least 30 reindeers in front of us on the road...reindeers really are not the smartest animals they run away fast but don't really know in what direction they should go, so before you know they're in front of the bus again..which could be trouble, if you kill one you have to pay 4000 - 6000 NOK to the sami who owns it...
weather was great all day, for sure 22-24 degrees in the sun. we visited the alta museum on our way and had lunch there as well. on our way from alta to sørkjosen we had a photo-stop at gildetun / kvænangsfjellet...lovely view again over there!
then we arrived in sørkjosen and the receptionist there had a nice message... 'we have a bacterium in the tap water so people are not allowed to drink it or brush their teeth with it' ....nice! everyone got a bottle of water from the hotel, but that was only 0,5 ltr, only to brush your teeth. luckily there was also a kiosk on the other side of the street (keep in mind that the hotel and some houses is all there is in sørkjosen besides the kiosk)...but of course the guests were not happy at...all...to say the least...and also quite concerned about showering and the water used to prepare dinner... AND then the hotel is already not that special, most rooms are not very nice, everything looks old and the dinner is only so-so... well let's say i survived and the guests were in a much better mood at breakfast this morning, right before we left haha!

that this day started with a bright blue sky and sun above the mountains also helped a lot of course. we drove to olderdalen, photostop at the fjord on our way, where we took our first ferry for today...and then we took another one at svensby. both ferry trips are just lovely!
we arrived in tromsø early in the afternoon, we had lunch first and then we went to visit the ishavskatedralen (arctic cathedral), when we drove up there something under the bus said 'crack' , ilka knew what it was immediately...some part on the left bottom in the back of the buss was broken...and i have no idea what it's called in english! (in dutch = de vering)
everybody seem to know all about it, especially the men in the group of course. i started with getting everybody in the church and by the time i got back ilka had already called volvo here in tromsø and he could go there to get it fixed. 'luckily' the rest of the afternoon would be free time for ilka as after the church visit we'd go to the hotel, check-in and walk to the polar museum here in tromsø after which the guests could spend the rest of the afternoon themselves.
so we carefully drove back to the city centre where our hotel is, this time we could check in right away (yaay!) and then ilka went to the garage to get it fixed. haven't seen again him yet, but did see the bus on the parking lot so i think it's fixed!
ilka and me were already joking that tromsø is haunted for us or whatever, as last month here was a nightmare with the bus broken into and all the trouble with checking in...but on the other side, this was the 'best' day for something like this to happen as we're in the biggest town here in the north and didn't have to go anywhere else this afternoon!
i spent the afternoon at the polarmuseum with the guests and then i also went on board of the hurtigruten boat again that's in the harbour here in the afternoon. made some phone calls to arrange things for the next few days from the boat and then headed back to the hotel, where i'm writing this now!

tomorrow we'll be on our way to harstad on the vesterålen, hopefully nothing breaks and all the water is bacterium-free! ;)