Finland re-visited

Some weeks after returning from Finland, this strange video has come to light.  From the cutting room floor, Sullie has published the ‘Directors Cut’ of the husky adventures.  Despite making us look like utter incompetents, we have decided to allow her genius to see the light of day…

Italy – the Northern Lakes

Tim: Flew from Marrakech to Milan and by 2pm we had our hire car and were on the road.

Malpensa airport is very close to Lake Maggiore, so we were able to wing our way up to the lake. After a dissappointing lunch in Arona we drove to Stresa where we thought we’d stay the night.  With nothing pre-booked we were grateful to see the tourist information office on the waterfront, and managed to hook ourselves with a very average hotel in the centre of town AND convince a parking inspector not to put a ticket on our car.

It was nice to be somewhere different, with no one trying to sell sell sell to you.  We even found a laundromat and washed most of our clothes – it’s amazingly therapeutic to be able to get everything cleaned afresh when you’re travelling!

Next task was finding somewhere for an evening meal.  After doing a reccy of the entire centre of town we chanced upon  Il Violetta.  After a quick beer, wine and game of 500 in the Black Cat Bar (Il Bar Gato Nero) we went for the meal.  It was excellent – Beef carpaccio, Fois Gras and Scallop Risotto, locally caught Perch, Apricot Tart, excellent house wine, grappa, coffee…Italy is such a fantastic place for food!

We cracked on early the next day, and went for a scenic drive up the nearest mountain, which ended up being a very quaint (and active) Italian ski resort, Mottarone.  Then from the west to east side of the lake via the north, we just drove.  Into Switzerland, and back out again (TIP: buy your petrol on the swiss side, 30% cheaper!).  The day was warm and the sun was shining so we sat down to our lunch of mortadella, cheese, salami, tomato and bread in Maccagno, on the banks of Maggiore.  Absolutely stunning – and whilst we were eating lunch we watched two fire helicopters returning again and again to suck / scoop up water from the lake to douse on a mountain fire.

Our destination for the evening was Como, on Lake Como, at the southernmost point.  We were initially disappointed I think by the size of the town.  Certainly compared to Stresa it was quite brash, and excellent food was hard to find at a decent price. On Como, I’d recommend staying in some of the smaller towns.

Friday we had two things to do.  One was to visit Bellagio, as it had been recommended. The other was to hot foot it up to Davos (about a three hour drive) to see Brendan Watson for the night.

Bellagio is a stunning little town on Lake Como.  Imagine Como is shaped like an inverted Y, Bellagio is on the meeting point of the three parts.

The drive to Davos was pretty smooth apart from finding our way onto the Autostrade at Como, which I firmly blame of the f’íng shite Italian signposts there! We also found ourselves having to pay an annual licence to use Swiss highways. 30 euros, which seemed quite steep for less than 24 hours in the country (though great value for the locals).

One thing I will say, if you’re driving up mountains, have something bigger than a 1.2 Fiat Panda, it’s a lot more fun!

Great to catch up with Bren, and meeting Adrian (another Aussie who spent a few of his teenage years in Wagga) and Anya, over wine and great cheese and then home made schnitzel. Bren’s flat is large, comfortable and has a guest room – useful, since living in a ski resort seems to guarantee a steady flow of visitors.

We didn’t get to bed till after 2am so our early start the next day was tough (not made easier by the stomach upset I’d developed…don’t ask!).  Off at 7am as we had to be in Venice by 1pm as that was when we were due to drop the hire car off.  The drive took pretty much 6hrs, with an excellent bacon and eggs (Caro not me…see stomach issue!) at the Marche service centre at Bellinzona (the UK roadside catering industry could learn an awful lot from the quality of food there!).

Arrived at Venice at 1pm, only to find that the car hire company shut at 12:30pm.  Slung the car in the public car park, left the keys in the car (as instructed) and cross our fingers that the car hire company wouldn’t charge us for the parking they threaten to do on the notice on their door!

Camel trekking – Erg Chigaga

Caro: Wednesday started with us heading out early to buy some food for the journey we had to make to M’hamid, where we were doing our three day desert trek.  After a great breakfast back at the riad (home made yoghurt, semolina pancakes and pastries), we grabbed one of the many clapped out Peugeot 205 taxis and at Hans’ suggestion we agreed a price in advance (“Maximum 20 dirham”), and travelled to the CTM bus depot. Predictably, the driver then short changed us 10 dirham and when we pushed him for it (largely on principle) he flung 5 dirham our way, jumped in the cab and drove off. At a loss of about 50p it was comical rather than hurting our pockets.

We were unfashionably early and the bus was fashionably late, but by 11:45am we were on the road.  The bus was filled predominantly with locals, but there was the odd tourist along for the ride. We drove out of Marrakech and into the High Atlas mountains which were snow capped, stopping for lunch after about an hour and a half for a quick tagine.  We progressed further into the Atlas at a decent pace.

The road was ok but like any mountain road, it got a little hairy when two large vehicles needed to pass on blind bends. Rather than luxury, at 150 Dirham for a single ticket to Mhamid, it was a cost effective option to take.

A couple of locals seemed a little uneasy around the speed and snaking of the bus, and ended up throwing up – one pretty discreetly into a plastic bag, the other a little poorly right down the rear exit steps – which we were sitting adjacent! Next stop the driver tried to clean it up with a couple of bottles of water but it seemed to have stuck. It made the last 3-4 hours somewhat unpleasant, just being in close proximity…

The journey took 10hrs 15mins end-to-end.  The changing lanscape was stunning, going from city to mountains to country towns to lush agricultural land to sand dunes.

Towards the end of the journey a local guy who had been playing impressive Berber music on his guitar for an hour or so beforehand, struck up a (stilted) conversation with us. Barack suggested that we join him for dinner and stay at his place. We said that it was a nice offer – but that we were being met by a friend and that we had a “hotel” booked. He was pretty insistent that there weren’t any hotels in M’hamid. He was so confident that we would be coming with him that he jumped off the bus at the second last stop and ran round the market stalls buying meat and vegetables. Of course, when we arrived in M’hamid and were met by our guide, Mohammed, Barack looked somewhat bewildered as we disappeared into the darkness. The lack of commonality of language made these kinds of interactions difficult – we just didn’t have enough shared language for either party to understand what was really going on.
We also struggled with communicating with Mohammed who speaks French, Arabic, Berber and a little English. He was saying something about there being too many guests at the hotel. We think what he was explaining was that the normal hotel was full, and that we could have stayed at another hotel – but it was very expensive and since we were arriving so late at night we would only be there to sleep. So Mohammed was offering for us to stay with his family for the evening. We had no idea what was going on so we just said yes. And he took us back to his family home where his wife served us mint tea, soup and then a tagine.

We met his 4 children (Mona, Hassan, Fatima and Ali – aged between 12 and 3) who had stayed up to meet us. It seems that guests like us were not a regular occurence. Mohammed’s brother (another Barack) was also at the house, and he spoke a little more English. He explained that he was also coming with us on the desert trek.

Mohammed made up a bed for us on rugs in the family’s lounge room. We felt a little edgy and unsure that evening – after our long bus journey it was not quite how we expected to spend the night! But once the sun rose the next morning it all felt ok. We played with the kids while Mohammed and Barack organised food, camels etc. Mohammed took us for a walk into town to buy water and cloth for us to tie a touareg (berber turban). And with very little fanfare we were off – literally walking down the street behind their house, which became the desert after about 200 metres.

Hassan and Fatima

 

Mohammed, his wife and his mother

We’d wanted a desert experience which was off the tourist trail, and that was what we got with Erg Chigaga. Because it is difficult to get to – a long journey from the larger towns – there aren’t masses of tourists in the area. We occasionaly saw a passing 4×4 in the distance – and the odd group of people with camels or donkeys. But these appeared to be Berber nomads rather than tourists.
The format of our days was to walk for 2-3 hours and then stop at around midday for lunch and siesta. We stayed out of the sun until about 3pm, when we would start walking again. Whenever we stopped everything was taken off the camels, who were then hobbled (their front legs were tied together with rope so that they could shuffle around – but not escape at a great pace) and allowed to forage for food. The drank only once in the three days. On the second day Mohammed took them to a well – but other than that, they just make do with the reserves of water they hold in their stomachs.

We, meanwhile, ate very well over the three days. Barack took the main responsibility for food, and took great pride in cooking us something different for every meal. Lunches were salads and dinners were soup followed by tagines with various special highlights (olives, eggs, petite pois etc.) On the second night Mohammed baked a desert bread, in the coals from a fire. It was very tasty – by far the best bread we ate all week. Both brothers clearly enjoyed berber music, and entertained us by playing percussion on plates and saucepans while cooking.

The desert terrain changed constantly – sometimes large black stones (which often had fossils on them), sometimes flat sand, sometimes dunes. We couldn’t believe how the guys managed to navigate in what often seemed largely featureless terrain. But Mohammed and Barack are “proper” Berber nomads. Barack told Tim that his family had moved into a house only when he was 9 years old (he’s 25 now). So I guess it’s in the blood. They each wore traditional blue cloaks and where we wore walking boots, they walked in sandals! Poor Barack had a blister on his foot, so often he walked bare foot, striding out at a decent pace on rocks that would have anyone else hobbling and giving up within metres.

On the last day we saw the large red dunes of Chigaga looming ahead of us (some are 150 metres high). After lunch Mohammed changed out of his traditional Berber clothes and into an England football top. His personality seemed to change along with it, and he became more of an extrovert. Extraordinary!

Mohammed had shown us a certificate from 2002 when he had gone to Switzerland to run in a marathon (and come 26th from around 500 male runners) – running in traditional Berber gear (must have looked quite something!). Now we understood where his fitness  had come from. He literally runs up and down these enormous dunes. We would huff and puff to get to the top and he would jog up.

Mohammed is quite a neat, petite guy. He called thought Tim was enormous! He called Tim the “big dromadaire” (big camel) and me the little dromadaire. Now in the sand dunes he made us each imprint a footprint, in the sand, including him, so he could marvel at the size difference (and photograph it for posterity).

We climbed to the top of the highest dune where we were joined by about 20-30 other travellers to watch the sun set. It was stunning and worth every step of the journey. Then, while all the other travellers walked down the ridge, we ran down he side of the dune with Mohammed. Fun!

The next morning we got up at 6am for the sunrise and then said farewell to Barack, who was returning to M’hamid. He was doing the journey that had taken us three days in one day. Mohammed was staying to do a 4×4 tour with some other tourists. He tied my touareg for the last time and I felt teary. It was ridiculous that we could form a bond with people in just three days, particularly when we could barely speak to them! But we had…

The Sledding Trip

Tim: Monday started with a hearty breakfast, and the main feature of the day was our first training run with the dogs.

We had a sled and a team of 6 dogs each.  Philip and Charlie were both running with 8 dogs.  All the dogs running are released from their pens and come tearing down to the sleds, milling around the sleds to ensure that they don’t get missed (they LOVE running). The noise of barking and excitement is totally encompassing. And then the moment they start running they shut up and it is pure silence. Extraordinary.

It was not a long run, about 90 minutes – but we got a good feel for the dogs.  I felt mine were a little slow…. Turns out it was my extra weight, so for the Tuesday it would be 8 dogs for me!

Back to the homestead for a salmon soup lunch and then we took the two older pups for a walk. Dinner was reindeer with mash (like Shepherds Pie, without the pie) in the evening.  The  activity of eating and drinking is definitely a rival for the husky sledding.

Tuesday had the same start followed by a flurry of organisation. We were kitting out for 3 nights out on the trail.  So 5 sleds, 36 dogs, a bunch of human food, dog food, and a change of clothes plus a towel for the sauna.

By 1pm we were on the road, or rather the snow beaten path.  After two hours and various falls (Kate and Caro = several. Tim = 0) we were at the first cabin by mid-afternoon.  It felt early to arrive but there was a lot to get done: unharnessing the dogs; starting three fires (cooker, heating and sauna – quite a lot of wood); fetching wood; unloading the sleds; drilling a hole in the ice of the lake for water (also carrying the 40 litre pail back up the hill to the cabin – I did it on my own the first time, second time Charlie and I shared the load); and chopping up the frozen block of meat for the dogs dinners.

Tim and Charlie fetching water from the frozen lake

So despite the seemingly short run, we were all pretty knackered by 4pm or so, grateful to sit down to tea, coffee, biscuits and sausages cooked on the fire. After resting up dinner was put on, candles were lit (no electricity out there) and the Finnish vodka and cards came out.

Saunaing (??) is to the Finns what hot baths are to the Icelanders, so everying evening it’s customary to have a couple of sonsecutive sessions in the sauna to sweat out all the grime from the day.  In the first log cabin the sauna was pretty damn small, but had a ferocious log stove with coals on top.  The fireyness of the sauna seemed to be measured by Philip on the number of scoops of cold water you could shovel onto the coals in quick succession.  In the sauna back at the homestead we were kicking though about 4-5 scoops but at the cabin it was a measure of steel if you could cope with two scoops!  So we started with one, and after about 5 mins of acclimitisation we revved it up to 2 scoops.

For the record, the saunas are traditionally single sex, so we took it in turns – ladies then men. Saunas are nude, you don’t wear bathers. You take a shower beforehand to stop your skin from completely perishing. If there isn’t a shower available you scoop water onto and over yourself. Finally, a sauna is not complete without a cold beer and frankly you need a cool drink inside them.

After 10 mins the first stint was over, and it was out on the open verandah to cool down with towels donned.  After a short recovery, and a fresh beer, it was back in. Same build up to a couple of scoops, then Philip and Charlie proposed that a good roll in the snow was a great experience – so there I was trotting out of the sauna, stark bollocks naked, down the cabin steps and into the deepish snow.  Fall down back first, roll onto the front, back onto the back, get up and trot back into the sauna.  Then I was enveloped with this tingling sensation all over my body as my nerve ending tried to figure out whether they were hot or cold.

After that session we sat down to food, probably around 9pm, a cracking penne bolognaise, followed by numerous rounds of 500 with red wine in accompaniment.  Great stuff.

Wednesday we began to realise that there is a sensible slow start inserted into the whole sledding thing.  When we imagined the trip we expected it might involve getting up at 6am to feed the dogs and be on the road by 8am – but fortunately the reality was that we stirred at about 9am, and slowly got going by about 10am. I say got going: we started with tea and coffee, then it was bacon butties, and the dogs were fed.  After packing all the gear away it was about midday and we were on the road by 1pm.  Our aching bones rattled a little less by then! This was a slightly longer 4hr run of 60km, including a ‘mountain’. 

It became increasingly clear that this was going to be bloody hard work, the dogs will do a fair amount of uphill early on, but when you hit higher gradient slopes and as the dogs get tired later in the run, as the musher, you have to lend them a hand.  Either by smoothly pedalling (a little like skateboarding, but on a sled pulled by 8 dogs) or you get off the sled entirely and help push it up the hill whilst the dogs pull.  Importantly, you need to remember to get back on the thing when you hit the flat at the top.  There were some fantastic runs through woods, and great views of the Finnish and Russian landscapes – stunning  stuff.

After a damn hard slog and a number of falls (not by me I may add) we reached the second cabin.  Forgivingly it had running water, electric sauna and TV, so everything was a lot easier, if a little less authentic.  Frankly though we were so knackered, it was the sort of comfort Caro, Kate and I were craving.  Thursday and Friday weren’t that different in make-up, albeit a shorter run.  I managed to fall three times on the Thursday – in a strange way, after being dragged behind the sled which had toppled onto its side for 50m, it becomes a massive challenge to try and right the sled and get back on it without any assistance.  Proudly, the third time I fell, and clung on with one hand, I manged to right it and clamber back – you do feel great.

Caro got through the last two days upright and onboard – no falls.

On Friday night word came through that Philip’s dog Hope was in labour back at the house, giving birth to puppies fathered by his favourite lead dog, Freddy. We suggested that he head back so he could be there to see them born. So at 12.30am he headed off for a 90 minute night run leaving us in Charlie’s safe hands to get back the following morning. We got back early afternoon to discover that he’d had to take her into town for an emergency caesarian. So it was lucky he’d headed back – and there were two new pups.

Saturday, our time with the sleds was over.  There are a range of other activities in the area and we decided that snowboarding would be a good idea.  Caro decided that the possibility of breaking a limb would impact too much on the camel trek we’re doing in Morocco next week, so she decided to skip – but Mira took the three of us to the local ski resort so we could grab  three hours of boarding (Caro stayed in the bar).  All good fun, if a little painful on one or two occassions.

Sunday it was all over.  An absolutely exhilirating experience and really well delivered by Philip and his family.

If you’re keen to have a similar trip you can read more of the official /sales descriptions as advertised and offered by Spirit of Adventure – though ourselves, we booked directly with The Border Inn (Philip and Mira) having read this article in the Guardian.

Puppy walking

On the Monday, we went puppy walking, and as you can see the pups were pretty lively…and liked hats!