The Walking Dom

Aug 13

Aug 13 Waterworld

Mile 127 / KM 204.5 (+ 47 km for the Kebnekaise detour)

Saltoluokta - Kvikkjokk

Audiobook of the week: 'A promised Land' by Barak Obama

I miss: A laundry machine. Desperately. It's seriously starting to become a problem. On all other trails I've done so far there was always an opportunity to do laundry at a laundromat at some point. Not here. There is nothing other than the good ol' handwash with hand soap here and there which just doesn't cut it after 2 weeks in the same clothes.

I looked at Laura and said, "I could do this forever". She nodded in agreement. If I won the lottery, hiking and traveling the world would be what I'd be doing all day every day. Nothing makes me as happy as venturing to beautiful places I haven't seen before.

We were zipping over a lake with our Sami captain who I fell in love with immediately. He was wearing all kinds of crazy outdoor gear and cool-looking fishing stuff was scattered behind him on the boat. Sometimes all it takes is a walkie-talkie to win my heart over. Four months of the year the Sami spend up north fishing, chasing reindeer, trapping, and just doing Sami-stuff. The rest of the year they spend in small towns like Kvikkjokk.

Section 2 of our Kungsleden adventure was pretty rainy, and hiking in the pouring rain isn’t much fun. Mainly because there's no chance of taking breaks and breaks are important to get your head out of the zone. You end up just hiking aimlessly, listening to audiobooks, head down all day.

We hiked 36 km through heavy rainfall to make it to Kvikkjokk and my feet were throbbing. I could feel my heartbeat in them and all I wanted was to sleep with a roof over my head. Once we made it to the Fjällstation they told us everything was fully booked, so all our dreams of having a hot shower and dinner inside shattered. The only place they could offer us was a shitty campsite behind the house and no shower. There was no way I was sleeping in the rain another night so we managed to find the only place in all of Kvikkjokk on AirB'n'B and rented a little piece of heaven with two of our newly found trail buddies. Right, when we entered the place the rain started again and it came pouring down with full force. Perfect timing. 1 hour and a hot shower and 250g of tortellini later I was spread out on the sofa watching a movie. Life is good. Due to the rain, I didn't take as many pictures as I normally would, and despite the rain, the section was beautiful and I wouldn’t want to miss a single second of it.