Lyhyt matkapäiväkirja risteilyltä Reykjavikista Kangerlussuaqiin, 15.7. - 25.7.2009

Risteily M/S Kristina Reginalla:
Reykjavik - Qaqortoq - Narsaq - Nuuk - Evighedsfjorden - Ilulissat - Sisimiut - Kangerlussuaq.
http://www.kristinacruises.com/
20.7.2009 Narsaq, Grönlanti

Risteily M/S Kristina Reginalla:
Reykjavik - Qaqortoq - Narsaq - Nuuk - Evighedsfjorden - Ilulissat - Sisimiut - Kangerlussuaq.
http://www.kristinacruises.com/
20.7.2009 Narsaq, Grönlanti

raunioille. Perille kolistellaan parilla maasturitaksilla ja tanskalainen opas kertoo kivikasojen historiasta. Olen Erik Punaisen jalanjäljillä kun hän perusti siirtokuntansa tänne 900-luvulla. Parikymmentä laivallista ihmisiä selvisi perille islannista ja perustivat asumuksensa tänne vihreälle saarelle.


Erik Punaisen jälkeläiset asuttivat saarta ja täältä hänen poikansa Leif Eriksson kävi Amerikassa asti paljon ennen Kolumbusta. Uudisasukkaat katosivat täältä 1400-luvulla, eikä kukaan osaa sanoa varmasti minne. Kenties he kuolivat geenipoolinsa ehdyttyä vuosisatoja jatkuneen sisäsiittoisuuden johdosta, ehkä taudit tai kylmyys kävivät voittamattomaksi, tai ehkä he palasivat täältä takaisin Islantiin. Jos itse pitäisi arvata, sanoisin että he kaikki kuolivat viimeiseen mieheen.



Lähtömme Narsaqista täynnä ajelehtiviä jäävuoria ja -lohkareita olevassa vuonossa on aavemainen. On täysin hiljaista ja kirkkaanvalkoiset jäänlohkareet ajelehtivat hiljaa ohitse, muutama


English translation...
In the morning I have a hard feeling, early wakeup in Narsaq harbor after only few hours of sleep and yesterday's Fisk-shots did their job even though I wasn't so drunk. After the poorly tasten breakfast there will be an excursion to the viking ruins. We rattle across there with couple old SUVs as taxis and a Danish guide tells us the history of pile of rocks. I'm on the footsteps of Erik the Red, when he established his colony here in the 10th century. Around twenty ships of people made it here from Iceland and founded their settlement here on the green island.
I climb up to the hill and take a look to the bay full of icebergs. I ponder what explorer or voyager the world is losing in me, when I was born in the wrong age, to this wrong world of living. The cursed 2000s! I sit on a rock and think about the past world.
The descendants of Erik the Red inhabited this island and from here his son Leif Eriksson visited as far as America much before Columbus. The colonists disappeared from here in the 15th century and no-one can say to where for sure. Perhaps they died when their gene pool diminished after the centuries of inbreedity, maybe the diseases or the coldness became unbeatable, or maybe they returned back to Iceland. If I had to guess, I would say that they all died to the last man.
Back in the village I wander along the streets and visit the graveyard where people have been buried heads downhill to the hillside, just like in Lerwick in Shetland Islands. In front of the bank there are two inuit girls who are giggling of shyness, when I exchange a few words with them. I follow as a man is painting his red house with brand new bright blue paint, it is summer and the sun is shining so warm that it makes my face burn. Here is hotter than in Finland! The helicopter brings some cargo in every fifteen minutes from somewhere beyond the mountains. In Greenland the cities and villages are isolated and there are no roads between them. The helicopters and flying is the only way to transport people and goods from one place to another. I watch as the helicopter is again rising and disappears as a point in the sky…
I carry on walking towards the harbor and climb up to to a high cliff. I sunbathe at the cliff by eating my packed lunch in a sunny day and enjoy the feeling until eventually I have to return to the boat. Narsaq is a idyllic small village and life here is very peaceful. Greenland has charmed me and I like this life style and these ruggedly beautiful sceneries. But in a wintertime everything can be different and life's grim and dark.
Our departure from Narsaq in the fjord full of drifting icebergs and ice blocks is phantasmagorical. It is dead silent and bright white ice blocks are drifting slowly pass us, couple of them clanking to the prow and funneling aside in the green bright water. The feeling is somehow unreal, I cannot do anything but stand with my hands tied in the rail and gaze into the cold water and the time stands still. I stare into the enormous cliffs that are surrounding us and I am somewhere far away out of my body again. The vibrations are traveling throughout my body.
On the sea we pass gigantic icebergs, wider than our ship and the night ends with impressive shipowners' evening meal with the captain and after that evening party at the bar. In the bar I get acquainted with people and I'm popular. When the bar has closed the fog front hits against black endless night and the ship is sailing in terrible speed along the Greenland's nocturnal open sea .
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