Magnificence all around

Monday, September 18

We wake up to the most gorgeous day

 - our view has changed dramatically. We hurry through breakfast and go for a brisk walk along the boardwalk, where upscale hotels and apartments vie with sea-faring equipment stores and tour companies.

We admire the beautiful red and ochre colors chosen for the "Rorbuer" - the fisherman's cottages offered as tourist dwellings throughout the islands - excited that we're headed for one to spend the next two nights, in Tind, at the very tip of the Lofoten islands.

Meanwhile we observe a single red man-of war slowly moving through the clear harbor water. They sting like hell, but are admirable nonetheless.

Oswaldo, sensitive to these things, seem to sense my affinity to this location, and takes another nice shot of a very happy "Panther/camper." 

My cousin Tor has insisted that we stop at certain very special locations and one is Eggum, off the E10 - the main highway through the islands -  a bird sanctuary off on the north coast . The view on the road, there's really no need to say, is absolutely breathtaking. I plead with Oswaldo (who, like most Brazilian husbands, doesn't reliquish the wheel) to stop, STOP, so I can take picture (after picture)

We reach a desolate spot with majestic cliffs, where sheeps graze

and there are no other noises than the free birds screeching, and the wind, and the waves. We've arrived after the season, and there is no cafeteria, no tourbuses, just a few people like us, who get our of their cars, bundle up and walk along the coast, awed by mountains on one side,

and the sea on the other,

eventually reaching a sole sculpture on a bluff

- so strange - as you walk around it, the profile changes.

Back on the E10 we pause when we happen upon the magnificent Viking museum

We're all excited to explore, but it is closed on Mondays - and, alas,  there are no more Mondays. We'll have to come back next year! Instead we stop at the unbelievable Nusfjord, another of Tor's recommendations, where the landscape blows us away wth the huge black rocks rising in front of us.

The village in that ochre color - no-one there, everything closed as we arrived at 4pm!

The fjord in gentle pastels,  so romantic. How lucky we were to see this on such a beautiful day.

We reach our destination, a cute red fisherman's cottage in Tind, in the late afternoon. It's situated on a silvery bay, and in the distance, beyond the harbor, we can see the cliffs of Bodø, where we're headed on Wednesday. We hear the familiar screeches of sea-birds and realize large seagull babies are sitting on straw nesting in a window-frame nearby waiting for their mommies to bring food - just like we saw in Nyksund - and making a huge racket. 

I quickly get a load of washing going in the washing machine and fix coffee. Later we have a Victor-approved dinner

with a Carlsberg (all bought at the Kiwi supermarket in Svolvær). Alas no wine. In Norway wine is bought at special monopoly stores, the Vinmonopolet, which is way too complicated for a Brazilian traveler. We end our lovely day at night outside staring at a multitude of stars above our heads, including the Great Bear, and hoping for Northern lights. We have a great big mountain between us and north, and, in the end, only see floating ghostly shifting shapes and what might be a fierce green light, just beyond our reach.