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short travelouge of my svalbard trip 2008

svalbard

brief details of our trip,
1 day vienna-munich-oslo-longyearbyen
2 day resting and organizational matters
3 day boattravel to the ghosttown pyramiden
4-8 day hikes around pyramiden
9 day traveling back to longyearbyen
10.resting, buying chocolates and sweets 
11-14 day hike to barentsburg
15 day arrival at barentsburg
17 day hike to kapp laila
18 day a really tough hike back to longyearbyen
25 day oslo
28 day munich
29 day vienna


Info:
Svalbard belongs to norway or at least they claim it for themself and the the only way to access svalbard is per plane over oslo or by ship in summer.

Barentsburg is the only russian settlement. Can be accessed by ship or by hiking. Twice a week a tourist boat stops there and they do a guided citytour.
It really still works like a soviet collective farm. They have no Money and food is only distributed with stamping cards and daily rations. But its more dead than alive.(You can see it on my pictures).I think russia only maintains it so that they have a presence up there so they can maybe claim arctic resources later on.
90% percent access barentsburg per ship because hiking around is really dangerous if you are not an experienced hiker. Altough the terrain is little hilly(the highest pass was ~560m), its like 50% swamp and kneedeep mud in summer.

Pyramiden is normally only accessed per ship. Its a common daytrip for svalbard tourists. They also do a small city tour with a guide and travel back to Longyearbyen. The Houses are still fully equipped with funiture and other stuff but no one lives there. Must be the same feeling visiting Chernobyl. I think it doesnt really pay out if you dont stay there a week or so to fully explore the abandoned city and maybe finding the cabin made of beer bottles ~2 km away from pyramiden while searching for drinking water.

Longyearbyen is the main town of svalbard. Its really modern and has everything a normal city also has but ~ 2 Months of completly darkness is nothing for me so i wouldnt want to live there.

Sveagruva is a norwegian coalmine but no one really lives there. Every week they change out and have 1 week free in Longyearbyen.

Ny Alesund is a polar research station with around 30 people working there.

Most pictures were mainly taken in pyramiden a soviet ghost town.
The other pictures were taken on our 8 day hike from Longyearbyen to Barentsburg,

For more detailed infomartion i recommend you visiting:

svalbard government

and

wikipedia



short travelouge of my greenland trip 2007

map

I stayed about 4 days in kangerlussuaq, 
10days sisimiut,
1day aasiaat,
1 day in qeqertarsuaq, 
1 1/2 weeks in ilulisiat and about 
4 weeks in saqqaq.


At the end of my trip i "lived" 25 days in saaqaq, a small inuit settlement. There i got a good insight in daily life. The people only work about 2h a day casting their nets. In their spare time they watch tv(they love old western films) and go hunting. Sadly alcoholism is very common in greenland and there is a high teenage suicide rate. 


My 2 personal highlights of the trip were:
Shooting a seal and eating its raw eye and liver. You dont eat the whole eye. One has to slice it in and suck out the "eyejelly". Really yuck.ahahaha

And the second highlight was the furry visit in my tent. In the middle of night after doing a long hike i went into my tent and fell asleep. After 1 hour or so i got woken up by a heavy thing lying on my sleeping bag. Half a sleep i thought it was the lid of my backpack so i kicked it away and fell asleep again. And then again i got woken up by the heavy thing. Angrily i kicked it away again and because i just wanted to sleep. Damn Backpack.But then did that thing move now?? Still half a sleep i was thinking which f****** equipment piece that could be. But then it moved again. How can that be?? Is it a snake??No cant be here are no snakes. So i looked up and what did i see? A small dog puppet cuddling against my sleeping bag because it was so cold outside.
I fed it with all my cereal bars and we went to sleep again.

dog

for general information about greenland i recommend you visiting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland