‘Beach Holiday’
I was wheeling along Greenland’s only inland road leading to the icecap. Twenty-four kilometres on a 21-gear mountain bike should be a doddle. Or so I thought, when I set off that morning.
A mere two kilometres later, with gears crunching, legs screaming and brakes squealing on the steep, gritty downhill sections, I thought otherwise.
Before my intended trip to the inland ice, I had set off in the opposite direction, trying to find my way to town, to buy provisions and perhaps have breakfast in a nice café by the harbour. But the harbour—or the town for that matter—was nowhere to be seen. Each bend just brought new gravelly slopes. At the wayside, cotton grass nodded in the breeze and the icy wind ruffled my jacket which I had to open to let the sweat evaporate.
I consulted the map. This being the only road, getting lost should be impossible, but it turned out that the harbour was nowhere near the town, but eighteen kilometres away at the head of Greenland’s longest fjord, and I would clearly not make it there. I retraced my route to a cluster of container buildings, arranged around a giant teepee, which was the location of the ‘Old Camp’ hostel complex.
“Excuse me, but where is the town?”
The man I asked pointed back in the direction of the airport.
“What, by the airport?”
He looked at me, smiled, then shook his head: “The airport is the town.”
Of course, what had I expected? Kangerlussuaq is a former US airforce base. The town itself only has about five hundred inhabitants, and most of these work at the airport. The area around the runway which looks like an industrial estate with squat rusty-red buildings, was the town. And it turned out that the shop was in one of these buildings, right opposite the campsite on the other side of the road.
Before I returned there, I checked out the hostel’s restaurant. I had worked up quite an appetite and, being a hostel, meals should be reasonably priced. At first, this seemed to be the case, with musk oxen meatballs on offer for the equivalent of under six quid. Then I saw that I was looking at the children’s menu.
For adults, prices started at twice that amount.
By now, it was almost lunchtime, and I gave up on my plan to cycle to the icecap that day. Being summer, the time wasn’t necessarily relevant as it would not really get dark, but I was knackered. Despite having both a blanket and a sleeping back, I had woken up at irregular intervals throughout the night and found myself shaking to build up sufficient warmth after which I would drift off again. That was the price paid for not arranging the blanket properly after my late-night arrival. At least the earplugs took care of the noise from the runway and the generators.
When I peeled myself out of the tent that morning, I was pleasantly surprised. The generators were still noisy and yet another plane was warming up on the runway, but the sun was shining from a clear blue sky and the steep, rocky slopes looked spectacular.
The campsite is relatively sheltered, and the sun felt positively warm. I took off my jacket, shirt and sweater and explored the facilities wearing just jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt. The cold night was forgotten. In fact, whenever I turned my back to the runway and looked up at the ochre slopes and the bushes with their leathery leaves in the foreground, I thought I was in the Mediterranean.—until I remembered that the ‘bushes’ are fully grown Arctic willows.
The campsite’s facilities included a BBQ.
So, in addition to tins of liver paté (which tastes vile, but isn’t as smelly or messy to eat as tinned fish) and ‘Nagguteeqqat’ ship’s bisquits, I bought a bag of charcoal, bacon, frozen chops, spring onions and a dip. I carried my purchases back to the camp, built a fire with dried grass, paper, a few branches and some lumps of charcoal balanced delicately on top and spent about forty minutes trying to get the BBQ going.
In all that time, I saw no trace of the other campers. My visions of circulating beers, hearty laughter and sizzling chops evaporated.
At long last I spotted a lanky boy with a portable gas stove.
“Hey, don’t bother!” I called out: “I’ve got everything here for a decent BBQ. Lovely day for it!”
He looked suspiciously at the smoldering coals, sniffed at the bellowing smoke and then wrinkled his nose when he spotted my selection of meats.
“I’m vegetarian.”
And off he went to cook his lentils.
I enjoyed the BBQ. The easter-style chicken tasted almost like the one I had on Kao San Road. But one person cannot eat much and, in retrospective, the meal was perhaps a little over-elaborate.
In my mind’s image, I still see a group of backpackers laughing and clinking bottles. The atmosphere would have been just like on a beach camp. But no doubt, the other campers were out hiking and cycling, and I’d better get ready to join in the activities tomorrow.
I bought so many supplies that I continued with my one-woman BBQs throughout the three-day stay in Kangerlussuaq. Right up to the moment when I waited for the harbour bus in front of the airport and discovered a café which does a mean musk oxen burger and local stew for under a fiver. I’ll know for next time.
Tags: Greenland, Tag Index
Denni