Aasiaat and the beginning of Journey Home

Saturday 8-25-07

DAY 18

We get up around 8 am, and have a yummy breakfast of leftover spaghetti. We pack up and leave the house around 10. There is a lot of construction in the town, the streets are torn up and they are putting in new pipes. We meet the hotel owner at the store and he offers us a ride back to the hotel. We want to walk (I don’t know why!) so he leaves and we go into the store to get pastries and bread. We arrive at the hotel to pay our bill. We are ready to catch the boat, again the Disko Line. At the last minute we ask the hotel owner if he has any kayaks to rent and he says yes! But it’s too late we are on the boat. He tells us that in Aasiaat they have kayaks too. So we continue our journey via ferry to Aasiaat.

It is a four-hour ride to Aasiaat with two stops. The first stop they make, the captain drops a dinghy in the water with a blue bag that I believe is the mail. The dinghy comes back about 15 minutes later. We never stop at the second stop – too bad if someone wants to get on I guess.

So we arrive in Aasiaat an hour earlier than expected. It is 3 pm on Saturday and all the stores and tourist offices are closed for the weekend.

We find a place to camp near the dump! But it is a nice camp, and we do NOT have a view of the dump (as you can see) – we have a nice view of the fjord, and the wind blows the right direction. We walk around a bit - my leg starts to cramp up, then my heels begins to hurt again. We put up the tent; I get in and lie down. Michael cooks mashed potatoes. I am so tired I don’t brush my teeth. I fall asleep.

Sunday 8-26-07

DAY 19

We get up and my heels are still hurting. We go into town and find the store. We buy noodles, bread, milk and cereal. We leave the store and go to the library to find out their hours. Yes this little island town has a library and a college. We go back to the tent with my sore feet to lie down and read. Greenland closes down on the weekends, the tourist office, the post office… the store is only open half a day. Michael is bored, he has read everything he can, so he goes back into town. He comes back with a better sense of the town. He makes noodles and I read. We go to bed to the sound of motorboats in the fjord – people going hunting at night.

Monday 8-27-07

DAY 20

We get up and eat our cereal. I put on my sandals instead of my boots, hoping that they will feel better on my feet. Off we go, another day, going to the tourist office to see about renting kayaks. Sure enough they do have kayaks, but the guide isn’t there yet. We have to wait an hour before he arrives, so we decide to go to the library.

At the library they have a rule where we can only use the Internet on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but not on Mondays unless it is an emergency - we say that it is – we need to purchase airline tickets back to Kangerlussuaq ASAP. Then we find out that we cannot purchase a plane ticket online for tomorrow because there are no tickets available until Thursday. And even then there are no direct flights to Kangerlussuaq. We will have to fly to Ilulissat and then to Kangerlussuaq. I suggest that we wait and go to the airport the following day, which Michael agrees to. We go back to the tourist office and tell them of our dilemma. They offer to let us paddle kayaks for a half day for 150 kroner each, which is a really fair price. We decide to pack up the campsite and get a room at the Seamen’s Home, have dinner, (hopefully a fish dinner!), and then go kayaking. When we get our dinner it is not fish, it is pork balls (yuk) but we eat it anyway because we are hungry.

And then we go kayaking in Greenland!

We see whales - Humpback whales! This is great! They are huge. Michael wants to get closer, but they are a LOT bigger than our kayaks, so we keep our distance.

We stay out until sunset.

Tuesday 8-28-07

DAY 21

We wake up at 6:45 am, pack up, get dressed and hike to the airport. We get there a little after 8 in the morning only to find out that Air Greenland is on strike. The “stewardesses” are striking. They offer to sell us tickets for whenever the strike ends, but we don’t buy them because we want to look for alternative ways home. We stay at the airport until 11 am, when the airline offers to pay for lunch and a taxi. Back to town we go, courtesy of Air Greenland...

On our way back to town we see icebergs in the bay! Michael wants to paddle out to the icebergs. I am tired and don’t want to go. We eat our free lunch, and I find some energy and change my mind. Michael goes to ask if we can use the kayaks again. They let us use them at no charge – very nice people.

We paddle out to the icebergs and take pictures. We change back into our dry clothes. Back to the airport we go, for the rest of the afternoon. All planes are cancelled but we end up purchasing tickets anyway (since we couldn’t find any other way home – we looked into that at the tourist office), so now we have a way home whenever Air Greenland decides to start flying again.

Air Greenland offers to pay for our hotel room and meals until the strike ends. So the hotel manager upgrades our room - he is happy to take Air Greenland's money! The new room is very nice - the bathroom floors are heated and it is very modern. We put our bags in our new room, and go back to the tourist office to visit with Adam and Maybintt. We tell them what has happened and they gave us a news update. The stewardesses walked off the job before their contract was up. This is an illegal strike. We show them our kayaking pictures, and Adam shows us his pictures of whales. Amazing! We go back to the Seamen’s Home and eat dinner. Up in the room I read a little and Michael watches TV - I join him when he finds a good English detective show.

Wednesday 8-29-07

DAY 22

We go down to breakfast. One of us needs to stay at the hotel while the other goes to the library. I am tired and am ready for a relaxing day. We go back to the room - I start to read my book, Michael comes and snuggles next to me and we both fall back to sleep. We wake up and Michael leaves to go do errands. I read a little and watch a little TV. It is after 3 pm when Michael comes back to the room. I ask how his ventures went and he has done a lot. He ate lunch, went to the library to send out emails, and found English books. He found one he liked and managed to check it out. Then he went to the visitor center and bought me a poster of a whale tail. Michael begins reading his new book from the library. I need something sweet so I go downstairs and get two pieces of what looks like apple pie. It turns out to be pear. Anyway, another day has passed.

Thursday 8-30-07

DAY 23

I did not sleep well. We pack our bags and head downstairs for breakfast. The owner says there are no flights. I immediately express that I want to go to the airport (I don't quite trust this guy). We eat and several people go to the airport with us. We arrive at the airport to find out that the planes are running, but there is a two-hour delay.

So here we sit waiting for a plane to arrive – any plane will do, just as long as we can get on it and somehow get home! We wait most of the morning and then they say that all the planes are cancelled again… We go back to the hotel by taxi, still courtesy of Air Greenland. We get our room back. Then we go to the Visitor Center to see if they can help us find some Canadians we saw before, who have a small plane at the airport, or maybe the owner of another small plane that is at the airport. It is Thursday and our plane to Baltimore is leaving that evening! They will delay it a few hours at Kangerlussuaq, but we need to get to Kangerlussuaq to get on the plane. Maybintt tries very hard to find us a way out; alas she cannot find a way. She locates the pilots of both planes but they say they cannot take passengers. We think of getting to Kangerlussuaq by boat, but no luck there either, it is too long and too expensive. We go back to the library, check out some English books, and go back to the hotel to read.