It’s time for a little South American adventure update.

Earlier this week I finally got the SEB-11 information letter which told me when I was leaving and what I needed to bring. Unfortunately not all the info was provided for me, partly because I’m going to Galapagos and partly because I’ve been told earlier that I would be able to fly out from Oslo instead of having to go to Stockholm.

I got some more info yesterday telling me that I had a 0630 flight from Gardermoen on the 18th of November. Which would be about five days to late.

Hopefully this will get sorted out after the weekend.

But at least I’ve now got the list of what I need to bring, and I’ve got most of the stuff read.

I was a bit afraid that my backpack for the Machu Picchu hike was a bit to small so I decided to have a go at packing it to be sure I didn’t need a bigger one. And so far it looks good, with almost everything loaded up I got a backpack weighing in at just over 11 kilos, including three litres of water. That should make for some pretty comfortable walking.

Stockholm has been great so far today, lots of walking in the sun, have to go check if I’m burned now. And then out again to se what happens at night.

On Wednesday I went to North Cape to do a training session for one of our customers. Quite an ordinary deal, just going up on Wednesday and then back on Thursday

Flying up there on Wednesday morning was wonderful, clear sky all the way and nice snow in Honningsvåg. Training went good and I was hoping to be able to take a few good photos of the northern light. But in the afternoon the wind picked up and it started to snow a bit.

Still not to bad.

During the night the weather did a total 365, from cold, calm and clear to warm, windy and raining like crazy. When I got to the airport I had to wait for a while before we got the message that the flight was cancelled due to the bad weather.

Which wasn’t to surprising.

We were told to get on a bus that would take us to Alta which has better weather and a larger airport and we would fly from there, something that happens a lot at these small airports.

Then the adventure started.

Our bus had snow chains on two of the wheels, one for traction and one for steering.

Apparently it wasn’t good enough.

After about an hour a strong gush of wind took hold and literary just blew the bus straight off the road. We rushed down a 10 – 15 meter incline and came to a stop about 30m from the road and less than 10 meters from the sea. I guess the drivers reflexes saved the day.

If he hadn’t manage to turn the bus a little one the way down we would have gone into the sea. And if he had turned it to soon we would have tipped over. In any of those cases we would have had to abandon the bus and someone might have been injured.

Not to mention that I cannot imagine how it would be to be outside in the freezing rain for the hour it took to get help.

But we were lucky and the bus skidded to a halt on dry land and on its wheels. And with the engine still running the wait wasn’t to bad.

After an hour a minibus came to pick us up. Then it got messy, getting up the bank to the road was a real pain. The bank was made of round stones, frozen, with snow on top. One slip and you would just slide all the way back down. Which I did at least 4 times, and then when I finally got to the top and walked over the road the wind kept pushing me back and almost over the edge again.

But we got into the bus and got going. By now we were all wet which isn’t particularly nice. Especially when you know it’s still at least three hours by bus to Alta. And of course we would miss our flight again.

When we got past the worst part we transferred to a bigger bus and thought that we were home free.

But it wasn’t to be.

When we came to Olderfjord where the road starts over the mountain the driver found the road to be to slippery to get the buss over the pass. But a scheduled services bus was due i not to long and that bus was properly configured to get over the pass.

But I guess that this was the day when nothing went right. The weather was so bad that this bus had to stop and mount equip more snow chains.

This meant sitting another hour in the bus, even if the bus is warm it gets a bit chilly when you are wet.

Finally the buss arrived and we managed to get on to Alta without any more delays, except slow driving across the mountain, passing a snowplough who had hit the ditch to.

By now we were way past the last flight from Alta so we were lodged at Rica Hotel Alta for the night, and for me the trip went on back to Oslo on the first flight today.

Which was blissfully uneventful.

Except I ended up in the seat next to a “reindeer mechanic” or as the rest of us would say, a vet

Today I’ve traveled south to Kristiansand to visit my sister and her husband. I’ll be here the rest of this week and I’m just praying for a bit of good weather. A bit of sun wouldn’t hurt

Today I flew in early, finally get some days off and I choose to start the day at 0500, go figure.  We went back to my sisters house for a while and then went exploring a bit. Ended up at Kristiansand Cannon Museum, an old fortress from WWII where the second largest land based gun is situated. The largest is in Harstad if you wonder, and you can see that they were constructed by the same army. Both have a similar basic layout and specifications.

After Muskeldundermarsjen to Verdal I had a great time  with all my friends from Sørkedalen. The week after my trip to Verdal I went to Tallinn for a few days. Working. But still got some time to have a look around and find some GeoCaches. Yes I just got my self a new hobby. I guess Geocaching is the nerds way to get fresh air, or perhaps not.

Geocaching is a way to find places and read stories that you might have missed if you were just passing by. All over the world people hide geocaches, containers which at least contain a logbook that you can sign when you find it. You then get the GPS coordinates of the hiding place and post it in the Geocaching website other people can the locate the cache, and learn a bit of local history. Bigger caches can contain track able items that you can pick up and drop in another cache somewhere else, leaving a trail across the world on the Internet.

I guess it might fit just as well as a family hobby as a nerds hobby

The week after I came back from Tallinn I went to London for a few days to do some Blackberry training, and since the training was set for Thursday and Friday I got the weekend in London. Doing some more caching while seeing the sites and did a bit of photography. I’ll see if I can upload some more photos soon to. I’ve been experimenting with HDR images.

And the finally last weekend I went to Gothenburg with Lilleaker Janitsjar which was fun to. I guess that was the last of my concerts before summer

I guess that’s it for tonight, I better start writing a bit more often.