"When you are with a local guide knowing the hinterland like the back of his hand, everything becomes possible. It is like getting the keys to open a new bright world, getting the last piece of a puzzle and suddenly have the chance to see the whole scene for the first time. Clear and beautiful vision of a wild world.... We enter its secrets." Emilie, France
This is a reference taken from Jens-Pavia's website, which expresses my feelings at the end of the expedition so much more eloquently than I could.
As expected, we woke up to some of the worst weather of the trip so decided to shelve the hike to a local mountain, and instead start the 14km trek back to the road. Jens-Pavia was expecting another group in a few days, so packed up his tent and equipment and stowed it in my tent so that we didn't need to carry everything back down.
After breakfast, we set off in the murk (left). I seriously couldn't tell you which direction we were going, but the fog was no problem whatsoever for Jens-Pavia. So much so that he was able to retrace our steps and find the glove that I had dropped on the way up. He'd mentioned that we should keep an eye out for it, but I never for a moment expected us to find it so I was delighted when he held it up in front of me, next to the female musk-ox head that we'd passed two days' earlier.
During the night I'd picked up a bit of a cold and, about 5km later, my head was beginning to feel decidedly woozy so I suggested that we just carry on rather than stopping for lunch as I was concerned about getting started again. Having said that, I remembered that I had some aspirin and took three which cleared my head considerably so the final part of the journey became enjoyable again, rather than the focus on putting one foot in front of the other which it had threatened to become.
We approached a long lake and Jens-Pavia showed me ruins of Inuit summer camps, many of which he himself had discovered during his expeditions. Residing by the sea during the winter where there's a good supply of whale, seals and fish, Inuit families would go inland over summer to hunt for musk ox and reindeer for meat and skins. A summer house would typically consist of a circle of large stones which, depending on the success of the hunts, would become covered by roofs of skin. Feeling a bit under the weather, I didn't take a picture, but here's one (right) from Wikipedia in the same region.
Missing the hill hike and lunch meant that we made good time and were at the meeting point next to some buildings at the end of the lake by 2pm. Looking like quite charming, but small summer houses, I learned that few people were able to get permission to stay in the buildings as the lake was Kangerlussuaq's source of water and authorities were keen to avoid any contamination by sewage.
Mobile reception is actually not too bad in the area, particularly if you're on top of the hill, and Jens-Pavia had been keeping in touch with the Albatros team to bring our pick-up forward from 5pm to 2pm. On our short wait for the vehicle to arrive, we ate our remaining energy bars and discussed the pros and cons of using Birds Custard as a camping ingredient, and the remarkable powers of Lemsip Max to overcome a fluey feeling. I promised I'd try and send some links.
The transport arrived and we returned to the hotel via Jens-Pavia's container where I had stashed the items from my rucksack I hadn't needed. I invited Jens Pavia to a beer and for the first time, conversation became a bit stilted. Complete strangers only two days previously, we'd got to know each other quite well but were on winding back down to becoming complete strangers again.
As we said goodbye, I got the feeling that my wonderful adventure was finally over. It's true that I still had 2 days to get back to London via Copenhagen, however that was full of planes, airports and trains. I took advantage of the great Greenlandic showers to wash off the previous 3 days' toil and went down to a disappointing dinner in the cafeteria which had been cleaned out of food as several Nuuk planes had been cancelled. I overheard one couple who'd just arrived from Copenhagen being told that their onward flight to Ilulissat had been delayed from 3pm that afternoon to 9am the following day. I hoped that they didn't have any excursions planned and gave thanks for everything that had made my own trip so perfect.
So long Greenland - it's been wonderful knowing you!
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