Swimming is Not the Only Option as the Sunset is Not Applicable.

46

8/6/09

Pigorilla Power!

Stavanger was a lovely little town nestled in the mountains at the end of the Norway fjord. Picturesque and stunning, with panoramic views of the fjord, the trees and the snow-capped mountains made wonderful viewing on a crystal clear, sunny, bright, windless day. I shook off my hangover from the night before and after a brief visit to the tourist information I headed off to the selected mountain for a little exercise. I stopped off at the supermarket and aware that Norway was prohibitively expensive, was only a little surprised to pay ten pounds for two waters and a Red Bull. From there it was barely ten minutes to the chosen mountain and I was soon huffing and puffing my way up the steep path surrounded by fir trees, with only the occasional hiker to break my rhythm.

At the half-way mark (forty minutes later) I greeted a Norwegian who had been ahead of me and had stopped. “Is that as far as you are going?” I asked.

“Yes”, he said in a strong Norwegian accent.

“Why don’t you go further?” I asked.

“I am satisfied”, he said.

“How much further is it to the top?” I asked.

“You are half-way,” he said. “Continue on the path, but be careful, it becomes dangerous and steep and the rocks are wet from the melting snow, so slippery and it becomes very muddy.” “You can fall and die at any time.” He added.

“Nice talking to you,” I said while wondering why the hell I had even stopped.

I hadn’t travelled for more than five minutes when three small groups of a few people each, all from the ship, came past me saying that it was too muddy and they had turned back as it was too steep and dangerous. Looking at them, I was surprised that they had made it that far at all so I was not too concerned as I pushed on, forward and up. I soon came across a very muddy section, but after thirty or so metres it dried up and I kept going. The path was starting to wind dangerously and in places there were chains to hang onto as the rock was sheer and often wet. When the trees abated they gave way to views that were panoramic while the drop-off was steep and nasty. I never did realise where I left the path and I could see that I was not the only person that had gone the way I went, but soon I was hanging onto brush and tree branches to pull myself over rocks with what looked like a long overhanging rock in view for twenty metres which was as far as I could see before the mountain twisted out of sight. The mountain dropped off dangerously to my right and if I were to fall there, it would have been a great way to check on the availability of an afterlife. The Norwegians words were fresh in my mind and it was not the first time that I had mulled them over in my mind..... “You can fall and die at any time.”

I could see no way forward....the overhang was ominously forbidding and I would have struggled to get over it, even with ropes, let alone free-style. Being so totally on my own was also a little concerning and my sense of self preservation was kicking in. When Dolf had said that it was dangerous and steep, I didn’t realise that he meant that it was dangerous and steep. I thought he meant that he found it dangerous and steep, but I would be fine. I decided to err on the side of caution. I had climbed myself into a bit of a position and it was going to be hard enough to climb down without the added stress of trying to climb further up. After about five metres of retracing my steps I saw a way to cut across the top of a ledge rather than my original route coming up below it. No sooner was I on the ledge than I could see the path that I was supposed to be on about twenty metres across from where I was. Relief came flooding through me, but also a little foolishness at how easily I had been diverted. A few broken branches and a couple of slips while my Nike trainers clawed for grip on the steep grassy incline and I was back on the path snaking my way up the mountain. Forty minutes later I was on a large open area just in front of the snow line before the mountain headed off up towards the sky again. The ship was parked in the fjord looking the size of a canoe about a kilometre below. Time was not on my side and I took the moment in for a few quiet minutes before steeling myself for the long, jarring hike back down the mountain.

My journey was disbelieved by several people on the quay side, but the supply of photo’s put an end to that and they were so well received by the photography ladies on the tender back to the mother ship that I had to promise to burn a few for them for the “Cruise” DVD that they make for passengers to remember their cruise by.

A huge party for the “new joiners” on the ship was followed by a day in Andalsnes which I was too hung over to visit. I overheard a passenger saying that it was the Manchester of Norway which I mentioned as a joke in the officers mess during dinner, but lied saying that I had never been to Manchester so didn’t know what it was like. “It’s really beautiful,” this moron said to me. I couldn’t be bothered telling him that I had been there and it was a shit-hole and if he took his head out of his asse long enough when were in all the different ports that we go to all over the world, that he would be able to see it for himself.

Last night was another huge party in the officers’ wardroom with a theme of “Anything, but Clothes”. The photos are brilliant and the dancers made a huge effort looking really gorgeous in very original outfits. I went in a toga. From there we went to the Restaurant Rave on deck three where they were pulling out all the stops and I was shaking that toga like an epileptic all over the dance floor. One waiter fellow ran up and jumped on me with his legs around my waste. I grabbed him under the arms and threw him into the air, but with the ceiling only about seven feet tall, he was dealt a crushing blow as it came down to meet his head. Not fazed and grateful for the attention, he went staggering off into the crowd. By three thirty, I was looking like Julius just before he collapsed with multiple stab wounds and it was time to go to bed, but not without the mandatory curry in the crew mess first to help absorb all the beer.

I was told a wonderful joke by one of my students today from the apartheid era of South Africa and how the black people were discriminated against. The story goes that Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu and PW Botha, “Die Groot Krokadil”, were on a beach together and all the press were there and they had important private business to discuss, so PW suggested going in a rowing boat a little way into the bay so the press could not hear them. They were not too far out when a gust came up and PW’s hat blew about twenty metres over the crest of a swell onto the water. Being the nice guy that he is, Desmond offered to go and get it for him so stepped out of the boat and walked across the water and retrieved it. The photographers with their zoom lenses were snapping away and the front page of all the papers the following day had a picture of Desmond on them and the headline, “Desmond Tutu can’t swim!” I thought that was a lovely warm story from a rather cold time.

The grass continues to get greener under my feet and there is so much to enjoy here on the ship. If only it was not eating into the years of my life while I savoured the experience. The possibility that I could be trying to do something with my life has been eating into my enjoyment, but now that the end is so clearly in sight, my capability of enjoying it all is all the greater. I am having to use curtains at night as the days have taken full control over the environment with the sunrise and sunset times in the daily paper now marked “Not Applicable”.