The View From My Beer
Today I am enjoying a peaceful view with the aid of a can of Palaarsuaq Pilsner. I haven’t found a real pub in Greenland yet. The closest thing is a cafe that serves beer. I enjoyed the beer just the same.
Qaqortoq
Stop number four on my 16-day cruise to Greenland & Iceland. Apparently the Greenland version of scrabble only assigns 1 point for using the letter ‘Q’. That’s because it seems like every second word in Greenlandic has one or more letter ‘Q’s and rarely is it followed by the letter ‘U’. For those wondering Qaqortoq is pronounced ‘kack-or-tock’ with the letter ‘Q” sounding more like a ‘K’.
Qaqortoq is the largest city in southern Greenland, with a population of 3,000. While it is only about 40km north of our previous stop of Nanortalik, there are no roads joining the two towns. Like Nanortalik, the only way in or out of Qaqortoq is by boat or helicopter.
My Walk
Today’s walk was again completely random. I really didn’t know what to expct of Greenland in general. I knew it was cold and remote. But there was not really anything I could say that was “classic Greenland” that I must see or do. I think that worked to my advantage. Greenland really isn’t about any one or two specific things. It has similarities with other parts of the world such as Canada, Iceland, and Norway. At the end of the day, it really is a place with its own understated personality. There are usually two things that work when visiting a new place. Take a walk through the town, and then find a nice walk along the side of a body of water such as the ocean, a fjord, or river. That hasn’t failed me yet on my travels.
Qaqortoq
The logistics worked so much better today. People got off the boat via water taxi quickly and for the return it was simply a matter of walking onto the next water taxi. Very different to yesterday when people had apparently waited for up to 3.5 hours to get back to the ship. My startegy of sitting at the bar till the line shortened definitely was a winner! Today’s walk through town again had plenty of brightly painted buildings. There were icebergs floating around in the water. Today we also had quite a few hills on which the town was built. The town of Qaqortoq was placed between a fjord and a lake, with a small stream that joined the two.
Garbage
This was definitely not on the agenda when the day started… After my walk through town, I took a road along the side of the fjord out of town. What I didn’t realize was the road lead through a large recycling area before it terminated at the town dump. Here was a town that didn’t have any roads that lead to anywhere else. The only way out of town was via boat or helicopter. So what does a town like this do with all of its discarded and unwanted junk? The choices were quite stark, as apparently was the name of the company designated to solve this problem. The town was highly organized. As I walked down the road I found different sections holding junk of a particular type – batteries, chains, TV monitors etc. I don’t know how the system worked, whether it was a paid service or a free service, but it was definitely well organized. It was not visible from down-town, but obviously there was a recognition that the town needed to manage its own waste. Even old boats were sitting by the side of the road waiting to be recycled or removed, I’m not sure which.
Taserauq
After returning to town I found a place to enjoy a cold beer before then heading towards the lake. The town was not large. Less than one kilometre from the centre of town, it was like you were in the middle of nowhere. Greenland was just thats sort of place. The complete absence of trees just added to the remoteness of the countryside.
Qaqortoq View
Next I decided to seek higher ground to see if I could get a nice view of the town. I followed a road that lead to another storage/recycling area before finding a series of trails that lead up to the top of the nearby hills. The views were amazing and well worth the climb. I was able to sit and observe the views for about an hour before it was necessary to start thinking about heading back down and back onto the ship before she sailed. This was our last stop in Greenland and I didn’t want to miss the ship. After all, there were no roads to take me anywhere else and I don’t know if I could afford the helicopter ride!
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