Greenland - the Capital

We were sad to leave our wonderful hotel at Kulusuk. We had got quite at home there!

We were dropped at the airport as late as we could make it as it's cramped and busy there. There was no rush to get good seats as we would be flying over the top of the icecap and it didn't matter which side of the plane we'd be on. To our disappointment though, we found we were the last ones to check in and they sat us separately with both of us on aisle seats! Ughh.

We love how they use tractors to service the planes.

As it turned out, John's seat happened to be an emergency exit seat so he had some extra leg room. The young woman beside him hogged the window though and he didn't see a thing. Meanwhile, the local guy who had the window seat beside me was clearly with the people in the next seats and was happy to swap with me (at least I think he was - he didn't speak English!) So, to my amazement, I had a window seat as we flew over the ice cap!

First we flew over iceberg-dotted fjords and huge mountains.

Looking straight down on a glacier face. The solid white to the left is probably semi-frozen water and the wrinkly part on the right is a glacier sliding over a pointy rock.

Flying over the top of a glacier. The texture is amazing.

The beginning of the ice cap.

For ages there was just white. It was hard to know what was ice, snow or clouds. 

Patterns like this in the ice cap were cool.

Mountains sticking up through the ice.

Another cool glacier.

As we approached Nuuk, the capital city, the ice cap disappeared and huge mountains rose up. What a flight!

We were staying in an apartment this time in Nuuk. It was a beautiful day so we explored the town. For a capital city, it's very spaced out. It only has a population of about 20,000. A few high-rise buildings dominate the centre and more high-rise apartments are being built a bit further out. The old part of town was gorgeous though - all colourful buildings overlooking the fjord.

The weather is often pretty bad here but when it clears, the mountains around the town are spectacular.

We booked a flash dinner at a seafood restaurant one night. (Heather the non-seafood eater ate the lamb, lol). The restaurant was part of a hotel that looked pretty bad on the outside but was fairly flash by Greenland standards inside. 

John loved the snow crab.

We were having a lovely meal until John found that his prawns were really mushy and there was no explanation, apology or offer of something to replace them with, not that we were asking.  Afterwards, we went to the bar, ordered a drink and had a good fun chat to the staff. As soon as we sat down a security guy approached us. We had to remove our jackets! Again with no explanation as to why. This isn't normally a problem but we only had short-sleeved shirts underneath and it wasn't very warm. Needless to say we left.

We had other plans anyway. We wanted to check out the roughest bar in town. We opened the door and stepped inside - and it was empty! It was right next door to another bar though and a security guy took us through a separate door to it. There was more happening there. The guy hung around and we soon realised he was just a local guy. He didn't work there at all. A few drinks later and he was our best mate ever! He showed us how to play a local game on the pool table. You have only one red and one white ball and you use them to knock down five small skittles in the centre of the table. We've never seen this game before and we had fun learning to play it.

There were some incredibly drunk people there. We saw the worst shots on the pool table of all time there!

Our mate having a shot. He wasn't one of the drunk ones but he did like to sing!

The next day we headed out on a trip I had organised ages ago. It was a Catch'n Eat trip where a boat takes you out into a fjord, you catch fish and then you're taken to a well-known Thai restaurant in the middle of nowhere where they prepare your fish for you. I'm neither a fish-eater nor a keen fisherperson but I realised it would be a different experience and a good way to get out into the fjord system.

We turned out to be a group of six and we all got on really well. There were an American couple of guys and a Danish girl who was working in Nuuk plus her mum who came to visit her. Our captain was a young Greenlandic woman and she was great too.

We weren't disappointed by the views.

Just near the waterfall above, we pulled in and out came the fishing lines. The captain demonstrated how to use the hand lines. On the end of the lines were four large hooks with lures. You throw these over the edge then let the rest of the line unroll - for about 70 metres! That's how deep the fjord is and we were only about 30 metres from the edge!

The fishing line unrolling, and unrolling......

Once the hooks reached the bottom, she showed us how to jerk the line up and down. The Americans tried it first and immediately caught a fish! Then everyone else tried and every time we threw the lines in we pulled them back up in a minute or so with one or two fish hanging on the hooks. It was amazing!

We mostly caught cod but there was a redfish in there too.

John gives his first catch a kiss.

Only about 50% of the fish were hooked through the mouth. The rest were hooked through their bellies, backs, sides wherever. For someone like me who's not keen on killing things, it was pretty gruesome. We worked out that there must be gazillions of fish on the fjord floor. When the hooks go down, only some bite the lure. The rest get caught by the hooks as they pass by. There must be so many fish there for that to happen!

We then headed off to the next fjord where the restaurant was. Our boat company had bright yellow boats and we followed another one of their boats there. The mountains were amazing!

We pulled up at the jetty and I saw this jellyfish. This is the only sea life I've seen in Greenland, apart from fish and whales.

There were a number of "summer houses" in this beautiful setting and it all seemed so idyllic. There were also some cabins that we could have stayed in and I wished aloud that we could have stayed here. We stepped off the boat and I immediately changed my mind. The place was seething with midgies! They swarmed around us like we were a banquet and they were starving. They got up our noses, behind our sunglasses and in our hair. They were awful! We hadn't even brought insect repellent with us let alone fly nets.

We only saw a few icebergs on the way but there was one stranded on the sandy beach near the restaurant. I wanted to take a photo but there was no way I was going far out of my way for a photo while being attacked by the bugs. This longer-distance shot will just have to do!

We had a truly wonderful meal. We started with fish soup, which I was brave enough to try and it was delicious! The rest of the fish was served in three different ways, each a unique Thai flavour. Cod is fairly bland and I was amazed by how much I liked it. You really can't get fish much fresher than this. We would love to have used the rest of our time here to explore our beautiful surroundings but the bugs kept us indoors. Luckily the group were all lovely and we all had a good chat instead.

Heading back to the boat, the scenery was beautiful.

As we returned to Nuuk, the mountains soared up behind the town.

We had one last morning in the town. The old part of town was definitely the most scenic.

When it was time to leave, we got to the airport early and made sure we got a window seat as we would again be flying over the ice cap. The skies were cloudier this time but we still got some very cool views.

Flying over the top of an amazing icefjord.

We only have one more region of Greenland left to visit before we leave! 

Heather and John