Greenland - the South

We landed in Narsarsuaq, our first town in south Greenland, and began the section of our trip where we travel around to a few different places by boat. We checked into the weird huge hotel there which looked like it was built of modular blocks (it probably was) and headed straight out for a hike.

South Greenland is very different to the rest of the country. It's more fertile and has a warmer climate, although we didn't really experience much sunshine there. We were still surprised though to find ourselves hiking through a forest! Apparently these trees have been planted, but it was nice just to see a plant more than half a metre high.

Narsarsuaq is another airport town so its not very large and doesn't have a lot of character. It was fine for a night though. There's a company here that organises accommodation and boat transport and I had booked our five day stay through them. We were picked up the next morning and ferried across the fjord in a six-seater boat. Our destination was a UNESCO heritage-listed site called Qassiarsuk where there are ruins of a Norse settlement called Brattahlid. It was supposedly founded by Erik the Red, a Viking with a bad temper (not a good combo!). We were wandering aimlessly around the ruins when a young man approached us saying he was a UNESCO guide and he offered his services. He seemed lovely so we accepted (and we trust people here a lot more than we would in some other countries). It was a good move. He was fantastic.

There was a reproduction of the first church in Greenland which was sited here. 

Another reproduction was of a Norse longhouse. It was built with turf blocks. It would look at home in Hobbiton!

The keys to the buildings were so cool!

Beds lined the sides of the longhouse. There wasn't a lot of privacy in those days. Servants got to sleep closest to the door so if they were attacked, the servants would get killed first!

There was a set of clothes that the Inuit use when they go dog sledding. These polar bear pants were incredibly heavy but apparently they're the only thing that keep a 'musher' (dog sled driver) warm enough. Polar bear skin boots were lined with musk ox fur.

The rest of the historic site was mostly in ruins. We finished up and headed to the only cafe in the tiny village for lunch. If it wasn't for the 'Open' sign we would never have even known it was operating! To our surprise it was warm and cosy inside and we bought sandwiches and a cake from two lovely ladies. Both ladies had travelled overseas in a student exchange programme when they were younger - one to Paraguay and one to Panama!

A boat picked us up again and as we headed to our next destination we saw beautiful misty scenes.

We started to see vivid blue icebergs. They were stunning!

It was a short ride to Itilleq, which is really just a small dock for the local boats. From there we walked 4km to Igaliku, our destination for the next two days. We saw the first farms we have seen in Greenland and were amazed to see fresh silage bales in front of icebergs!

Igaliku is set in a beautiful valley beside a fjord. It was misty when we arrived but the mist added its own charm.

To our amazement there were a few vegetable gardens here and even some chooks!

The grass was lush and wildflowers grew profusely.

We stayed in a cabin here which was really lovely. We've missed those Icelandic cabins!

We met a Belgian lady along the way and we ended up doing a big walk together the next day. She was really good company. It rained on and off but it wasn't too bad. With more green in the scenery it was really lovely. I love the pops of colour from the clothing and the trail markers.

We made it to the lookout point. Rain obscured part of the view though sadly. The walk was 17kms long although our friend's smart watch said we did 20 kms. Either way, we earned our dinner that night!

We were staying right beside another UNESCO heritage-listed site. This farm was supposedly run by Erik the Red's best friend. When the Vikings converted to Christianity, a cathedral was built here. The bishop had about 100 cows at a time when most people only had a few.

The doorway to one of the cow sheds.

The Inuit still seem to be in awe of the strength of the Vikings. They had to be super strong to build with stones like these.

We had a really lovely stay here. To our surprise the summer staff were mostly in their 50's. They all seemed to be Danes who fell in love with Greenland and saw a summer job as an opportunity to spend time here.

Where else can you see sheep, icebergs, fjords and mountains?

We hiked back out of the village again. It was gorgeous looking back on it.

We passed a large farm on the way. The green paddocks were dotted with silage bales.

We were picked up again and headed out for a tour of the Qooroq Icefjord. We were amazed at the number of blue icebergs here.

The closer we got to the glacier, the thicker the icebergs became. In the end we were pushing our way through the smaller ones. The thudding noises are when we hit ice!

When it became too difficult to get the boat any further, we stopped. We had the obligatory drink with glacier ice. I love knowing I'm drinking water that's thousands of years old!

This was as close to the glacier as we could get. Note how blue it is. We were told that the blue icebergs are formed when meltwater re-freezes but there's a lot of frozen meltwater in this glacier if that's the case!

The glacier is 1.5kms wide and about 70 metres of it shows above the water. Looking at the photo below, how far do you think we were from it when we stopped? I have zoomed in a bit but it's not much. Take a guess then I'll tell you the answer under the photo.

How far did you guess? One km? Two? Four? Nope - we were seven kilometres away! it would look amazing if we could get closer!

Nearby mountains reflected in the icy water.

There's that stunning blue again.

We swapped onto another boat of the same size with a young female captain and her young assistant. They were both great value. John and I were the only passengers for the 100 minute trip and we joked and laughed the whole way. They were really great.

Our destination was the town of Qaqortoq. As we approached the town an enormous iceberg came into view. It was hard to judge the size of it but the locals jokingly referred to it at Qaqortoq's new airstrip! It was quite rectangular in shape. 

With a population of about 3,000, Qaqortoq is the largest town in south Greenland. I was expecting it to be a bit ugly but it was beautiful as we approached it from the sea. Colourful houses ran up the hills surrounding the port.

A heavy fog soon settled in though and it stayed for almost a day.

We stayed in a wonderful modern hotel here and had a room overlooking the port. As the evening approached, we were surprised to see the massive iceberg moving with the currents right to the port. By the next morning it had retreated back towards the sea again,

There was a long walk around a lake near the town. Even though it was foggy, the town was still very scenic.

To our surprise, while we were walking through town we saw these girls dressed up in traditional costumes. Apparently it was the first day of school and this is celebrated in many ways including fireworks, parties and, apparently, traditional dancing!

School obviously hadn't started for this group of boys though. We saw them a few times during the day and they were fishing every time. We didn't see them catch anything but it's amazing how it's something that they loved to do - and how there was no adult in sight.

There's a small market where fishermen and hunters bring in their catches to sell. This is minke whale meat which is allowed to be hunted. There are hunting restrictions on various whale breeds but hunting and eating whale is a part of the Inuit culture.

Colourful boat and houses.

Later, the fog lifted and it turned into a beautiful afternoon.

Qaqortoq is known for more Norse ruins, however we had other plans here. When we were in Iceland, a lovely waitress told us about a Greenlandic band called Nanook. We really liked their music and couldn't believe it when we realised they were playing in Qaqortoq on one of the nights that we were there! We noticed out of our hotel window that the boat we had arrived on was now back - with the Nanook members on board! John hung out of our second-storey window and yelled a welcome to them!

The doors to the show didn't open until midnight so we went to dinner first at a Thai restaurant. It wasn't exactly in a salubrious location right at the industrial part of the port. We had trouble even locating the entrance door but but the food was good!

At about 10.45pm we wandered up to the pub where Nanook were playing. We had learned that the music venue only holds 150 people so we were worried we might not get in as we don't know how the system works. The music venue was downstairs so we had a few drinks in the upstairs pub part while we waited. It was pretty rough. Drunk but lovely locals were interested in us and would sit down with us uninvited. They were generally really nice people but they were hard to understand with the music blaring and the alcohol slurring their words. English is their third language after Greenlandic and Danish so that didn't help.

15 minutes before the doors opened downstairs we headed down to get in line. We stood there in wonder as we realised it was completely dark. It was the first proper darkness we had seen in nearly two months. Being further south and later in the year, there is now a few hours of real darkness at night.

Just as amazing was the fact that we were the only ones waiting! A well-dressed lady about our age soon joined us and we got chatting. Just before midnight a dozen or so more people turned up. They had all been drinking upstairs and were pretty boisterous. Finally the doors opened and we were the first ones in! We went to pay - and our credit card didn't work. We tried the other one. It didn't work either. Then the lady we had just met offered to pay for us all! But her card didn't work either! To cut a long story short, we paid upstairs and bought the kind lady a drink. She then returned the favour. Then a random guy that we had said nothing more than "hello" to bought us a drink each! We ended up staying together with the woman the rest of the night. Even this manicured lady, who dressed like a school principal, drank a lot. The Greenlanders sure love to drink!

Nanook.

After several beers and a shot of schnaps, John and the lady were very happy! Beer isn't my thing so I didn't drink much but we still all had a great night. Whenever someone bought me a beer, John would quickly drink some for me while the person who bought it wasn't looking!

People loved singing along to the songs. During the band's smoko break (everyone here smokes too) a Fargone Beauties-style remix of "Thunderstruck" came on and John and I boogied out butts off, much to the amusement of the locals.

Needless to say, we had a great night!

We set our alarms for as late as we could but were woken at 8.30am on Saturday morning to jack-hammering in the port. Ughh!

We walked down to the port in the rain to catch our last boat. The weather changes so much here. Our boat pulled up to take us to the airport and it was our lovely friends who had brought us here! She's the captain - she was just taking a break from driving when I took this pic.

We saw more amazing icebergs. There are four types and we saw them all in one trip:
Normal - the white ones.

Basal - the dirty ones from the bottom of the glacier that have picked up gravel and dirt.

Blue - there were so many of these here!

And finally, black ice. This has no air bubbles inside at all and is completely clear.

We picked up some men on the way and one of them was a lovely guy we had met earlier. He was an archaeologist who was working on maintenance of the various UNESCO sites. Like many Greenlanders, he was really friendly. We were starting to feel like we knew people here!

As I write this, we are back in our hotel in Narsarsuaq waiting for our flight out via Iceland. All other flights except ours have been cancelled so far today as it's rainy and misty here, but we have faith as we've heard a number of times that the Icelandic pilots are braver than the Greenlandic ones! I actually think they might just have better technology in their planes that allows them to land when they don't have full visuals of the runway. Also, the Greenlandic flights are heading to places where the weather is often worse.

I feel sad to be leaving Greenland. It's such a unique place. The scenery is simply spectacular and it's like nothing else we've ever seen. We saw whales and ice caves. We fished where the fish just jumped on the line. We hiked in beautiful places and saw spectacular mountains. We saw days of sunshine and days of wild storms. And those icebergs - oh my!

But the people were also amazing. They were friendly, welcoming and genuine. They have a very interesting traditional culture based on survival in a difficult environment. The Danish influence adds another level of complexity. 

Would I come back here again? Absolutely. John might not answer with as much certainty as me as he's a bit over the cold but I think it's worth it.

Thanks for following along. We're heading for warmer weather now so I hope you've enjoyed our cold adventures!

Heather and John

UPDATE

We're still here! The fog hung around. The plane arrived from Iceland, circled a few times, then returned to Iceland.

Bugger.

It was a full plane and most people were in groups. The groups seemed to get priority for getting rooms. By the time they got to us there were only rooms left in the hostel! We were duly taken to a very busy hostel and given bunks in a room. Oh my god - I'm too old for this! I was tired and the hostel was chockablock full. We were sharing a room with two Swiss guys who had pushed in ahead of us in the queue at one stage so it wasn't going to go well. 

I went outside and called the hotel. I was told they were full. I've heard those exact words before when someone tried to get some rooms late one night in Kulusuk and they were told the hotel was full when we knew there were plenty of spare rooms. I pushed it. We'd pay I said. We'd do anything. "Ok, come down" I was told. Woohoo! Not only did we get a room but we didn't have to pay anything extra! Sometimes things work in strange ways. 

It's just a pity to get stuck in this town as it's not very interesting here. It's also looking unlikely that we'll even get out tomorrow. In the next few days we were supposed to fly to Iceland, then Helsinki then Krakow in Poland. Who knows when we'll get there!