NN days 11 and 12!

On the 11th day of our trip, we all got to sleep in. And let me tell you, it was amazing! As I write these posts days later, I am beginning to forget the details of each day, but I will do my best. We got up and met at the Sami parliament building. Unfortunately it was closed for tours because of COVID, but we got to see the library which is pretty cool. It is filled with hundreds of books in the Sami language. Pretty interesting. After that a group of us decided to wander around town before heading to a Sammy museum where we had a scheduled tour. Earlier that day I had asked Marianne if we could use snowmobiles at any point on the trip. She said it would cost a lot so we decided not to. But she made a joke that if I were to become friendly with one of the locals maybe we could use theirs. So that is what I did. We had just come out of a Sami knife-making store when a man drove by on a snowmobile. I waved at him and he waved back. I didn’t think anything of it so we just kept walking. But he stopped the snowmobile and waved us over. He ended up being a super nice guy with a really interesting history. He gave us rides on his snowmobile too haha. Marianne was so excited because she thought my dream was to ride a snowmobile for the first time. She didn’t realize that I have ridden them before 😂. But at this point we were fully committed, so we zoomed down a frozen river on the back of this random guys snow machine. It was exhilarating. 

Reindeer herders were moving reindeer up and now the frozen river in sleds. It was a strange sight to see!  

We spent the rest of the day exploring the Sami museum, making food, and relaxing. The next morning we got up early and walked 15 minutes to the nearest bus stop. We waited for a bit then hopped on a bus that would take us to Alta. I don’t  remember much from this day but we spent most of it traveling. There was a big snowstorm so some of our busses were cancelled and delayed. We spent 4 hours in a roadside cafe eating fries while waiting for one of our bus connections. I slept on the bench, cozy. That evening we arrived at a place called Jotka. I don’t really know how to describe it actually. But it’s sort of a house owned by a family where snowmobiles, skiers, and hikers can stop and get warm and get some food. They also have a few cabins on their property which is where we stayed. In addition, they have 40ish sled dogs which is one of their main attractions. To get to Jotka, a bus took us nearby and dropped us off, but we still had a good couple of miles to go. One of the owners of the “camp” came with a snowmobile and a big covered sled that carried all of our luggage and half the class. The other half of us but on our mittens, secured our hats and hiked across two huge frozen lakes to get there on foot. We were so tired already so it was the best time ever, but man are the stars beautiful up there. Just stunning. There is absolutely no light pollution up there because they have no power (The camp had a small generator used at night), so the stars and moon were bright. I saw some of the best northern lights of my life up there. The next post will include lots of those pictures. Alright! That’s all for now! Have a lovely day ❤️🥰