"The bad Deal" was the best that could happen to us in Cordova :-)

So hello you guys out there!

As we did not want to keep this from you any longer, we hurried to the public library in Valdez to get free wifi :-)

So YES! WE MADE IT! The ferry was up and running when we got to the terminal! I have to say that we didn't believe it could work out... this because the whole night it rained really bad, and weather got quite stormy at times...

But, even though the weather was lots worse than two days ago (in Cordova that is), the ferry did leave, so that was a relief :-) Fortunately the travel time was approximately two hours, so we could catch up on sleep! That was a necessity since we could hardly get to sleep with the loud noise rain made on the cabin roof...

So hey, those two extra days weren't so bad after all :-) We went for two more walks (I won't call it hikes, because well... they really were to easy for that :-) ) Plus as we told you before, we met a couch surfer! He offered us his couch for one night and, yet again: it's been a really good experience with the couchsurfing network!

Our host, Rowen Deal, who they call "the bad deal" (his little brother being the "good deal" :-) ) made it an unforgettable stay! He's a really nice guy who actually bought a boat not too long ago, which is called the Hillbilly. but as soon as it will be out of the water again (because otherwise it's bad luck!), he'll give it a different name: "the bad deal" (Now that will surely humour people around here :-) )

We had salmon for dinner, a delight is all we can say about that! Reeeaalllly good!! :) And then there even was dessert! And not anything, no! We had like four flavours of Ben and Jerry's! :) yummy!! :-) Now I would understand if you found this weird, me being all happy about Ben and Jerry's ice cream!! But just the same day I wanted to buy some but we always forgot... somehow :-) Not to mention that their portions are waaay to big over here for me to eat them all by myself :-) So that was awesome :-)

And just before we left, he even helped us out with cut and dry wood for the stove at Skater's cabin! We wanted to buy some, but that was just simply impossible in Cordova :-) So thanks a lot Rowen, we slept sooo well because the cabin was niiicely heated :-)

Now we're headed off to Kennicott (Mc Carthy, Chitina, Glenallen... that area) to see a ghost town. The copper mine was abandoned as soon as the last train rode back to Cordova over the Million Dollar Bridge. (Which as they say in Cordova is now the "hundred million dollar bridge" because they redid it after the 1964 earthquake which destroyed one end.

Now I guess that's all folks... for now anyway :-)

Take care!

AnD

thx to Rowen for offering us a place to sleep :-)

Stuck in Cordova!! UN-lucky... :-)

Good Morning!

This morning we woke up at 6:30AM, knowing that the ferry would leave at 8AM. We still wanted to go to the Killer Whale Café to have breakfast! It was really tasty :-)

So we ate fast and drove down to the ferry terminal to check in. The guests in front of us were rebooked... we did not quite understand why... but then it dawned on us (a bit late :) ):

"Due to the bad weather conditions, 14 feet waves, the ferry is cancelled and all passengers will be rebooked on the next ferry"

Aha!!

But then, when is the next ferry?

"Friday morning"

And what day is it today? (We tend to forget that... :D )

"Wednesday"

??!! Are we going to be stuck on this island for two entire days? (it is not really an island obviously, but it feels like an island because it's so remote... :-) )

Where will we sleep? The ferry company doesn't pay for overnights, so we booked a cabin (like the Mc Kinley one) for tomorrow night... just need to find a place to sleep for tonight... guess we'll just keep on looking :-)

So what is there to do for us here? N O T H I N G :-)

Well no, we could go back to the Orca café, have breakfast again at the Killerwhale Café, eat AGAIN at Baja Taco's or Ambrosia's, see Childs Glacier AGAIN... :-) We'll see...

At least the weather's not as stormy as yesterday but still... it hasn't stopped raining!

Guess we'll just have to skip our trip to the Kennecott Mine in Wrangell St. Elias National Park and proceed directly through Delta Junction to Chena Hot Springs... that's too bad, because it's supposed to be a really neat place to hike and raft...

We'll keep you posted :-)

("Come on D, let's have another coffee... WHY? ... Because now we have loooaads of time on our hands" :D )

Take care y'all!

AnD

Davy and me @ Baja Taco's... it's heated, got free wifi, drinks and food :-)

Okok... we lied :-)

Hello everyone!

Hope you haven't got squared eyes from all the couchblogging you've been doing lately! :-)

Now, BIG NEWS! We have to tell you guys all about Valdez and Cordova! Remember? Oil Tanker "Exxon Valdez" left the Valdez port and sunk, out in Prince William Sound! The outcomes of that catastropghic event were a disaster! Today though you won't be able to see anything any more, although they say that marine life has changed and that some species have not come back (yet...). So that's where we went by car from Seward!

Yes you heard right! From Seward to Valdez by car :-) It's only like an eight hour drive... :) But taking the ferry from Whittier (opposite Valdez in Prince William Sound) would have been more expensive... . So here we are in the car, driving all the way on the Glenn Highway and from there, on the Richardson highway. Loooots of really nice scenery!! I would say that it's not the destination that made our drive worthwhile, but the drive in itself! valdez is nice, a fishing harbour, but there is just nothing either to see or to do there! :) Except get free internet at the Library... obviously :) although we had a couple of really good Pizza's inValdez, now that I think of it!

Anyway... Valdez was more of a stop along our way to Cordova (remember? The town where you can only get to by plane or ferry and from where there's absolutely no where to go! :)) So that's where I'm writing from, now! :) I looove that town, I love the people and most of all I like it a lot that there seems to be no police here to check on speed limits :) Haha... pretty funny... davy thought that maybe the one's from Valdez had to draw straws to see who was the unlucky one that had to go on the ferry and disappear for a month/week to Cordova :-) I dare say I found that slightly unrealistic, though it would be really funny :-)

So when we arrived here (remember! Valdez was our first night in a hotel!), we checked into the Orca Adventure Lodge, where we had booked two nights, then we would sleep one night on a campground next to the Childs Glacier and after that we were to come back to the Lodge for one last night. But... when we arrived here, we were just like... well, it is nice to have a bed, a room and a shower... it really is, but there's just nothing really exciting to it really... So we decided on this:

Davy went down to the front desk and asked if it would be possible to only spend one the first and the last night of our stay in their Lodge, thus canceling our second night there... So the lady asked what we would do, where we would go and where we would sleep instead of at the Lodge. " Well, Davy said, we just booked the Mc Kinley Lake Cabin, over at the Pipeline and Mc Kinley trail, on the Copper River Highway, so we're planning on hiking up there and spending the night." "Wow!! You should definitely do that! That is an amazing cabin, and those trails are really nice too!! Good for you! You got that cabin on such short notice, usually people don't get them!" So as you can see the Lady was all happy for us, not bothering at all that we  just cancelled a night at her Lodge... now THAT is Alaska! :-) Love it! :)

So then, here's the part we lied about... We said we were back in civilization, and we were... up until we changed our mind and thought nature, hiking and camping would be the better choice :-) So sorry for that, but it was really worth it! Those past two days, man they were really fun! (even though it didn't stop raining, temperatures dropped and wind came up pretty strong) :-)

So there you go, in town that afternoon we had lunch at Baja Taco's (the picture with the red bus (that's their kitchen :) ), food was really good! There we met a nice couple, Dan and Christine from Cordova, although they moved to Anchorage when their son was 9, and now they spend half a year in Anchorage and half a year in Cordova, she being a teacher and he a fisherman! :-) Really interesting people who told us a lot about Alaska, Cordova, nature, bears, moose (meese), etc. so that was a nice thing to do, as long as it was raining outside :)

Then we eventually drove off and started to hike up to the Mc Kinley Lake cabin, taking the Pipeline trail up and coming back down the Mc Kinley trail the next day. The Pipeline trail was basically loooong wooden logs lying on the mud, covered with fish nets so you wouldn't fall off the wet wood (genious! :) ) (yes it's all wetland there! Cordova has the biggest wetlands in Alaska! :) And the forest is kind of like a tropical rainforest without the tropical plants and temperatures :-) So what you need to imagine is a real forest, extremely rainy, loots of moisture and rain and then some really nice colours like greens, brown, orange, red, pink... So yes, say hello to the mosquito's! But we were lucky, because of the rain they were scarce...

So then we finally reached the cabin!! :) A wooden stove, wooden bunks a table and that's about it :) oh and the toilet was about 20 meters away... Niiiice :-) No really!! That cabin was awesome!! :) we saw the salmon jumping up and down in the lake :) And then we also saw loooots of bald eagles (to Davy's delight) :-) But then it started raining during the night and didn't stop, like at all :) so we played UNO, Mastermind and the battleship game :-) Loads of fun :-) Haha...

So then, the next morning, no what am I saying! even in the afternoon it hadn't stopped raining at all, so we decided to head off to the car that was parked at the trail head... Now here's the story about my shoes! I have really nice hiking boots, blue one's, my first real hiking boots :) so I like them a lot, BUT it so happens that they are pretty old, and old leather gets tricky, and doesn't cope too well with loooots of water (even though I sprayed them... whatever :-) )

Sooo, arriving at the cabin through the RAINforest, my hiking boots were soaked! Fortunately it only took them like a night and a whole morning to completely dry (can you believer that!!?) :D So then, back at the car they were obviously, AGAIN, totally soaked! And there's nothing worse than wet and cold feet when you know you are going to sleep another night out in the wild, next to the Glacier :-) So fortunately for me we had to drive another 30 miles to the glacier... time enough to put the heating on maximum temperature, direct it towards my boots, which dried in like, an hour's time!

So, with warm feet and new socks we got out of the car (by the way!! seat heating is absolutely wonderful! :) ) and visited Child's Glacier. MAN!! That glacier literally blows your mind! It's huge!! And advancing every year! Huge chunks fall off every five minutes or so and they make so much noise you'd think there's someone trying to blow up a mountain with dynamite!! Sometime's even those falling chunks of ice make the earth shake so much you can actually feel it !! I can testify, because we slept next to the glacier, and even though I was wearing wax ear plugs I still heard the roaring sound of the ice falling off and I felt the waves/shakes!

So after spending another night in our tent, we woke up this morning when we saw that it still hadn't stopped raining!! So hey, this is alaska, you do not come here if you're looking for sunny weather :) Cordova has an eight out of ten rate of getting overcast weather and showers :-) so I guess we knew what we were getting ourselves into :-) Haha.

And yet again, putting on new clothes, we drove all the way back to Cordova, kinda looking forward to be able to check into a Lodge with electricity, running water AND free wifi :-)  Man how you enjoy that once you're out of the bush :-)

Oh! And by the way!! On our way to Childs Glacier we saw a grizzly! :) Davy was driving carefully, because the "well-maintained" gravel road had loads of potholes in it which made driving quite difficult, as you had to zig zag around them. Fortunately there's no one going that direction so you're alone on the highway, which means you can feel free to drive either side of the road, whichever one you like best :-) So back to the brown bear! Davy was driving when I said: D There's a bear in the water right next to us! Stop the car!" So he stopped and the bear was right nest to us, maybe 8 meters away, standing in the whitewater fishing for his lunch :-) It was so funny looking at him catch that huge fish! Pretty amazing! :) And those claws he had!! I just remember saying in my head, oh look at those fluffy ears, such a nice animal top look at, though  seeing those claws, wow!! I wouldn't wanna get caught in them!! Do you know Wolverine, that movie? when he gets his claws out? Well ok, these are not that long, but still... :-)

Oh yes! And back in Cordova, I just had enough of my boots that got wet way too fast, so I took Davy to THE shop (I say "the" because it's the only one :-) ) to buy a pair of Gumboots! The owner of the shop was sooo nice! Plus he told us a really interesting story! Can you imagine he worked at the Youthhostel in Zermatt, Switzerland during winter to go to southern France or Morocco during the summer! :) Amazing! Now my boots are fantastic!! Plus everyone wears them over here! Mine are fancy colored (check the last picture!) and doubled with neoprene! So I will not get wet or cold feet ever again :) Just to tell you how happy I was about that, here's what I did: I jumped right into every puddle of water I could find :-) (not getting wet feet... obviously :-) )

So yeah, that's the latest news from the both of us :D I hope you enjoyed reading the post and we'll be back from Kennecott (old abandoned Mine) or Delta Junction (a place where there's nothing to do except spend the night there and drive off in the morning, which is what we'll do) :-)

Talk to you soon!! Take care!

AnD

PS: Sorry I had to downsize my pictures... but the internet here at the
Lodge is terribly slow... :-/

driving from Seward to Valdez over the Glenn Highway

Valdez harbour

oil tanks opposite the Valdez harbour

for once it's not meese or bear that we had to watch out for but ducks :-)

Valdez Harbour

arrival in Cordova by Ferry (Marine Highway)

random Cordova road

Baja Taco (favorite restaurant)

along the Pipeline trail

Pipeline lakes

wooden stove in the Mc Kinley lake cabin

Mc Kinley lake cabin

night night :-)

the Grizzly

see the hump on the back? ;)

he got the salmon!! :)

Childs Glacier

Childs Glacier

the Million Dollar Bridge (google the history! )

our Orca Adventure Lodge (look at my Gumboots :-) Haha)

Santa's Getaway Hut :)

Hey there!

So we were thinking... describing to you where Santa actually lives didn't quite show in our last post. This is why we thought it to be a good idea to come back to that :-)

So up there, on top of the glacier is a shelter, to be used for extreme situations only! Obviously they say that, otherwise lots of people would just stumble into Santa's living room every day! We do understand that they tell people not to go there for overnight stays :-) Plus, giving the shelter an address would be a bad idea too, since then the whole world could get in touch with Santa, just by opening up the phone book :-)

Obviously... riiight? :-) Sooo, anyway: we went there and we... SAW IT ALL :-)

here's a few more pics for you guys, just so you can get a better picture of where your presents come from, as of next christmas :-)

Take care,

AnD

PS: And by the way: Comments on our blog are always welcome! We are just soooo happy when we get comments :) It's so much fun knowing that there's someone "out there", who's interested in what we're up to! So thank you guys, and be sure to go on commenting our blog! It's something we really look forward to until the day we get internet somewhere :-)

spectacular view on top of Exit Glacier

"So that's where he lives!! :)"

I made it!! :)

Santa's getaway hut! :-) only people who stay overnight can open the door and see all that makes Santa's world so fascinating! But those who only go there for the view...well, they kind of miss it all, because they will only see a wooden shelter with lots of names on the walls... no kidding :-)

We could actually lock the shelter from the inside! So no bears that night :) *pure luxury* :)

sun setting, neat colors on the mountain summits!

Don't let yourselves convince by this illusion... it looks totally different, (like more christmassy ? :) ), once you're inside and in your sleeping bag :)

Davy and I went looking for Santa :)

Hello all of you!

After taking a Neurofen and after eating two slices of Pizza I am finally able to blog! No kidding, I wasn't at my best tonight... Why, are you asking? Well the both of us spent two pretty short and cold nights outside, you'll see how :)

So last time I wrote you all, we were still in Kenai and hadn't left for Seward yet! Here's the news!

First when we arrived in Seward we thought, Huh... this promises to be fun!
 In front of us streched a long road, 4rth avenue, down to the sea, with a dozen small shops and a bakery. Far from the Kenai adventure is what we thought... too bad.

But then I had a great idea! How about a six hour boat trip out to Aialak Glacier which is supposed to be really nice? But Davy was more than unhappy with that idea, because for him, a boat tour is necessarily too long and too boring for us young folks.

Instead he wanted to go sea kayaking (to that same place!), but the hours they offered didn't fot our schedule, because we needed to leave two days later, really early for Valdez (from where I'm writing right now! :) ).

Offering to go kayaking and rafting in Cordova (a town with one only road that leads nowhere, and to where you can only get by ferry, wich is why we are here in Valdez, obviously) :-), so offering him that, he agreed to go on my boat trip under one condition:

"I want to hike all the way up Exit Glacier and camp there in the Emergency shelter (which, named that way obviously is not ment for overnight stays... :D ) What was my choice? I had to get on that boat trip so I agreed.

Until then we drove off to the Exit Glacier campground, which as the name states is situated right next to the Glacier (aka, temperatures drop dramatically...) We found our spot, number 9 if you need to know :-) Great campground! 12 tent sites but none of us could see the other because of all the trees and rocks in between! Really neat!

6:30 AM tidiiiit tidiiit tidiiiiit *snooze* 6:35 AM TIDIIIIT TIDIIIIT

Wake up time! At eight we will be boarding! :) I was sooo excited! Davy not so much, but don't you go imagining things :D He stepped off the boat a few hours later, a huge grin on his face saying "Okok, that was awesome!"

The captain, his name was Tim, was soo entertaining! :) He knew really well how to find wildlife and tell us stories and historical facts on the Resurrection bay, the town and the glaciers. That way we came across a dozen whales, sea otters, sea lions, Puffins (sooo funny birds! Google them :) ), Dolfins and a black bear! No kidding! I spent all the time outside in the front part of the boat, so I could be among the first to spot wildlife and get the best pictures :)

Even though it was awfully cold, I believe it paid off, you judge the pictures :) Usually the boat has to turn around midway because 50% of the people are sea sick and because  the weather's too bad. But when we got there, it was the first time since long that the captain reached the glacier in one go! We were so happy! There were people on our boat for whom it was the fourth tour! So hey, we were soo lucky having chosen the sunniest day in July to get out to sea :)


Ok, so that Tour went more than well! And I had already forgotten all about the adventure that awaited me in the late afternoon: the Harding Icefield trail! But no way to miss that, so we packed and drove off.


As usual at the very beginning of the trail the was a choice of either going left or right. so I said we should go right, obviously, because the other way was signed out as being only 2.3 miles which, I must admit, sounded weird considering we had to get up tp the top of the glacier! :-)


BUT, as usual, Davy was sure I was wrong so he said we should take left... Grrr... But my long year's experience showed me that discussing this wouldn't be a solution, so the only way out for me is always this one: "Ok, I do as he says, but only to prove him wrong" :) That way I can savour my finishing line: "I told you so" :-)

Aaaanyway, we always end up with that brilliant line from Megamind, a Pixar movie (watch it!):
"Mignon... you were right. And I was... less...right." :)

Now going up 1100 meters in a flash is no easy thing to do! Happily the next day we went the same way down, so I could admire the scenery :D why only then? Well, I was sooo tired going up that I had my head down and dragged myself litterally to the top :) we even saw two bears (here Davy will tell you he only saw one, but I distinctly saw two!), but they were friendly and on their way to wander off the trail, so our talking and noise of the bear bells were effective :)

Finally on the top of Exit Glacier, we just had the time to watch the sun setting on the mountains and the glacier (pink lights every where - only darkness never came :D ) before falling sound asleep in the shelter. Well sound asleep for me maybe but Davy talked the whole night long, with me, with some imaginary people... I guess he was more than disoriented... :D Quite funny now when I think of it, but then, in the shelter, surrounded by snow... not so funny :-)

Sooo, that's all folks. At least about Seward... now we're in Valdez, tomorrow we're taking the ferry to Cordova and disappear again for a few days, but no worries, we'll be back soon enough! :-)

Take care,

AnD

The Alaska railroad

Fishermendisplaying their catch at the end of the day!

2 bald eagles as our boat leaves the harbour in Seward

first Humpback Whale spotted!

beautiful setting!

Whale lunching near fishermen

sea lions sunbathing

two sea otters "chilling" along :)

Aialak Glacier

black bear strolling on the beach near Aialak Glacier

top of the Harding Icefied trail :) We made it!

where Santa lives :)

marmot :) funny guys!

"It makes a good story!" :-)

Hello you guys! :)

WE ARE BACK... and alive too!! I can tell you... we weren't so sure of that at one point... :-/

Let's just say it this way: The tour was amaaaazing! :-) Nature! Wildlife! The lakes! The atmosphere! Everything was really amazing! We definitely felt like we were "out there"... and I do not lie when I say, we were - alone - out there! Now before reading this post, please make sure you are seated :-)

And here we go!

First day, we arrive at the campground and Canoe rental.
We enter and the Lady says: "Hi there! How can I help you guys?"
"Well, we booked a canoe tour for 5 days, four nights"
"Uh! What's your name again? David? Oh my... I thought those guys were David... well now you have to wait for 2 hours before we can drive you out there"
So we decided that wasn't so bad, anyway... we are in Alaska, no stress :-) So we went out to Suzie's and had a huge bacon cheese Burger... I dare say in kind of a "last meal" atmosphere :)

So here we go! The old rusty white Chevy is driving us over a gravel road "far far away" (as Shrek would say) up north to the lakes next to the Swanson river. No more information other than, "ok you're all set guys, see you in a few!" ... and off she drove in that rusty old Chevy of hers.

Now here we are... "great"... so what now?
We kinda grinned at each other, not really knowing how we got ourselves into this "alaska experience" (I'll just call it that :-) ) First thing was a land passing, aka carry the canoe and the backpacks (note three green ones and one black one - remember for later... ) and the food and the water. So every land passing we did after that, we did 6 there-and-back trips... I cannot tell you how tired we were after each of those! (Good thing we got all of those cereal bars then :-) )

Paddling over two beautiful lakes was a wonderful beginning of our trip! We were sooo happy, being all alone in that forest! It was kinda neat. So then we had to find a place to sleep. Our first one!

We remembered all they told us back in civilization: Do not wear the same clothes you wore whilst cooking in the tent, do not have ANYTHING with a scent on it in the tent! Do not have ANY food next to where you sleep!
All right all right we thought, that can't be so bad... so we cooked a delicious dry food - chicken stew on our gas stove ( Miam! :) ) and then went for a swim in the lake (the water was warm enough for us both to dip in and come right out again :) ) Good thing about that is: first: we can say we went swimming in Alaska :) Second: when you get out, it's feels a lot warmer and you do not have cold feet any more!

So here we are, sleeping in our tent, not worrying too much about wildlife...
The next morning, the weather was amazing like the day before and Jeff and Mike walked by with their canoe. So not only have we met two really nice people, but you'll hear from them again later in this post! (uuh! suspense :-) )
So yeah, we talked, and kinda like that they told us about their red salmon they caught the day before... we were like, wow! we never tasted real alaskan salmon! No? Well if you like we can leave one half with you guys, we have too much food anyways... I won't describe it all (you got the picture beneath)... but it was just sooooooooooooo goooooooooooood!! I have never ever tasted anything the like! Wow! The salmon we have in Luxembourg, I tell you, that's just an imposture :-) Can't be real salmon... just can't be, because this piece of red salmon, THAT was THE salmon :-) Anyway...so that's that.

We paddled on and had two really long land passings and finally, kinda out of nowhere, it got really stormy! There were waves on the lake we were paddling through... oh my god! We kinda feared we would tip over a few times... the life west thing suddenly became very very important!
Again, just think about it, even in an emergency, who would you call when your phone says "no service" and the only living thing around you are a few Loons (huge Ducks that make noises like coyotes! :-) We were kinda scared the first night, but then Jeff told us what they are, so... lucky us it was only Loons that scared us THAT night...) :-)

Feel the tension? I wanna tell you guys about the second night...

So here we are, on the stormy lake, when we pass Jeff and Mike, who, from the shore yell at us: "Want some tea?"... but we were in no condition to come on land, so we paddled on, soaked... Then when finally we had reached the entrance point, we thought, hey, there were two tents on this side of the island... but we came for adventure in the wild, right? So why not camp all alone on the other side of the island... Well you guys, that was the first mistake... People in Alaska, with only bear spray and two paddles to defend themselves should never neglect the warmth of the thought that there's someone sleeping nearby who has a gun and who knows how to use it... Well NOW we know, right? :-)

Again we ate far away from the tent, we left everything in the bag which we put near a tree (it was too heavy to be put up the tree...sadly...) and went to bed, having no clothed with us that had any scent on them from dinner or the salmon... I guess you could say we slept for an hour or so when suddenly:

padam padam Padam Padam PADAM PADAM PADAMPADAM !!!

We heard something galloping toward us, not just towards us as in direction, no! galloping right INTO out tent!!! We sat up at once, breathing fats, eyes wide open and thought, we are gonna be crushed under those hooves, and we cannot do a thing about it, AND WE ARE ALL ALONE!!

But then we heard it jump into the water and disappear... PUUUHHH!! That was close! We had our tent built up in front of some trees so that's maybe why the Moose ('cauz it was a Moose for sure) didn't run over our tent... just like half a meter past it...

one minute to breathe and get ourselves together... just enough time to read in each others eyes: "thank god we're still here" :-)

But THEN!!

RRROOOAAARRRGH!!!!

HUH!!??

Davy looked at me and I looked at him, and we knew... There wasn't only a Moose... but that Moose was running away from a bear.... and THAT bear was in OUR food!!!

So after five long minutes Davy stuck his head out of the tent and came back in fast (the bear spray tight in his hand) and said to me: "there's a big black bear in our food bag! What do we do??"

So here we are... WHAT TO DO?? ... when you're alone in the WILD, with no reception, and a mile walk (past the bear) before you reach the other people... Now that's the thing when you're out in the wild... it's just you, and you have to take all your courage in your hands and be strong...

We had nearly decided on leaving our foodbag behind (Davy's black good old hiking bag by the way :) ) when suddenly Davy said: "Oh no we got all our money in that bag, plus my passport and lots of gear... !!!" I couldn't believe my ears! We had left all that with the food!!?? Come ooon!

Oukey... so here's the plan we said, we go towards the bear, standing tall, talking loudly, making noise with the bear bells and just cut off the top of the bag and get whatever food we can save... and leave immediately by canoe... So that was the deal... After a few very long minutes we had chased the bear three meters away, where he climbed up a tree only to look at us with his big black fluffy ears and his predator eyes fixing our moves, curiously. We realized quickly he wasn't interested in us but only in the food, so we got there slowly, cut off the top, saved Davy's belongings and 12 cereal bars plus one dry food dinner. Then we backed off slowly, not turning our back on the bear.

After packing all of our stuff in a hurry, always an eye on the bear (which wasn't moving, just had his head in the bag... MIAM! :) ), we paddled off in the middle of the (thanks god, lit) night. After a land passage,we finally saw an island in the lake, six by twenty meters, far away from the land... and I said to Davy: "Well there's no wildlife there for sure, let's camp out here!"

so that's how our bad story gets a good and happy ending (well... except for Davy's backpack...) :)

Now breathe you readers, we are alive and well! But the story's not over yet!! As we didn't have any food left we had nothing for lunch and paddled on until the rain was so strong we had a break and lit a fire. Just chilling... with an empty stomach...

And there they were again: "Hello again guys!" Oh my god what a relief!! Jeff and Mike were there with us! So we told them the story, mostly to get it all out of the system :) Check the picture below! Afterwards they saved us for good because they gave us a grapefruit and crackers, bread and beef jerky, which would finally enable us to paddle to our destination, a day early but still, we made it :-)

One last night to be camping out there... first island looked kinda spooky, so we decided on paddling on... second land passing had lots of bear paws on the ground... so again, we decided to paddle on to the last campground on Moose river... Not convinced this campground was bear free, we just had to stop and fall into the tent, totally overtired! BUT, not without eating far from the tent, leaving all the scented stuff far away, hanging up our food high in a tree (black bears can climb vertically, but not horizontally on branches... and brown bears just cannot climb...) and believe it or not, this night was wildlife free, except for a squirrel or two :-)

Puuhh!

So after a cup of coffee at the Moosequito's bar, the Lady from the canoe rental came to get us and when we told her the story she said: "well that's a first in the twelve years I've been here!"...

CRAAAAZYYY! :-) And the final line which we heard a few times from Alaskans now: "at least it makes a good story" :-) DEFINITELY!

so all in all we paddled a loooooong way, all the way through the lakes, down Moose River. But it was worth it! Every little thing about this trip was worth it, it was amazing!

... only I guess we had our fare share of wildlife for this lifetime, and we'll not be putting ourselves alone like that into the Wild soonishly :-) But now we know, bear containers for the food, bear bells, bear spray and a gun are the most important things when you go out there... into the Wild!

Now what else did we see, except that Moose and the bear? Well we got nicely acquainted with Alaska's "state bird" as they like to call it over here: the Mosquito!! Huge and aggressive! No way to describe them, they just are a pest! So repellant was effective and more than necessary! Then we also saw a beaver! it was huge! And the tail! Wow, never seen anything like it in real life! I always thought they were kinda tiny... Two bald eagles, another 6 Moose so far, looots of squirrels and loons, swans, Mice and one frog :-) Not too bad for this first week in Alaska!

It's been great so far and it is gonna be even better the days to come! (even though I find that hard to believe :-) )

I hope I didn't forget anything... oh well, you'll hear from us soon enough!

Keep safe (yes ok, we'll do the same here :-) )

AnD

ps: a word out to the moms reading this blog: no worries, we are back in civilization, we are safe and sound, and we will not be camping in the real wild any time soon :) So no worries!

                                                         davy swimming in the lake

                                                            Me swimming out there too ;)

                                                                   our first camp site

                                             dry food, add some water stir and let sit... miam! ;)

                                                           red salmon, look at that color!

                                                                   chilling on the lake

                                                                    paddling some more

                                                right after the bear surprise, island campground

                                                                              loons

                                               no food, so why not relax next to a fire ;)

                                                                 jeff, mike, me, davy

                                                                        another rest

                                                            Moose Mama with two little one's ;)