bodø (2), lofoten (å, moskenes, reine, nusfjord, stamsund), værøy

I arrived in Bodø last thursday, via airplane, and stayed in the Vandrerhjem there (the only youth hostel) – after a long time I was again able to sleep in a room with four and not 20+ beds. The people were rather nice, the rooms were clean and there was a kitchen and a possibility to wash your clothes – I would say Q7/P8.
Bodø is, for norwegian standards, a fairly expensive city (by the way the second biggest of northern Norway). It is not really beautiful, and I can’t recommend staying there for over a day. Internet ist available at the tourist information, furthermore there are mainly 2 things you can do in Bodø:
1) Visit the world-biggest malstroem Saltstraumen, which I did. There is a big fjord next to Bodø (you have to take the bus), with a bridge over it. And when the tide goes up or down, all the water from the fjord has to pass the way under the bridge to the sea – which apparently is the reason for the malstroem. It was “nice”, but I had to leave the bridge 30 minutes before the malstroem would get his biggest diameter – if you go there, try to be there at the best time.
2) Midnight sun. I have seen the midnight su-hun, a-hand youou noooo-hot, naenae-naenae-naenae :-). Amazing. Good wheather, I climbed up a hill, and took plenty of pictures. I am trying to get them up later, let’s see if this works here.

I left Bodø saturday morning with a ferry, going to the Lofoten (islands in the north west of Norway), the trip took three hours, and I arrived at noon in Moskenes. From there I (with my travel companion) made my way to Å (I took a pictures, the town is really called that name) – which is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The Lofoten are wild nature, very steep rocks, for some reason the clouds are always very low (so that they are located between the mountain tops, which looks amazing). Å consists of 120 inhabitants, nice wooden houses (most people on the Lofoten still make their living with catching fish), 2 youth hostels, a supermarket which has opened on sundays (I was impressed), and a museum. The youth hostel we stayed at (Vandrerhjem as well) is awesome :-). Q3/P5, but very nice atmosphere, nice people… a nice town.
The rest of the day we walked around and got an impression about Å and the Lofoten – and cooked :-).
The next day, sunday, we made our way on the only street up to the next towns Moskenes and Reine (the road is very narrow, so the bus has to stop now and then an try to let the cars from the other direction pass), and the distances are ridiculous (you can easily walk from town to town within half an hour). In Reine we took a boat to the famous Reinefjord, which was unbelievable. Rain, wind (storm?), the trip took about an hour, and Raphael and I managed to stay outside nearly all the time (somehow my camera survived). The most interesting part was getting some children home from school, where a few of them nearly dropped into the water (the boat was really small, and the waves quite big). And the towns located at the fjord don’t have roads – so everything has to be transported by boats (the postman doesn’t even have to leave the ship – all the towns postboxes are located directly on the wooden peer where the boat can land). In the evening Isabell, Raphael and me took a rowboat and crossed a lake located between mountains (in the rain, which was quite funny) – I still have blistures on my hands.
No matter what people say about Norway – hitchhiking does work, by the way.
On Monday we took a ferry to Værøy, which is located south of the Lofoten (it is an island, 21km of streets, pretty small, 770 inhabitants). Famous for the sea eagles, puffins and seagulls nesting there. I thought it looked like pictures of Newzealand (you don’t write it this way, do you?), and the first woman we met said I was right – she was from Newzealand.
We took a speedboat trip to the nesting places of the birds (pretty high waves, speedboat with 35-40 knots, wind glasses, full life saving gear), which was amazing. Hope I can put some pics up.
After that I walked up to the weather station (~500m), from which you were able to see all of Værøy. The trip home with the ferry was rather interesting, because it was one of the last ferries for two days to go to the Lofoten (or to leave it) – the other ones the next days were cancelled, because of the weather.
Yesterday Joreen (a teacher from Norway, traveling around) was so nice to get Isa and me a ride to Reine, Ramberg, Nusfjord (which is a wonderful town, but as soon as you enter it, people in yellow overalls come to your car and want to have about 7 Euros for entering the town … grrr), Leknes, and finally Stamsund, where I stay at the moment.
The Lonely Planet says, that the youth hostel there is the best one in Norway :-). An old man named “Roar” is the guy in control there, the quality is at a maximum 4, but it is very cheap (90 NOK, price 2 I would say), the house is a big old wooden house, very nice, and in the huge kitchen (with library, several guitars etc.) you meet the nicest people of the world, as it seems. Very nice place. Go there. Now :-)

That’s it. For the moment.

EDIT: Grrr, no pics. Doesn’t work. Perhaps in Svolvær, tomorrow.