1000 people, 1000 stories

(Photos of the diary entry can be found at the end of the text).

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“Have you looked at your watch?” I ask tiredly. “Never mind,” mumbles Tanja, turning to the other side. At 10:30 we crawl out of our comfy bed. While Tanja prepares our breakfast, I take care of the navigation. In other words, I unpack my GPS and transfer the coordinates of our current position to a Word file. Then I call up the sunrise and sunset times, take the kilometers driven so far from the Terra’s speedometer and type a few brief facts about the past few days into the laptop. You don’t really need all that, but this trip marks the beginning of the time for reporting on our homepage and for one or two magazines, maybe even for a book? So every day I collect our log data, information about places and sights we have visited, an average of 100 photos per day and one or two experiences. Even if our current tour to the North Cape does not have the character of an expedition, i.e. nothing out of the ordinary, and you can undertake such an undertaking without much prior knowledge, every trip is unique. This means that if 1000 people take the same trip, each of them will have their own experiences and adventures. This means that 1000 travelers on the same tour could write 1000 books, all of which would be different. It depends on the perspective of the individual, i.e. how they view an experience and how attentive they are. The more mindful, intense, detailed and sensitive you live your day, the better your observations will be. “Denis, you really must take a look at this. We’ve landed in a parking lot here that’s full of signs and plaques. The whole region is a tourist highlight. We should definitely visit one or two of them,” says Tanja when she arrives at the Terra after taking Ajaci for a walk. I immediately interrupt my thoughts, close my laptop and take a look at the parking lot where we ended up by pure chance last night. I am amazed to read about rock paintings from the Bronze Age, the largest hydroelectric power station in Europe, the sensational discovery of a Viking ship, beautiful fishing villages and natural landscapes.

“You’re right, everything here is full of extraordinary sights,” I say enthusiastically, climbing back into the Terra Love. “And what are we looking at?” Tanja wants to know. “What do you say we go to the Bronze Age rock carvings today? It’s not far from here.” “I’m in,” says Tanja, whereupon we immediately pack up and set off.

Only 15 kilometers further on, the navigation system directs us to a small parking lot. We park our mobile home, shoulder our rucksack and camera and set off on a short hike. Just a few meters further on we come across the first red drawings on dark rocks. “Unbelievable,” I marvel and take a few photos. “Ha, ha, ha, we’ve barely arrived in Norway and already the country surprises us with a bizarre beauty from a bygone era,” says Tanja in a joyful mood.

An information board provides information about the religious, political and economic ideas of people in the Bronze Age. While Tanja and Ajaci admire one of the rock paintings, called “Dancer”, I read aloud: “The depictions are evidence of a farming culture and the rocks with such carved drawings are often located at the edge of fields and pastures. They tell of technology and the economic world of the Bronze Age, and they tell of religious worship, in which the cult of fertility, among other things, played an important role. The most common symbols are sun symbols, ships, chariots, weapons, people, domestic animals, footprints and bowl-shaped indentations. The figures are generally interpreted as religious symbols, but they may also tell of economic and political leadership. Finds in the immediate vicinity of individual rock carving fields have shown that cultic and ceremonial activities must have taken place at these rock carvings.”

As the only visitors to this fantastic place, we stroll through the forest bathed in the evening sun. Again and again, dark, round rocky ridges, polished smooth by the glaciers of the last ice age, with ancient paintings, stretch their backs out of the earth. Red wild berries, purple flowers, lush green leaves and the red rock carvings from the Bronze Age seem to dance a colorful round dance in the last warm rays of the wonderful day. 1 ½ hours later we reach our Terra Love again. “It’s fantastic to have your own home with you, no matter where you are,” I say, sitting down at the light-colored wooden table, unpacking my laptop and feeding the pictures I’ve just taken into the computer…