After breakfast and the dishes were done everyone was informed that we had to make our lunch for the day because we would be stopping mid-hike to eat. Once that was done everyone unloaded any unnecessary items out of their bags, to leave at the cabin, and we were off to the wilderness. The first part of the walk was quite pleasant and was on the road. I'm sure we had more than our share of stares from bewildered Swedish drivers.
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| Preparing to leave |
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Photo with my later to be
best friend Niamh ft.
Sandrigo's Middle Finger |
Eventually, we made it to the edge of the forest, and this was where the really gorgeous scenery started. About a quarter of the way to camp we came across a small stream and everyone, of course, had to taste the fresh water after the Rotarians had said it was okay to do so. To be honest, it was they best, freshest, and cleanest tasting water I have ever had in my life. We then continued to walk probably another 2km uphill, the whole walk has been up hill. At this point, I was hanging with friends in the back of the group when we came up on a turn. The Rotarian informed us that a large majority of the group missed the turn, so they were going to stay there and wait for the rest of the group to come back so they wouldn't miss the turn a second time. We, however, we more than welcome to continue on the right path to get to the lunch location. This turned out to be a bad decision on our part because somehow we managed to miss the very obvious lunch point and continued to hike to almost the spot where we were setting camp. We then had to turn back around so we could go back and eat lunch with the others. After lunch, we finished the last part of the hike through very swampy terrain, so if anyone didn't have hiking boots their shoes and socks got soaked and their feet cold. The total of the hike was around 6km I think.
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| At the head of the trail |
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| The amazing water |
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| When we went way too far |
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| Lunch |
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| Rest of the hike to camp |
Once at the campsite, each group, which was assigned by the Rotarians, had to set up their tent. (The tents were more canopies because they didn't have floors. Following that, my group was informed that we had dinner duty that meant we couldn't screw around because we had to make dinner soon, but I still managed to go exploring for a little bit and have a nice bro talk with Pete (West Virginia) and Chris (California). While we were doing that some of the kids were getting waste deep in mud or experiencing the Swedish way of the sauna, a la nude.
As the day got later and later, the temperature got colder and colder. By the time I went to bed me and one of the oldies were the last ones by the fire. We both decided to go to our tents and then a couple minutes later her head was poking into my group's tent asking if she could sleep there because hers was crowded. I said it wasn't a problem and I was sure the others wouldn't mind because they were already fast asleep. It was also good for me because there were a couple extra sleepers in the tent already without sleeping mats, so I was barely on my mat because someone else was taking most of it. Once she laid down we both tried to sleep, but that was when Hunter (New Mexico) decided to serenade us in his sympathy of snores. That wasn't a problem for us though because we just decided to move closer together to stay warm in the unheated tents in the north of Sweden and shared stories in hushed tones in order not to wake the others and subject them to the bombardment of Hunter's snores. Eventually we fell asleep.
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