the village at the end of the world

as per my previous post, the sail to niaqornat was not an easy feat. we sailed overnight, and thank goodness for motion-sickness pills, i managed to sleep it off. what a relief that when i woke up, we were already anchored near our next destination. 

if you're interested, here's a trailer of the movie "the village at the end of the world" that features the locals of niaqornat.

looking at the horizon, you can see how tiny this village is. they apparently only started to have electricity in 1988, but in this modern world even the residents here now have access to phone and internet.

from a distance: niaqornat from where we were anchored

the first thing that most of us did upon reaching the village was to go for groceries at "the shop". we have not set foot on any town since day 1, and we needed to replenish our supplies. cookies are of utmost importance, of course. i bought lovro a little book of numbers 1 to 10. he might be too old for it, but it was such a cute greenlandic souvenir. i wandered around afterwards.

the SHOP

polar bear skin hangs as a trophy outside possibly the village hunter's house

school

a very good looking ride

it is a fact that there are more sled dogs here than people, and as an aftermath of the recent tsunami, residents were also evacuated. it was a ghost town! we saw very few people, but they don't speak english. we waved at them and they waved back. i guess somehow they were curious of us too, it's not everyday that they get visitors.

the pack

i stooped down to take the photo, and was told that this was a sign of aggression. evidently.

the further and higher up i went, the more i adored this quaint little place. it just looked absolutely stunning! i saw a few photographs of it during the winter, and i can imagine how rough those months would be for them. summer is their little slice of heaven. 

guess who else made it here?!

there were rocky hills on both sides of the village, and i went up on the right side. i was too tired to do the other, so i just asked about it from the others. apparently there was a cemetery on that side, and there's an empty hole already dug up. peter said that it's probably in case someone dies in the winter when it will be impossible to dig. sad, but pragmatic i suppose. 

"so, you think you can live here?" one of the guys asked me. i said maybe 3 days. one week tops. honestly, i'm too depraved by the modern life for this to work for me.  

the rest of the day was spent sailing towards uummannaq, where things were about to get even more interesting.