1st of August
Last night I camped by a lake at the outskirts of Oslo, where the metro line meets its last stop and the city meets the edge of Norwegian forests. “Oh fuck” was my first reaction coming out of the metro, seeing and feeling the dark, hollow empty station just before midnight.
“It’s a good spot to camp.” One guy in the city told me.
“Just don’t go to this side” he pointed on the eastern shore of the lake on Google maps.
“What happens on that side?”
“Well, that’s where some people go and do…you know, shady stuff. But otherwise it’s a nice place, and there is a student dormitory there.”
I walked passed the dormitory down a well-lighted path, going down to the lake, making sure not to even look towards the dangerous side. There was a large group of people by the lake, and seeing their flashlights, I decided better to stay clear. It turned out to be a group of Italian students camping. About 50 meters from them, maybe 3 people swam in the lake, laughing out loud, skinny dipping I imagined, reminding me of warm summer nights by the sea. There was a well-maintained toilette, and even a water pipe outside it to refill bottles or wash clothes.
“You see, you are too paranoid” I critised and comforted myself. “This country is the safest place on Earth to camp”
Still, it was impossible to shake off the overwhelming sense of the forest at midnight, and my eyes stayed wide open on the path, as the laughter and presence of young campers stayed behind. I came off the well-lit path and towards the shore when some small creature heard my footsteps. It moved around in the shallow water, obviously disturbed by my presence. It seemed like a seagull, but it was too improbable, the sound it made and its behaviour had nothing to do with a seagul. Its small head looked towards me, and we both stood motionless for a moment. “Am I imagining?” I turned around with my eyes opened even wider and heart beating a little faster, and went further up the trail.
I put up a tent about 10 or 15 meters away from the lighted trail, just enough to feel safe and close but stay out of sight. As I was setting up my tent, a guy, dressed like a hiker, walked along the trail and obviously noticed me due to my rumbling and phone flashlight hectically lighting up the forest above and around. He looked at me and then looked away, and I looked at him with a side eye, pretending not to be bothered. We kept on looking and not looking at each other until he walked out of my sight.
“Should I just say a cheerful hello to push away this stupid paranoia, both his and mine?” But maybe it’s gonna be out of place and weird to just shout out of the dark to him.”
I continued setting up the tent. After few minutes, I glanced towards the left side of the forest, and saw a human figure looking towards me. I froze, stood completely still and put my flashlight down, observing it for a minute. A tiny flame sparkled and went off almost immediately, like a quick beacon – a cigarette. “Perhaps he just came to smoke a joint. He is probably scared of me as I am of him”
At half past midnight I lay down in my capsule-like bivi tent, technically ready to sleep, but my mind stayed alert and kept on ruminating about this and that, completely out of sync with the natural world. But just here, in the silence of the forest and absence of wind, next to the lake of whose surface every sound echoes, and every creature in the forest makes its existence known and magnified, just here I see how overly active the mind is. We are all probably overly stimulated by our urban lives, making thousands of decisions and plans each day, organizing, predicting and concluding, and this cannot be shut down by our will as we lie down.
1 hour later, I still haven’t fallen asleep. 2 hours later, I was woken up from light sleep by gentle rain, which, no matter how gentle, still soaked my tent from the inside. I got up and set up my rain poncho over the tent, tying it up by the two walking poles.
“How will you sleep in this moist in 20 times worse conditions than this, maybe even in snow?” the critic went on a shaming ramble.
“Maybe I can just go back and do something more pleasant. Maybe I don’t like camping as much as I thought. Maybe I’m lost in the comforts of modernity”
But I underestimated my exhaustion, as the thoughts became quiet and transformed into deep dreams. I woke up around 5 with the first light, and realised that I won’t have any problems sleeping an hour or two more.
Currently, it’s noon, and I’m on the bus from Oslo to Lom, the closest bus stop to the starting point of the Massiv Trail. I plan to start the hike, and then take a detour to Galdhøpiggen, the highest peak of Norway and Northern Europe. I have a vague idea of the route, and an even vaguer plan, but last night encouraged me to go on.
I came here to figure some things out, and to have enough time to empty, reset and clear my mind. But as always, all my intentions and desires collide and confuse the shit out of me, and just as much as I want to remain introspective and silent, so too I want to talk to the people around me, who having left their packed big backpacks in the bus’ baggage storage, and taken of their big hiking boots off to relax the strained feet, are probably preparing for similar experiences.
Some lessons:
- Make a pillow from the sleeping bag’s bag, with clothes inside
- Put the poles at the front end of the tent and the raincoat over them so it follows the shape of the tent, going down to the legs. Tighten it so the rain doesn’t accumulate
- Tighten the tent, please
- Get some sort of filter so you don’t have to eat specs of beans in your coffee
- Improvise a string to dry clothes, tent and the sleeping bag in the morning
- It’s better to be loud and say a cheerful hello than paranoid and unnecessarily alert.
