Don’t look like a serial killer. Arm out. Thumb up. Higher… Like you know what you’re doing! Ass hole… don’t look at me like that. Nobody is going to stop if your thumb ain’t got enough confidence. That website definitely lied. Wooowww okay just keep driving with all that spare room you got in your car. Well at least it’s not raining. Maybe you shouldn’t be sitting on the bench. Worst case scenario you just sit here all day and wait for a bus. Where even is the bus stop? Maybe this village is too big. Maybe everyone here hates tourists now. Even the tourists hate tourists - cold. Did I forget a step? Am I supposed to have a big cardboard sign??
It was 10 minutes of that monologue before a putsy red car pulled over and invited me in. The old fellow driving was a native that spoke no English, and his grandson, visiting from Finland, occupied the passenger seat. He said it had been a while since he’s been back to the Faroes, but he surely hadn’t forgotten his history and folklore of the place in all the years. The drive to from Miðvágur to Bøur was a full on history lesson. The old lookout tower across from the airport that the British built during WWII, the disturbing legend of the child eaten by an eagle on Tindhólmur… They send me off with weather advice and well wishes as I begin my slog up the mountain, 60 liters of crap valued gear in tow. No less than five minutes in I’m wondering why I didn’t just have them drop me off in Gásadalur. Nobody needs to hike the old postman’s trail anymore. But then you turn around, somehow the cars on the road already look ant-size, the natural harbor is more impressive when you’re looking down on it, and you’ve surpassed Tindhólmur in altitude. Take that, eagle. You’re not looking up to the mountains anymore. You’re with them, in them… Each heave of the leg leaves an imprint, dwarfed by the impression it leaves on you. Nobody needs a road to Gásadalur…
Borðan is meant to be a leisure hike. In truth it should have been an eight mile, four hour walking meditation. A stretch of peace and bliss so often sought after. A marvel, really. Instead I spent the first three miles bitter. I was supposed to be climbing! The weather was a dream, the timing perfect, but the local I found insisted I go to Nólsoy instead. I mean it was slightly problematic that neither of us had a car to get to the crag, but I felt that could be overcome with relative ease. I wanted to climb dammit; a week carrying extra gear around was all for naught. Mile four is spent telling myself it’s best not to force it, such things are not meant to exist. Mile five I’m over hiking… It’s got its strong points but of all the outdoor hobbies I could pick, hiking isn’t really the most desirable. It’s just the most doable for someone who manages to be alone all the time! Miles six to eight blend together as I ebb and flow between wishing the circumstances different, and fending it off with gratitude for my surroundings. At one point I stopped to rest - some how the brain manages to follow suit and there was true - not forced - appreciation for the circumstances, if only momentarily. The hike to Borðan is a leisure hike. The hike to Borðan was but a fraction of a mile.
You ever have those moments that are so beautiful it feels surreal? And not beautiful in vision, I mean in essence. With such depth, spirit and texture it’s impossible to tear yourself away from it… not that you would ever want to anyways. It started with annoyance (naturally??). A massive herd of people hiking in front of me, it didn’t take much time for me to catch up and get caught in the bottleneck of the human migration. Sure, the weather sucked butt and it was steep and slippery, but if I can move faster carrying 60 liters of gear, you’re just slow.
Nature is really good at slapping the stupid out of you. My pack was my enemy and my best friend here. Extra weight so I didn’t blow over in 30 mph wind on narrow ledgey foot paths, but also a lot of extra area for wind to catch on and drag me. After three precarious instances of catching myself (insert mental images of me rag-dolling down the mountain face), suddenly I wasn’t so irritated with the walking green beans for bringing all the people here. (Guides, Hanna… guides wearing bright green jackets…). I even did the thing I’m incapable of doing within a 500 mile radius of ‘home’… I made friends, yo! And I know that’s true because they welcomed me (and the clothes I’d been wearing for the last four days) to their fancy private corporate lunch. Turns out I crashed a work retreat, and the people I was so annoyed with for being out on the land en mass were locals. Ironic, I know. The higher-ups opened lunch with some commentary, but I couldn’t follow a lick of it. There is >no< audible resemblance between Faroese and Swedish, so imagine my surprise 50 people break out in song. I’m convinced that once you get enough people together, no matter how awful their voices alone, together it will sound good. It’s like the central limit theorem for singing. I sat there as their native song filled me up, nothing to do but soak it in, no where to go other than to the Present. It manifested as a stupid smile I couldn’t wipe off my face - the personification of joy. I’ve never been more out of place - more of an odd man out, but also so perfectly in the right place.
Days later I’m three islands removed from Suðuroy, walking through Klaksvik when a man gets out of his car and waves me over. My inability to remember faces aside, it’s hard to recognize a green bean when they’re no longer green. It’s not often we get to thank the people we meet in passing after we’ve had time to process their presence. A small lone tourist dwarfed by her backpack, still out of place, still in the perfect place.
How long should you know someone before you accept an invite to their home? Or flip it. How long should you know someone before you’re comfortable inviting them into your home? In the Faroes that is approximately two minutes, max. There isn’t much to do in the villages of the Faroes on a weekday, little lone on a Sunday. After a banging free meal of non-dehydrated food (shout out to you, Bakkafrost) I had no agenda other than killing time before catching the ferry back to Tórshavn. How does one kill time in a tiny village when the weather blows (hard, literally)? Well first you go to the grocery store and wreak havoc through the aisles, knock down an entire top-shelf’s worth of ramen, and reenact it for the local that’s laughing at you, who only, to their dismay, caught it out of their periphery. Then you pack up your groceries and what’s left of your dignity and wander aimlessly.
Aimless morphed to goal-oriented at Google’s suggestion of a potential café in the area. En route to my destination (mentally willing it to actually be open), I passed a man doing some work outside. Shedding my adopted East Coast coarseness, I greeted him expecting nothing other than a grin or a wave in return. Instead I’m pulled into conversation, albeit slow, broken and awkward due to substantial language barriers. I ask if there are any cafés around, as I stare at the café Google Maps found for me on my phone. He says no… (It’s possible that was true, it’s also possible he had no idea what I was saying). I wanted to present my case and be right, but I also didn’t want to be a prick, so I concede and return to the charades required to communicate. On his turn he gestures to his house and offers to make some coffee for me instead. I wasn’t willing to be a total prick, just a partial prick as I negotiated for tea instead, and to use his toilet.
I could write a short chapter describing the antiquated features and nuances of his home. In many ways it’s exactly what a home should be: messy (but a mess that’s got history), worn in, and open to everyone. Over the course of an hour we exchange short anecdotes, probably only actually understanding each other 20% of the time, but this didn’t matter much as ultimately we were sharing part of the human condition - companionship - rather than conversation. Of course I showed him photos of Ophelia; of course he thought she was adorable.
Just when I think Faroese people couldn’t possibly be any more welcoming, my host pulls out even more stops, offering to chauffeur me around the island to the best views before dropping be back at the ship. At least, I imagine they were the best views, the fog was too thick to see much of anything. Undoubtedly though, the best stop was the gas station. My first treat was a gargantuan chocolate bar (thank you, friend whose name I will keep anonymous). The second was the look on a villager’s face as he pulled up next to our car to see my new friend, an older gentleman, parading a smöl young lady around in his car. Naturally, everyone knows everyone here and the two had a laugh and exchanged some words (lord only knows what was said) before we peel out on the Tour De Suðuroy.
There are only so many small talk points of conversation I can make in basic English, so I mostly just sat there with white knuckles as we drove through some of the creepiest, most claustrophobic decrepit tunnels one can fathom. By the time we got back to the port, I’d mentally pocketed more offers to come back and stay with my host, live even, with my host, than one can keep track of. Knowing his house, (deceptively small on the outside, large on the inside) that offer was extended to any of my friends and family who want to visit the Faroes… so if y’all need a place to crash I’ve got thee hookup for you.
I’ve got a strange attachment to my water bottle. It’s like my right hand man, my sidekick, my safety blanket. It’s blanketed in stickers and scratches that act as little visual cues to remember good experiences and appreciate my journey (and so I can look cool, of course). Plus they’ve got the added benefit of being a conversation starter; something I’m not great at, so it takes some of the pressure off. When I inevitably find myself in a social situation I’d rather dip out from, it’s my fidget toy and source of sensory distraction (seriously the number of different textures on that thing is remarkable). Basically if you catch me without my beloved Nalgene, something is wrong, and I’m probably severely uncomfortable.
My heart sank like a boulder thrown into the sea when I habitually reached to the left side of my pack and grasped air where there should have been a bottle top. Fuuuuucccckkkk! Instant retracing of steps ensues, and I’ve pinpointed at least 4 places it could have vanished. Anywhere on the hike I’d just finished (specifically, the two places I ate shit… It was muddy and steep, alright), on the tiny bus, on the ferry, or on the big bus. Insert face-palm emoji. My gut said big bus; I had gotten off in a hurry and it was entirely plausible I’d left it in the seat pocket.
In Klaksvik the next day I had the information center phone the bus company, who said they don’t have a lost and found! Fantastic, back to stage two of the grieving cycle (that’d be anger, irritation, frustration and anxiety…). My last ditch effort before forcing myself to the fifth stage (acceptance) was to get back on the same route and will it into the universe that it’d be the same exact bus. Fat chance, I know… I plead my case to the driver (who didn’t have it) and he said he’d make a call. Not long into his call he measures a distance with his hands, asking me if it’s that size. “No… it’s not”. SIGH. I found it odd he stayed on the phone with whoever for the next half hour, and that we were stopping through some village I didn’t recognize from the inbound journey. It got slightly more curious after we stopped at a bus stop where nobody got off, and nobody was getting on.
We’re sitting… and sitting… maybe we’re ahead of schedule? And then an empty bus pulls up next to ours, the driver gets out and gets on the other bus (are we switching drivers??). No… He comes back out, the heavens part, angels are singing, trumpets are playing, and he bestows upon me… Life! (water, that is) in the most perfect aqua-colored plastic cylinder blanketed in stickers. Name another place where the local bus drivers would coordinate a route detour and send a spare bus just to return a water bottle… I’ll wait. I maintain that the Faroese people are some of the kindest, most generous and accommodating folk out there. More fond memories and scratches, if only mental, to add to my companion.
