Swedish Canoeing with Marie

Hellooooo Marieieieie!!!!!!!!!!!!

She had JUST finished her medicine studies, was moving her stuff to her parents place, tried to organize an article and had to plan things for her trip to Mali where she would work on improving the health communication between villages with some other docters.

But this is what she needed:
My crazy Marie had made time to get away from it all and wanted to do this with me.
Like minded travel spirits.

Just like last year we were gonna hitch hike and because the weather forecast had only smily yellow suns on the website I decided to not bring a tent and sleep in the open air. Marie did bring her yellow not waterproof rainsuit, showed it once and chucked it away (too heavy).

Here we had arrived in Sweden with the boat. Very early in the morning so we had slept in the park a few hours untill some rain woke us up. It turned out we were right beside the main attraction of the town, this big fort.

Phones and canons

One of our rides, pretty early in the day, a car full of big boys drinking beer. We drove way too far with them, having Underberg for breakfast. Lots of fun.

And there we were, the tranquile lakes af Sweden with the endless possibilities to canoe, kayak, swim or fish. We did all of this, spreading our 'nest' everynight just anywhere. And every spot was so pretty and easy, I love this freedom and quietness.

Our first canoe, two days, one night.

Row row row your boat, gently down the stream..........

Mariely Mariely Mariely Mariely, life is but a dream.

We would stop, swim, smoke, eat, sunbathe, read, study French/write the diary, swim and peddle on.

Where we slept the night while canoeing, on this dock leading from a path that went up to an empty house far away.

Blue Marie

One night we had the bad luck of heavy rains. Sitting under my poncho it didn't help at all, so we packed real quick and ran to a little shelter. Too late, everything was soaking wet. It dried in one day while we made a long forrest walk and discovered more of those incredible cute houses.

Our diet consisted out of bread, cheese, cucumber, noodles, tomatoes, tuna and some cookies. Yes, the food is really expensive.

Our second time canoe rental, three days tow nights (kayaks were just too much).

In the afternoon we took off and found our own island not half an hour later. Funny idea it's all yours.

And the second night we had our own private beach.

During the day we had tried to fish, just a line with a hook, but while we crossed a pretty wavy open area where the wind picked up and we had to concentrate to not flip over, we lost the wire, sorry little fishies who might get tangled in this shit.

Both nights Marie would make dough from flour, water (from the lake), yeast and sugar. We would let it rise in the sun, I would carve sticks and so we wraped the dough around the stick with a sausage in the middle, mmmm.

My venecian condola peddlewoman doctor.

We did get invited just once by a very strange dude. We eventually said yes because we had been longing for a glass of wine the whole trip (very hard to find out in the woods) and he offered two bottles. His house was comparable with Marie's, only this was for real and not just a stadium.

We had some last strugles to get on the ferry back to Denmark for free, but after hitching to another port we managed. We had a last day on the beach in Denmark and there our paths seperated. I had a long hitch untill Holland and she went home for a few weeks to fly to Mali soon.

With a last pretty sunset I will say goodbye to Sweden and Marie.