Having received the news that a missing customs form might force us to reverse our course and head back to Iceland Marcio started furiously texting like a thirteen year old girl, trying to get some answers. While this was going on I headed up to the control tower to see my friend Hans. I’d met Hans a few years ago when I’d sought the advice on the weather conditions in Narsarsuaq. I’d assumed that because he spent all day in the tower watching Greenland’s weather make life difficult for the ferry pilots trying to make it in that he might have opinions on the conditions that day. What I was looking for was a quick “I wouldn’t try it” or “you can probably handle it” kind of answer. What I got was long dissertation of the finer points of Greenland’s weather, airports and how pilots managed to kill themselves. If it had been any longer I’d applied for collage credit. After that day when ever I’m in Narsarsuaq I climb the tower and have a chat with Hans. He was glad to see me and promptly began filling me in on the latest gossip. What pilots he’d seen flying what and who’d had any close calls or crashes. After a little while Marcio joined us with the news that he had no news. We were to stay put for the night while the powers that be attempted to sort out customs mess. That meant a night in beautiful down town Narsarsuaq. Yippee. When he heard our tail of woe Hans promptly invited us over to his house for dinner that evening.
When we got there Hans introduced us to his Inuit wife and their two young children. She invited us to sit down and then offered us a wide variety of native food as appetizers. We had whale skin, dried fish and whale meat, cod liver and blackberries and seal “juice” that had been buried in the ground for two months to give it that “just right” flavor. I tried everything and found the whale skin not too bad and the rest, well let’s just say it was editable. The seal juice really wasn’t as bad as it sounded.
Hans and his wife showing off their traditional Inuit ceremonial clothing complete with seal skin boots.