1st of September, 2022.
A group of 5 young hikers pass by me. I am “afraid” they will be hitchhiking too, or will stop and start talking to me, but they are actually quite “cold”, pass me straight, and carry on walking. Did I attract that? Why can’t I attract something else? Or someone else, if you know what I mean… Laugh.
Hakan stops but I cannot understand where he is going. But when he starts telling me about the two options to take, I figure he is actually going to Sveg. Wow! That’s half way to Mora! And he tells me he will take the scenic route, with a view of the mountains and a National Park, and not the flat one from the highway.
He explains to me a lot about this region and Sweden too. He is from a small village nearby here. We pass by a lot of lovely villages and their traditional Swedish red houses. The nicest village in my opinion is Klövsjö. It is super cute, by a lake, by a very popular Ski place, and with a lovely view of the mountains. It is like a dream, a movie or something. And he tells me his wife has a cabin close to the lake.
In the outskirts of Sveg, they have this huge wooden bear. It is so funny! I mean, it is nice and cute, but it has a funny shape / position. I actually like it! What do you think?
I don’t wait too long. Peter is going to Mora, to drop off some forgotten items to some people, and carry on South after, so he can drop me off their too! Perfect! We have to make room for me in his car though, because he is going to his summer house to fix things for a week, so the car is packed. Plus, his baby girl seat.
Peter seems like a very relaxed but hard-working guy. And he is quite charming with his blue eyes. He drops me off right at the centre of Mora! I cannot believe I am finally here! Yay!
What to do? I first take a quick walk around the “old town”, just across the lake and I visit the church. I say quick because it is not a big town, so not much to carry on going. But it is lovely! Oh, a very beautiful area, with some cute buildings and houses, beautiful gardens, very lovely indeed.
Then I take the “tourist” street, where all the shops and restaurants are. I am getting really hungry so I decide to ask for some food for lunch. Perhaps they have something left-over from breakfast? In the first cafe I ask, a lovely man from Kosovo gives me a sandwich and COFFEE! Seriously, you have no idea of the feeling about getting coffee for free, it is just like WOW, thank you so much!
Because I don’t want my coffee to get cold, I run to the lake, so I can have a nice view and check out the Dala horse they have here. I take a quick photograph of my food and dig in.
The lake is just lovely! Oh, wow! Seriously cute! And there is a nice park around too, nice walking paths and benches all over. It is just lovely! There are some people walking around, tourists and locals. The Dala horse is SUPER cute! I love it! And the eyes they drew on it are adorable! I stay sometime around the horse, and admiring the view from the lake. After a while, I decide to ask for some food for dinner in the nearby restaurant, and go to the McDonalds outside the town, on my way to Sundborn. There, I can check my emails and after I will just camp somewhere around.
In the restaurant they are very nice and give me some boiled potatoes with two meat burgers and some cheese sauce. They are very good but because I cannot finish the meat, the potatoes are not quite enough to make me completely satisfied. I am sure I will not go to bed hungry but I could definitely eat more.
Thinking about next morning and what to have for breakfast, I decide to ask for some bread in a kebab place, on the way to my camping spot. The owner doesn’t seem much pleased on giving me the bread, but he does it anyway. I get two steaming hot breads, and they are extremely delicious! I have half of one on my way. It is so good that I almost cannot stop eating.
I have a hard time finding a good place for camping. Unfortunately, all the flat and fluffy areas are taken by a small group of cows. So, I have to be inside a small forest, not so comfy.
In the middle of the night, I hear an animal outside, and I do assume it is just a deer, or a reindeer, but when it sees me and starts to jump away, it also makes a very loud sound, which I have never heard before. It does that for a while, and keep doing it while going away.
I was so sure it was not a deer because they are always so quiet and scary, just running away as fast as possible at any sight or suspicion of humans. But so it happens, later on, talking with some people, by checking some videos, we figure that it is actually a deer. So weird!
In the morning, I calmly finish my first bread inside my tent, and have some more of the second one. It is still so good! After that I go to a roundabout nearby and start to hitchhike towards Sundborn.
10 Years Around the World 