ulysses

River rafting the Wermland wilderness

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I had left it until late in the day to plan any activities with the kids for the summer hols, so when my sister suggested we come along on a four-day river raft in Wermland, I jumped at the opportunity. It didn’t start well.

We had driven deep into the forests the previous day and late afternoon we found the rafting outfit. We got our equipment in large, no-nonsense wooden chests, and pitched our tents by the shore in a meadow. Then we got the debriefing: a rundown of the logging history of the region (long and winding), the nature of the Klarälven river (ditto), the potential obstacles we might encounter (submerged sand banks, low-hanging trees, backwater maelstroms – all fun-sounding…) and a quick walkthrough of the knots we’d be using to tie logs together (Did we learn them well enough? We did knot.).

Then a harsh surprise: roll-call tomorrow at 0700 and a 0715 departure to the place up-river where we would build our rafts. That seemed uncalled for, until they finally divulged the reason why; constructing the rafts would take between six and nine hours! The web page made it sound like it was something you could do in an hour, tops…

Given that the seven of us were going to share a whopping three rafts, latched together into one mega-structure, there were no prices for guessing how long it would take us. The forecast for the next day? Nothing. But. Rain.

Not featured: rain and curses.

We woke to a steady drizzle, and drove for about an hour under incontinent skies before we arrived at the construction site, where piles of logs awaited us.

So there we are. It’s an intimidating sight. The stacks are as tall as I am, and the logs range in size from solid to massive, every one of them slick with rain. One 3x3m raft weighs about 1.5 tonnes, so we’ll be shifting the equivalent of three cars’ worth of timber into the river. Bonus: the heftier logs go into the bottom layer (of three), but the piles are a jumble of sizes, a real logjam, so getting them out is akin to a giant game of plockepinn, where every movement can make the logs shift and crush your hands.

We start lugging logs as best we can, dividing them into different sizes, rolling the heaviest ones into the water so we can latch them together. The rain keeps falling, and the kids are questioning our sanity. Did we really volunteer to do this? And pay money for the privilege? I am inclined to side with them, but we are committed to this now, so on we trudge.

The water temperature is a decidedly chilly 15 degrees, numbing our hands and feet; the current is just strong enough to make holding the logs together even more difficult. The clay of the river bottom retains an iron grip on our sandals, but the same clay makes the shore incredibly slippery, so once you wrench your foot free of the water you are likely to slip back down again – all while juggling 600-pound logs. Such fun.

No-one remembers any knots, but after half a raft we at least figure out that we can use the thinner logs to create impromptu rails, which makes getting the heavier ones into the water quite doable – the kids join in and roll tree trunks ten times their weight into the river, which they enjoy.

Timber!

By lunchtime we have finished one raft, and the food dries our dampend spirits, but we’ve got two more to go, so into the river we slosh once again. Other, smaller groups finish their rafts. They load up their kit under the tarpaulin tents and get on board, only to find that the weight of the vessels is now so great that they are instantly stuck. So there they are, stood atop their beached whales, trying to push off with the help of barge poles, effectively trying to lift themselves. Our dreams of Huckleberrying it down a Swedish Mississippi seem shattered, replaced by a robinsonade – we are clearly doomed to be marooned on this beach!

It’s a measure of the general exhaustion level that it takes quite a while for anyone to figure out that the way to get afloat is to get off the raft and lever it free by wedging the barge poles underneath it. Once that is done it is child’s play to set it adrift, but the ordeal isn’t over; several rafts only make it fifty yards or so before settling on a submerged sand bank – we’d been warned about those, true, but so soon? It didn’t seem fair, somehow…

By the time all other groups had pushed off and sailed down the river at what seemed an impossibly slow speed, we were still building our last raft. All in all it took us just under nine hours of backbreaking work, and no-one felt like getting on it when we were done. Instead we pitched our tents and crawled into our sleeping bags, wrung out and cold to the core.

After a fitful night (I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired, or slept so badly), we woke to another dark grey sky, had breakfast in the rain, and finally set off, making sure we steered clear of the first sand bank. Behind us, a timber truck was already offloading the next stacks of logs.

The tempo takes some getting used to. It takes us three quarters of an hour to drift around the first bend in the river. Klarälven is wide and stately, and moves at a decidedly measured pace – rafting here is not for speed demons!

The meandering course is caused by silt deposits that build up on the inside of the main water flow, where the slower speed causes particles to sink to the bottom, which in turn reinforces outward pressure on the water, causing it to press even more against the outside of the next curve. If that all seems a bit technical, all you have to remember is that there is a reason why real estate is cheaper on the outside of any river bend – sooner or later the waters will take it.

This also means that the main flow of the water will always be tending towards the outside of any given curve, and you want your raft to steer clear of the inside, where silt deposits will make sand banks all but a certainty. That’s the general rule, but it ain’t always the case, as we soon discover.

Because there has been a lot of rain lately the risk of running aground on sand banks isn’t great, they told us. Well, two hours into our river run we beat the odds and get firmly stuck. The water is shallow enough that we can stand on the bottom and lever the raft off, but then because we haven’t really gotten used to the (lack of) speed with which we are traveling we make a mistake – ahead of us is an island, and we had been warned not to try and get past an island on the inside, as that would see us marooned, so we pushed on into a narrow canal on the outside.

Of course, it turns out that this wasn’t the island in question (that one we will pass just fine – much, much later), and we have just forced 27 unwieldy square meters of timber plus a canoe into a very tight backwater squeeze. It takes us the better part of an hour to round this islet, using nothing but our stakes, and after that we paid better attention to the map and the flow of the current.

After this, things run a lot more smoothly. The rain stays with us, and we hide out under the tarps as best we can for the most part, only venturing out to push away from the shore line when we get too close, or when a fallen tree juts out into our path. There’s a learning curve to this, too, but gradually we pick up how, when and how hard to push to achieve the desired result. You want to angle the pole right or you won’t be able to push at all, and you want to time it so that there is no risk of the raft catching up with the pole, in which case it might very well snap it in two, something that my sister discovered first hand (mass and momentum are powerful things even at low speeds). Finally you don’t want to push too hard, because that will make the whole raft pivot, and cause the aft end to get raked by the very obstacle the front just managed to avoid. We don’t always get it right, and a couple of times we plow through trees that whip the length of the raft, but we come away more or less unscathed.

My nephew has brought fly fishing equipment and keeps casting in the rain, but to no avail. Luckily we have stocked up on lots of food, because there is not a fish to be seen. The guy at the base camp spoke of all manner of species that could be caught, but although we cover nearly 60km of the river in total there is not the slightest indication that there is anything fishy going on – apart from selling us fishing permits in the first place.

Thankfully the landscape is very pretty. The river runs (well, saunters) through deep forests, and it’s easy to imagine them full of moose, bears and lynx (all of which do exist here, even though they don’t show up on our radar). We spot a couple of beaver huts along the way, but otherwise there is little going on, possibly because the riverbanks are very steep, and there are virtually no spots where you could land, let alone pitch a couple of tents, so it’s a good thing we didn’t try to move out on the first evening.

As it is, it isn’t until late afternoon that we find a suitable meadow on a promontory, but as we realise it quite late, my brother-in-law and I have to jump in the canoe and pull the raft inwards. What we should have done, of course, was to paddle ashore with a long tethering rope that we could latch to a tree and let the raft be pulled to shore by the current, like a pendulum, but instead we paddle like mad and fight the stream all the way, scramble up and secure the taunt line to a grassy knoll; it’s touch and go – as we touch land we see the raft go past us – but in the end we manage: a near impossible task that ensures that our muscles ache just as much the following night.

The next morning couldn’t be more different. The sun is out and it’s warm. It feels luxurious. Even the kids thaw a little. We lounge on deck, reading, snacking, snapping pictures and doing small excursions in the canoe – sandbar islands being a favorite, not least in order to avoid having to use the toilet bucket. We’ve learnt to anticipate the movements of the river and the raft, and there are no incidents to speak of. I feel like all that is missing is a straw hat and a corncob pipe and I would’ve achieved rafting level: Huckleberry.

We even catch something while fishing: a tree. The lure snaps off when caught in a branch, but we have a bit of luck; in what must be said to be an act of desperation, the fisherman had used an enormous, neon-yellow fish lookalike – it’s easily visible in the shallows, so I manage to retrieve it with a quick rescue operation in the canoe.

The last day we feel like old hands, regular log jockeys. The weather is still lovely, if a tad too windy, but we raise our tarpaulins and manage to move on unperturbed. We pass several moored rafts, amongst them one with five nubile Danish women skinny-dipping next to it, and for a fleeting moment I feel like Ulysses when he encountered the sirens.

Alas, that kinship is reinforced a mere hour before we are to arrive at our destination, when we run the gauntlet of another homeric challenge; a long stretch of open water provides the headwind with enough run-up to push us into a bend where a backwater maelstrom awaits us. We push back like mad, but the waters are deep and the barge poles make little difference – except when mine gets stuck at the wrong moment and vaults me into the river! Even paddling with the canoe is futile – but at least it enables us to make land. In the end we have to resort to pulling the raft along the shore using ropes to get out of the ordeal, but at least the Scyllic breath doesn’t blow us into the Charybdis-like whirlpool, like it does another raft that’s right behind us. When we finally do get out, they are still turning helplessly in the backdraft.

Confident smiles all around, five minutes before Scylla and Charybdis.

With this Odyssey-like rite of passage finally behind us, we are quite relieved when we come upon the disassembly area. It’s hard work, too, of course, taking apart the whole craft, but it seems like nothing compared to putting it together. And it’s quite fitting – logs have always been sent down the river this way. Once freed of their shackles they will be collected downriver and used anew. If that’s not sustainable tourism, I don’t know what is.

 

Gozo, the Isle of Calypso

I arrive at Malta airport late at night. I’m here to dive off the northern island of Gozo. Having learnt my lesson from Sardinia, I agreed with the dive centre to have someone pick me up and deliver me to my B&B. This turns out to have been a good idea, as I would have had to navigate badly signposted back roads* across both Malta and Gozo to get there. Also, people’s driving here is atrocious**. My taxi driver – a professional chauffeur – is a case in point; he has grasped all the fundamentals of driving apart from steering. He oscillates hither and thither, with no apparent notion of where he belongs on the road. Not even oncoming traffic alters his erratic approach, and I thank the stars it’s close to midnight and not many people about. 

I make it to the B&B at one in the morning, only to be greeted as enthusiastically as I’ve ever been – by a white cat, who purrs her heart out as I pet her – and rather less enthusiastically by the owner, who doesn’t purr (and whom I don’t attempt to pet). 

The next day the dive instructor picks me up and drives me to the north coast. The landscape of Gozo is like the Holy land, arid, stony, terraced, poor. People look remarkably similar, whether beggars or burghers. Someone told me there are twelve family names that are predominant on the islands since the time of the Knights of the Order of St John, and it’s easy to believe when you see how alike people look. It’s also quite eerie, being watched by an unsmiling man on one street corner only to have him (or a close copy) appear at the table next to you, then in a field as you drive past, then in a shop…

And so we go diving. The dives here are all walk-ins, meaning you start from the coast rather than from a boat. The coast is steep rock, however, often dropping five to ten metres straight down into the water, so after traversing salt pans and razor-sharp rock formations you have to clamber down metal ladders to get into the Mediterranean. The first dive goes well, but at the second site local fishermen – who don’t like divers – have sawn off the ladder, making decent difficult and ascent absolutely impossible. 

So we change plans and drive on to another place where we dive into an underwater cave. A million years of stormy weather has carved out a dome inside the rock above the waterline, so you can ascend inside it and breathe the salt-laden air of this secret chamber. It’s even light inside, because the entrance is situated near the surface, which means light is reflected on the sand of the ocean floor of the cave and up into the dome. It’s rather good – just a shame no pirate has had the good sense to hide their treasure in there for us to discover. 

Le grand bleu.

 

The third and last dive of the day is a wreck dive on the south coast. Poor visibility after the storm last weekend means we swim out and descend into a featureless blue space, only to have the wreck materialise underneath us, like a ghost, which I guess it is. 

It’s all nice, and the people at the dive centre perfectly lovely, but it is rather underwhelming after the Andaman sea. I might have to change my plans for tomorrow, but that’s for later, now all I want is a scoldingly hot shower and All. The. Food. 

Old villages are situated on hilltops here, the better to defend against invaders. Xaghra, where I’m staying, is no exception. Houses are huddled together, limestone and sandstone, all of them coloured in nuances ranging from dirty cream to creamy dirt, nearly all of them with sturdy stone balconies, often enclosed so as to create little extensions to the room, enabling its inhabitants to sit and watch village life from the comfort of their living rooms. 

Having had my shower and a change of clothes, night has fallen, and I imagine unseen eyes (belonging to yet more Maltese clones) following my progress through winding alleys as I make my way to the city square for dinner. It’s easily visible from afar, because that is where the church is, literally mitten im Dorf, as the Germans would have it. 

Mitten im Dorf.

 

The church is enormous, towering over the village. The vaulted dome is lit, and it reflects off the roofs of the surrounding houses, mere shades in its divine light, further enhancing the impression of dominance. The boom of the bells rings out over the landscape, as insistent, sharp and domineering as the call of mujaheddin in Marrakesh. 

Once inside, the church’s interiors could match the finest in Rome in its gilded gaudiness, its opulence in stark contrast to the surroundings. And it’s well attended this Tuesday evening, too. None of this should come as a surprise in a country where 80% of inhabitants are practicing Catholics, but I am a little taken aback, even so. Small wonder divorce and abortion are (mostly unwelcome) novelties in this insular world. 

My hunger is more of the body than of the spirit, however, so I set off in search of a pastizi shop. Pastizi are local savoury delicacies, and it’s been impressed upon me by several Maltese colleagues that I must try them. Seeing them is a bit of a shock. Oval pastries tapering to a point at each end, filled with cheese or peas to overflowing, they look like to me like mummified mounds, withered vaginas, brown and brittle to the touch, but the cheesy inside is surprisingly warm, moist and creamy, and I devour them with gusto. 

Erm…….

 

I break my self-imposed drought of alcohol on the town square, enjoying a draft pint of local lager together with a sampling of other dishes of Maltese cuisine, topped off with home made fig ice cream. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, crumbly but richer than you might have thought, with a note of something that I can’t quite identify juxtaposed against the sugar and cream. Rather like Gozo, I think, the beer having clearly gone to my head. Then I have another one. 

I stagger home, full and content, give the pussy cat a good cuddle, and pass out on my bed well before ten.

I wake at 0430, and can’t get back to sleep, so instead I go running. One of the two reasons I wanted to stay in Xaghra is that Calypso, the nymph that seduced Ulysses, is said to have lived in a cave right next to Ramla l-Hamra, the red beach below the village***. This is where I’m headed. Before six in the morning there is only me, birdsong and the report of rifles, as the happy hunters of Gozo do their damnedest to reduce the birdsong to zero. 

Alas, once I reach the site of the cave, there is a sign informing me that it’s “temporarily closed due to geological movement”. In my experience, when a sign is rusted and the inevitable cafés have turned to ruins, there is nothing temporary about things, and this proves to be the case. Try as I might, I cannot reach the cave. Possibly disheartened by previous experiences, Calypso is not seeing visitors.

There’s nothing for it. I turn and trot back up the hill, just in time for breakfast before the second day of diving begins. I do two dives, and they couldn’t have been more different. The first one marred by incidents, and abandoned before it really begins due to one of the participants having a blackout at fifteen metres, it’s as bad as the second one is good. The sun shines high in the sky, and visibility and colours are therefore very good, and since it’s just me and another diver we explore a long stretch of the coastline, teeming with fishy things. 

I decide to end my diving on a high note, so head back to the village for a quick change of clothes, lunch in the town square and the other reason I picked Xaghra: the Ggantija temples, or Temples of the Giants. There are two of them, and they are right here in this village. Older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids, some of the megaliths erected here exceed five metres in length and weigh over fifty tons. 

How people did this 5,500 years ago no one knows, but it is somehow reassuring that people were as ingenious then as they are now. People being people even back then, one can safely assume that Neolithic Monolith Works Ltd. came in over budget and a couple of months late, but that’s another story.  

Neolithic Lego!

 

The temples are a sight to behold. As so often is the case, all that is known about them is guesswork, but even five and a half millennia after the fact, it’s clear they were built to impress. Standing pairs of stone slabs mark the doorways between chambers, and the way they use perspective and height differences between apses serve to increase the monumentality of the innermost sanctums in quite a sophisticated manner. 

My last excursion for the day takes me to Rabat, the island’s capital that the British impetuously renamed Victoria in honour of the queen during her jubilee, something which the inhabitants never bothered to pay any attention to. Perched high above it is the Citadella, a seemingly impenetrable fortress. And yet it was taken by Turkish corsairs in 1551, and the entire population of the island – all the 5,000 who had fled inside its walls – were hauled off to slavery.  

Here I also find an example of ingenious indigenous architecture. The centrepiece of the citadel is a church, and the centrepiece of the church is a vaulted dome. Or would have been, had the construction not cost so much money that they couldn’t afford it. What to do? Every self-respecting church here has one, after all. The church fathers came upon a brilliant solution: they had a painter do a canvas depicting a faux perspective of the interior of an opulent dome, and placed it in the ceiling! If you didn’t know, you would never guess it wasn’t real. A bit like religion, then.

Fake it ’til you make it.

 

I decide to walk home, having just missed the bus. Hiking along the road at dusk I couldn’t help but feel like an even bigger target than I had that morning. But I made it home alright, and since that evening was customer night at Bubbles, the dive centre, and I was placed next to Danish Eva, instructor-to-be, incandescently beautiful and a latter-day Calypso, I feel it’s safe to say the day ended very well. 

—-

And so my brief sojourn here is at an end. I’m sorry to report that it ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. Two chilli pizzas and far too much red wine meant little sleep, in spite of the lack of company, and so it’s with weak legs, rumbling tummy and bleary eyes that this Ulysses waves goodbye to the Isle of Calypso from the ferry deck. 

As it recedes behind me, it’s easy to see why people have sought to possess this speck in the middle of the sea for millennia – unprepossessing, low key and rural, it is nonetheless a little emerald and gold gem set in azure waters, a treasure. 

*****

*Or poorly signposted in Maltese, which amounts to much the same thing. The language is a bastard mixture of Arabic, Italian and English, with letters and letter combinations unheard of in any other part of Europe. Here they don’t dot the i’s and bar the t’s but rather dot the g’s and bar the h’s.

**I have this confirmed the day after by one of the instructors: “Driving is mayhem. All rules are regarded as the slightest of suggestions, right of way an unknown entity, giving way is a sign of weakness, and might makes right.” So that’s nice.

*** I have a special place in my heart for this story, as I once fell in love with a Maltese girl, but elected not to pursue it any further since I was married with children. More the fool me.

Waving Calypso goodbye.