yesterday when i skiied across the frozen lake and into Finland the first person i met was the manager of the Kilpisjärven Retkeilykeskus, a guesthouse/restaurant, i asked him for directions to the place where my next section of maps were posted to. when he heard about my journey and why i was making it, he gave me a free lunch and invited me to stay in one of the cabins. the view from here is amazing, one of the best in Finland, the food was very good, and i am spending a rest day here after six days up in the mountains

unfortunately my maps have not arrived and i may have to press on tomorrow without them. maps for the area of Finnmark which i will be passing through are only available if specially ordered, and i dont have time to wait the week or so which it would take to order replacements, with no guarantee that they would not get lost again

i do have a large scale map but this only shows roads and major rivers, no good for navigating at all. once i re-cross the Norwegian border i will be off the map - quite literally, lost. so i will have to head east until i hit a highway which goes north, then follow that until i get to Alta. its not a prospect which i relish, but it will give me a taste of what it was like for the great explorers; Lewis and Clark, Shackleton, Scott, Amundsen, and Nansen, who crossed great swathes of uncharted territory without knowing what lay ahead, when “uncharted territory” was more than just a trite phrase

one thing which is shown on my large scale map of this area, is a curious feature which claims to show the location of “Madam Bongos Mountain Lodge”. the name sounds most unlikely, and conjures up images of a fantastical place - something like a cross between a carry on film and the Benny Hill show. stranger yet is that this place is not marked on any other large scale maps i have been able to see, and no-one i have asked has ever heard of it

perhaps Madam Bongos is like some mythical shangri la, which can only be found by those with a magic map, a place of endless frivolity and licentiousness where there are dancing girls and endless parties, presided over by the mysterious Madam Bongo - this is Lappland after all

there are tales of climbers who have returned after months in the mountains, delerious and raving about some far off mountain paradise, entirely populated by beautiful nubile girls, where there is a 24 hour buffet, and where the wine flows like water. they say on clear nights up on the high plateau, you can sometimes hear the distant sound of bongo drums

okay that last paragraph is not quite true, but there is a place marked on my map which says “Madam Bongos Mountain Lodge” so it must exist. it only looks like its a days ski off my planned route so i am understandably curious

new photos in the gallery, there have been a few glitches with the website recently, however the Folks at Mutiny Design have worked hard to correct them and things seem back to normal now. this site was created by Mutiny Design for free in support of MAG

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 3:20 pm and is filed under en - route. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.