In Dutch whether or not using a space between two words can drastically alter the meaning of a word of sentence. Yes, we love conjugation. In Dutch, wildkamperen means camping in the wild and wild kamperen is camping wild. I often see that the Dutch word wildkamperen is written with a space. I can assure you: there is a huge difference between camping in the wild and wild camping!
“Ah, there you are again! Would you like to eat some pancakes with me?" I'm on the same camping as a in the week before. The first part of the route is almost finished and I am on the way back to check the reverse route.
Just a couple of kilometers in Sweden and I hope to arrive in Oslo the weekend. There I'll fetch the car and move to the starting point of the next part of the route. Off course I'm in the mood for some pancakes, but wouldn't you know it, I bought some to warm-up already on my way here! So I kindly declined his offer. It sounds as an excuse, but it was true. And I was not in the mood to have a social evening. Especially with someone who's talking about an impending world war three (see previous newsletter).
The weather in Sweden is fantastic still. Sometime a little bit too hot, especially if you have to climb a lot, but sometimes I see a small beach where I can go for a swim. Since I will mention them all in the guide, they'll need to be tested! It was a bit more cloudy these last few days and there's some more wind. That makes the heat more bearable and because of the wind there are fewer insects flying around, so I can sit next to my tent in stead of inside my tent in the evening.
As I am writing this, there are three small bottles of insect repellent standing in front of me. I in the country of mosquitoes and nits and hope to find the best way to transform me from a wandering al-you-can-eat buffet to an uninteresting object the is just in the way in the worst case.
Nits are tiny stinging flies which are one to two millimeters long and come at you in large numbers around the end of the day when the sun is low and especially around wet areas like lakes and swamps (wherever is still water). I grew up at the edge of a swamp area myself (Wieden / Weeribben) and we called them 'mietsen' (pronounced meetsen). We tend to use the more appropriate name 'little pit-bull-mosquitoes'. They're that bad. They drive you crazy. And since I am very tasty for anything that bites or stings, there are very few insect repellent that really work for me. Till now I was well protected by a product based on DEET for protection against mosquitoes and in lesser effectiveness stinging flies and nits. But DEET is toxic and therefore a health risk.
For this reason I'm trying out some alternatives and hope I don't have to dance, jump, howl (in pain and frustration) or make other animal sounds. In short, I don't have to go camping wild in stead of camping in the wild.
