Skála and the storm

The hostel that I stayed at in Tórshavn, Hostel Kerjalon, was a bit pricy in my opinion at 250 kr. pr. night, but it was nice and clean with private showers, which I very much prefer. As I wrote in my previous post, I had one roommate in a four-bed room; Thorhallur from Iceland. On March 11th, we both checked out of the hostel, and afterwards he treated me and Italian Giorgio, who was also staying at the hostel, to breakfast at a fancy café at the harbour in Tórshavn. Giorgio is in the Faroes to produce a film about the total solar eclipse, which is happening on Friday, and Thorhallur and I even had to sign a paper to agree to participate in the film – all very exciting!

After breakfast, Thorhallur drove me to Skála on Eysturoy and Giorgio to Vágar Airport, where he was meeting a friend, before going off on a ferry to Suduroy. I’m so very grateful for everything that Thorhallur has done for me and I really enjoyed listening to his inspiring life stories on the way to Skála! Even though it was unexpected to share a room with a man, I wouldn’t be without it now.

When I arrived in Skála, I waited for Steve to pick me up and we then walked up the hill to the road, where they were camping at the side of the road. From then on, my journey on Faroe Islands was supposed to be with my tent as my accommodation, but nature wouldn’t let it be.

Shortly after we had set my tent up, a storm started brewing (and Faroese storms are crazy, even though the locals seemed to think that this was just normal weather) and I – unfortunately – found out that my tent isn’t as waterproof as I thought, so all of my stuff got soaked and eventually, my tent failed to stay up in the wind. Ildi and Steve only have a one-person tent, so sharing that was not an option, but you can always count on the Faroese people!

Thankfully, a lovely man came to our rescue and brought us and all of our stuff to his home in Skála, where his wife had cooked dinner and willingly shared it with us. They have four children, three of whom live at home, a veeeery small puppy and a cat. The family made us feel so welcome and thinking of what a nightmare it could’ve been, I was so grateful for the hospitality of the Faroese people. We even heard that a search party had been out looking for us in the tents, as they were worried that we were literally gone with the wind!

Later that evening, we were picked up by the family that is hosting Elien and Liam, and we ended up staying there for longer than planned as the storm only got worse. The family consists of Rigmor, Jens, their three sons and their adorable – and slighty weird – dog. It was so nice of them to take us in, despite the fact that they were already hosting Elien and Liam, and they really took good care of us and made us feel at home, and even allowed me to stay for two extra nights after Steve and Ildi had gone to set up their tent again, while I tried to figure out what I would do next.

The hospitality of the Faroese is unreal and unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Even though the journey hasn’t gone as planned at all for me, they have made my first week more than wonderful.

For the last three days, the weather has been great, and the five of us have been doing lots of hiking and seeing enormous amounts of the islands, which I’ll be blogging about very soon, so stay tuned!