Day 134 | Tuesday July 26
Woke up at camping Karacamp in Karasjov (it almost sounds Russian). While it was 25 degrees yesterday, today it was raining hard. For today I had not a tight plan, I just needed to go south towards Finland.
I stopped in Kautokeino which was close to the end of my battery. It was a quitte town and someone tipped me that I had to go to the Juhls Silver Gallery. It’s a shop where they sell jewelry, made from Sami silver. It’s not only a shop but there also is a museum where they show tools of the Sami people.
As I found a socket to charge the car I decided that I wanted to pass the Finish border today. On the Smart Charging app I found there was a Type 2 charging station in Palojarvi, I was not sure if it would work but it was worth taking the risk. Around 11pm I arrived in Finland! Country #11 already this trip and my first time here. I don’t know much about it except for that my childhood hero Jari Litmanen comes was born here and the legendary Nokia company.
As I secretly expected the charging station didn’t communicate with the car. It was placed next to a gasstation with camping and that was about it here. The camping shop was already closed but luckily there was normal socket used to keep accu’s running in the winter so there I plugged it in.
I could sleep in the car or at the camping but I was not sure who they would react in the morning. At the other side of the road was nothing and why not put up the tent there in stead of 30 meters away and risk getting trouble. So this was the first time I went “wild camping”. The place was filled with mosquitos, like thousands, it made it almost impossible to put up the tent but eventually it stood there.
Day 135 | Wednesday July 27
I counted my mosquito bites, there were at least 25 of them. On my face, arms, back and ass. Crazy how was they can get you.
The car was fully charged thankfully and I continued my way down south. The first biggest “city” i passed was Muomi and there was a charger too, again I couldn’t use it. When I got there I was terrible hungry and while driving I felt not fresh at all. The last time I had some food was breakfast yesterday morning, and that were just some slices of bread with jam. The charger was located next to Hotel Harriniva and the very friendly lady was willing to offer me a lunch. They had a buffet with many thinks and normally I would have gone for croissants and sweet stuff but I choose paste, cauliflower and salade. I could feel the vitamins flowing through my veins, it felt damn good.
I charged a little but and continued driving it started raining heavily and even huge hailstones fell out the air. I ended up in Kolari with 7% battery left. There was a huge building with a big sign “hotel” on top of it but when I entered I found it was now used as a home for refugees. There was a caretaker and I explained him I was looking for a bed and place to charge the car. I felt actually a bit stupid that I came here to ask that while there were so many people here in a bad situation. After all I am in a luxurious position that I can make a trip like this. The caretaker was really nice and thought he had an idea. With his car we drove to a train station nearby, it was only used in the weekend and he thought we would find a place to charge here. There was a press-container and we tried to find some people to ask it it was ok to charge there. There was nobody. On the container was a phonenumber which he dialed. Long story short: it was ok to unplug the container and charge the car there. It didn’t work out well, after 20 minutes it stopped charging and I changed to a normal plug.
Around 4 in the morning I arrived in Pello where I found a plug outside. It was in the city and no place to camp so I spend the night in the car, just like old times.
Pictures of today