Berlin-Anchorage-Seward: 3 weeks Alaska & Yukon begin!

08/30/2014 From Berlin to Alaska - the journey begins

H. picks me up at 7:00 am and convinces me to sort out some of my luggage at the airport. I leave behind a rain jacket, a softshell jacket, a wool jacket, and two T-shirts, as I can cover everything with two fleece jackets and a Goretex jacket - and my bag weighs only 19.7 kilograms at check-in.

The departure to Frankfurt is not until 8:40 am and I doze off a bit. We arrive in Frankfurt with a delay and I am glad that I have plenty of time for my connection. I meet G. and we first look for a place where we can sit for 3.5 hours and drink coffee. A later connecting flight to Frankfurt would have cost an additional 200 EUR, so it's better to sit around and drink horrible coffee for outrageous money...

At 2:00 pm, we board the admittedly quite new Condor plane, which is extremely cramped, so even I, at 1.65 meters, have my knees against the seat in front. Once the person in front reclines their seat (which is only possible by 10 centimeters), I can bite into the backrest. The plane is not completely full, and after takeoff, it becomes clear how Condor makes money in addition to the 1100 EUR for the flight: headphones cost 5 EUR, using the entertainment system costs 7.50 EUR, everything except soft drinks costs money. The entertainment program offers a poor selection of ridiculous movies for 7.50 EUR. Without a fee, you can only watch 1 movie and one episode of "Friends", but for that you need headphones, which - if you don't have your own with the right plug - also cost money. The catering is also rather astonishing: a cocktail "on the house" based on gin, vodka or Campari, which can be mixed with something. If instead, you want a glass of sparkling wine or wine, you have to pay. The exchange rate in US dollars is also interesting: 5 EUR = 8 dollars. At an exchange rate of around 1.30 EUR for 1 dollar, these are strange toll rates for dollar payers. The food impresses with unsurpassable lack of imagination, there is no choice of the main course, and the cutlery is plastic.

The route leads over the North Pole and is estimated to take 9 hours and 45 minutes. Due to this route, away from the jetstream, the return flight is practically the same length. Shortly before Anchorage, to the right of the plane, we see the massif of Mount McKinley in the sun. Gigantic!

We gladly leave the plane after a slightly delayed arrival at 1:30 pm local time in Anchorage. The airport in the arrivals area looks small and very old. There are old wooden panels on the boxes of the immigration officers and only 3 or 4 officers are present. We find out that our car rental Go North only remains open until 3:00 pm, and it is already shortly after 2:00 pm now. Once we are finally through immigration, have our luggage, and have found a taxi to the car rental, it is already after half past two. The way is not far and we arrive just in time and wonder why a car rental company that rents to many Germans has such opening hours on an arrival day of the main plane.

The woman at Go North speaks German and we fill out several forms, document the larger scratches and chips in the windows, and are told that we have to return the car cleaned and with a full tank of gas. This is - considering a rental price of 2,300 EUR for 3 weeks and 100 free miles per day - already hard to digest that you also have to clean the car. Our red Jeep is 2 years old and has 41,568 miles on the clock. We buy 1,300 extra miles, because in this already exorbitant rental price (without final cleaning), only 100 free miles per day are included, and we actually need 1,500 extra miles, but - if we need fewer than the pre-purchased mile packages - we would not get anything back proportionally. You can only buy an additional 100 miles at a time and pay $30 for every 100 additional miles, so with 1,300 additional miles, we have to pay over $330 again. Additional miles beyond that will be charged at $35 for every 100 miles.

The luggage fits into the small loading area with a little trickery, but the stupid trunk cover has to be stored across the back seat, as our luggage is taller than the backrest on which the cover should lock into place. So we always have this stupid roll lying on the back seat.

But now we're off!

We drive along a dreamy road, the Seward Highway, heading south. It runs along the Turnagain Arm, a huge estuary that flows into Cook Inlet. On the right side of the road, we have water, and on the left, a steep rock wall. The Turnagain Arm got its name because both Captain Cook and the legendary Captain Bligh searched here for a passage to the Northwest Passage and had to turn back when it became clear that it only leads to a river, which leads to a glacier.

But we don't have to turn around here, but drive about 125 miles south to the Kenai Peninsula. Suddenly, we can see little white whales in the water next to us: Belugas! They stay here when the water recedes. The tidal range is up to 10 meters high, and the small whales stay in a bay where enough water remains. Unfortunately, they are too fast for good photos. It is clearly visible that it is low tide: mudflats and marshland as far as the eye can see.

Portage Glacier

We briefly drive to the Portage Glacier, which can be seen better from further away from the road than from an approach. When we get out of the car in a parking lot, the first 1,000 mosquitoes are delighted with our visit, which we keep rather short because of that, and head towards Seward in the slowly setting dusk.

The Breeze Inn in Seward is great. You can already see the water behind one wing of the hotel and that's where our boat tour will start tomorrow morning.

We take a short walk to the small harbor where a lot of anglers have arrived and are more or less expertly disassembling the caught salmon on the dedicated tables.

We go to a small diner, which belongs to the hotel, to eat something quickly. They close at 9:00 pm, and we just make it in time. A deep tiredness is slowly setting in, and at 9:30 pm, I am fast asleep. We have a time difference of 10 hours to Germany, so it is already Sunday morning at 7:30 am in Germany, and I have been on my feet for 26 hours.