Anchorage is the biggest city in Alaska. It is inhabited by 340,000 people, which is half of the population of the whole state. The time difference between Anchorage and Poland is 10 hours. After coming here, it took a few days to adjust my body clock, which wasn’t easy, especially at this time of year when the sun goes down very late and rises very early and night virtually doesn’t exist (it gets grey instead). That is why I am even happier that, before my expedition, I planned to make use of help offered by people from Workaway portal. It is a kind of exchange based on living with people whom you help with household chores and, in return, you get accommodation and sometimes food. In my case, I got both and even more. I moved in with a wonderful couple who showed me the neighborhood, fed me, furnished me with pepper spray for bears and with other essentials. In a word, they wanted me to feel perfectly comfortable. I also took care to show myself at my best and, wishing to return the favour, I worked more than the agreed four hours per day. In total, during the whole week, we built a patio in a garden, which they had expected to take one month.
I have to admit that Workaway is a great option for travellers who want to get to know a place and people a bit more at low cost and, at the same time, take a rest from continuous relocating. All you need is a little bit of work and openness to people.
Local people are very friendly and you can see that right after your arrival. At the airport, everyone wished me good luck. Going down the street, I noticed that everybody drives really carefully. In shops, people always ask if you need any help. In a word, people here respect each other more.
So, my first experience with Workaway came to an end. I did some shopping for my journey, prepare myself mentally and logistically and, on Tuesday, I’m going “into the Wild”.
In the city, I have visited an extremely helpful tourist information office where I equipped myself with free tourist maps up to Vancouver. Not very accurate when it comes to smaller roads, but they will be useful anyway. In Anchorage, you can find loads of souvenir shops and the ones with Alaskan art really enthralled me. In its otherness, it’s unusually beautiful. Paintings, wood carvings and sculptures from whale ivory are one-in-a-million. They reflect a deep tradition of local tribes such as the Inuit, the Yupik, the Aleut, and many others as well. In the Anchorage museum, which I found really interesting, you can learn a lot about the history of Alaska – starting with the history of distant tribes, through to the discovery of that part of the world by Spanish sailors up until modern times. The museum accumulated rich collections from different tribes and, what I think is really important, movies presenting the tribal elders that try to share their handed-down knowledge with the younger members of the tribes. Unfortunately, this knowledge is being forgotten and denied since the white man came to Alaska. We should all hope that it will never be totally forgotten as the whole wisdom of the world lies in the knowledge of the tribes from around the world, not in “science”.
During the journey you can read about me on FB fanpage or on my blog: Pursuit of Inner Freedom
The journey is held under Link to Poland’s media patronage.
Photo © Mateusz Ciężyk