Rest day at Moi
I suppose the best part about my trip is not how I am travelling but the places I visit and the people I meet along the way and their perspective on the places I visit. And experiencing that is somewhat antithetical to the idea of moving everyday, my time can not be spent only planning my route and riding the route. So I took a day to stop here for the day, breath in this tiny town.
The motorway E39 goes through Moi, and it’s a typical stop where people can fill the tanks of their car, maybe have a little something before moving on. But that’s pretty much all there is in this town, a bunch of supermarkets, a few restaurants, a salon and a Pentecostal church. It has a tiny marina, and the river Moisåna goes by it. I took the Tronåsen way to get to it, which is a very steep road over the hills that used to be quite useful during the war I have been told.
The hotel I am staying at is run by Youssef. A very kind man who also talked a little bit about the new hotel and his new life outside of Oslo. He says life at Moi is very peaceful, people have the time to stop, talk & listen, and even though he has a hundred chores to do around the hotel, he isn’t particularly stressed like he used to be in Oslo. There are things to repair, things to replace in this very old hotel and he has plans. He wants to open a gym and a 24-hour kiosk next to the hotel. It seems to me that he’s on this endless project to bring this hotel back to it’s former glory. I assume it had a glorious time because of its lounge with the bar. It still has some vestiges of bygone glamour, as glamorous as a tiny town hotel can be. I imagine there used to be piano recitals and mild dancing in the lounge. Youssef’s laid back personality and his most commonly used phrase, “Call me if you need something”, stuck with me. This is a man who moved out of a big city, took on the massive job of reopening and running a hotel that was closed for years in a town that barely has anything other than the bare essentials and yet seems to be rather excited about it; he’s busy yet available.
As for me, my little adventurous detour deviated quite a bit from National Cycle Route 1, and the road to Egersund from here is not going to be particularly pretty with a lot of motorways and such. The E motorways in Norway don’t explicitly prohibit pedestrians and cyclists, but it’s just not nice to ride a bike on them. So I will take a train to Egersund, or maybe directly to Sandnes, near Stavanger. It’s evening and I looked at Youssef’s room from the hotel courtyard. He probably already had dinner; the lights are on, I imagine he’s waiting for the next guest to arrive.
Good night!
Moi, Norway