For some reason it became the motor city of norway, the capital of oil and natural gas, one of the cities that transmit more business energy to the Norwegian nation.
Organization and functionality are not lacking at Stavanger. Starting with the incredible location and convenience of the city's Vagen port. We walked for two or three minutes along the Byparken.
After passing the statue of the writer and mayor Alexander Kielland, we enter the Strandkaien waterfront. A few meters below, we find the “M/S Rygertroll”, the catamaran we were going to board.
In itself, climbing to the top deck of the ship and contemplating the old Vagen around you was already a rewarding historical experience. The baptism of the catamaran only enriched her.
It evoked a supernatural demon, a troll of the Ryger tribe, one of those who dominated these western parts of Norway for centuries, in dispute with rival Horder.
As a tribute to these ethnic origins, the province of which Stavanger is the capital is called Rogaland, a name also derived from the Ryger tribe.
The "M/S Rygertroll” was about to grant us a dazzling foray into the depths of his territory.
Towards Long and Deep Lyse Fjord
We set sail. The catamaran skirts the peninsula through which Stavanger sprawls. We sail off the famous Petroleum Museum and head east.
One of the first splashes of earth we found goes back to the medieval era of Rogaland.
Tingholmen is said to be the island on which Olav Tryggvason, Olaf I (995-1000), Norway's first Christian king and tireless agent of Norwegian forcible conversions, held the first national assembly in 998.
Olav will have had his reasons for the place, but when we contemplate the island, tiny, mostly rocky, today urbanized only and only by a white lighthouse, the choice intrigues us.
Oanes appears on the tip of another peninsula in the form of an Indian subcontinent. By that time, the “M/S Rygertroll” bends north. With Oanes on the left and Forsand on the right, we cross the lysefjordsenteret, the official entry to the long 42km long Lysefyord.
Lyse means light, or shine. It was the clear and reflecting granite of the gorge that prompted the Norwegians to treat it this way.
In June, the month we were in, Rogaland weather did what it could. Far from wintry, since leaving Stavanger the day had remained cloudy and cool. In these conditions, it would be difficult for Lyse Fjord to shine at the height.
Stopover in Fatahla, Gruta dos Vagabundos, and in a steep pasture of goats
The "M/S Rygertroll” progresses up the fjord, now closer to the port cliffs, some over six hundred meters high.
True to his route, the captain stops the catamaran in front of Fantahla, the Gruta dos Vagabundos.
In practice, a narrow gorge, perpendicular to the cliffs of the Lyse fjord, full of rock fragments produced by glacial erosion and by young trees that seem to literally sprout from the granite.
Instead of being vertical or concave as before, the Lysefiorde has given a small grassy and sloping parapet that serves as pasture for goats.
Far from wild but qualified to survive in the natural corral of the cliffs, the goats are allegedly released there by their owners during the summer months, in order to fatten up with the lush grass that renews itself every hour, with humidity, rain and the additional irrigation that falls from the top of the cliff.
They are company with another species that proliferates in the fjord, the seals (vitulina seal), around two hundred, according to the last counts.
Over time, the offerings of snacks made by the crew and passengers of the boats turned goats into an unusual fauna attraction.
The Inaugural and Very Prickly View of Pulpit Rock
We continued almost glued to the base of the cliffs.
Eventually, we detect a rocky platform detached from the top of the fjord, a kind of granite slice, whimsically carved from the plateau by tectonic forces and millennia of erosion.
The locution informs us that it was Preikestolen, the Famous Pulpit Rock.
The confirmation generates a photographic frenzy that almost surpasses the one raised by the goats.
A few hundred meters further on, the Lyse Fjord reveals its Hengjane waterfalls.
They rush into an almost vertical flow of a quarter of a mile from the Hengjanda River, ending their flow between Lake Skogavatnet above and the fjord we were sailing through.
Right there, the “M/S Rygertroll” reverses course, back to the entrance to the fjord and the Forsand, on the opposite bank of the tip of Oanes. In Foresand we take the bus that takes us up road 13.
Then along the Preikestolen path, curving up and down until we reach the base camp of Pulpit Rock on the shores of Lake Revsvatnet.
With no reason to waste time there, eager to unravel what the pulpit had in store for us, we immediately set off.
Trek to the Heights of Lyse Fjord, in Search of Pulpit Rock
They separated us almost 4km from the top of the fjord.
We complete the first ones on a slope filled with a pine forest with trunks and vigorous roots, interspersed with semi-flooded clearings, passable by a boardwalk imposed on the vegetation.
The last kilometres, we overcome them along a trail reclaimed from a chaotic colony of granite boulders, along a natural route made of the same rock, elevated in front of a black lake.
This path, bequeathed by erosion, leads us to the rear of the highest and threshold point of the fjord.
As we skirted it, still on the rise, we immediately identified the vastness of Lyse Fjord.
We saw it extended to the northeast and southwest. Furrowed by a smooth, unobstructed river, nestled between slopes covered with vegetation.
Several of them had peaks above half a mile. At this summer time of year, the peaks showed no sign of snow.
Arrival at the Rock of the Pulpit of Preikestolen
Finally, cutting across the Norwegian vastness and the clouds above, there was the massive wall of Pulpit Rock.
In high season, crowded and worshiped as if it were a cult, Rocha do Pulpito already has a line of believers waiting their turn to photograph themselves at the dizzying edge, defying common sense and playing with the luck.
Some of your faithful lose sight of what is fair. It takes an eternity in pictures and more pictures and drives the suitors behind to despair.
Still others indulge in the most extreme photographic audacity. Instead of photographing themselves a few meters from the drop, they swing their legs beyond the threshold.
They sit surrendered to the divine will in that granitic seat measuring 25 by 25 meters, with a height of six hundred and four meters, more than severe, which does not tolerate the slightest negligence.
In good Norwegian, Scandinavian and Nordic manner, the authorities gave priority to preserving the natural look of the place, to the detriment of the safety of the approximately 200.000 visitors who pilgrimage there year after year.
Except for one or two tiny warnings.
The 'Be What God Wills' Policy Followed by Norwegians
Norwegians, in particular, follow a policy of respect for the environment and individual accountability that has become notorious, as a government official summed up: "we cannot fence off all of nature in this country."
As such, there are no fences. Contemplating the abyss of Lyse fjord ahead was already embarrassing.
From time to time, following the photos, selfies and similar mischief at the end of the rock and fearing that one of them would tip over in a dive of more than ten seconds becomes poignant.
What's more, it's not just those photographed who take the risk. What is considered an ideal point to get the image of the tiniest people, on the tip of the rock, standing out against the sky, is perfectly achieved with a slab of stone standing out some 40 or 50 cm from the cliff face.
When the craziness tunes in, both photographers and models take risks.
A Rocha do Pulpit – one wouldn't expect anything else – has already made a funeral several times. Trusting the authorities, accidents are yet to happen. The problem has turned out to be mainly suicides. There have already been some. We wait our turn. In the row of photos, of course, the safe distance from the precipice.
While we waited, we watched the new exercises, sometimes masochistic and sometimes exhibitionist, of the visitors.
Finally, there we take our photos under the double pressure of the prominent place in the pulpit: the pressure of how close we would be to the abyss. And that of the dozens of candidates still lined up, contemplating us as if only we existed.
Hurry up. It doesn't go wrong. Enough to get us back to our lives.
Providential Change to the Above Plan, More Panoramic, on the Slope
In the hiatus that we had passed in contemplation and waiting, we noticed figures that roamed the mountain above the pulpit and others that appreciated the events on the rock from panoramic niches.
Still having time to extend the exploration we were dedicated to, we looked for the trail that led there. Gradually, we examined different perspectives from the pulpit that the ups and downs, levels and unevenness of the slope revealed to us. We realized that we had gone too high.
We went back down.
Until we came upon the crest of the diagonal cliff overlooking the pulpit, the largest block of granite from which the famous formation stood out.
From there, we contemplated the ideal fit of the square surface in the flow of the fjord, extended until out of sight. If it weren't for the clouds, who knows if we wouldn't see you until the end.
We settle in, take a deep breath. We appreciated the religious strangeness of life on the granite block that all those believers continued to praise.
Photo shoot on an Abysmal Pulpit
A couple of newlyweds appear, in white dress and ceremony costume, but in photo session mode.
Shortly after reaching their turn in line and taking their positions, the sun clears the clouds, as a divine blessing and, as a supernatural focus, it falls almost only from the pulpit to here and on the newlyweds who stood out on the rock.
We went back to photographing everything that we had already photographed from there, excited and graced by the gift of light that we no longer counted on.
The miracle lasted what it did.
As soon as the clouds regained their shadow, we inaugurated the long pedestrian, road and waterway return to Stavanger.
