Interlaken

Welcome to the extreme sports capital of Europe (if not the world). At this small town, situated between two lakes in the center of Switzerland, you can do any adrenaline pumping activity you can imagine. They have hang gliding, paragliding, sky diving, canyoning, white water rafting, bungy jumping, kayaking, mountain/rock climbing, ice climbing, and let's not forget base jumping. Now of all those, I'm sure you're wondering what the heck is canyoning. Basically, it's throwing yourself in a river and floating through a gorge... with a bunch of waterfalls along the way. You stop at each one and jump, slide, or repel into the pool below. I'm told it's a good time, but my poison was the white water rafting. I would have gone sky diving, but it costs twice as much as when I did it back in the states (I know... I'm sure jumping over the alps is twice as good). Anyway, rafting was still a blast. The river was a little low; so the rapids weren't the best they could have been.

Since I didn't have a camera, I purchased the picture CD of our trip, which I'll post up here soon. There were two rafts in our group: one was called team Korea (you'll understand when you see the pics), and the other was us (we didn't come up with a name). I volunteered to be in the front of the raft, meaning I got the bird's eye view of all the rapids as we paddled through them. I also got splashed the most (the water was only 4 degrees Celcius). Our guide was Austrian, and I so wanted to make him say "I'll be back," but I figured he got that all the time. I was a little disappointed, though, because he was so cautious, and would always make us get down in the boat for any of the larger rapids rather than let us paddle through them. It would have been really difficult to collect one of us if we fell out, though, given the speed of the river. It was still an amazing two hours. By the way, my helmet in the pics says 'Snipers', the girl behind me stole 'Yoda'. haha.

My original plan was to get to Interlaken and hang out for the first afternoon, then go rafting all day the second day, and leave the day after. But I got there to find that the rafting trip took three hours and one was leaving that afternoon. So I didn't waste any time and jumped on it. Consequently, I had my whole second day there open, but my budget didn't really allow for another trip... I was definitely considering canyoning, though. Instead, I decided to make the 1500 meter vertical hike to the top of a nearby mountain. Fortunately, I didn't have to wear my entire backpack this time. The journey up was fairly easy (they have a beaten path). And there is a restaurant at (nearly) the top of the mountain, the view from which is utterly breathtaking. From there, I could see both lakes, the flat green valley with the small town nestled between them, and the huge green and black mountains rising all around, snow capped and glacier ridden. It had a quality I can't even describe.

Interlaken is also home to one of the "famous" hostels, Balmer's Herberge, at which I stayed. I've found that these places offer the most services (for a price, of course), and generally have the best nightlife on site. The bar here was a little strange, though. There was an air of uneasiness. The people here only interacted tenuously. There was no carefree (or consequence free) behavior. I expected differently from people who had just jumped out of a plane... lol.

I met one girl, Jenny, from British Columbia, who was travelling with a guy. She didn't interact with the guy as if he was a boyrfriend, but he still hung around her like a puppy dog and definitely played the part of the cock-block to a 'T'. I couldn't tell if she was annoyed with that or enjoyed the safety that came with it, though.

If I ever do this kind of trip again (I'm thinking about it), I'm definitely coming back here to do some other activity.