Mountains

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There's this place in Switzerland called Interlaken. If you're into geography or sky-diving, you've probably heard of it. This place is a little sickening. It aught to be called "America-town". It's literally a bunch of Americans (and East Indians, surprisingly enough. Surprising because until this point in my trip, I hadn't met a single person from India - and they're here in droves) looking for the thrill of sky-diving, or white water rafting, or canyon-ing (don't ask, because I don't know). The signs aren't even in Swiss/German - they're in English. It reminded me a lot of Kingston actually, with drunk 20 somethings roaming the streets as far as the eye can see.

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Although I didn't go sky-diving (too expensive), I went up mount Jungfrou, apparently the highest mountain in Europe. I saw some pictures from when Catherine went up and the view was stunning. So you can understand my disappointment when we got up there and it was so cloudy I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Actually, it wasn't all bad because at 'basecamp' (not Everest style basecamp - there are bars at this one), it was very sunny and the view was still quite incredible. I was just a little enraged that I paid more money to see 100% cloud. But at least I can say that I stood at the top of Jungfrou mountain.

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The following day I decided to do the exact same thing as the previous day, but this time el-cheapo style. I hiked up Jungfrou mountain. Not to the top (I'd be dead by now), but to the basecamp. That in itself is about a 1200m vertical climb, and it took me the better part of 6 hours to get up and down. I was physically exhausted by the end of it, and at the top, I had to stop every 5 min or so to catch my breath. What a difference 1km altitude makes in how much oxygen you can take in. I was actually aiming for a peak, not too far from basecamp, but had to stop short because I was running out time, it had started to rain, and it was a good couple of hours back down. That, and I didn't want a repeat of Lake Louise - this time I may not have been so lucky.