After spending a none too restful night in a hot and cramped Balmers Herbage, I was more than ready to get on my way. Finishing the free breakfast I headed to the train station to buy my supplementary tickets to go up into the mountains.
There was quite a crowd next to the train station and, as I realized, also in the hostel. It turns out that the annual`Jungfrau Marathon was being held that day. The marathon begins at the base of the mountains, in Interlaken and winds its way up through the mountains up to Kleni Scheidegg, a run of 25 miles and a few thousand meters. In a word, nuts.
I began my trip up into the town of Lauterbrunnen. There were two big waterfalls I was supposed to see so I set off hiking to the first one, about five minutes outside of town. It was a very beautiful set of falls that consisted of a cliff about a thousand feet up and a creek litterally running straight off of said cliff. The water floated down to the bottom ever so gently, looking like a group of clouds more than anything else.
The other waterfall was a 30 minute hike out of town and since no busses were running due to the marathoners, I started the walk. I was instantly happy that I hadnt taken the bus. The view was absolutely breathtaking and the hike took me through the proverbial postcard Swiss village, cows, houses, and mountains.
Eventually I reached the Traubesfallen. These waterfalls were supposed to be very special in that they were the drainage point for about 12 square miles of Alpine glaciers. What made this point all the more impressive was that the waterfall was actually a series of about 10 falls INSIDE the mountain. After paying my entrance fee, I hopped on a lift that took me up about 500 feet into the mountain. From there I had to climb through the drilled caves and damp cramped tunnels. On the way, there were points built in that overlooked the 10 different falls. It was truly impressive, seeing the way that the water had shaped the rocks over thousands of years.
From Lauterbrunnen I hopped on a rickety old train that took me higher up the mountain to the town of Wengen. Little more than a tourist trap, I had lunch in Wengen (my 3 B's of eating; beer, bread, and bratwurst) and hopped on the long train up to Kleine Scheidegg.
To call Kleine Scheidegg a town would be to give it far too much credit. All it consists of is 4 buildings and a train station. The reason being that 99% of the people visiting KS just do so to hop on the final train up to the Jungfraujoch, the roof of Europe. However, since I wasnt too excited about seeing a glacier (not for 120 bucks at least) I just took in the absolutely breathtaking view at the base of the big three - the Eiger, the Jungfrau, and the other German name which I forgot how to say. Names be damned, the mountains were absolutely stunning and I found myself just sitting and staring at them for a few hours.
Furthermore, thanks to the marathon finishing in KS, the small town had turned into a bustling pack of thousands of people - the marathoners, their families, and their friends all crowded up to KS to celebrate the finish. Most of the marathoners, in true German Swiss fashion, celebrated finishing running 25 miles up a mountain by draining every beer in sight.
On the train down the other side of the Jungfrau region to the town of Grimmelwald, I had the fortune of sitting with two British gentlemen in their 50's who had both just finished the marathon. They provided quite a solid dose of entertainment (as only British dry humour can) as well as some important information about marathon running. Turns out that that had been their 4th marathon of the year and 'was harder than they expected'. Nuts.
I decided to spend the night in Grimmelwald and enjoy the quiet of the mountains rather than go back to the boisterous party house in Interlaken, especially on a Saturday night.
It ended up being the right decision. While I was cooking dinner I met a nice young man from Germany named Benny. Benny was a 25 year old German who worked in Switzerland year round. The reason this was strange was that he had a 9 month old son back in Germany (with an ex-girlfriend no less) but said that the money was too good in Switzerland not to work here.
And then Benny and I got to drinking, when the fun really started...
To be continued....(read: internet time running out and I'm out of money)
-Mark
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment