We have decided that Switzerland is kind of like Seattle except on Leavenworth steroids, meaning that it is an incredibly outdoor-sy town and by that I mean every other shop seems to be like a mini REI. And I have yet to see a single pair of high heel shoes anywhere. This is in stark contrast to Italy where it seemed like everyone seemed to dress up to go everywhere. Hiking boots seem to be the fashionable shoe even on girls in this wonderful alpine country. Huge mountains and cliffs just seem to take off out of the middle of nowhere. I think it is absolutely beautiful!
To go along with this outdoor-sy atmosphere, Switzerland seems to be an extreme sports headquarters with options for skydiving, hanggliding, bungee jumping (as you already saw), paragliding, zorbing (you should really look that one up), river rafting, and canyoning. We partook in the latter which I hadn´t even heard of before Matt suggested it. It is kind of a combination between human river rafting (floating down rapids), rappeling, and cliff jumping.
We were all pretty excited as they came and picked us up from our hostel and took us out to the base camp where they suited us up in wetsuits, harnasses, and helmets.
We drove up to the mountain with a group of about 12 people and then hiked up even further where we began our adventure. It was pretty exciting jumping off of waterfalls into key points where the water was deep enough for us to land safely.
The instructors were very good and able to tell us exactly where to go without babying us. That is one thing I love about Europe in general. People expect you to make smart decisions as you cannot sue willy nilly because you made a dumb choice or because you think the country/state should pay to have safety railings at certain points.
Anyway there were a number of jumps off of waterfalls that we did, and one rappel
as well as one "pendulum swing" where we pushed off of a cliff and then swung around a rock wall. Though all of us were able to complete all of the jumps and rappels safely,
Matt was able to injure himself just trekking through the river when he came across a rock and fell directly onto his knee. Ever since, he has been limping a little bit and at least complaining about how much it hurts. Though everything seems to function properly, so don´t worry Mom. It is probably just a nasty bruise.
We ended up being in the canyon for about an hour and a half and by the end of it all of us were wishing for more. Even Matt was pretty bummed that it was over, though I doubt he could have done much more after bumping his knee. Overall it was a great swiss outdoor experience and I can´t wait to do it again...I hear canyoning is pretty popular in New Zealand too (Next vacation idea!!!). Anyways I will leave a little more for Matt and Mike to talk about...If you are still following us I hope you are still enjoying the stories.
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