Interlaken: Onwards and Upwards!

After approximately 13 hours of sleep last night I finally woke up with a bit of an appetite, a headache as if I was hung over, and unfortunately still tired. HOWEVER, no sickness! So, do you know what that means? Time to scarf down a breakfast and hit the mountains because there is no time to waste when in Switzerland!

We took the train up to Grindelwald, which is at about 1000m elevation and then began our hike up to Mannlichen (~2200m) . This hike was suggested to take approximated 4.5 hours, and to cover over 1km in elevation. We began this steep ascent with lots of energy and wide eyes for the views we would see along the way, however after outpacing this suggested time at the half way point we decided not t0 play hero any longer. Exhausted beyond belief because I had not eaten anything yesterday and fearing the clouds rolling in overhead and ghosting the views of the gorgeous giants we were climbing, we decided to jump the gondola up the rest of the way. Lucky for us and our skills at getting things for free, the attendant was in the back so we jumped the bar and into one of the slowly creeping carts as it strolled through the landing. SCORE! This sneaky plan saved us 2 hours of climbing, probably 40 Swiss Franks and some great views along the hike at the top, as the clouds had not yet fully masked our view.



From the peak, we hiked across the mountain for about an hour (probably more with all of our stops to gawk at the beautiful views) to Klein Scheidegg (~2000m) and had lunch at a little restaurant near the rail before heading back down. At this point the clouds had come in so dense that we could not see the peaks of the surrounding mountains (Jungfrau especially) and the rain was coming down in sheets. So, we then hoped the rail back down to Interlaken with many pictures delightfully stored in our camera, and the dire need to shower and do laundry.
The rest of our evening consisted of making delicious omelets with some new friends from OC California, and enjoying some Happy Hour beers with a guy from Texas we met in the train on our way to Lucerne!

Heather, unfortunately, seems to have a really bad stomach ache and went to bed early all in hopes that it is nothing serious (such as what she had to see me endure yesterday). So hopefully she will wake with energy for our day ahead! Early morning wake up at 7am to either hit the canyons at 8am for some canyoning, or hit the rapids at 9am for some white water rafting - yet to be determined yet as we like to fly off the seat of our pants sometimes.

So, thanks for the kind posts from yesterday because they must have helped me get over that darn bug so fast :) Send some luck over for Heather now that she doesn't wake feeling like a bag of shit like I did yesterday!

Love and miss you all,

Janelle