Day four
Injuries: About a million. Uninjured bits - 2 (my eyeballs are ok).
Cash: Ok at the moment, seem to have pre-paid for most of my activities now.
Weather: The rain almost stopped and the sun came out for an hour - result!
Well it didn't look like that in the brochure!
OK, the brochure for Via Ferata shows a picture of two rosy cheeked day trippers dressed in vest tops and shorts smiling as they round a gently sloping outcrop wearing climbing harness and carrying caribiners in a haphazard 'only a precaution' kind of way. It is also sunny and dry.
From reading this masterpiece of fiction you get the idea that it's a bit like a challenging hike with a few tricky bits - maybe some Jungle Jim thrown in; rope ladders and that kind of thing to keep things interesting. Hey, you could do it in flip flops as a fun diversion after your lunch.
Nope. Think not.
They have failed to include the requirement for full body armour as you throw yourself against the rock face praying that you'll stick like velcro as you fumble for your next point of relative grip in a desperate effort to cling to the rock face for dear life. They haven't included an image of those like me who were left dangling from two handholds with no foothold in sight awaiting some kind of divine intervention. Also ommitted are the faces of fear and dread as the hapless adventurers realise that the next hand or foot hold is not visible until you make a leap of faith around an outcrop with no guarantee that there will be anything to grab on to when you get there.
Missing from the publicity shots are the areas where you have to pull yourself perpendicular to the rock face as there are no hand or foot holds at all (i.e. so you are horizontal to the ground but holding onto a cable attached to the rock - like you're having a lie down, fifty feet above the ground). Skinned knuckles, bruised knees, black eyes, broken fingernails and busted ribs also failed to make the brochure. I think the only time I saw a genuine smile was when we were kissing the solid ground in relief at the end of the ordeal.
Having said that, it is a fantastic climbing experience if you weren't expecting a kiddies' playground and the sense of achievement in not dying that day is immense. We were lucky to have 'Spidergran' as our guide. She's this great middle-aged grey-haired lady, agile as a cat - when one of us was in trouble (i.e. most of the time) she literally bounded over the other group members like a mountain goat to get there and coax us onto the next hold. Please note, Spidergran is not her actual name.
When I got back to earth my legs were so shaky that I sat down and couldn't get them to work. I think this was possibly in protest as I keep making them do ridiculous things. They clearly had decided that the ground was the place they wanted to be and they weren't going nowhere. Thinking about it, I was in an uncommonly similar situation to the 'drunk man in a supermarket' YouTube clip that we were laughing at the night before (I'll send the link to anyone who's interested). Serves me right for laughing I guess! There is not a part of my arms or legs that is not bruised right now - I look like a watercolour picture of a rainbow that's been dropped into a puddle. At least now my left knee matches my right knee though - I would have had trouble accessorising that particular asymmetrical look for work on Monday.
To give you some background, Via Ferata are wartime paths used to get around the place. This makes no sense to me - there is a perfectly good path at the bottom of the cliff and I can't honestly imagine any occasion when it would be better to scramble up a sheer rock face balancing your baguette and onion strings on your head (is that a racial stereotype? I always wear a bowler hat and carry an umbrella so who knows?). Essentially it is a cable hammered into the wall with the occasional bar (not the good kind) and pegs to show the best route. Some of these pegs are about the size of a teabag and you are expected to put your whole body weight onto them as you feel around for the next hold - ha!
The luge was nothing after that. I also managed to do a wolf-free hike to an old slate mine. Comedy host award goes to Steve who thought it would be funny to explain to the lone hiker in the group (i.e. me) that wolves had been reintroduced to the Alps and that a friend of his saw one in his garden the other day. I swear I heard growling, you've never seen a tourist scan-read an information sign, snap a view and get the hell out of the viewing station so quickly!
Did I mention that they celebrate Tuesday out here? Every Tuesday there is a street party, games and a marching band. I realised this when the stereo remote was failing to have any impact on muting the cheesy music in the room and I saw instead that it was coming from the DJ in the street who was parked under our balcony. He was sharing his Shalamar collection with his captive audience and to anybody who had insufficient insulation to block it out. After a few beers we appreciated his taste more and he ran through all the disco classics as we danced around the balcony.
Hey, we had some sun today! Morzine has mountains around it you know - I thought the ski resort thing was a myth but I actually saw them today. Rest day tomorrow, spending it by the lake.
Elsie
