From Africa To Russia

Wake up early to the sound of the alarm. Actually it doesn’t involve much ‘waking up’, as I have been lying away the whole night in the ninety degree heat listening to the impossibly deafening din of the traffic passing just outside the window. I shower and dress quickly: today is the day of the big trip up into the Alps, a tour I have booked, ‘Jungfraujoch – Top of Europe’. I take the local train up to the station once again, find the spot where the bus will arrive. Sitting on the curb, I am overtaken with lust as a pretty woman in a sundress stands next to me and begins taking her shoes on and off playfully. The bus arrives and we all get on. Once again quite an international cast of characters, a couple of contingents of Indians, a bunch of Japanese, a few American and German stragglers. Our tour guide is a diminutive little Thai fellow named ‘Kid’, who talks to us through a microphone (rather inaudibly) as we head out. We pick up a few people in Luzerne, then head to Interlaken. We get out for a half an hour, I go out into the expansive park there and take a few pictures. I feel like the male ‘Heidi’, standing amidst mountains and fields and sunshine. I am tempted to yodel. Back on the bus, we ride for a bit more and then board a curious yellow train which starts to climb up into the mountains, using some kind of gear and pulley system, I think. The landscape quickly becomes dramatic. We are surrounded by steep-sloped valleys and snow-capped peaks and meadows filled with wildflowers. People throw themselves from side to side of the train, snapping photos desperately. Kid the tour guide is beside himself, he is on fire, he runs this way and that, up and back shouting out instructions on what to take pictures of, where to look next. He is a natural character, and I like him. He appears to very much enjoy his job. I also suspect that Kid is a bit light in his loafers. Every so often, he grabs me and insists that he take a picture of me with my own camera, in different poses, leaning back into Mount Eiger in the distance, giving the thumbs-up as we pass a meadow, etc. We soon disembark this train and hop on another, which climbs steadily and then enters a tunnel. Before we know it, we are at nine thousand feet in elevation, then ten thousand feet. We step out for a moment at an enclosed observation deck to acclimatize. It is cold, and the mountain peaks all around are covered in snow, it is like another world. And then we are at the summit, wading through snow and gazing at Mount Eiger looming to one side, a glacier sliding down a valley to the other. Even in the mist the views are overwhelming, and no amount of picture-taking can capture this, so I give up trying. We stay at the summit for lunch (about $100,000 for a plate of fries), then head back soon after. I have a bit of a nap on the way back. When we return, it is past eight and beginning to grow dark. I head back on the train, then back at the hostel I run into one of the guys I had just seen on the tour, John from Colorado, so we watch the World Cup game together and I drink beer.

Wake up, pack up and head for the train to Zurich. Get to station, bathed in sweat (is warm), sit down and get a beer. The waitress is extremely friendly, looks glad to see me. I drink a bit, and suddenly a feeling of extreme elation comes over me. I sit and just smile. I am in Germany, everything is fine, I can continue. I look around me, everything and everyone looks interesting. I go and walk around the train station a bit, it is a great train station, bright and airy and beautiful. It didn’t appear that way the other day, due to the manner in which I arrived. There are no seats anywhere, however, so I sit on the floor and wait. I chat on the train with a friendly Aussie, we wile away the hours pleasantly. You can almost always count on the Australians for good conversation and a few beers. Roll into Zurich around four or five pm, take the local train south to the youth hostel, the damn thing doesn’t stop where the info guy said it would, so I have to get off and take the same train again in the opposite direction to backtrack, and this time it stops. I tell a teen-aged girl about it, “Well are you in a hurry?” she asks. “Then don’t worry about it.” The hostel is a nice big place, widescreen TV and ping pong and pool and a million rooms. I try giving Thomas from the other day a call, but can’t get through to him. Oh well. I ditch my pack and head back on the train into Zurich to explore a bit. The city is pleasant and clean, quaint, almost utopian, but everything is EXTREMELY expensive, the worst yet on the trip. They also appear to prefer Swiss francs over euros. I see a few churches, walk down the ritzy main drag (jewelry stores, designer clothing, banks, watches), then spot a big red sign down a side street: ‘BAR’. Perhaps a place to relax and get a bite to eat without paying a fortune. I go in, it actually looks pretty upscale, and the waitress radiates ‘French’ as soon as a walk in. She is a pretty, bird-like little thing that looks mad at the world in general, with cold, staring blue eyes. She turns her nose up at me, refuses to even look at me. Hey baby, I’ve been carrying a pack on my back all day, what do you want from me. I ask her for a menu, she doesn’t understand English. She is utterly irritated at everything I do or say, no matter how I try to do or say it. Since I can’t understand the menu and can’t get any form of assistance, I point at something and guess. She brings me five small meatballs in a little cat’s saucer, to go along with my beer in the long, narrow flute glass designed to look large while holding as little beer as possible. The bill: thirty euros. I walk out of the ‘bar’ feeling diseased, like I am covered with lice, I want to go take a bath to wash it off. Completely unexpected from Switzerland. But the people on the street seem peaceful and comfortable and well-mannered, and I mentally resolve to not let one bad experience spoil the whole thing. I walk down by the water, through a park and wind up inadvertently hiking the whole way back to the hostel. I am tired, and shortly thereafter I turn in.