Thinking

Nature brings solace in all troubles.
-Anne Frank

Wapta

So Obviously I am not a blog writer: the posts don't get done, I don't seem to make time for them. But with the thought that in 4 weeks I am departing on an open ended adventure I am going to try this again.



Last week I did the Wapta traverse with Sandy and Jana. We had 3 days of snow with over 1 m accumulation and 1 day of almost sun. Overall it was a great trip filled with oven baked treats, beef jerky (aka Sandy's crack) and a few scary moments. Here are some photos.

1. the whiteness

2. mmm cinnamon buns

3. visibility!!! from balfour hut

4. the early morning breakfast

Comforts

I am currently stuck in the comforts of Olympos and having a hard time getting on with my vacation. But I was able to find a camera chord so here is a photo update

Antalya


Lighting eternal flame rocks


Kadir's Tree Houses

One of the stales at the local market

Fishing at the beach

Climb on

Arriving at the bus station in Antalya I was submerged into the craziness of transportation. There were about 100 different company signs with about 20 different city names spread out over a massive terminal. Once getting myself to the right terminal building the bus catching part was easy. There are many men standing around all saying the name of a city under there breath. I listened for Olympos and was then suffled onto a bus that promptly drove out of the station. I hoped that it was actually the right one..

At Kadirs Treehouses (my hostel) I was greeted by "Hello, you must be Emily". What?? How do you know who I am... ah, my email. Then, "For you special price, 15 TL for single room with en-suit". That works out to about 10 CAD with breakfast and dinner included. Breakfast has been the traditional Turkish breakfast of tomatoes, cucumber, feta cheese, olives, boiled eggs, bread and honey along with omlettes. Dinner consists of soup, a grain, a main dish of beans, lentils, or a meat, a yogurt, and sometimes salad. Overall, amazing value!

Besides eating, I have been spending the last few days exploring the ruins, swimming,and bouldering on the beach. I have met a few climbers staying in the same hostel and am off to do some real climbing today. Climbing is quite new to Turkey but I believe it will soon become an internationally well known climbing destination.

Turkey?

I woke up a week ago and decided I needed to get out of Norway. With no longer working, the dark, cold, and rainy days were taking hold of me. I looked for flights to warmer, sunnier places and Antalya seemed to be the best deal. But what did I really know about Turkey? Besides the copious amounts of tea, coffee and turkish delight I was pretty knew nothing. But all of that is changing!

Yesterday I left a country of 4 million to arrive in a city of 2 million! I was expecting the worst (like Delhi) and was happy to not be greeted by too many pushy salesmen, taxi drivers, or hotel owners. I found my pension situated in the old town (Kaleiçi) and found myself a kebab. I think my waiter was most happy about the fact I went to his resturant. He told me he knew of a nice quiet club were we could have a drink and talk. Then went on to say I did not have to go back to Canada but could instead get a house with him, hahaha. The offer of the quiet club has come up with more waiters along with many sit downs over tea and coffee. But not taking anything they say seriously, all is good.

Today I was woken by Islamic prayer calls and went for a long run to the beach. It was already warm out (when wearing long sleeves and long shorts) and a dip in the Mediterranean was lovely. I spent the rest of the day exploring the bazaars, ruins, museums and soaking in the sun. I have many pictures to go along with this but I have seem to have taking the wrong cord... Hopefully off to Olympus tomorrow to live in a tree house, visit eternal flaming rocks and do some climbing.

Voss Extreme Week

My sister was right, I would start this blog and for the first month it would be great and then I would stop posting... So now I must catch up on the missed weeks (and weeks)

Voss Extreme Sports festival (VEKO) was from june 25-july 5 with Ahsley coming to visit me from France and take part in the festivities. It should really be called voss endurance week... Every night there was some sort of event that included the video of all of the extreme sport competitions from the day and then a band. Each night was an "unmissable" party, so after 9 days it took its toll... The rafting center was in charge of the 2 days worth of rafting races. The first day was the European cup there was a slalom, sprint, and head to head race. There were points giving for placing in each race and then the top 3 mens and womens teams won awards. At the last minute my housemates and Ashley decided to enter a team. We had never been in a boat together and on the first slalom run went into a big hole in the first rapid, dumptrucked the boat and ended up finishing the race with only 2 paddles, it was a bit of a disaster. The second slalom run we finished with everyone in the boat and all the paddles. We made a tremendous come back and ended up winning the sprint and the head to head races. The Norwegian national team was less then impressed... The combination of all our races earn us 6500 NOK with a tied first place finish.

The second day was the Amazing raft race which was not only having to get down the river but having to complete some tasks along the way. These tasks included one person drinking 1.5 L of milk, guiding blindfolded and backwards down a rapids and undressing to your underwear and singing the YMCA song on the side of the road. I was guiding a team made up of high school girls and we ended up in 5th place out of 10 teams! There was also a few kayak races but I was unable to arrange time off work to race. Maybe a good thing because the course ended up being on a very difficult section of the Raundal. Out of the 75 entered competitors, only 35 competed and 17 swam. Only 1 female completed the course and Ashley was the only other one to try (but sadly didnt complete it).

After working on the Sunday I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep for days. But I was off to France the next morning and had to catch a 5:30am train. The night was instead filled with cleaning, packing, doing laundry and few needed hours of sleep.


Photos:

Norwegian Sadie

kayaking course

kayaking course

Voss local dish: smoked sheep head

A video of the European cup race can be found here: http://www.nrk.no/nett-tv/indeks/220621/
Because our raft dumptruck the first time the TV channel focused the cameras on us hoping for more action...

Big Water!

Finally made the trip south to Dagali. Drove up after work on thurs evening and was back in Voss for friday afternoon's trip. It was short but sweet. The river there is known as the Zambezi of Norway but more technical. It was also in spring run-off so it was a little intimidating... Here are some pics, not sure f they due it justice.

1.Rosy Junior (the car) in Flom

2/3. The amazing scenery on the drive


4/5. Big water



Other than that there has been lots of work! Still having school groups which provides much entertainment taking them down the river. I have also started trip leading here, so moving up in the world... All of the guides for the season are here now and one of my housemates is super keen/skilled kayaker aka my motivation. Only a few weeks till extreme week, one of the biggest outdoor sports festivals in the world.