Zakopane and Tartras

Trip Start Aug 30, 2005
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Trip End Jan 04, 2006


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Sunday, September 11, 2005

I did the most amazing thing this weekend. Last week I sprained my ankle and I have been hobbling around the town, but it came time to do a class trip to the mountains. The Tartras are a group of mountain ranges in the south of Poland which are an extension of the Alps, so they are pretty much the largest mountains I have ever seen. We drove down from Krakow to Zakopane which lies at the feet of one of these groups of Mounatins. Its a small tourism based town with some amazing smoked cheeses and awesome sloped roofs on the houses to compensate for the snow. Friday we took a 2 hr raft down one of the rivers thru the mountains and it felt like I was on the "lord of the rings" on the river. There are steep cliffs on either side of me as the river crossed the boarders between Slovakia and Poland. For some moments we were in Slovakia (so I can technically add another country to my list).
The next day as a class went to Moksie Oko to climb one of the mountains Ania and Me
Ania and Me
 . There is a lake at the top of a 9 Km Hike up a Mountain. This is where my ankle is important. Like a trouper I climbed the whole thing there and back on my sprained ankle.. Suffice it to say that I am paying for it now but it was well worth every ounce of pain. The amazing thing about the mountains was that the weather is so different at the top then at the bottom. You could feel the air get colder as you climbed higher and I suppose the air was also getting thinner. After the hike I was exhausted but I forced myself to go out for dinner and we went to traditional polish restaurant where they had folk dancing as well as wonderful food. I had my favorite.. Zurek which is white sour soup, and pickle... must love the pickles. We all went out that night to the bar and where i tried some Bulgarian wine for $2.50 CAN per bottle.
Sunday it was raining all day but we wandered around moving between shops. I finally got back to my residence room and fell fast asleep.
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Comments

heathdawg
heathdawg on Sep 12, 2005 at 12:54PM

the mountains
that's awesome that you have now experienced the joy of mountains... i thnk my first time up close to any was in alberta travelling to kamloops. i'd seen them from afar before but it's just not the same until you're really close or even climbing them as you did!! can't wait to hear more exciting adventures of yours!!! thunder bay was like toronto yesterday, 34C really really gross!!!! the city looked like toronto.. the haziness that we end up with from smog and all but there's no smog here. later dude!
-heather

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