Banff etc.

Travelling by bus to Banff is a sightseeing experience itself. Hunting for great pictures of that stunning beauty all around, I was fidgeting in my chair and jumping from one side of the bus to another in order to take the best shots as possible. Sometimes it was impossible to capture the picturesque scenery at the right moment, because trees covered the view. That made taking pictures almost unreal, which always means for me „challenging“. By the end of a 2-hours bus trip, I took about 150 pictures and several videos :)

Only a day before I wrote to a friend of mine, Yuri, who had worked with me on Pender Island. I knew that she was staying in Banff and a week before I enquired if it were possible to visit her. She enthusiasticly got back that it was not a problem and she was looking forward to seeing me. However, after my computer screwed up, I did not have a chance to write her an exact date of my arrival. I managed to write her when I stayed in Radium by Alexandra, but I was not sure at all if she got the message.. Lucky me, she came during her lunch break to pick me up at the station as I hoped. By a stroke of luck, her roomate was gone for a day or so and I could stay in her apartman. She provided me with a map, which proved to be very handy later. I could barely tell her how the life is going - she had to go back to work and I had to go to the bus station to take a bus to Lake Luise. Yes, correct, I wanted to see Banff and Lake Louise in the same day - truly impossible; I do not recomment doing that :) These places are so amazing that they deserve several days of exploring. I was to discover bad tidings when I alighted from the bus. The lake Louise is not exactly at the place where the bus drove me to. I had to keep on walking another 5 kilometres either on a tourist trail or along the road.

"Great", I spluttered, „what could be a better idea as to walk alone through the forrest full of Grizzlys?“ In the end I decided to walk around the road. Trudging through the snow, I got to Lake Luise in an hour - just in the nick of time before the sunset. Lake Luise is really a stunning place. A mountain lake embrassed with mountains with an icefield beneath which gives to the lake unique colour by sunshine - that is Lake Luise. No wonder that this is one of the most favourite touristic places in Canada. However, during the winter it has a slightly different atmosphere. It was half frozen, the icefield colour did not enlight the water, mountains peaks were covered with snow and the whole coutry looked like in the middle of sleep. It did not look worse as during the summer, I would say only different. I had a great advantage - there was not a soul expect me by the lake. During the summer a tourist has to cope with thronged pavements and neverendig crowds - I had this lake just for myself :) I completely forgot about the time by enjoying that beautiful scenery and tranquility. It was getting dark and then I remembered that the way back would take another hour. "Damm it, no other chance but hitchhiking if I do not want to end up as dinner for Grlizzlys " I thought in silence. So I did and fortunately I did not have to wait long. A nice young Canadian on a truck stopped to pick me up - we started talking and I realized that I need not have been worried about Grizzlys - there are sleeping anyway and furthermore, there were only 2 cases during the last 4 years when a bear attacked a human. Lol, all the time I was scared and there was nothing to be afraid of. Many people say that cougaras are even meaner and more dangerous than bears. You can see a bear, even smell it, but a cougare can swoop on you out of the blue and you have very little chance to prevent it.

He took me to my bus station where I found out that I still have two hours left. I might have gone as well go to a building with a restaurant, where I stayed on the ground floor, covering from cold. It might have been -10 outside and even though I had good clothes, I could not stay there so long. I had been waiting for three hours until the bus arrived. I really started to doubt whether ir comes or not. Finally it showed up and took me to Banff. During my walk through the Banff downtown, I admired its cute shops, restaurants and bars. I met with Yuri at Farimont where she was working She gave me a tour around - I have never seen such a splended hotel before. It was built in an old castle style and I was captivated by all of that lavish decoration and architecture. After that we went to her aparment and talked till midnight. I was surprised by her knowlede about Slovakia - I expected that someone outside Europe would have no clue about my country, yet she knew more than many other western Europeans. Then she gave me an opporutnity to look up some information that could help me to repair my laptop. I spent almost three hours by trying to fix it, yet I did not suceed. The only chance for me was to go to Dell and ask them to repair it there, right away. It sounded rather naive and crazy, but I had to believe something - rather than to stay hopless in a bad mood for the rest of my journey that there is nothing to be done about it.

In the morning I oveslept and if Yuri had not woken me up in the last minute, I would have missed my bus to Toronto. Fortunately, everything worked out very well, at the station I said bye and thanked Yuri for her friendly help. It is really awesome to have friends at different places, who are willing to help you when you go and visit them. I am a modest guy and did not want to make an impression that I wanna missuse their generosity, so I hope that they did not explain it like that. Anyway, it was a gret chance for me to see them once again, who knows when it happens in the future. Getting on the bus to Toronto, I had to perceive that from this moment is everything unplanned and I have no idea how the next day will be. I had only one abstract plan ahead me - to go to the Atlantic shore, visit Halifax and go back. Whatever waited for me on this journey, I was about to reveal later.