Monday August 1: Rest day in Kandersteg
Rest day! We slept late and had a beautiful sunny breakfast on terrace.
Rest days really are important on longer trips. Not only are they a great chance to get clothes washed and maybe do some shopping, rest really is important. Fatigue can build up, especially if the walks are strenuous, long, or frightening. Just having to pack up every morning is a minor source of stress.
After breakfast, we walked around town to scout out tomorrow’s route, somewhat visible on the mountains to the west. We were most interested in locating the little cablecar we wanted to take for the first ascent.
This didn’t take very long.
Having exhausted Kandersteg’s entertainment possibilies, we took the touristic cablecar back up to the Oeschinensee. The hotel gave us vouchers that we could use for our fare; there were all kinds of deals available on this trip, but mostly we didn’t manage to make use of them.
We returned to the cablecar terrace and sat for a while watching tourists drive go-carts. I worried about the Indian women and their long hair.
Back in our room, we watched Return of the Pink Panther, which Chris chose entirely because part of it is set in Gstaad. All central European tourism still seems to me thoroughly mired in the 1970s.
In the evening, we sat on the terrace and watched the parapenters soaring about lazily. Chris said he wouldn’t mind learning how to do that one day.
Today was Swiss Independence day. There were festivities throughout town, with boy scouts and girl scouts from around the world.
I’d spent the day debating whether I was too scared to walk the Bunderchrinde, the last of the three high passes and the mid-point of tomorrow’s route. Before we went to bed, I announced that we would hike the Bunderchrinde tomorrow. I don’t want to talk myself out of things I can actually do.