Bon Journee

Well here I am, adventure nearly complete, sitting in the Geneva airport. The lady at the gate is just taking her seat to begin the boarding calls. The last at Village Camps was a fantastic one. I had a group from Waterloo, Belgium, and they were one of the best I've ever had anywhere. The kids were more friends of mine than they were campers, the weather was hot sun in a blue sky. On my night off Dan convinced me to do one more cave with him and it was worth it. Some of the tunnels were about as wide as a 24 of beer, so looking forward was not an option. Arms straight ahead like superman, headlamps illuminaing only the dirt in front of our noses, we wriggled along. Some tunnels opened up into huge chambers with intricate and unique formations. Other tunnels were floored with razor sharp fins of limestone. The cave was full of weird and wonderful phenomena like that. About 8 of the more roomy sections of tunnel posessed the unique quality of having their own natural frequency somewhere in the range of the human voice. Whenever one of us would talk (Dan, myself, or Carly, the New Zealander that accompanied us) our echoes in the caverns would come back to us at one specific pitch. Sitting there and humming produced no interesting effects unless one hummed at the natural frequency of the tunnel, which would then cause it to resonate back deafeningly a it's natural pitch, like sitting inside a didjeridoo. We emerged 2 hours and 45 minutes later satisfied with a good caving experience. There is a scree slope on the ardeche where we do seal entries when time allows. The shallow water made for some hilarious wheele effects as boats full of kidsripped down the slope and slammed into the water. I was on the red boat that instantly flipped on impact. Also, Kori found a strange doll's head fon a stick, full of sand, in the woods at our bivvy site. We instantly knew it was cursed, and we instantly named it Edna., The more we told Kori to get rid of it the more she brought it out. She paddled the rest of the descent with the doll overlooking the bow, sand pouring from it's vacant eye sockets. After a failed attempt by John to burn it on our final big night before leaving, I hatched a plan. The next morning I stole the doll's head and vowed to bring it to Canada. Kori didn't know this of course until we were pulling out for good and I waved it in the wind. The doll will accompany me on my jaunt this summer on the Otoskwin-Attawapiskat River (my river and month just got changed from Missinaibi),where it will be paddled to the shores of the arctic waters of James Bay. If the doll survives it will be brought to the shores of James Bay, and possibly sent from the town of Attawapiskat to Lezanne, Switzerland. Of course pictures will document the entire escapade. For the rest of this week I slowly arranged my way home. Luckily John, Dan, and Aussie Pete were all heading to Lezanne, Switzerland as well, so we travelled together. 12 Euros for a bus ride and 25 for a trainride from Vallon to Geneva, very cheap travel compared to Canada. After sitting around the train station in Valence listening to the stories the guys were telling about foreign travel nightmares, Pete decided things were going way too smoothly, and that we should wait till the last second to board the train for the sake of entertainment. 4 minutes before departure time we ran down the stairs to the waiting TGV, the bouncing of my suitcase on the stairs put enough pressure on the handly to bend it and to tear the outer canvas from the internal liner, so awesome work guys, that was definitely worth it. Now I have my own stupid travel nightmare story :) Yesterday we arrived in Geneva in the afternoon. Hugs all around and promises of future encounters with the guys and we walked our separate directions. I walked out of the trainstation after locking my suitcase in the locker, and alone for the first time in 6 weeks I walked through Geneva, over the bridge, past the world famous fountain and to the Rive, the bus switching station. Feeling a strong sense of familiarity I hopped on bus E and rode to the camp ground Ann and I stayed at 6 weeks ago. I checked in, enjoyed sausage cheese and a baguette I'd bought in France earlier, and watched the sun go down behind the mountains on lake Geneva. After a swim it was off to ned, for my journey started with a 4:14 wake up. I'm sad to leave, but I was so excited to start my journey home I couldn't sleep. A few bus jumps and a train ride later I'm on the other side of the city, checked in and ready to go. The Swiss run a good country, Silent sliding in glass doors make every train feel like the starship enterprise when walking from car to car. Here I'm sitting in a booth designed exactly for what I'm doing, plugging in a laptop. The booth sports 4 clearly marked socket styles of different voltages. For the first time since my arrival to europe I don't have to use a sketchy piece of wire lent to me by my father to rig up a fake ground plug for my laptop to trick it into charging. Now there's nothing left to do but walk through the gate pretending I'm from Sweden and get on that plane to Frankfurt. At around noon after a 2 hour layover it's YYZ or bust. Ontario here I come. . . Time to board.