TUESDAY, MAY 12TH – GERMANY TO SWITZERLAND:
Grabbed a cup
of coffee and gave the sweet lady at the desk who gave me my “air conditioner”
yesterday a cd. Went to the gym right behind the hotel to work out. It’s a
really nice gym on the second floor of a building but I don’t think they ever
turn on their air conditioning. You perspire regardless of how “hard” you’re
working out. Had a good workout though then showered and met the bus. It’s a
nice bus for the 6+ hour ride. Got quite a bit of work done en route. We had
planned to stop for “lunch” in Zurich and that was about 3:30 pm when we made
it there. It was a great truck stop where we stopped, too. Really good,
fresh food, I had a caprese salad, some antipasta of eggplant and zucchini
and an Asian vegetable soup with tofu and a broth. Also had a glass of pure,
fresh apple juice.
We drove from
Zurich toward Interlaken which as most of you know, if a second home to me.
Only our German bus drivers were following the route laid out by the GPS and
it was NOT the route they should have taken. First of all, they got lost.
Not sure how that happened with a GPS. The route they took winds up the
mountains and then back down for more than an hour. Makes everyone
“nauseated” because of the tiny hairpin turns and steep drop-offs along both
sides of the bus. I’m sure it added another hour to our journey.
It quickly went from “bad to worse”. The bus took a route up a snow covered
mountain. There were NO other vehicles on the road and I expressed concern
about this. The driver was going much too fast for the small, winding roads
that didn’t even have guard rails on them. Again, he was following the GPS
which obviously had no idea we were in a BUS and not a car. He was not using
a map and had not talked to anyone about the route he should take. As we
neared the top of one alp, the road split and the GPS told him to take a
left. Only, the road was blocked by a large sign and rail that had fallen
over. The sign specifically said “Do Not Enter. Road Closed”. He had the
other driver get out of the bus and move the barrier so he could take the
road. I tried to tell him “NO” but he wouldn’t listen and didn’t speak enough
English to understand my concern. You would not believe the road he took us
on. There were snow banks 8 feet tall when there was a shoulder to the road.
Otherwise, there were sheet drops onto a frozen lake below. There was a huge
dam right in front of us. Both lanes of the road were never usable as one
lane was always covered with snow. I was totally freaking out. Then, a black
SUV came towards us from the other direction. As they got close, they slowed
and rolled down their window. The bus driver was going to ignore them but we
yelled at him to stop. They were speaking in German and I could tell he was
arguing with them. We walked up to the front of the bus and thankfully the
couple spoke English. They said there was no way we could travel that road
and needed to turn around as soon as possible! I didn’t have any idea if the
bus driver understood or was just being stubborn so I called our buyer in
Germany and told him he had to talk to him. He did and while I was still on
the phone with him, we arrived at a very steep incline where there was a side
road to turn around. We told the driver to stop because we were all going to
get off the bus while he tried to turn it around. He refused! I started
yelling at him, “Stop! Stop!”. He finally stopped and kept spouting off
German to us. We made him open the door and motioned for him to turn around.
Howard had to sit behind him on the trip back down the alp because he kept
driving way too fast for the road conditions. Again, he had NO CLUE where to
go and was going to take us another 3 hours around Lake Lusuanne to get to
Brig.
I called my friend in Interlaken as we were getting very close to Interlaken.
I put her on the phone with him and she gave him directions on where to go.
When I took the phone back, her comment was “He’s a f….ing idiot”! Yeah, I
agree and he was endangering our lives. We were supposed to travel about
another 45 minutes to a town where there was a train that our bus could get on
to travel to Brig. I did this years ago but we were in a van, not a huge tour
bus. I was concerned that the bus wouldn't fit but my friend checked it out
and said that there was one special train that departed at 10 minutes before
the hour each hour that took buses and trucks through the pass.
We finally arrived at the train station and the train looked much too small
for our bus. The train car was very narrow and had a “top” on it that we had
to drive under. It was a very close fit, but it fit. The train ride was
short – about 15 minutes – and then we drove and drove again to get to the
hotel. The driver was driving much too fast again and at one point, we
noticed two deer on the side of the road. He slammed on brakes so hard, he
threw us all to the front of our seats.
We finally arrived at the hotel at 11 pm – 11 hours after we had departed
Germany. It was supposed to be a 6 hour drive. I was so stressed I was
shaking.
The hotel reception was basically “closed” but someone checked us in. The
promoter had paid for cables so that everyone could use the broadband internet
in their rooms but the hotel screwed that up and made us put up a deposit of
30 Swiss Francs for every cable and they only had 5 cables. Will get this
straightened out tomorrow.
We rushed over to a Pizzeria next door to the hotel where we could have a
salad or a pizza. I went for the salad.
Have been in the room answering emails for hours and it’s 3 am now. We had to
cancel our lunch and sightseeing at Zermatt tomorrow because everyone is just
exhausted – mentally and physically – from today’s adventure. I’m just so
thankful we made it without a serious accident.
Jude
