T had long decided to visit his grandparents in India and he left for three weeks soon after his vacations started. He always wanted to go alone since he was 10 years old, but we had stalled him till he turned 14. Now he could travel as an adult and he was looking forward to it. He carried out all the formalities at the at Mumbai airport by himself and met his grandparents at Mumbai airport. His vacations began in the true sense after that.
People go to cruise trips,
People go to India,
People go to the beaches.
Where do we go for vacations?
We go "Wandern". Wandern, the German word means hiking, walking, trekking. A is fascinated by nature, mountains and hiking is his favorite pastime besides cycling.
This time he chose Oberstdorf in Allgäu Region in the Bavarian state which is famous for skiing in the different Alpine peaks. We got an Apartment in the area called Reute which was close to the city center of Oberstdorf. The accomodation was inclusive of all the funicular/cable cars on the nearby mountain ranges like Nebelhorn, Fellhorn etc.
We reached here on Saturday afternoon around 3-3:30 and immediately went to explore the Nebelhorn cable car which was at 2700 ft.
At the top, one could see nice panoramic view of the mountains around and there were many tourists as expected. The cable cars operate only until 4:45 pm and we took the last cable car and came down. Checked in to the apartment and slept off after settling down.
The next day was an arduous hiking in the Nebelhorn mountains. The route was from the middle station of the Nebelhorn Bahn to a lake called ...... The descent was close to .... meters and my footwear and stamina didn't support me enthusiastically. We took a break at a hut (Hütte), had a nice cake with coffee and my resolve gave way. I decided to return up to the station and A decided to go further down up to the lake. I started my way up and huffed and puffed and sweated profusely. My heart was thumping loudly ready to pop out and my head was also banging from within, feeling as if I won't be able to go a step further. But as we all know, our mind plays games and I decided not to give in. I took a lot longer than the others, but managed to go up there and wait for A.
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I like to observe people and when I was climbing up, I realized there was not a single non-white person who was seen climbing up or down like me. Most of them were Europeans, of all ages starting from a few months (carried by their parents on their backs in a basket) to 80+ years old grandparents who were there on a family trip with kids and their grandkids. There were just mothers and kids, there were just two people, sometimes just a single person hiking alone without company, but himself/herself. It seemed so easy for them to go up and down the mountains. Right from the the time the kids are born here, they are groomed and encouraged to do hiking with parents and parents very patiently and gently introduce them to loving the mountains and hiking having fun. For me, it seemed more like an exercise, than fun. I was very slow and took a lot of time to get up to the point where I had started.
I realized that it is not in the Indian culture to go hiking, trekking with families. We rather meet up at home, go to restaurants, chill out rather than walking in the sweltering heat in the Alps. This place is in the same state as Munich, which has a lot of Indian population, but none of them ever thought of coming to this place, admist nature and mountains. We are so much used to comfortable lives that we don't want to come out of our comfort zone and undertake an adventure such as hiking or trekking in the mountains. I am also one of those many Indians who dislike uncomfortable things, but now I do many things that I couldn't have imagined doing it a few years ago.
Physical fitness plays a great role in all this. Over the past three years, I was under the assumption that my stamina has increased, but this Alpine experience hit me hard and brought me back to the ground reality. My cardio vascular health needs to improve, it has tremendous scope. Weight training since two years has helped me build muscles, maybe the cardiovascular fitness has also increased compared to where I had started in the first place, but there is no way to measure the improvement. While walking uphill, A has a heart rate of about 90, and my heart rate reaches 125-140. This comparison is just to show how fit is he and how much room I have for improvement.
Day 2,3 and 4 passed like the first one, exploring different routes on the different peaks near to Oberstdorf. I walked 15-20k steps every day, A much more. I couldn't match his energy and enthusiasm and there were a few stretches which he did alone and I chose to stay back. One needs to know how much one can do and I stopped at the point I thought this is getting too much to recover the next day.
I realized that trekking for a day or two is ok, but just doing that the whole time on vacation was not my cup of tea. There was absolutely no time to relax, just sit and do nothing, just observe nature, skies and mountains for hours together. People come in the Alps to hike and trek, not sit lazily like I wanted to. The point of vacations is to relax a bit and I am looking forward to such a vacation, where I don't have to always complete the no. of steps or walk for miles together to consider it as a good vacation.
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