Czech Trek!

Going on a lil’ adventure

I haven’t blogged for two weeks, and that is for good reason. I was traveling!! Here is just a few things I did on this lil’ adventure of mine. This first post is about the Czech Republic!

Week #1 Czech Republic

I spent the first week of break on one of the DIS adventure trips, which are pretty badass and fun. For my trip, we went to literally the middle of freaking nowhere in Czech to stay in a CASTLE and do lots of adventury things! This place was called Hruba Skala, and the castle was situated on a high cliff with a gorge on one side and a drop down forever cliff on the other. It was prettttyyyy sweet/scary. The castle itself was, you know, an old castle so there wasn’t much technology or modern things there, which I think made the trip all the more better.

We were greeted by our guides that would lead us through our adventure trips for the next several days. The first day we went repelling down one of the sides of the gorge, which is pretty high. The wall literally turned into a sheer cliff, and then you could do that “WOOO look I’m bouncing on and off a cliff!” thing. I said “woooo” a lot. Once down in the gorge, you had to climb back up this little mountain trail to the gate. There are two goats and one sheep that live in the gorge and you MUST close the gate behind you. Problem is that the goats/sheep are smart, and they follow you when they see human. They try to get out of the gate, and you say “NO GOAT GO EAT YOUR CABBAGE AND BREAD!” They don’t listen. Everyone had to familiarize themselves with removing barnyard animals from the vicinity of the gate on this trip. This was easy for me because I have dealt with goats before (that’s another story) so I just pet the goats and ran past them so they couldn’t leave. One person once forgot to close the gate. The goat had to be coaxed back by promises of bread and fresh cabbage.

We also got to zip line and high rope bridge that day, which scared the crap out of me and I’m not even afraid of heights. Something about walking on one rope that moves as you walk is concerning. Good thing we had harnesses. This activity was followed with archery, which I originally thought I would be much better at. I could shoot the target, I just have to get more accurate… we had a competition, I lost.

On the second day we had ice breakers (which we had constantly joked that we had already broken the ice) and a hike. I chose the hike first and let me say that this was one of the most beautiful hikes I had ever been on in my life. I swear I thought elves and fairies were just going to pop out at any moment. The Hruba Skala forest is surrounded by these thin and wispy trees, and huge blocks of sandstone. It was insanely pretty and unique. The hike lasted three hours, and it went by so fast. The forest we were in was known for its magical mineral waters that heal (go figure), and I was excited to try some of the spring water. The first one we went to helps metabolism, and others helped with aging and healing and all that other stuff that mineral spring water does. I drank them all.

Next, the ice breakers were actually really fun, and my group worked together, but struggled a lot. It wasn’t that we didn’t communicate; we just had a tendency to fail the game the first time until we figured it out. I even did my first TRUST FALL for the first time. It reminded me of Mean Girls, I could not take the trust fall seriously. Did I also mention that in order to do the trust fall we had to go on the wall that separated us from the cliff? Yeah, so that means once you climbed up the wall you could either trust fall backwards or just fall off the cliff, your choice. Everyone picked trust fall.

The third day was cold and a little dreary, but that did not stop us from going canoeing down the Jizera River! I didn’t bring my camera in fear of falling out of my canoe, however, I regretthat decision even thought my legs did get wet and slightly hypothermic! However, my legs could not have possibly been as cold as Stuart and Scarlett, who fell and sunk their canoe twice. One flip was down this freaking ridiculous slide that I was would also flip Meghan and I, and the other was out of nowhere. It was tragic. However, the water was not that deep so if you fell in you literally could stand and it would be mid-calf height. I was canoeing with Meghan, and we decided to take in the scenery, and relax a little on the river. Paddling was not our strongest attribute, and we just couldn’t catch up to the others.

Once we were all freezing, a little wet (or soaked in Stuart and Scarlett’s case) we had real rock climbing next! The hike to the sandstone rock was not long, but the rise in elevation was enough to make a marathon runner get out of breath. I was very toasty warm when I got to the wall. There were four courses, a level 2, 3, 5, and 6. There was also a repelling wall. The highest degree is 10 so people who went to the 6 course are crazy. I went on three and it was slightly challenging, however, I was doing this in Uggs because my feet were soaked in the canoe. I feel like Uggs are not appropriate rock climbing wear, and the concerned faces of my fellow climbers let me know this. However, I am totally badass and did it anyways. It was difficult, but I did it. After climbing to the top of the rock, I went to repel down the new wall. It was a lot more fun than the gorge one because after about 15 feet the wall literally went inward and you just hung in midair. I was really excited about this and continually shouted “WEEEEE!” all the way down. Best. Repelling. EVER! Oh yeah, one other thing. Turns out rock can be really cold. Cold to the point where your fingers start to burn and then stop feeling at all while rock climbing. But afterwards my fingers became super-humanly warm and I used this power to warm up Scarlett and Stuart, whose were both still freezing cold (and wearing flip flops because they shoes were soaked!). Once the sun went down at about 4:30pm we went back to the castle for dinner and more fun.

Side note about Czech Food… I don’t really like it. I was a registered veggie for the trip because I feel like that is the safer food option. Here it wasn’t. The first night they gave us a block with we originally thought was maybe fish, it wasn’t. It was fried cheese, with mashed potatoes. Fatness, here I come! This meal was continually replicated in some other form. One night we literally got Potato cakes with mashed potatoes. That was dinner… potatoes with more potatoes. Our meals were continually dowsed in cheese and carbs. No veggies. It was… interesting.

Continuing about the trip. The last night we were there we had a little scavenger hunt though the castle. It was pitch black, and all we had were candles. The first team to collect all the clues (there were about 20 of them) ad figure out the answer would get prizes. Justin, Karen, and I all went together to the cliff (keep in mind we only have CANDLES!) to find the notes, and then we proceeded to go down into the gorge (KEEP IN MIND THE GOATS!). After getting down the stairs, which is quite hard in the pitch black, the goats proceeded to scare the crap outta me. Not only this, but many of the teams went into the woods, and all over the grounds to find clues. The staff was wearing pitch black outfits to blend in a scare you while you were looking for clues. It was really fun. Our team did not win, and I was very sad.

That night the entire group stayed up to party in the castle bar, where they only served one beer on tap (which was actually good) and white wine of tap (which was really weird) and some mixed drinks. One thing we really enjoyed was the pumpkin flavored alcohol that mixed really well with hot chocolate. It was like fall in a cup. Delicious. One of the best night’s I’ve had.

The next day we took the bus to Prague, where Meghan and I checked into our hotel, got ourselves together, and went on the walking tour with the rest of the group. The tour was absolutely incredible and Prague is simply amazing. I would write more, but A. I’m tired of writing and B. Pictures are sometimes better than words. I'll post the Prague photos in the next post and they are also on my facebook page.