Our Good Friend Tarp
July 26 - August 11, 2021
One of the biggest takeaways from our trip to Switzerland in 2020 was a sense of regret, namely: Why haven’t we been doing this every year? Sure, we didn’t particularly like the county when we first visited Zurich in 2016, but once we learned how to move through the country semi-affordably we were able to focus on all the wonderful nature it had to offer. When it came to planning a trip for summer of 2021, we both wanted to pick up right where we had left off the year before.
Both of our summer camping trips the year before were in shoulder season: Austria in June and Switzerland in September. Shoulder season is always our favorite time to travel. In 2021, other than a quick weekend across the border to the Czech Republic in early July, we weren’t willing to go on any expansive trips before we were fully vaccinated. So, we planned to start a trip as soon as the second shots were in our arms, or more specifically, the following Monday, just in case the vaccines knocked us on our asses for a few days (they didn’t). Our second vaccine shots were scheduled for Friday, July 23rd. That meant our vacation this year was going to land squarely in the middle of the high season in Switzerland, a time we generally choose not to travel anywhere, especially not to places that are a popular destinations.
But one thing we had learned from our limited Covid travels was that “high season” didn’t quite mean the same thing as it used to before the pandemic. We started to plan ahead, looking to book campsites just to make sure we had places to stay, but decided pretty quickly that we still wanted to wing it. Camping car trips like this are simply more fun when you can make your itinerary up as you go along. We would just have to find out if we were being naïve when we got there, but it seemed improbable that we wouldn’t be able to find somewhere nice to stay.
The first full day of driving was smooth and surprisingly traffic-free. We chose to enter Switzerland from a different side this year, going westward across almost the entirety of Germany before heading south. The plan was to drive until Freiburg, then stop and stay in a hotel, but our traffic luck ran out before we got quite that far. After sitting in a standstill for an hour after over 7 hours already in the car, we decided to just book whatever we could find in a nearby village. This turned out to be a fantastic last-minute change of plans. The place we ended up, Endingen am Kaiserstuhl, was an immensely charming little town, and the hotel where we booked a room had a restaurant attached where we got a jägerschnitzel with some of the richest and most delicious gravy we’d ever tasted.
On every trip like this we chase the weather, always moving to avoid rain and find the sun. But this year in Switzerland, and western Europe in general, had been historically rainy. There had been massive flooding in many areas, and in some parts of Switzerland they had seen more rain at that point in the summer than in the last 100 years, or as much in a few months as in the last 5 years combined. Shelly even warned us before we left that we might want to rethink coming to Switzerland altogether; rain there just isn’t like rain in other places. It’s intense. It had already rained so much on her in Zurich that she got fed up and decided to leave the country for the rest of the summer, choosing to bike across Iceland for several weeks instead. We decided that we would take our chances. It had to stop raining eventually, right?
Knowing this, we weren’t too sad to wake up to cloud cover the next morning, and took off on a section of the Tour de Mont Blanc that departed from our campsite and went down into the valley. The clouds hung over the mountains, refusing to give us a clear picture of what Val Ferret fully looked like, but there was plenty of beauty to enjoy in the valley below. The trail took us along ridge paths and then down into rustic old towns, populated with archaic wooden cabins that looked like they hadn’t changed in centuries. After several hours descending the valley, the trail began to climb up and up until it reached the tiny hillside town of Champex. By the time we got to the top, the clouds had mostly cleared, and we were treated to stunning views looking back up Val Ferret. At the nearby lake, Champex-lac, we stopped for beers and enjoyed some sunshine by the water before catching a bus back up to La Fouly.
The skies start to clear enough to let you know there’s something good hiding back there
We had only planned to stay at Camping des Glaciers for two nights, but when we saw that the following day was supposed to have clear blue skies, we decided that having to break up camp and find a new place to stay would be a waste of the perfect weather. Thankfully, the site still wasn’t completely reserved, and allowed us to stay for one more evening, which meant we could spend the next day hiking to some alpine lakes overlooking the entire Mont Blanc massif.
After a scenic drive through the next valley over, we drove up and up into the tiny town of Col du Grand Saint Bernard, which straddles the border of Switzerland and Italy. We knew from the start that this was going to be a demanding hike, going directly up into the mountains on the Italian side before descending down to Lacs de Fenêtre and the edge of Val Ferret. On the ascent, we caught up with a group of 30+ Italian grade school scouts and ended up hiking in a swarm of children for most of the way up. It was a popular trail, and for good reason - the view of Lacs de Fenêtre and the mountains behind it was truly spectacular, and worth every bit of the effort it took to reach.
Back down in Col du Grand Saint Bernard, we got some drinks overlooking the lake and hit up a little Italian gift shop, buying jars of red pepper and artichoke spread, Alpine amaro, and an aged salami. Outside, there was a truck selling artisanal gin with a giant Saint Bernard as their mascot, as this is apparently where Saint Bernards come from and thus the dogs are the mascots of everything in the region. Her name was Genepy, and we tried to make friends with her but she was too busy getting barked at by a surprisingly misbehaved golden retriever. Kirb pet Genepy for a bit and was treated to a giant dog loogie splattered across his chest in reciprocation. Shortly thereafter, she tried humping Mazz’s leg. Still, we liked the big slobbery dog, and decided to name our little Ford Puma rental car Genepy in her honor.
When we received our second stimulus check from Uncle Joe Biden, we decided to be responsible citizens and put some of that money back into the US economy, buying ourselves a fancy American-made tent. This trip was the first time we had put the Zpacks Triplex into action, and some aspects took a little getting used to. Specifically, the tent is held up by two carbon fiber poles positioned in front of each of the doors, so you have to actively avoid them whenever you get in or out. Well, on night three using the tent, Kirb put a little too much pressure on the pole with his butt while he was getting out of the tent and it snapped in half, causing the whole tent to collapse right as it was getting dark and a rainstorm was coming in. The pole is instrumental for the tent being able to stand, and since it was now trashed, we had to think on our feet. As the rain began to pour, we tied one end of our tarp to a tree and used one of its poles to hold the tent up. It wasn’t quite the right size, so the whole tent sagged in on us, but it kept us dry while torrential rains came down outside all night.
We stopped by the gear store in La Fouly on our way out the next morning, right as the place was opening up. They didn’t have anything in stock that could work as a replacement, but the guy working there had an idea how to fix it. He sawed off a chunk of an old ski pole and slid it over the top, then taped it around the broken area, keeping it secured in place. It held perfectly for the rest of the trip, and he didn’t charge us a cent. Thank you forever, kind sir! And hey, Zpacks: It should take more than a lil butt bump to snap a carbon fiber pole.
It was Saturday, and we were nervous about being able to find a new place to camp on one of the peak summer weekends, but it wasn’t a problem at all in Arolla. In fact, there seemed to be hardly anyone in this valley at all compared to Val Ferret, and it was every bit as beautiful. We were able to snag the best spot at Camping Arolla, though that was likely pure luck in the timing. All of the other tent spots were in a shared field, but this one was a solo spot up on the hill with views in every direction. There was a single parking spot for our car and a hill on one side that let us set up the tarp so that it acted like a relatively flat roof instead of a steeply sloped one. We were hesitant and worrisome at first setting up the tent with the repaired pole, but it seemed steady. We were much more impressed with the performance of our €20 tarp from Decathlon, which was giving us a dry place to hang out and cook and effortlessly picked up the slack when our expensive new tent immediately broke. Around this time we stopped simply calling it “the tarp” and began referring to it as “Our Good Friend Tarp.” It was integral to keeping us dry and happy, and thus a valuable member of the crew.
By the time we set up camp it was already mid-afternoon and raining and we weren’t sure how best to spend the rest of the day. We decided to go park at a spot we’d noticed a ways down the road with a big blue sign that said, “LAC BLEU, 40 MIN ->” It kind of seemed like a trap, but what was there to lose besides time, right? It might be nice. The 40 minutes was almost straight up, but once we got near the top, we realized that you really didn’t need to go on a long hike around here to get some incredible views. Lac Bleu was completely surrounded by peaks, with waterfalls running into intense turquoise water. It was stunning, and for all intents and purposes it just was a roadside attraction in this area. Arolla was a strange place - the town itself was kind of dumpy and run down, with very little infrastructure for tourism. The roads were beaten up, something you almost never see in Switzerland, and nothing about the area was the slightest bit pretentious. Pair that with the fact that the valley itself was exceptionally beautiful, and we took a liking to it immediately.
The next day we took off on a hike that promised to be somewhat brutal, but we were ready for it. Our bodies had adjusted to everyday hiking well, and we hadn’t woken up sore once, though Mazz’s feet were getting absolutely brutalized by her hiking boots. From a parking lot in town, the trail up to Cabana Tsa goes directly up the mountainside for two hours straight. Luckily, the clouds had mostly cleared by the time we started, giving us full panoramic views of the valley as we climbed. There is woman at the top who has been making food at the cabin for years, and her specialty is something called croute au fromage. This dish is pieces of bread that have been soaked in red wine and then smothered in melted Swiss cheese and herbs. It was Kirb’s favorite hut food he has ever eaten. The outhouses at the hut were particularly humorous, positioned over the edge of a cliff so that your business just drops and then washes away into a waterfall. We chose to go down the mountain a different way to make the hike a loop, which brought us face-to-face with Mazz’s nemesis: big rocks. But whenever the rocks get too big, it just means it’s time to scoot down an alp on her bottom, and though it may take a little longer, we get back to the campsite eventually all the same.
Arolla was beautiful, but it was also rainy and particularly cold. We had planned to stay three nights, but seeing that the weather forecast predicted snow the following morning, we decided to take off for warmer climates. We were ready for a day off from hiking, and there was a thermal bath in the town of Leukerbad that sounded particularly relaxing, so we decided to drive there on a wet Sunday instead of slogging around a glacier like we had originally planned. We got a reservation at the baths and showed up in town a bit early, having a rainy picnic in a public gazebo before heading to the pool. When we arrived, we were instantly shocked at the sheer number of people, both in line and bathing in the outdoor pools. We had assumed that since we’d needed a reservation that the body count at the baths would be limited, but that didn’t seem to be the case at all. This place had “super spreader” written all over it, so walked back to our car only moments after seeing the spectacle, without enjoying the leisurely thermal baths that we had imagined.
It was a holiday, Swiss National Day, and when we showed up and parked in the touristy town of Zinal there were lots of people in the streets, standing around celebrating in the rain. We walked through an area where tables with food and drinks had been set up, but everything was pretty much finished for the day already. The idea was to go for a little walk along the edge of town, but it was absolutely pouring rain, so just like at the thermal baths, we turned around and left at the entrance. Instead, we headed to our next campsite, though we found when we got there that it wasn’t really a campsite at all. Camping du Pont d’Anniviers was more like a family farm on a hill, with a popular restaurant below, plenty of guest cabins, and a small bit of grass where people could set up tents. The guy and his wife who ran the place didn’t speak English or German, only French, but we were able to get our stay squared away without too much issue. There was only one bathroom for everyone who was camping there and no sinks to do dishes besides the one next to the toilet, but there was a sauna that was free for anyone to use. So once we got the tent and Our Good Friend Tarp situated, we had ourselves a little schwitz with the sauna all to ourselves. It wasn’t a hot spring, but it was something. When it got dark, the Swiss National Day celebrations really got started with fireworks exploding all through the valley.
The next morning was beautiful, but it wasn’t supposed to stay that way for long, so we got an early start driving to Moiry glacier. The hike wasn’t supposed to be exceptionally difficult, but there was an interesting rating system for the trails in this area we hadn’t seen anywhere else before. They rated them based on three difficulty criteria: “energetic,” “motor,” and “psychological.” This hike had a 4/5 psychological rating, a piece of information we weren’t sure exactly how to parse. The trail was pretty straightforward, heading uphill toward the glacier hut. Eventually you have to walk along a narrow saddle before descending to some snow fields, then you have to make your way up a small section of steep and slippery rocks with the help of a chain. From there, it’s standard rocky terrain up to the hut.
It shouldn’t have been too much of a problem, but about 3/4 of the way up, Mazz’s back began to give warning signs that it might give out, which is a true nightmare scenario on a trail like this. When her back goes out, she’s immobile for days, and even a trip down the hall to the bathroom can take an hour. If it went out on the trail, she’d need to be airlifted out for sure. Every step became anxiety-inducing, but she didn’t want to turn around so close to the top. We methodically made our way up the last stretch to the hut, and by the time we got there the entire glacier was covered in a cloud and it had begun lightly snowing. Though the exterior of the hut looked rustic, the interior was completely remodeled and surprisingly sleek. Kirb checked it out and came back outside with a beer to drink with his lunch, and when Mazz saw it she was devastated. She wanted to immediately turn around and start the slow descent to the car, but now she was forced to wait for Kirb to eat food and drink a pint. Her apprehension was tamped slightly by the suggestion that she go get some alcohol for herself, so she chose the Moiry specialty - hot coffee with apricot brandy. It was weird, and tasted exactly like it sounds like it would. We thankfully made it back down to the bottom without incident, and none of it was particularly fun. Actual psychological rating: 7/5.
The rest of the afternoon was much more pleasant, spent leisurely wandering around the town of Grimentz, which our Walking in the Valais hiking guide said “must rank among the most attractive of Valaisian villages. Set at the mouth of the Val de Moiry on a steeply sloping hillside, dark-timbered chalets and barns stand in tiers one above another, their windows adorned with boxes of geraniums and petunias, their alleyways narrow and filled with shadow.” Grimentz was pure Swiss Alpine charm, and a nice palate cleanser after a difficult afternoon on the glacier.
Most of the reviews on Google for Camping du Pont d’Anniviers weren’t actually for the campsite but for the restaurant, so on our last night there we decided to give it a try. Most of the reviews mentioned a delicious steak covered in cheese, and so we just ordered the steak on the menu, unsure exactly how the name translated from French. The table behind us also ordered steak, and we watched in initial horror as the proprietor brought out several completely raw steaks on cutting boards. It turns out, “steak sur ardoise” translates to “steak on slate,” and though the meat is served raw, it is brought out on an extremely hot piece of stone that cooks it in front of you - you just have to cut it into slices and sear them to your liking. It was actually a lot of fun. After dinner we settled the bill for our entire stay with the owner, and he was trying to say something about our tent, so we assumed that we had messed something up. But after a lot of hand motions and some crude sketches on a piece of paper, we learned that he was offering to let us stay in the little cabin next to where we were camped because our tent was so small. At first we politely declined, not sure if he was trying to upsell us, but later in the evening after we had paid he offered again, telling us that the key was in the door if we wanted it. We realized that staying in the cabin allowed us to break camp that night and get out earlier the following morning, so we happily agreed. The cabin was styled like a wild-west wagon, with a bow and arrow for decoration inside and a water trough flowing out front. We’d looked into staying somewhere indoors at our next stop in Zermatt, but had chosen not to because of the outrageous prices, so it was a nice surprise to have at least one evening in a bed after a week sleeping on the ground.
Before leaving Val d’Anniviers we decided to do one last hike from Zinal, starting on the edge of town where we had earlier showed up in the rain and promptly left. Short and sweet, the hike up to Cabane du Petit Mountet has gorgeous mountain, river, and waterfall views, leading to a charming little hut perched on a saddle. We arrived just after 10am and the women baking inside had just taken a fresh tray of apricot tart out of the oven, which we enjoyed outside with a hot cup of coffee. It’s hard to describe how nice that pastry was, with that view all to ourselves, without sounding like hyperbole.
We didn’t know all that much about Zermatt when we showed up, other than that it was highly revered for its mountains, specifically the Matterhorn. Our lack of planning became particularly evident when the woman at the campground we chose in the nearby town of Randa informed us that cars weren’t allowed in the city, and that we’d have to pay to take a shuttle in and out. We chose Camping Attermenzen because it looked like they had the best amenities, and it was fortuitous that we did, because it turned out to be far and away the best option in the region. The campground in Zermatt proper was nothing more than a slanty patch of grass on the edge of town surrounded by buildings, and Täsch, the town between Zermatt and Randa, was nothing but a bona fide parking lot and taxi center. We initially balked at the cost of €14 per person simply to get to and from Zermatt every day, but that was actually cheaper than taking the 15-minute train one stop from Täsch, which for us would have also required paying to park our car. It was clear before we even stepped foot in Zermatt that we had reached a zone of exorbitant Swiss costs.
Which, to be fair, we expected going in. Zermatt is a world-renowned Swiss mountaineering town, so it was obviously going to be expensive. Our first full day in the area was completely cloudy but we forked over the €28 to get into town anyway, even if we were just going to walk through the valley. It cost an additional €10 for us to get into Gorner gorge, which had wooden walkways that led through a scenic, albeit short, river gorge that was packed with old European tourists with no respect for personal space. From there, we followed the valley up to the village of Zmutt, where there was nowhere to escape the rain unless you were willing to dish out €30+ for a plate of food. We found a private bench under an eave and ate the food we had packed, then decided just to head back into town instead of exploring further. After paying nearly €40 to walk around in the clouds and rain, we were happy to buy €1 beers at the supermarket and drink them under Our Good Friend Tarp back at the campsite.
The next day, the weather forecast was “partially cloudy,” which can be either wonderful or dreadful when you are going up into the peaks, depending on your luck. We debated whether or not it was worth it to pay for the lift that day, and eventually decided to take the chance. Getting from Zermatt up to Trockener Steg, the second-highest station that takes you to the base of the Matterhorn, costs €48 per person one way. You get a discount on a round-trip ticket to and from the same station, but if you want to come down from a lower station the price isn’t reduced, so we decided to wait and see how far we felt like walking down a mountain. “Partially cloudy” was still pretty stunning at the top of the lift, with multiple 4000-meter peaks now visible all across the horizon that we couldn’t see at all the day before.
The trail from Trockener Steg takes you directly along the base of the Matterhorn and then down steep hillsides back into the valley. The clouds were constantly moving, revealing and obscuring different areas all around us, but the Matterhorn stayed hidden. Kirb was particularly interested in seeing if the clouds would blow off and was willing to wait for long stretches of time, audibly yelling at the clouds and eventually at the mountain itself. Every time it seemed like the cover would blow away, it would stop just at the edge of the mountain, teasing us with an edge before more clouds came in. By the time we had finally given up and were walking back down the mountain towards town, almost all of the clouds in the sky had cleared, except for the one directly above the Matterhorn. It kept wearing a cloud like a hat, mocking us. Kirb decided then that he hated that mountain and its stupid little cloud hat. Thankfully, everything else around the Matterhorn is also obscenely picturesque, and as we finally got to see the surrounding mountains in their full glory we realized what all the Zermatt fuss was about.
By the next day, all the clouds were gone and we were willing to pay for the lift again to get up to a different section of the mountain. We planned to see the first three of the Five Lakes hike before cutting across the range on a trail that would take us down on a different route back into Zermatt. The first lake on the trail is Stellisee, which perfectly reflects the Matterhorn on a clear day. This was a popular and easily-accessible destination, and the views did not disappoint. There is an undeniable energy that the Matterhorn gives off; you feel drawn to it in front of you on the horizon. It’s one of the most intense and distinctive natural landmarks we’ve visited, and while Zermatt on the whole was a bit too much of an overly-expensive tourist trap for our liking, spending hours hiking around the Mattertal was as lovely as the hype would lead you to believe.
We didn’t know exactly where we wanted to go next. The weather looked miserable in the area around Aletsch glacier, which Mazz really wanted to see, so we changed our minds at the last minute and drove to the canton of Graubünden instead, which Shelly had said deserved weeks of exploration. Hoping to meet up with our friend Liz and Christoph from Berlin, we were able to get a big enough campsite at Camping Viva in the town of Rueras for the four of us. We set up camp and started enjoying a beer beneath Our Good Friend Tarp when a major storm blew in, pelting us from the sides where Tarp couldn’t reach. We ran to the car for shelter, and within minutes Our Good Friend Tarp was on the ground. We tried to fasten it several times, but the intense winds meant there was nothing we could do to keep it standing for long. We asked the woman at reception if there was anywhere covered we could cook dinner and she said that there was a heavy-duty tent that was still set up from Swiss National Day, and that we were welcome to hang out in there if we liked. Seemingly everyone else in the campsite was crammed inside the restaurant, but we had a nice dry shelter all to ourselves, where we spent the rest of the evening cooking, drinking wine, and playing cards in front of a silhouette of the Swiss flag.
Camping Viva turned out to be the most expensive campground we stayed at on the entire trip, but it did come with one legitimate perk: Everyone who stayed there, even for one day, got free lift tickets in the surrounding towns for the entire summer. That’s only useful if it’s a clear day though, and our first morning in Graubünden was shrouded in ominous gray clouds. So instead of taking a lift, we decided to do the hike that the woman in the Andermatt tourist center had recommended to us and visit the Rheinquelle. We didn’t know much more about it other than the trail wasn’t particularly tough and took you to the origin point of the Rhein river, so it seemed like a nice enough thing to do on an otherwise crummy day. As the trail took us further and further above the valley, we became enveloped in clouds and it became hard to see anything and easy to get disoriented. Mazz got nauseous, and the hike up wasn’t particularly fun, but once we got to the top we saw why the place had been recommended. The clouds opened up just long enough for us to get a view of a pristine alpine lake surrounded by mountains, and on the other side of the pass was a stretching panorama of peaks and green hills. We ate lunch as clouds came and went, completely engulfing us and then floating away. The way up was rocky and steep, so we went back down on the other side and the descent was much more pleasant, with no more enveloping clouds or nausea to taint the otherwise stunning scenery.
With clear skies the next day, we decided to use our “free” lift passes in the nearby town of Disentis to get up the mountain for a higher elevation hike. We were hardly the only ones on the mountain though, as it turned out the World Cup of Paragliding was being held there that day and there were at least a hundred contestants with their big parachute packs coming up on the gondola. We picked a hike solely off the trail info on the map, and it seemed like it was going to be a nice easy walk out to a lake, but getting to Lag Serein turned out to be much more difficult than we expected. The trail had big, steep ups and downs on rocky terrain, going up over ridges and then descending to marshy areas where there weren’t clear river crossings. It was challenging but fun, and we felt like we earned a relaxing lunch at the lake when we got there, but it was full of loud children and families. Turns out, everyone else just did what would be the second half of our hike as an out-and-back, as it wasn’t steep or long or particularly hard, so we didn’t get to enjoy too much satisfaction for our hard work in getting to the lake. Still, the sky was full of parachutes and the scenery was lovely, and most important, a gondola took us all the way down to our car without us having to walk down a big dumb hill.
Liz and Christoph were already at the campsite when we got back, so we grabbed our gear and snagged a fire pit outside the big Swiss tent we’d taken shelter in before. The two of us had made a fire to cook dinner the night before, but the free plywood provided by those pits was awful and we couldn’t even get it started without a woman letting us borrow a fire starter. That fire pit area was now completely overrun with families, but our secluded spot by the Swiss tent had two big boxes of dry logs, and even though there wasn’t a proper grill there, somehow Christoph stumbled upon an abandoned one in the tall grass 50 yards away and we were able to make it work just fine. We had a lovely evening cooking sausages and corn, listening to music, and enjoying some brews with our buds. Camping is always fun, but camping with friends is the funnest.
It was time to hit the road back to Germany the next day, but there was still time to fit in one more hike, especially since we still had free lift tickets at our disposal. The lift in Andermatt takes you all the way up to the top of Oberalppass, more than a 20-minute ride, where it deposits you up above the whole valley. The hike from the gondola station out to Lutersee is flat and easy, following a wide rocky path. It was a short but scenic final jaunt, with lunch by the lake next to some inquisitive sheep, once again proving that you don’t have to try especially hard in Switzerland to see something fantastic.
With some Swiss francs still in our wallet (because Kirb forgot to use them when he put gas in the car), we took a slight detour on our way out of the country to head to a natural wine shop in Zurich, where it was easy to spend all of our leftover currency on some tasty souvenirs to bring back to Berlin. We made it as far as Nuremburg before deciding to call it a day, crashing at a cheap hotel with a strangely American-strip-mall-style restaurant next door that was absolutely packed. We sat on the patio and ate jägerschnitzels again to properly bookend our trip. Gravy in, gravy out.
Switzerland is just unfair. Mazz said this over and over again throughout this trip. It doesn’t matter where you go; every valley is stunning, every area offering a baseline of beauty that most countries’ highlights can’t reach. And even though this was the fifth rainiest summer ever recorded in Switzerland, we were able to find some stretches of nice weather almost every day, though it usually meant planning hikes carefully so that we finished before showers came pouring down. Once again this year we were able to find a silver lining in the pandemic, getting to leisurely tromp through one of the most beautiful areas in the world during high season without a reservation or a care in the world. After the trip last year, we chided ourselves for not having done the trip sooner, for not having done it every year. Now that we’ve done it in consecutive years, it’s hard to know for sure if we’ll do it again for a third, but it will always be a consideration. There are plenty of new places to see, that much is certain. But it’s hard to imagine a two-week stretch filled with more incredible scenery than what you can find in this stupidly unfair country.