Break day

Leaving the Braunschweiger Hut was a short hike down and after just about 2.5 hours, we found ourselves at a bus stop again. That same afternoon we picked up Dione and Gerd (aka Garrett) at the train station and loaded up on calories at the local festival and dinner spot, watching Germany win their 3rd place game. The next day was break day and acclimatization day for D&G! We slept in, and then went to the Kneippanlage which is like a water park for hikers with sore feet. You can dip your arms and feet into cold water or walk like a stork through a pool with cold water. Herr Kneipp invented this circulation-increasing method quite a while ago, and lots of hiking areas offer something like this. We also hit the lake (well, it was more of a pond) in an attempt to even out the tan (no luck). The opening of the new soccer field in town had the club celebrate with a big tent, beer and musical entertainment by Siggi & Gerd. People were dancing and partying at 3 in the afternoon, and I was really hoping that the older fella' who had been on the dancefloor since we got there, would ask me at some point, but he was busy wearing out the table in the first row, picking one lady after the other, and we had our bus to catch. So, no dancing for me - this time. Due to the major thunderstorm, we stopped and had another beer in the local public house, before going on to order pizzas to eat in our hotel. While waiting for the pizzas Rob did a few pull-ups on the wood beam, and I wanted to join him, because I'm a big girl, and I can do pull-ups too. Kipping pull-ups. But kipping is a bad idea on a beam, because rule #1 is: hold on to the object you're pulling on. So adding up the fact that this was a beam only holding my fingertips and that I had four beers in me, resulted in me falling off that thing and hitting the stone floor of the pizzeria like a wet sack of dirt. Bam. Luckily Rob caught my head with his foot, otherwise he might be wiping drool from my face now. So much for break day. It's all good though, and the next day we hiked on to Zams. You can see the three taking a break at an Alm. It was a long day, and would have been even longer if Rob wouldn't have talked the guy from the gondola into waiting for us. But he did - because they didn't want to search for us later - as he said.

Petra reporting from a train about the hike from Imst to Zams. You can read other stories from this trip at ignoranthiker.blogspot.com