Yet another CastroVerdian visit (getting really common lately). Chic Alfred’s and Dealer’s Silvia (Silvia do Chico Alfredo e da Dilar) this time. And for a change, we (that’s Me, her and João) ended up in the alps, Jungfrau region. No snow anymore but weather was great and sunny for a nice hike… 22 Km downhill all the way from Mürren to the Hotel in the valley. Probably they hate me now. Obviously this was after knocking at the producer’s doors at Gimmelwald for cheese, dry sausage, bread, milk and homemade yogurt. And eating like there’s no tomorrow with quite an interesting view, as the photos can show on the gallery below. We even were able to take a picture of Heidi’s grandfather smoking his pipe on his balcony. I took the opportunity to paint Marta’s (Simões) ribbon for her end of studies ceremony, “Queima das fitas” (finally). I tied a cow bell in on of its ends and draw a picture of Heidi (afterdark version). Congratulations by the way (Marta, not Heidi). The last day we visited some waterfalls inside the mountain, quite claustrophobic, draining 25 square quilometers of glacier and snow. Our ears were buzzing for quite a while afterwards. Then we headed towards Geneva again, stopped three hours soaking at the Lavey-les-bains SPA/thermal baths and after completely set in zombie mode, drove to Evian and had some pizza at my boat (with sunset included) before ending in Geneva. OK, enough blah blah blah. Click below for the gallery.

Last Sunday, to get my revenge against an insanely busy week (Saturday included), I got in the car and drove to the Valais region (Switzerland). I am only posting this now, because this week was another insanely busy one, including today (supposed-to-be holiday). I picked Roxa and Abdellah in the way, (for a change) since they live between Geneva and the Valais. There was actually no big plan for the day, but ended up being great, probably because of that. In the end, and apart from the inevitable driving, there was hiking close to some waterfalls, barbecue, jumping photography, swimming, thermal baths, sauna, ice-room and well, driving back to Geneva. Obviously, I had one of my best nights of sleep after all this.

The picture above shows just a little preview of what the day was. There will be a few posts for the different things we did (beware of the swimming pool ones with my underwater video camera). To start and apart from the “teasing” picture, I leave the video of the beginning and end of the day: driving in the highway, which curiously I love to (in Switzerland at least, in this area, with this landscape).

To be continued…

No, this is not another cheesy late night TV-Shop miracle diet ad. And I can guarantee the photos below were not retouched at all… Only my pictures, I am not sure about these ones here:

It is convenient to explain I was extremely lazy before I started hiking. I was not practicing any kind of sports for more than 10 years, my job consists in being at a desk, I got a few extra pounds when I stopped smoking 3 years ago and well, I eat a lot. Some day, for no reason at all, I decided to join a group that goes up the Saleve mount (Geneva-Switzerland) every Sunday morning. Guess what? It was extremely hard to go uphill, non-stop for more than 3 hours. The group leader, 73 years old, made me feel really old since he looked like he was just walking in the garden. Then, completely exhausted, I get to the summit, look at the view and… whoa, I did this? How the hell was I able to get here by foot? From that moment, I changed completely my point of view about “limits”.

I stopped feeling a lot less overwhelmed when accepting big and insane projects (it happens a lot in advertising), I started testing the limits in everything, I started going beyond things I did superficially before (at work and in my personal life), I started using the stairs instead of the elevator to the 4th floor where I live, I started walking to certain places I used to take a tram or my car, I started swimming on the lake once in a while, I bought A Bike and guess what? I started hiking the Saleve every Sunday.
Yes, every single Sunday. (Thanks Andra, it’s your fault!). Second time was easier, third a little bit easier and a few Sundays later, I was trying the Jura mountains, around Mt-Blanc, the Valais and the Swiss alps in general. I can say I got addicted to this thing. The difference between the pictures above is around 7 months… and 12 Kilos. I never worried with “diet and workout” kind of things and still don’t (I still eat a lot) but I went from 86 to 74 Kg and I noticed I had way more energy to waste. I even had to find an alternative activity (Airboard) to do after the hiking season was gone due to the snow, since I can’t Ski or Snowboard due to a knee injury.

Anyway, the hiking season is back and I started the every-Sunday-hiking-thing again. Right in time: my parents were visiting for a full month and I still eat a lot, which gets multiplied by the fact that my mother was in the kitchen. It turns that I obviously got a few extra pounds. I leave here some pictures of “intermediate stages” between the before and after (yes, the shirt is almost always the same). Also, here’s a link for the Saleve trail I captured with my GPS and Palmtop (damn mountain geek), so you see what I did in the first hiking day.

Bored? Getting kind of sedentary? Need to lose some weight?
Start hiking!

Here it is: the very first post in this blog. And by the way, what is this all about? Well, this will be the place where I’ll post a lot of nonsense pictures, weird videos, useless articles I might come up with and whatever I decide to post, whenever I decide to post, after all, this is my blog.