Real World Cesky Krumlov 3

Cesky Krumlov was a great place to be. We only stayed there for 4 nights, but it was great.

So, the day after the hike, after I still had not done school work. . . 6 of us decided to go rafting on the Vltava River. I didn't take my camera on the raft, for obvious reasons of fear of losing my camera in the cold Czech river, so I personally have no photographic documentation of this excursion so you're going to have to use your imagination.

The morning started off pretty pleasant. There were little bits of sun peeking through the clouds and the weather was pretty cool and breezy. We thought the weather was going to hold up and make for a wonderful day on the Vltava, but by the time noon came around the sky was pretty grey and the wind was howling. It was such a gloomy day that the guy that was running the raft rental asked us if we wanted to get a full refund for the day. To that we said HECK NO! WE WANT TO RIDE THE RIVER! And so we did. We packed a bunch of snacks, drinks, and 3 pizza boxes to make our journey one of the most epic raft rides ever.

So, on the Vltava, they regulate the flow of the river so that they can control much of the flooding that would usually happen in the town. In 2002 there was a massive flood that sent water levels up as much as 6 meters above ground in the area of the old town center. So now they have a couple of man-made weirs that help regulate that flow of water. Pretty much, a weir is like a mini waterslide. . . I guess or water shute.

Before I go further into the story let me set up the raft situation. So there are 6 of us in the raft 3 girls, 3 guys, and all the food i mentioned earlier. With all this mass, our raft was pretty weighted down.

As soon as we launched from the shore, our first weir was about 200 meters away. We were all excited about being on the water that the weir kind of crept up on us and we had to make a decision to either go the the left side or the right side of the weir. Well... we couldn't decide which way to go. Half of us were screaming WE HAVE TO GO RIGHT, THE LEFT SIDE IS JUST A GIANT DROP! And the others were yelling, GO LEFT! THE RIGHT SIDE IS TO SHALLOW. The following 30 seconds were pure panic and yelling on the raft all the while we floated slowly closer and closer to the weir. Eventually it became to late to reach the left side so we had to try and gun it down the right.

We knew we had no choice at this point and it looked like we had to take on the mini waterfall head on. Everyone's hearts were racing and the thought of capsizing 5 minutes into our trip didn't seem all that far from becoming a reality.

All six of us were yelling and screaming as we hit the weir, attracting all of the attention of the sleepy little town and what do you know. . . we hit the weir in stride and got stuck on it! We seriously just stopped at the top of the weir because the water flow was so low and our raft was so heavy. So there we were stuck, sitting on the river while everyone around us were just pointing, laughing, and snapping pictures of the stupid American tourists who were stuck on the weir on the Vltava River.

To be honest, if I was watching this same situation from bridge, I'd be laughing to.

This is the weir we got stuck on. We were going down the broadest side.

So, to get unstuck we thought it would be wise if we all jumped out of our seats at the count of three to just push the raft loose with our weight and momentum. That didn't work. Infact we looked like a bunch of idiots jumping up and down on a raft, stuck in the middle of a fake waterfall. hahaha. So eventually Ian and Danny got out and pushed the back of the raft while the rest of us jumped and we broke free!

They had to dive head first to get back into the raft before we rushed away down the river, and as we moved down the weir we crashed right into one of the stonewalls and nearly snaped the raft in half. Luckily it bounced back but a wave of water rushed into our raft and soaked us. Luckily the pizza was unharmed and we continued on the the claps and laughs of our onlookers.

So, I realized (this is the 2nd night that I'm working on this post) that there is a lot to this river story, and so I'll summarize the rest of it and, if you want to know more about it in detail, just talk to me when i get home.  Otherwise, I'll never catch up on this blog!  I haven't even finished Prague yet!!!

So, we continued down the river, passing by the Eggenberg Brewery.  It's a local brewery of Cesky Krumlov.  Then we floated along into the gypsy land where gypsies had their gypsy huts.  Honestly at some points I thought I was on the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland and was waiting for the gypsies to come out yelling and dancing like the native people on the Jungle Cruise.  hahaha. 

So we made stops a long the way where there were millions of spiders in the grass.

At one stop we found a toasted frog.

At that same spot I had gotten an allergic reaction to the grass or something and my feet were stinging and I had these nasty welts all over.

Continued down the river.

Saw an inner tube.

Saw a bridge with a long rope swinging from it.

Hit a tree and spiders fell in our raft.

Passed under another bridge who's wall wall COVERED. . . COVERED in brown flies.  It looked like the bridge had scales on it.  SOOO GROOSSS.

Then we passed by some locals living on the river.

Passed a fishermen.

Passed some kids who tried to throw rocks at us.

Went over our last weir and disturbed more brown flies on that weir and covered ourselves and our raft in a cloud of brown wings.

And finally we ended, and I fell in the river. . .

So that was the river adventure in a nut shell. . . finally I can move onto re-capping other things.

Real World Cesky Krumlov 2

So, Cesky Krumlov is really just a small tourist town with not a whole lot of programed activities to do.  In the time that we were in Cesky Krumlov, the vast majority of the time was left for us to explore the town, and relax.

Therefore, I didn't do much "school work" in Krumlov.  One day, we went on a hike up to the oldest tower in the CZ.  The destination was called Klet.  The reason I say the destination was Klet is because I forgot if it was just the name of the tower, or if it was in fact the name of the entire mountain/ area.

Anyway, we embarked from the city centre, walking up through residential streets the outskirts of the town.  It was actually kind of interesting seeing the individual homes of some of CZ's residents.  In the small towns, their homes are much set up much like houses in California.  People seemed to have their own home and front and back yards.  I wish I had took a picture of one of the streets. . . Eventually we walked onto a maintenance road/ trail much like the trails in San Gabriel Mountains.

The trail led us up into the meadows and eventually the forest where the road began to deteriorate and eventually we were walking up a steep grade on a normal dirt trail.  But the most interesting thing on the trail was that the trees seemed to be a lot different than those back home.  The forest it self did not seem all that natural.  The color of the trees were fantastic; the leaves were all bright green and brilliant.  But that wasn't what was bothering me.  Let me show you some pictures so you can form your own opinion of the forests.

So I don't know if you noticed but there is something missing from this forest.  There is absolutely no understory!  And notice how all the Trees are so straight and clean on the bottom?  It's because this forest is highly maintained and planted by loggers.  It's weird.  We'd be walking along and patches of the forest would just be cut to the floor.  Other sections which were being prepared for logging had all the lower branches cut off and pretty much, there was a forest of telephone poles with a few branches up to keep the tree growing. 

It was a really weird experience walking through that forest because, you knew that it wasn't natural, you knew it wasn't the wilderness, it seemed rather phony.  Now that I think about it, I don't remember seeing any sign of wildlife except for a few ravens.

This being said, I guess it's better than clear cutting large sections of forest at a time which I remember seeing on my trip to Canada years ago.  But, for those who argue that a highly maintained forest is an adequate substitute for a more natural wild forest, I would have to highly disagree.  Yes, you probably will sustain the amount of trees and be able to produce more lumber, but it was very apparent walking through the forest that there was little no no other signs of a viable ecosystem.  Everything except for trees seemed to have been eradicated or eliminated from the forest.  Just something to think about...

Anyway we reached the top and this is what we saw.

Unfortunately the Klet Tower was under renovation so we could not get to the top of it and see the fantastic panoramic view of Cesky Krumlov.  One funny remark that my friend said was that the Czechs have got it all right, American hikers hike to get to some random peak or valley, but the Czechs, they hike to get a beer.  hahaha  and he was right.  After this long hike to the peak, they had a chalet which served beer and food.  It's almost laughable about how many pubs and random beer gardens there are in the CZ.  Even at the parks in Prague we found many beer gardens along the way to the top of a hill.

A sundial of some sort.