Tag: Vacation

Jamaica – A Journey Worth Taking

Michaela Merz2 Comments

Before my departure, I had some concerns, mainly because of the many alarming reports I read during my preparations. The long list of required vaccinations and warnings about high crime rates – particularly the fact that the murder rate is among the highest in the Western Hemisphere – made me very uneasy. Even travel guides classifying Jamaica as a “medium-risk destination” didn’t offer much reassurance. The advice to “always be accompanied by someone you know, even when going to the restroom,” seemed excessively paranoid.

I’m not the type of person who frequents bars between midnight and dawn or feels the need to explore slums up close. At the beginning of my stay, I was very cautious and risk-averse. But if you’re not willing to venture out, you’ll never discover anything. With a rental car, I was able to explore a large part of the island. The north is different from the west and south, and every area is worth visiting. Jamaica is definitely worth the trip.

The island offers well-maintained areas with impressive villas and lush gardens, colorful wooden houses full of charm, as well as impoverished shacks and a few abandoned ruins. But where don’t you find such contrasts? I was especially fascinated by the ruins: some seemed old and abandoned, while others were unfinished constructions left incomplete for unknown reasons.

Sundays seem to be wash day – at least, that was the case on one bright, sunny day. Everywhere, colorful clothes flapped cheerfully on laundry lines in the wind. The people in Jamaica are relaxed, friendly, and always up for a chat. They are proud of their country and often asked me where I was from. Everyone I spoke to knew my home country – their geography lessons in school must be excellent!

Some of my acquaintances at home thought I was traveling to Africa when I told them I was going to Jamaica. Geographically, that’s completely wrong, but it’s true that about 90% of today’s population descends from people brought over from Ghana during the 17th and 18th centuries and forced to work on sugar plantations. The climate in Jamaica is tropical and humid by the sea and temperate in the highlands. The lush vegetation grows with astonishing vigor everywhere. The plant life is breathtaking, and during breakfast, I could watch dolphins playing near the shore and hummingbirds that especially captivated me. The brown pelicans were another highlight.

Imagine floating in the warm sea, and suddenly, just a few meters away, a huge bird dives headfirst into the water, hoping to catch a fish – though, from what I observed, they’re not very successful. The way they hunt is fascinating: they fly low over the water, suddenly climb higher, and then drop like a stone headfirst into the sea. They seem to have some protective mechanism to avoid injuries from such repeated plunges, as they dive from heights of 10 to 15 meters.

For anyone planning a trip to Jamaica and wondering what to visit, I recommend some popular but worthwhile tourist spots. Rick’s Café in Negril is great for those who enjoy jumping from great heights into crystal-clear water. Be careful, though – the rules are strict, and daring jumps like backflips are prohibited. The Dunn’s River Falls are another highlight, where you can climb through spectacular waterfalls from the sea to incredibly clear freshwater. A visit to a botanical garden or a bird-watching station, where you can observe hummingbirds up close, is also highly recommended.

The rest depends on your preferences – whether you’re into sports, relaxation, or adventure. And, of course, the sea: I could never get enough of it, especially at night when the sounds of nocturnal animals join the waves.

For safety: as long as you follow the same precautions as in other major cities, traveling in Jamaica is safe. I got lost a few times with the rental car, but apart from encountering some massive potholes, I only met helpful and friendly people. One thing to note: road signage in Jamaica is quite poor. Towns are rarely signposted, and one-way streets are often not clearly marked. Several times, locals had to help me navigate out of one-way street mazes. Even though they tried to explain how to identify one-way streets, I didn’t fully grasp it, and unfortunately, Google Maps wasn’t always a reliable guide either.

As for food: it’s best to eat where the locals do, rather than just in hotels. The food on the island is generally very meat-heavy for my taste, but fish is almost always an option. Surprisingly, vegetables are rare on menus, and it’s best to buy fruit at roadside stalls.

Last but not least, the music and Bob Marley: Bob is omnipresent – in countless pictures on walls, in songs, and in stories. Listening to a local band playing “One Love” by the sea in the evening is an unforgettable experience. Falling in love with Jamaica becomes almost effortless.

Vedi Napoli e poi muori!! Or in translation «See Naples and die”

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As a child I read this sentence and imagined that travelling to Naples is the last thing one should do, if one would then die.  My interpretation of the well-known Goethe quotation was of course completely wrong. Nonetheless Naples was for me a symbol of death and not of life. Regardless of whether I thought about the crater of Vesuvius, the unfortunately buried town of Pompeii or the deadly Camorra. But there is really a lot to see and admire locally and so finally I recently went there.  Despite the slightly queasy feeling I had based on my early childhood, mistaken interpretation.

I had a cold and didn’t feel particularly well, but everything had been booked, so I hoped for an improvement. The opposite happened. After arrival the flu knocked me out. My throat hurt as if someone had stuck a knife into me at short intervals, every time I coughed I thought that part of my lung had come with it and my limbs and head hurt so much that the first two days I could do nothing – except sleep.Read More »

Open-air racetrack Oerlikon – holiday extension

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Summer is coming to an end. We are back from the holidays and the daily routine has re-started. But because outside it is still high summer, we try to come to terms with the inevitable. After work and school, we undertake things with my youngest, which extend the holiday spirit.Read More »

We have found a purse – who’s lost it? Please help to find the owner

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We have found this purse. Someone is now miserably sad and depressed. We need your help to find the owner. Please spread this news, because I have maintained that we are more likely to find the owner through the Internet than if we simply hand the purse into the lost property office.Read More »

The world’s scariest swing!

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Everyone goes abroad for a vacation. I feel almost guilty because I want to remain in Switzerland. There is so much to discover and best of all one can avoid a lot of unpleasant surprises. You know what you’re getting.

Part of the vacation took us to Grindelwald. I have been there on numerous occasions, but mainly in winter. But at mid-summer never. You can discover the village, like all the Arab and Asian tourists: the 10 places you have to visit or you can decide for the quiet discovery away from the great streams of tourists. We chose the middle route. By foot to Pfingstegg to toboggan. The blood freezes in one’s veins, when you see how the Arab women tourists, veiled from head to foot sit in the toboggans and their various layers of material drift behind them. I once read that Josephine Baker was strangled by her scarf in a moving car. Maybe this story is not true but since then I have to think of this horrible way of death, when I see such flying clothes. I understood that the staff, because there are so many Arab tourists, even speak Arabic. Now they only have to explain to the tourists that such flying material can be fatal when tobogganing.

We then travelled to a marble quarry, to see where the doorframe, which stands in the parliament building, comes from and then on to the glacier gorge. 1 kilometre of bridges and tunnel, rock faces up to 300 metres high, a roaring, refreshingly cold experience. If there is anywhere clear evidence that the climate is warming, this is where it is. Years ago the bridges ended by the glacier, quasi a glacier to touch. In the meantime the glacier has retreated 2.5 km. The forecast is that in 2050 there will no longer be a glacier there. In the gorge it is about 14 degrees, because the water that flows with deafening noise, comes from the glacier itself. And that at a temperature of 35 degrees in the shade outside the gorge. The first highlight is the 170 m2 large walkable net, which is spanned 7 metres above the wild stream in the gorge. One needs courage and skill to climb on to it. It is worthwhile. An invigorating experience.

The next highlight is the canyon swing. One lets oneself fall from 300 m high and first flies down like a stone and then swings on the rope in the gorge to and fro like a pendulum. An indescribable feeling of joy, because the body has shaken out so many stress hormones.

You can bathe in the glacier water, but the fun doesn’t last long, because the water is painfully cold, as we ourselves experienced with my youngest.

Every Wednesday evening there is a street party in the village with drinks, music and a lot of fun. It was a wonderful end to a fantastic day. We had enjoyed a super vacation day. Caused no CO2 emissions at all, because we did everything by foot, supported the local economy and so contributed to preserving jobs in the area. Finally, by paying VAT, we increased the Confederation’s tax revenues. A WIN/WIN situation all round.

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Tripsdrill – the first German adventure park

Michaela Merz1 Comment

We went to Tripsdrill and found everything a child’s heart could desire. Good play areas, animals to marvel at and stroke, water chutes, looping coasters, horse-drawn coaches, boats, carousels, games and spending the night in a tree house.

What does the mother’s heart desire in such a children’s paradise? Enough clean toilets, food that doesn’t consist only of chips and sweets. Prices, which don‘t bankrupt you, no queues before the attractions, cleanliness and a well-kept environment.

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We were just lucky. It is the second half of April and the temperatures are climbing almost to 30 degrees. Summer at the beginning of spring. The Germans are at school and we in Switzerland have spring holidays. The park is empty and there are no queues anywhere.

In 278 BC named Trephonis Trulla by the Romans, in the vernacular the name of the location also described a place, in which the impossible is possible. In 1890 the first picture of the legendary Old Wives Mill at Tripsdrill appeared. In fact it was built in 1929 by Eugen Fischer. This was the year, in which Germany’s first adventure park was born.

In Tripsdrill you can find everything the heart desires. It is not kitschy, it offers lots of exhibitions on life and work in the past. In the midst of the vineyards, with a wine exhibition and wine tasting, we lived in a tree house in a wildlife park. In the morning we were awakened by the howling of the wolves, who slept 300 meters from us.

We visited 100 attractions, played, laughed, ate, fed the donkeys, stroked the miniature goats. I climbed into an Old Wives Mill, got wet but not really prettier and younger. I liked the wedding market with all its offerings. We rode in the cradle, pulled twins out of the well and admired the wedding procession and the pithy German humour. Three days fun without end, super sleeping in the treetops with nocturnal forest noises, which didn’t disturb us one bit, because every evening we were so dog-tired with my youngest. Simply only happy, fulfilled days.

The adventure park closes every evening at 6.00pm. On one of our last rides the man asked where we were living. I said “in the tree house, around the corner”. He winked and asked whether we had space free. I disappointed him, after all we were not alone but four of us were together on holiday. It just shows that one can even make contacts there. To all singles and happy couples or families, I can only recommend it.

Why I’m not afraid of big animals

Michaela Merz1 Comment

When I was 5 years old, I used to spend the summer with my mother and grandmother in a tiny village of only 5 houses. It was the last summer before I started school. My biggest issue at that point was that people always mistook me for a boy. I was very small, weighed only 20kg and had short hair. I truly looked like a boy but felt entirely girly. My environment didn’t always notice that.

That summer, a guy named Roy rented a room in the same house. I have no idea how old Roy might have been. Maybe 50? Could have been 60? He was ancient for me but really funny.Read More »

The USA and its air-conditioning

Michaela Merz1 Comment

 


I’m back home from my trip through Florida. It was the coldest January for 29 years. There was snow, the iguanas fell from the trees because of the cold, the sea-cows, sensitive to the cold, sought out protected bays and thronged in large quantities in very small spaces to keep warm. But still all the air-conditioners were running at full blast. I have never understood this, but I would be extremely grateful if some-one could explain why. Why are the rooms in restaurants, hotels, theatres, congress centres cooled down to a temperature, where its scarcely possible to feel comfortable?Read More »

Welcome to Miami – Bienvenidos a Miami

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grafite-na-regiao-do

I have the good luck of attracting unique events and exceptions. Like during the Christmas holidays, when I was travelling in Florida. After 29 years, snow and cold in Florida. If I’m honest, I couldn’t care less about the snow, that’s not the reason I have travelled such a distance. An hour from home I could enjoy the powder snow. But fortunately, Florida is big and snow in the North of Florida still means 16 degrees and sunshine in Miami. Read More »

Florida in winter

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What one immediately notices, is the exuberant kindness, which you meet wherever you go. Everyone seems to be very optimistic and almost enthusiastic. That feels good. I wonder whether depressions can be prevented by this collective optimism or whether it’s vice versa because those who suffer from a depression are drawn into the depths, because all around them are only people, who are in really good spirits.

Everything is more relaxed, aggression nowhere in sight, crowds (despite the queues) non-existent. The level of daily aggression is in Europe, and even in Switzerland, much higher than in Florida. This is very noticeable for example in traffic. In Zürich one is hooted at if one doesn’t move as soon as it’s green. In Florida on a four-lane road with heavy traffic without a sign of a pedestrian crossing, the traffic stops for pedestrians. Scarcely conceivable in Zürich.

In the lift there are polite discussions about who leaves last and people hold the door open for one another. No-one pushes and shoves anywhere. The queues at Cape Canaveral to visit the Kennedy Space Center were numerous and long, but nonetheless everything was very friendly and relaxed.

When I went swimming with my youngest in the sea, hardly more than 150m from the shore, a police boat turned up. I was rather anxious and expected an admonition or a warning that somewhere we had done something wrong. At least that is may experience with the maritime police in Europe. Jack the policeman was extremely nice, asked us if everything was OK and gave my son a little alarm light, in case he should get into an emergency.

When I rented a stand-up paddle I was recommended to wear a life vest (but of course willingly), but there was no obligation. That impressed me, because I believe that responsibility for me and my life is mine, not the state‘s. And of course without a life vest I would never have gone out. One NEVER knows!! But if I once were to do so, in Switzerland I would be fined, as soon as I was more than 300m from the shore. And I don’t think that’s right.

In the sea on the paddle I travelled with and through fishes. I have never seen so many fishes in open water as there. And then came a school of dolphins, who swam by only a few metres away from me. Medium-sized silvery fishes sprang vertically out of the water. The first surprised me and by all the rest I enjoyed their skills. And there were hundreds of birds, which were anything but shy and a few alligators, which I could see, but were fortunately very shy.

One is very prudish. During my whole stay I didn’t see a naked child on the beach or a topless female. Even in the Aircraft Museum, which we visited with my youngest, there were old planes decorated with big-bosomed beauties. One of these ladies displayed on a clock you could buy at the shop had her breasts covered with a sticker.

Here the toilets are called rest rooms, although for a rest they are totally unsuited.

New Year in Florida was great. Warm, many friendly people, who were all ready for a chat. Lights, attractions, music, many booths with food, drink and small gifts. There were fireworks and at midnight, instead of an apple as in New York, a pineapple was split open. Wonderful and very entertaining.

I can recommend Florida. Everyone can find something here. Entertainment and nature, peace and ramba-zamba, sport and culture, food, drink, sightseeing and beach, shopping.  The weather and the people are right. The prices are at the higher end. But even with a small budget there’s a lot to discover.

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