Interlaken - Final Full Day; Off Road Trek

Wednesday, the 19th of April, during breakfast, Ursula told us about the various ways we could explore the lakesides by bike, different towns we could stop in, and how to best utilize the train and boats. After we finished eating, we went about town with the laptop looking for a wifi connection to the Internet, and after unsuccessfully trying the square in front of a webcafe, we walked to a place we discovered on our first night in Interlaken that advertised being the cheapest in town, as well as having the cheapest bike rentals. It looked closed, but as we peered in the front door, a guy came running across the street to let us in. He explained in bits of English that he had to leave in 45 minutes, but would back back 2 hours later, but then would have to leave 2 1/2 hours after that. The place was a wreck inside, but the Internet connection worked, and we had just enough time to download emails, and book a room for our stay in Munich. We paid up and explained that we might be back later to rent bikes, but had no intention of doing so. We walked about half a block down the street and found Daniel's a place that rented all sorts of stuff, as well as offering the town's cheapest Internet access (hmmmm...) and a Thai food restaurant to boot. We found two Trek mountain bikes that looked just right, filled out the required paperwork, and were soon on our way. A left at the yellow building, a right, and then a left and straight ahead and sure enough we were riding alongside the beautiful menthol-blue colored Lake Brientz surrounded by mountains and lush green grass hillsides. For the next 5 hours, we rode up and down through a nature preserve, farmland, a resort, and eventually the town of Brientz until we were so exhausted halfway around the lake that we took the train back to Interlaken. We were pretty proud of ourselves though because in total we must have rode about 25 kilometers or so, and alot of it was pretty steep incline. It was a fantastic ride, with smells and views that we could not have experienced any other way. And the waterfalls at the end of the ride were worth it all. The air was so clean and crisp and the sun kept us comfortably warm. Once back in Interlaken, we went back to Daniel's to turn the bikes in, but he wasn't there so we hooked up to the Internet connection and spent the next hour uploading pictures to the website and sipping some delicious coffees. Instead of having Thai food there, which was my original plan, after settling up, we went to a Mexican restaurant just a few blocks away and had a delicious meal. The poor guy waiting on us was the only waiter in the restaurant and was totally swamped by the time we were finished and ready to pay. We eventually tracked him down, paid for the meal, and headed back to the hotel where we soon were ready for bed.