Czech Trek!!

For my last week of the travel break I signed up for an adventure trip offered through DIS called the Czech Trek.  This trip gave us the chance to experience various outdoor adventure activities in Cesky Raj, a northern region of the Czech Republic.  

Day 1

We left Copenhagen Sunday evening by bus.  I tried very hard to sleep during the overnight ride, but being squished into a tiny seat with someone sitting next to you and luggage on your lap made this a rather difficult task.  Needless to say my body was very sore and tired the next morning... a good way to start off an adventure trip!

Day 2

It took 17 hours to get there by ferry and bus, but we finally made it to the beautiful Hruba Skala Castle!  The castle was a series of old pretty buildings on the face of an enormous cliff.  As it was close to Halloween, there were several random and spooking decorations set up (notice the dummy being hung in the courtyard below).

After we got off the bus we had the chance to settle in a bit and then we jumped right into a 3 hour session of intense team building activities and icebreakers.  I was pleasantly surprised with some very clever and original games that I will be stealing for camp staff training this summer.  It was a really good time, despite the rain pouring down on us.

Day 3

For the remainder of the adventure portion of the trip our group of about 40 was divided in 2 smaller groups.  I was in the group that wished for a more challenging course.  We began the day with a 3 hour trekking and hiking trip through the woods and along the cliffs surrounding Hruba Skala.  The panoramic views were incredible and the nature was a nice change of pace from the cities I have been living in for the past several months.

Later that day we got an introductory lesson in high ropes elements.  We took turns rappelling down a cliff, zip-lining across a canyon and coming back over a rope bridge.  I really enjoyed the rope bridge because it required a lot of focus to keep it from flipping over and myself from flipping out.  

The rappelling was also fun.  The hardest part was the first part where I had to force my body to lean backward and trust that the rope would keep me from falling 50 meters down a cliff to my death... what a rush!!

That night we had a group scavenger hunt around the castle.  We were divided into 6 groups and given the task of finding small clues all over the castle grounds in order to figure out a riddle that would lead us to some kind of treasure.  We were armed with terrible paper maps and tea candles to guide us around the buildings, down into the gorge and forests.  Luckily, I am really good at deciphering riddles.  So, my group found the key to unlock the tower where the treasure (bottles of wine) were hidden before anyone else.

Day 4

We began this morning with a cave and rope expedition on and in a nearby village.  We were split into smaller groups of about 10 to trek our way into caves, through mud puddles, over cliffs and down bouldering hills.  This was my favorite part of the whole trip because we really had to work together as a group to find our way and make it through so tight (literally) spaces.

The first thing we did was crawl through a giant mud puddle to find clues to our map inside a cave.  Once we found our map we had to use it to make our way around the mountain.  Our Czech guide supported us if we were in desperate need of help, but mostly he taunted us by suggesting that our chosen path lead to blood and guts.  I took away his talking privileges early on in the trip.
The final cave we wormed (we actually had to crawl on our stomachs) our way into was a cute little circled space for us to sit together and enjoy some more treasure (wine).  Our guide, Libor, "forgot" to bring a corkscrew and glasses so we had to push the cork down in and play pass the bottle... classy, I know.

We later concluded our adventure activities with a more challenging climbing and rappelling experience.  As you can see above we are standing at the base the rappelling wall.

Day 5

For the final day of our trip we spent 10 hours in Prague, the capitol city of Czech.  It was an amazingly beautiful city with a great deal of old architecture and art.  

Prague is a very touristy city with souvenir shops on every corner and people crowding everywhere, but I really enjoyed walking through the city.  The buildings and churches are very old and picturesque.  A great deal of attention has been paid in making the old and new portions of the city aesthetically pleasing and interesting to look at.

I had a really great time on the Czech Trek.  It was a wonderful end to my 3 week travel break.