Day 1 - Moravske Lieskove to Štrbske Pleso
After roughly a month and a half of preparations, interrupted here and there by family gatherings we are finally on the road. We head to Vysoke Tatry (High Tatras) the Slovak mountain range that is at the foot of the Carpathians. We have been to Tatranska Lomnica with our families about a week ago so we decided to head to a different spot, and picked the one with the big lake - apparently it's called a Tarn, I'll stick to lake though. We wanted to leave Moravske Leskove before 11am, but as always, we overslept and left at 12:30. We said our farewell to our little Phwe-Phwe who was enjoying the heat of the summer day and probably missing the AC as much as we were.
During the preparation yesterday, we noticed that the gas bottle for the fridge was empty, so we set out to get a new one. What an adventure that was. The gas bottle we had was an Antargaz/Elfi which obviously only exists in France, and obviously has a weird ass fitting that doesn't fit anything. So we headed out to the petrol station to get a new gas bottle. As some of you probably know (we didn't) you can't just pick up a gas bottle. You can only bring an empty one, and get a full one in exchange. Except, you can't bring a French gas bottle to a Slovak petrol station. But that is without counting on the awesomeness of /generic Slovak name/ who managed to find us a used bottle and exchange it for a full one for only 4 Euros. Now so far, so good except, the gas regulator we had that we thought would fit the Slovak bottle, it didn't. So we head out to the nearest hardware store (despite Aliona's advice to go to the other one that is on the high street) and try to find why our regulator doesn't work. Apparently it's not compatible so we need to get a new one, except that they don't have it in this store so we need to go to the other one (the one Aliona told me to go to in the first place...). In the other one we find the nicest, most dedicated and most helpful sales dude in the world and it turns out French regulators are too short... So we get a Slovak one and it works, yay. The fridge is on and we are on the way.
The drive was pretty uneventful and stupidly hot (37 Degrees. No A/C. Perfect.). We get to the foot of Štrbske Pleso and here is the beginning of our first mountain climb, my nails are still imprinted in the steering wheel and so are Ali's... I discovered the car in that climb, it can climb, but you need to make sure you shift gears in the right time otherwise you'll never go faster than 50km/h. I had about 10 cars behind me by the end... whatever I'm foreign. We roamed around a bit in the village of Štrba to find a parking and opted for the "sports center" parking and it ended up being a pretty dope decision, the parking has shade, is flat, on the grass, 350m away from the lake, has a pretty fantastic view AND tonight there's a folk concert keeping us entertained. Later we found out that the folk group is called Lučnica was having there a concert and is widely popular in folklore circles. I suppose lucky us to being able to listen to them for free from the parking lot. But I must say, I have never heard crowd going this wild for any band before.
Tomorrow we will go try to hike to the summit of the nearest mountain and the day after we will try to go around it on a different path. Mostly, right now we are looking forward to a good night sleep. Bonus, a picture of the area.
During the preparation yesterday, we noticed that the gas bottle for the fridge was empty, so we set out to get a new one. What an adventure that was. The gas bottle we had was an Antargaz/Elfi which obviously only exists in France, and obviously has a weird ass fitting that doesn't fit anything. So we headed out to the petrol station to get a new gas bottle. As some of you probably know (we didn't) you can't just pick up a gas bottle. You can only bring an empty one, and get a full one in exchange. Except, you can't bring a French gas bottle to a Slovak petrol station. But that is without counting on the awesomeness of /generic Slovak name/ who managed to find us a used bottle and exchange it for a full one for only 4 Euros. Now so far, so good except, the gas regulator we had that we thought would fit the Slovak bottle, it didn't. So we head out to the nearest hardware store (despite Aliona's advice to go to the other one that is on the high street) and try to find why our regulator doesn't work. Apparently it's not compatible so we need to get a new one, except that they don't have it in this store so we need to go to the other one (the one Aliona told me to go to in the first place...). In the other one we find the nicest, most dedicated and most helpful sales dude in the world and it turns out French regulators are too short... So we get a Slovak one and it works, yay. The fridge is on and we are on the way.
The drive was pretty uneventful and stupidly hot (37 Degrees. No A/C. Perfect.). We get to the foot of Štrbske Pleso and here is the beginning of our first mountain climb, my nails are still imprinted in the steering wheel and so are Ali's... I discovered the car in that climb, it can climb, but you need to make sure you shift gears in the right time otherwise you'll never go faster than 50km/h. I had about 10 cars behind me by the end... whatever I'm foreign. We roamed around a bit in the village of Štrba to find a parking and opted for the "sports center" parking and it ended up being a pretty dope decision, the parking has shade, is flat, on the grass, 350m away from the lake, has a pretty fantastic view AND tonight there's a folk concert keeping us entertained. Later we found out that the folk group is called Lučnica was having there a concert and is widely popular in folklore circles. I suppose lucky us to being able to listen to them for free from the parking lot. But I must say, I have never heard crowd going this wild for any band before.
Tomorrow we will go try to hike to the summit of the nearest mountain and the day after we will try to go around it on a different path. Mostly, right now we are looking forward to a good night sleep. Bonus, a picture of the area.
These bloody royale gas bottle with cheese
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