Scaffolding in Switzerland!

Picture of the group in our wetsuits before canyoning! The water was freezing but so worth it

Switzerland is one of the most beautiful places in the world. I can truly say it was hard for me to get on the 11 hour bus ride back to Prague I would have stayed forever. I planned our trip to Switzerland the first week we were here in Europe because I wanted to go canyoning and Interlaken is one of the only places you can do this in the world. So we get up early Saturday morning because we are to meet to head to the canyon Grimsel at 8am. We meet our guides and get set up in our wetsuits and helmets and head off on one of the most beautiful car rides I have ever been on. The trip starts with a 50-meter repel down the side of a cliff. At this point I am afraid that we are going to lose some of our fellow canyon goers because this is pretty extreme. By I can say most of us are very far outside of our zone of proximal development. I work at a summer camp and have worked with the climbing staff and I still felt like I needed a lot of help to get down the side of a cliff. After reaching the bottom we set off on a crash course of jumping, sliding and zip lining through the middle of the canyon. Much of the tasks we were asked to do, the guides had to scaffold us through. Many jumps and slides would have been very dangerous without precise directions from the guide. At the beginning of our tour, the guides took a lot more time explaining and making sure we understood how we were supposed to jump into the shallower water and towards the end, after much scaffolding, we were just told that we were supposed to do the "shallow jump." If you ever have a free weekend or are spending extra time in Europe, you have to go to Switzerland and go canyoning. It was truly one of the greatest things I have ever done! I will come back to Switzerland to do it again.