ምስ ኣእማን ኣብ መንገዲ ሓድሽ ነገር ጥራይ ትሃንጽ!

After enjoying our last evening in the Scandinavian hot springs, we arrived at the hostel in the evening, deeply relaxed and completely relaxed.

There wasn't much left of that the next day. This headline up there was now our new motto. We had decided to leave Whistler a day earlier and this decision brought some quickly solvable problems with it.

Originally, the plan was to continue from Whistler to Kamloops and then travel through Jasper with the Rocky Mountaineer train. However, due to the current season and weather conditions, it is unfortunately not possible to pass this route with this train. Jasper was a very special destination for us because Northern Lights had been seen there many times before. That would have been an absolute highlight for us. Well, change of plan is needed.

We then asked if it would be possible to continue with our current rental car. No chance, it is not allowed to drive the car across the state border at least not if you wouldn't want to drive back. Well, to make a long story short, it doesn't work as we thought! We headed to the nearest tourist center and talked to one of the employees there about our current situation.

The last possible destination that we could reach in British Columbia with our rental car would be Kelowna. But that was far outside of our original plans. In summary, the employee advised us against a trip to Jasper, given the current weather reports. The reason for this is that there is only one highway from Kamloops to Jasper, as well as only one highway from there to Banff and Calgary. This highway has to be closed frequently due to the threat of avalanches and similar things.

To give you a better idea on the map, I hope you can see it more or less... we are currently on the very left in the picture in 'Whistler' and wanted to go to Kamloops (top right). Unfortunately, Kamloops does not offer any drop-off options for our car rental company. The next possible destination would be Kelowna, as mentioned above. Another sticking point was that the highway we took towards Pemberton is not recommended for longer distances. All these circumstances and because we didn't want to take any more risks, forced us to take the way back to Vancouver and take advantage of the multitude of car rental companies there. Well, then let's go back.

The weather reflected my mood similarly.

When we arrived in Vancouver, we still had some time before we had to return our current car, so we started looking for alternatives for our onward journey. At Hertz car rental, we found a place that provides cars directly. There were some problems with the credit cards.

My prepaid credit card was not accepted for the deposit. Carina's credit card did not provide the desired level of security due to previously blocked amounts. So it was not possible to rent a car for two weeks... it was just awful. Then we were so busy checking our credit cards that the other car had to be returned in the meantime...! Well, Carina got in the car and returned it to the car rental company, hoping that I would pick her up with the new car... the problem with the credit card only became apparent after she was already on her way... so things got really messy. Luckily, the employee from 'Hertz' was so accommodating and took it upon himself to pick up Carina with all the luggage at the competitor's. Well, Carina is back on board... it's not like everything went smoothly. It's easy to tell in hindsight. Actually, I had some moments where I didn't know how we were going to make it.

Anyway, after a total of three hours and complications, we finally got approval for a security deposit for one week. This means that we have to be in Calgary within a week. So, let's saddle up, we have about 1000 km of driving ahead of us.

Next stop was Kamloops, as mentioned several times before. Four hours of driving according to the navigation system. Should be easy to do - we thought.

 As it turned out, the first mistake was that we relied 100% on our navigation system, which unfortunately took us on a detour. So we ended up in rush hour traffic. You can hardly imagine it, on a six-lane highway there was a traffic jam. That's right, we had six drivable lanes on each side... and there was absolutely no movement. I think this situation lasted for the next 60-80 kilometers. Unfortunately, there was no other option! I was furious... the nightmare of the day just continued.

But as Carina always says, things can always get worse... and of course, it got worse. The traffic jam was over and then began the worst car ride of my life.

We suddenly drove into a sudden change of weather. It was snowing like crazy. At first, that wasn't the problem, but on the highways, there is no light and the road boundaries on the left and right are not easy to see. This made the whole thing more than difficult for me. Oh yes, I was the one driving during this hellish trip. Eventually, the roads became icy and then the nightmare was complete. I crawled along the highway at 50 km/h with the high beam on constantly. I was really scared and had a lot of respect for everything that could happen. After seeing three vehicles lying in the ditch, our idea of freezing to death in the car tonight couldn't have been any more perfect. I was very afraid, but now we had to somehow keep going... there was nothing but snow, ice, the highway, and us. Occasionally, a truck would overtake us slowly. In our defense, I have to say that we didn't have the intended tires for such weather conditions. Well, okay, let's close our eyes and go for it. After almost 7 hours of driving, we finally made it to Kamloops. We were greeted very kindly by a couple with two small dogs. We immediately asked if we could stay with them for an extra day. I was just so exhausted after this whole day and really needed to recharge my energy.

View from our room. Kamloops was just a stopover and didn't offer much in terms of sights.

First, coffee and breakfast.

By the way, this was our Airbnb accommodation. We were pleasantly surprised.

This was one of the small roommates. Her name was Loona.

It was a short but very relaxing and beautiful stay with this couple. So, this time there is more text than pictures. Always a change of pace. It's currently a quarter to 4 in the morning in Germany and it's already dark here too. I'm going to take a shower now and then go to bed soon. We'll continue tomorrow :-)