Adventure in Poland: KARPACZ

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Karpacz

It all started with Manish & Priya’s excitement to see the snow for the first time in their lives. But the plan wasn’t confirmed until Thursday afternoon. If it wasn’t Manish convincing the rest of us, probably we would have had to wait for another year to have this fun filled Sobota (Saturday)!! Snow covered all around, experienced skiing for the first time, clicked pics with DSLR, chats under clouds rejuvenated by fresh breeze with beers and lastly a calm evening at a pleasant Chinese church, the perfect plan for a day’s outing.

We did all enquires we could in office & concluded Bus route to Karpacz was the best. As we couldn’t book tickets online, Manish & I had to go to the bus station to buy tickets. Poland being a non-English speaking country, it was little of a challenge to converse with the old lady sitting at Informacja desk. She stared at us out of her thin spectacles hanging on the tip of her nose (Polish people really have long nose) like we were aliens. She clearly refused just even as I asked if she could speak English. Two months is hardly enough even to learn a language & trust me Polish is hard even if you spare a dedicated year unless you are born here. The way it is spoken, the pronunciations & the way it is written, ufff… Can you imagine a ‘Z’ after a ‘D’ & it’s said ‘G’ OR a ‘C’ before a ‘Z’ & it’s a ‘Cha’!! Yes, that’s how the beautiful place Karpacz is pronounced ‘Car-pa-Cha’. As they say, you’ll learn with experiences we managed to use easy/simple English words & hand signs to make her understand we wanted to book bus tickets from Wroclaw to Karpacz for Sobota morning & that’s when her face turned pretty & sweet. She wrote us down the required information & directed us to Kasa, where we paid & printed tickets.

Now that our travel was planned, we had to plan on packing some home cooked food as well. Manish is an Eggetarian, Priya & I eat only Kurczak (chicken) & Sumanth can manage all kinds of meat served, but it was the taste we were all worried about. Being Indians we are used to eat a lot of masalas in our food, which lacks in European food except for a pinch of salt, pepper or garlic. So we decided to pack some bread, boiled eggs & biscuits. Priya volunteered to cook some sandwiches & eggrolls.

The bus was at sharp 6:45 AM on Saturday morning, people here are punctual as the second’s needle of a clock. I’m not a morning person & very lazy when it comes to getting out of the bed. Manish literally slapped me on my face to wake me & pushed me in to the shower. Meanwhile he did the packing including the food. It was 6:15 AM; we had 3 layers of clothing, a winter cap, bag pack in its place & sports shoes on & set to leave on the adventurous expedition. The couple in our group live on the other side of the street. We communicated on WhatsApp(mobile social networking service) & reached the tram station together. Luckily we got a direct tram to the Dworzec Autobusowy & the bus was readily waiting for us to board. I slept for almost 2 hours out of our 3 hour journey. The One hour I was awake, I recall eating the yummy Eggrolls & sweet vanilla bread sandwiches (I must admit, Priya is indeed a great cook) & enjoyed the sight of the country side through the clear glass windows. We knew we reached when the big White Mountains blacked out our views at anything even right next to us. I could hear all our excitement in Priya’s voice alone when she “Woooowwww” ed at the view.

Karpacz was a small town, mostly filled with travelers & skiers. I saw people suiting up with their skiing gears. A cute kid, fair pink face with glittering blue eyes jumped up & down with all his energy while his mom was trying to gear him up. This was sure going to be fun. The three of them were planning on what to start with while I admired the beauty of my surrounding & observed the enthusiasm in people around. A voice addressing us turned our necks towards him in unison “Dzien Dobry”. We then noticed we were facing a Ski gear rental shop & the guy in turn realized we weren’t localities. So, he switched to English “Hello there, how can I help you” & threw a catchy business men smile. We weren’t really sure, but probably even that kid would know what to ask. Sumanth initiated to ask “How much is it to rent the Ski gears per person?” He extended his smile & invited us in to his small wooden shop filled with metal shoes, different kind of skies, helmets & weird sweaty/icy smell. He waited for us to get comfortable in the congested place, not even a little shift on his facial expression & told “One pair of ski gear for 24 hours… 25zl” with his broken English. Zloty is the currency in Poland, equivalent to one third of a US dollar. Our minds automatically converted it in to the currency we have been using all our life, INR (Indian Rupee). We took time; the sport, people, place & the currency was new for us, glanced at each other’s faces before we decided to go for it. He asked for our shoe sizes, weight & an identity card for security. He handed us the shoes to try them while he made adjustments to the skies. Priya & I were discussing about hiring a trainer, it’s always good to learn some basics before one starts off. So, I asked if we would require a trainer for first timers & he responded in defiance “It’s really easy, you can give it a try on your own” but later on agreed to arrange a trainer for us. We bargained for 40zl per person for an hours training. Sumanth questioned “Do we get the ski stick also for support?” & the trainer explained “No, if you have sticks in your hand, your mind will tend to concentrate more on the hands rather than on legs. Those sticks are for speeding up & not for support”.

We wore those shoes with lot of difficulty. The shoes were heavy, long enough to cover our calf muscle & it felt like chained up in a feudal age prison. We were instructed to carry the skies on our shoulders which were supposed to make us walk comfortably with the heavy gears; but I felt walking on the moon would have been much easier! We followed the instructor to the ice filled mountain in our discomfort & stood panting for breath in the thin air as we reached the training destination. The trainer looked more Chinese than Polish with his short hair & pointed black eyes. He commented looking at our state “You people sit in office, hardly exercise… Don’t be so stiff, let loose your body free” (Did he really mean what he said, or just envied our brains??). He continued to educate us the basics of the skies, how to put them on, skiing position, slope, how to stand without skidding on the smooth surface & how to slide. The nervousness made it more difficult than it sounded. Manish picked the sport well (In fact he picks up all sports quickly) while the rest of us were struggling just to balance. However, we fell few times but managed to ski a little with the trainers support. Interrupting our joyful first skiing success did the trainer mention about the toughest & most important part of skiing ‘Breaking’ or stopping the sliding to stand still on the slope. Yes, it took a lot of concentration & practice to break. This time we fell more than few times but couldn’t really master the breaking technique.

The training ended, but we planned to practice after some food. For all the efforts put in our throats were thirsty for beer & bellies hungry for some pizzas. The later helped us relax while the former helped us revise our skiing skills. We even chatted up & clicked some pics with Sumanth’s DSLR. He explained its features & of the special lenses he had. It was interesting, I was amused by the clarity, detail & the unique focus every different picture had. I planned to save some money & buy one soon, it would help me capture all my European touring adding color to my memories & write ups.

Soon it was practice time again, we suited up yet again (The way Barney asks Ted); this time with ease & confidence. We most importantly practiced breaking, helped each other & even posed for Sumanth’s photography as if we were pros (All of them undoubtedly went on Facebook). It was 4 in the evening when we returned the ski gears & the four of us who made a pact to do this again. The next plan was try cable car & to trek in the snow; even make a snow man (Priya had got a carrot to stick it as its nose too).

Here, the days are short & the nights stretch long. The Sun sets early & the gray clouds occupy the skies. Darkness & Cold are always related to danger, the time had only come to remember it but probably not to experience it! Unfortunately, we were told the mountains are closed for evening treks, which allowed us a solid 3 hours & the only choice to wander around the town of Karpacz until we could catch our bus back home. This is when we discovered the Wang church. The tact stone walls welcomed the four amateur skiers well. The place was pleasant & calm except for the cold breeze pricking on our faces. The inclined pointed roof architecture clearly stated it was a built by some Chinese. There were only polish scripts talking about the church & monuments, which we wouldn’t understand. So, we took some more picture even here & enjoyed the silence. We came across souvenir shop on our walk back. The sweet lady owner took us on a quick tour of her small shop describing everything she had to sell, hoping she would made some good money. I was impressed by the wooden weaponry (More of toys) in her collection – swords, bow with arrows & a working cross-bow!! But still felt they were overpriced, so just picked small magnet stickers (Helps me remember the place better). The sweet lady thanked us “Please visit again” & even handed a post card. We smiled back, appreciated her & took a taxi back to the bus station.

We decided to eat Dinner in the restauracya at autobusowy as we still had some spare time, so much to explore but only little energy. It was a decent restaurant & interestingly had a traditional heating system with a fire place. The cities now usually have gas or electric heating to counter the cold weather. We took the table right next to the fire place. We ordered some Polish vegetarian food & drinks. There was a family get together on the table right to us & a couple on a romantic candle light dinner on the left (I guess he was going to propose her after dinner that night). I presume small cities have more happiness than in the bigger towns. The food was bland as expected. As they say hunger has no taste, we gobbled up everything on our plate & sipped until the last drop in the glass before we left the place.

Alas It was time to wish ‘Do widzenia’ (Good Bye), I looked around the place once again before we got in to the bus. This bus seemed better than the one we came in, but still couldn’t get to sleep. A stream of thoughts flashed like a laser show through my closed eyes. The joy of learning something new, the pleasing white snow, the peace at Wang church & the fun with the gang could never leave my memories; revealing how important this perfect break in our busy schedules was!! The way breaking was while skiing!!

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