Tuesday 5 Jun 2007
Whistler, Canada
We ain't "Whistler"-in Dixie
Took a lovely quiet route through lush green mountains toward Whistler over a period of 5 hours, keeping off the main route highway.
We encountered many "First Nations" people along the route.. many of which were working with the national road authority to fix some of the hundreds of potholes along the back roads (evidently the Canadian government don't care quite as much about the upkeep of roads in these areas... hmm sounds similar to the policies of a certain country "down under")
It was unusual to see native Canadian peoples smiling and working - up until this point the only native Canadians I had encountered in Vancouver and Toronto were drunk bums on the street begging for money. The similarity with the Aboriginals of Oz is quite startling.
Of course, we also passed hundreds of flooding rivers and roads (the recent extreme heat has caused the ice to melt off the mountains at a dramatic pace.. so all of BC is on high alert at the moment).
The onslaught of heavy rain for the rest of the trip didn't help much either
The hostel we eventually arrived at in Whistler was a complete dump. Dirty rooms/showers and backpackers throwing all their crap all over the place.. sure Jonny even found some guys passport sticking out of the side of his bed, on the verge of being lost forever.
The hostel was Hostel International Whistler. AVOID!