canada: niagara falls
wow. what an incredible past 2 months we have had. now how to put it into words? they (the words, that is) are simply inadequate to thank all that helped us pull this trip off. the highlight really was meeting all of you, being with you, laughing together and enjoying every moment. meeting old friends, making new ones. I say this at the outset especially in case i miss out on mentioning a place we visited or omitted posting pictures here: its not because the place was not awesome - its because the pictures were rubbish!
so the next several blogs will cover our trip to canada and parts of the u.s. a bit of a departure from our usual africa / kenya blogs to say the least, but there is definitely beauty all over the world.
we arrived in toronto to have u. dave and tanja meet us with open arms - the first of several times they would meet us here, drop us off, or search for a bus stop late at night in strange neighbourhoods. we cannot thank them enough. it was nice to see suzie and mom and go for a walk with them the next day...of course, the exciting thing for me was the car dealership with HUGE pickups. proof below.
it was great to see old friends again and combine that with strawberry, blueberry and raspberry cheesecake....thanks to mark and janice. i would post a pic of you but the only one i have is with flames exploding out of your barbeque and mark looking stressed, so maybe not, hey?
one of the highlights of course was seeing niagara falls. so there is the horseshoe falls, which is the one that features in most pictures but there is also the american falls which are a few meters downstream of the horseshoe falls. (unfortunately for them, the best view of their falls is from the canadian side:-). they are not particularly high, only 50m, but the volume of water is astounding: 110,000 cubic meters per minute. 1.8 million liters a second. even this is reduced since a large portion of the water is diverted for electricity generation, returning to the river further downstream.
we had a little bit of a shower, but then the sun came out against the dark sky in the background and it was awesome.
our terrific tour guides:)
maid of the mist boat - you get completely soaked down there. also it gives you an idea of the power of the falls - you have to shout to be heard above the roar of the waterfall.
some more maids of the mist....
the american falls
as an interesting side point, during our last week we went to the ROM (more on this in a future post for now suffice to say its an iconic museum) and they had this painting of the falls back in the day when there was no development or anything. it looked amazing. i would love to have seen it then. now its very commercialised and there are hundreds of people (29 million people annually!!!). its still spectacular, but it must have been much more back then when you clamber around wherever you wanted
and of course, there were lots of pretty photo ops...
and to cap it all - the entire panorama. you can see the horseshoe falls to the right and the american falls to the left.
next up....the grand usa bethel tour!
so the next several blogs will cover our trip to canada and parts of the u.s. a bit of a departure from our usual africa / kenya blogs to say the least, but there is definitely beauty all over the world.
we arrived in toronto to have u. dave and tanja meet us with open arms - the first of several times they would meet us here, drop us off, or search for a bus stop late at night in strange neighbourhoods. we cannot thank them enough. it was nice to see suzie and mom and go for a walk with them the next day...of course, the exciting thing for me was the car dealership with HUGE pickups. proof below.
it was great to see old friends again and combine that with strawberry, blueberry and raspberry cheesecake....thanks to mark and janice. i would post a pic of you but the only one i have is with flames exploding out of your barbeque and mark looking stressed, so maybe not, hey?
one of the highlights of course was seeing niagara falls. so there is the horseshoe falls, which is the one that features in most pictures but there is also the american falls which are a few meters downstream of the horseshoe falls. (unfortunately for them, the best view of their falls is from the canadian side:-). they are not particularly high, only 50m, but the volume of water is astounding: 110,000 cubic meters per minute. 1.8 million liters a second. even this is reduced since a large portion of the water is diverted for electricity generation, returning to the river further downstream.
we had a little bit of a shower, but then the sun came out against the dark sky in the background and it was awesome.
our terrific tour guides:)
maid of the mist boat - you get completely soaked down there. also it gives you an idea of the power of the falls - you have to shout to be heard above the roar of the waterfall.
some more maids of the mist....
the american falls
as an interesting side point, during our last week we went to the ROM (more on this in a future post for now suffice to say its an iconic museum) and they had this painting of the falls back in the day when there was no development or anything. it looked amazing. i would love to have seen it then. now its very commercialised and there are hundreds of people (29 million people annually!!!). its still spectacular, but it must have been much more back then when you clamber around wherever you wanted
and of course, there were lots of pretty photo ops...
and to cap it all - the entire panorama. you can see the horseshoe falls to the right and the american falls to the left.
next up....the grand usa bethel tour!
