Day Thirteen: Salzburg

This morning we woke up at 6:00 am to cannon fire.

Actually, I'll let Dave tell this part of the story. This is his account:

So, we're camping. At 6:00 am (not exactly, mind you... that's important later), this cannon starts going off. Like, we can't see it, but it's for sure heavy artillery level fire. So I look over at Sofie, like, "um what crazy Austria tradition is this?" But Sofie is FREAKING OUT. Like, to the extent that I would have been if I didn't assume this was some weird Austrian thing. 

We leave the tent and notice the church bells are going off too. But as I mentioned, it's not 6:00 am exactly, so why would they be ringing? And then, we look behind us and the MOUNTAIN IS SMOKING LIKE CRAZY. It's a forested mountain, by the way. So anyway, at this point in my mind there are three options.

• Option 1: We are at war. They're firing at something over the mountain.
• Option 2: It's a forest fire and we're in the kill zone and we need to get out, asap.
• Option 3: Something else, but who knows what

We go to the nearest McDonald's. We figure people will gather there and someone can interpret this. And the McDonald's is RAMMED with people. So now, I'm sure something is up. Why would so many small town Austrians be at a McDonald's at 6:00 am? We ask around, but everyone seems to think the smoke is "just clouds." So, we order breakfast. 

Eventually we realize the McDonald's isn't in a mass panic, and clearly we aren't going to die. Finally we find someone who knows what's going on. It turns out, for weddings in Austrian small towns, they launch a cannon for 20 MINUTES STRAIGHT. We still have no idea what the smoke was (maybe really just clouds?), but we assume the church bells were related to the wedding. 

As it turns out, Austrians just love McDonald's. No occasion for the crowd.

Anyway, post our 6:00 am wake up and subsequent trip to McDonald's, we arrived back at the campsite just before 8:00 and got ready for our day. We had reserved a day trip canyoning tour with the AOS company—an Austrian outdoor adventure tour company which departed right from our campsite.  Here's a link to the tour we did.

The group on our way up the mountain to rappel into the canyon

Now, it's important to note that, for the entire tour, the instructions were in German, as our guide was not bilingual. Thankfully Dave and I had help from Sofie and another awesome couple in our group to translate for us, but it was a bit sketchy to have all this critical information coming down second hand.

Rappelling into the canyon

After putting on our wet suits and gearing up, we hiked for about 40 minutes up the mountain until we got to the designated "start" and rappelled, one by one, into the canyon. The rest of the trip is better told through photos. I want to give a big thanks to Nicolai and Xiao, the awesome couple who rounded out our group of five. They took all these awesome pictures on their GoPro, and were kind enough to share them with us after!

After rappelling, we "slide" down a series of mini waterfalls

It was just as scary as it looks!

The group looking up after descending into the first canyon

More fun sliding through canyons

Quick break for a group shot!

A narrow squeeze in between two boulders

Starting to get a little wet as we descend into waterfalls!

The scenery was stunning

We rappelled down 9 waterfalls in total

This waterfall was particularly steep and powerful

We totally got the hang of it!

The final descent

Waterfall warriors at the end!

In the end it was a really incredible day. We pushed ourselves and were rewarded with gorgeous views, action-packed adventure, and so much fun.

Next up: Salzburg part two and Carinthia