We spent a few days staying with a sweet little family outside the center of town. They had a big fat cat that would try to get on my shoulders - despite my protests. This cat was pretty funny; he would go out for a walk with them and the dog. The house smelled of orange peel, because the dried the peels on top of the stove for use as kindle later.
The strongest memory I have of this area is the period of time it took us to hike to an overlook facing the Jungfrau. We started rather late in the morning - as is common for us - and we did not get to the top until quite late in the afternoon. It was clear to us as we reached the top that we did not have much time to spend enjoying the view. We knew we needed to get down.
As it grew dark, we rushed to get down the more technical parts of the hike. We had to down-climb some small escarpments to get to the more gentle valley below, and I was becoming nervous that Javier might slip. We managed to get past the final scree field shortly after dark, but this did not give me any relief. Javier's headlamp battery had died, but his headlamp would not have helped much anyway. For three or four hours Javier held onto the back of my jacket as I hiked us out of the valley back to the car. It was slow going and nerve-racking, but we eventually made it.
Come to think of it, it is not only my strongest memory of the area, but also my favorite.
