Yap

Yap has quite a history and it's not just from WWII. This island group located in the Western Pacific is also know for its stone money, most of which came from Palau, which is almost 300 miles away with no landmarks. Indigenous people took on this treacherous journey on canoes and brought over those carved disks of stone The local traditions are strong compared to other states in Micronesia. 

For an entire week we stayed at the Traders Ridge Resort and we were the only guests. The staff was absolutely phenomenal and they told us that most of the local builders were actually still working here in an obviously different capacity. 

On one of our dive trips we anchored at the sea floor and waited to see 2 magnificent manta rays swim right over us. What a sight, and I didn't realize how huge they were.

One day, the dive master asked us if we were up to a night dive to check out Mandarin fish. We missed them on our trip to Palau and we excitedly got ready. We took the boat to a shallow reef with mostly staghorn coral still within sight of the shoreline. It turns out that the Mandarin fish were mating at dusk and we were invited to witness this extraordinary "ceremony".

It was not easy to take pictures since there finger-sized fish were moving from one branch to another and were never still. The colors were so bright that it almost looks unreal.

To explore the culture and sites above water, we hooked up with a local tour guide, who was familiar with local customs, e.g. that you need to carry a branch when walking from one village to another as a sign of peace. He organized for us a visit to a men's house.

In another village the chief and his son (who had a cell phone) showed us how they build a canoe. The son payed a lot of attention to what his father had to say about his culture. This is the only way customs will survive from one to the next generation. The chief allowed us the get a citrus fruit from a tree Ging-Gong. This was the perfect opportunity to part from my original Swiss Army knife that I handed over to a stunned chief.

Zermatt

This year, the goal was to visit many medieval castles on the way to Zermatt. The first destination was Gruyère, where the famous Swiss cheese comes from. On top of the hill as a part of the old part of town is the HR. Giger museum and the HR Giger bar, both are quite an experience if you want to know what aliens are.

The next stop was Chateaux Chillon, that is built on the shore of lake Geneva. It features a prison as well as a very well ventilated "bathroom".

Driving up the Wallis, we stopped in Sion where we walked up to both castles without water and our cadence dropped dramatically when we arrived parched at the second one, where we found refuge in the nicely tempered church.

Taking the rental car and drive up to Grimentz must be a challenge for anyone who didn't grow up in the side valley. The streets are narrow and very windy with normal dump trucks, that hug the road as if the tires like staring down the embankment. We finally arrived at a village that is mostly still preserved and consists of wooden construction with a sun burned façade. Very quaint.

Our dinner was great with local specialties.

On the next day, we drove up to Zermatt, which is free of cars (nice!). Most people come here for hiking anyway and so it doesn't matter if you walk to the hotel from the train station. We were lucky and stayed in a hotel that had a very nice view of the Matterhorn. I truly was impressed with this mountain of all mountain. It is a peak that stands out with its famous bend and it looks stunning especially in the morning when there are no clouds.

A cable car took us up to the Little Matterhorn (3883m or 12740 feet), which is the highest place in Europe that can be reached with an aerial tram. From there you have an unobstructed view to the "real" Matterhorn and other 4000m high peaks.

The Gornergrat is our next site from where one can observe some of the highest peaks in the Alps. A cog railway leads up to the station on top of a ridge. The entire massif of Monte Rosa is in front of you and I cannot stress enough how impressive this is. 

Because it was such a beautiful day, we decided to hike down to the next station Riffelberg, where we hopped on the train down to Zermatt.