Adventurous Leila

We made it to Quebec and our first stop was quite the experience. We stopped at a small grocery store where everything was in French and no one spoke any English. The aisles were all very narrow so only one cart could fit at a time and my mom was in everyone’s way trying to look at pictures on labels tofigure out what she was buying. When she got to the register the cashier only spoke in French and even the credit card terminal was in French. Luckily she figured everything out and we were on the way to our overnight spot.

After our overnight spot we were back on the road headed to Gaspé, where we found a nice spot right along the beautiful ocean to stay for a little less than a week. Each day we would look out our dining table window and see whales, it was such a cool experience being able to watch them from the comfort of our home.

Our first full day we went to Forillon National Park and can you guess what our first stop was?? If you said the visitor’s center for our packets you would be correct! We were headed to a hike when we found out they were having live music at one of the historical sites. We thought it would be nice to have lunch and listen to live music but we totally forgot it would be in French. After sitting in the front row they started to play and sing but we could not understand anything they were saying. It was really awkward because they would talk in between songs and people would laugh but we just sat there not knowing what was going on. After the music was over we headed to an old general store that was very interesting. The guide told us that everyone in the town was poor so they would get the supplies they needed for free and at the end of the season they would pay their bill with the fish they caught. We ended our first day in the park at pebble beach before heading home.

The following day we went back to the park to do the tower hike, it was up this very steep incline. After almost dying trying to get up the steep mountain and all the stairs we finally made it to the 360 degree lookout that had beautiful scenery of Gaspé. We learned that it was actually the end of the Appalachian mountains. They go from Alabama all the way to Gaspe, Canada. The way back down was much easier than the way up! To end our day we did an easy waterfall hike before heading home.

Our last day at this spot we hiked to a beautiful watering hole. When we got there it looked so majestic, it was crystal clear with beautiful blues and greens with a little waterfall flowing into it. Sadly it was all from glacier water so you couldn’t actually swim. My dad and I jumped in and froze our butts off. Dad swam through the freezing glacier water to sit under the ice cold waterfall. He said it felt like needles in his head and gave him an instant brain freeze. Everyone around was in shock that he actually swam across the water. After that we were pretty cold and the sun was getting low so we headed out.

We really enjoyed our time in Gaspe with all the magnificent views and can’t forget all the whales! See you soon in my next blog of Quebec.