Friday, July 08, 2005

 

Niagara Falls - 21 May 2005

One of our teammates at IGSI organised a trip to Niagara. We just had to fill an excel sheet with our names.The one big concern that I had was , I wanted to buy a digicam even before going there so I could shoot as many pictures as possible, and without needing to depend on somebody. In that hurry I bought a Olympus 5.1 MP camera which costed me around 500$ with the memory card and every thing else, am happy with it till now, do not know when I will start getting problems with it, keeping the fingers crossed.

We started at 11 30 am on that day. We stopped en route at a place where we could get a bird's eye view of the Niagara falls through a helicopter ride. They were charging 120$ which I thought was a bit too expensive, so I did not dare to take the ride. A few pictures taken there ...




Then we went to these wineyards where they grow grapes and manufacture wine. I tasted a bit of wine. It was so sweet. I really liked it. Couldn't dare to buy one. Sorry I do not have a picture of the wine store, it was so well organised and welcoming .

Then it was the turn of the orchards. The sides of the road where we were travelling had a few orchards which we were beautiful, very beautiful. We requested the driver to stope there , but we had a paucity of time because we had to reach the Niagara falls by 5 30 pm and there was a lot more to see en route too. How I yearned to get down at this place and just walk. If you go to Niagara falls next time , do make sure that you start early and walk in the orchards. The driver told us that this is the smallest church in the world ( or Ontario ? Do not remember ). A few other pictures taken there .... These pictures were taken from inside the vehicle. We could not even get down for a few minutes, parking was a problem too. I felt like having been caged.




Then we came to the whirpool where the water kind of flows from different directions and it was a good sight to see.




And then right at the stroke of 5 pm we reached the Niagara falls. The last boat which would take us on the "maid of the mist ride" was scheduled at 5 30 pm. Thank heavens we did not miss that. We took the ticket for 15$ and started climbing down the stairs, we were at an elevated place. And then we had to take a lift too which was embedded into the rocks. We were also given a rain coat kind of a thing which was supposed to protect us from the water when we go "into the horse shoe".

It was a very big boat which could accomodate at least 200 people on board and and the ride was supposed to be for a 15-20 minutes and we would be on the Niagara river, going towards the horse shoe , into it and back. It is the Niagara river which seperates the US state Buffalo and Canada, There was a huge bridge which connected these two across the Niagara.



The boat started and sent my heart racing. We were about to see one of the things which the world aspires to !!Quite sluggishly it started towards the other direction, and every body started shouting. It turned and we were at a distance of perhaps a kilometer or two from the horse shoe, just my guess. It was the water which falls from the US side which creates these falls.

Suddenly there was a gust of wind which sprinkled some water on us. As we went closer to the horse shoe the sprinkles of water increased and even the noise. It was noise but may I say it was like music. I had just bought the camera yesterday so I did not want to take it out while we were in the horse shoe. And anyway , any amount of my writing or pictures is not enough to describe it. I suggest folks who are in the US should visit it once from the Canadian side and take the maid of the mist ride, It IS worth those few dollars which you might spend on the visa and the travel. I leave you with a few more pictures of magic, pure magic.





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