EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALSeptember
7, 1999
Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland
Swiss Chalet
My God-sister, Angela, is anxious on the phone from London. She says we’re very
close to her uncle’s chalet in the Swiss Alps. We can drive there in two hours, and
should stay the week, surrounded by peaks and hiking trails. The village of
Villars-sur-Ollon is nestled in the 3000 metre peaks of Les Diablerets, just south
of Montreaux.
Within hours we’ve retrieved the key from a real estate office at the ski resort
of Villars, and climb the steep road towards the hamlet Barboleusaz and past to the Alps
les Chaux – a series of chairlifts and downhill ski networks, still and green in the
summer sunshine. It’s an unbelievable treat – a gift at the end of two months of
camping – a dreamy repose from setting up the tent. French Switzerland is new to us,
and the cheery chalets, the Swiss flags, the creperies, snow machines lined up in lush
surroundings, all bathed in warm air and domed with cobalt, are gobbled by us. Rich sees a
window of opportunity – a chance to finalize his business plans, holed up in the cozy
chalet with table and chair and no phone line, before we finish our journey and begin the
next – back in Canada. I’m filling the deep bathtub and boiling the kettle, and
inspecting a terrace which looks out at the surrounding peaks: some bald and rocky,
impossibly steep, some green and spotted with dairy cows, and the highest cupping last
winter’s snow like a souvenir. It’s an outdoor studio for perhaps the last
drawings of the trip. In the village, I ask the man who runs the outfitters, "When is
the first snowfall?" At 1300 metres, it’s still 24 degrees Celsius in town. He
laughs, and throws up his hands. "It could be tomorrow!"
