Rivière du Loup was another too short stay.

I arrived in the evening of the 14th and already the way to the hostel was kind of a problem because the bus station is (again) about 4km out of town – brillant. Fortunately, the nice guy from the gas station ordered a taxi for me because otherwise I would have been in trouble: In Rivière du Loup they don’t speak English – none of them!

And the taxi driver was no exception. But the other thing about people in Rivière du Loup is: they are all exeptionally nice and friendly – and everybody wants to talk to you, like the taxi driver. So, we spent the ten minutes taxi drive digging for basic French (on my side) and English (on his side) words to make some very, very basic conversation. For an outsider it must have sounded extremely funny but when I arrived at the hostel I was exhausted and incredibly happy that the guy in the hostel spoke (and understood) English….oh yes :-)) And I got a six-bed dorm all to myself and the hostel was one of the nicest, coziest and nicest (am I repeating myself??) hostel I’ve stayed: the floors were wooden, the beds comfy, the bathrooms new and clean, the kitchen was comfy, the breakfast included and the volunteers so nice – a hostel from heaven 🙂 It really is a shame that I stayed only for one night!!

On the next morning I checked out but could leave my bags in the TV lounge of the hostel because my bus was not leaving before 3:30 PM.

Parc des Chutes

So, I started my tour around town (and everything was written in French there!!) and was headed to the Park des Chutes without knowing that I should have expected waterfalls. But there they were in all their beauty 🙂
And it was freezing cold (just to mention it 😉 ).

Then I noticed that on the other side of the river there was a large foresty piece of land with marked trails and of course I had to check them out. I took one of the longer ones and had a wonderful walk in the forest. When the trail came back to one of the main paths I was back at the river at a lookout which was already occupied by a lady in her 40ies. I was still in the process of deciding if I should stand beside her to take some pictures or just move further on, when she already talked to me – in French (of course). I showed my helpless tourist smile and answered with ‚Je ne sais pas‘ the only French that’s left from my school lessons.
But she was from Rivière du Loup and so she didn’t care if I spoke French or not and she also said that her English wasn’t that well either. But we had a pleasant talk for about 10-15 minutes and I found out that she turns 50 this year, had her first grand child and dates a guy who is in his 30ies. Well, it’s all about the important stuff, right 😉
After that she had to go because her mother is in hospital (at least that was what I understood) and I had to head back as well to not miss the bus to Quebec city.

Some more pictures of my walk:

My last new town on my route from Toronto to Toronto.
Friendly as the people in Rivière du Loup are, I even got a ride with one of the girls from the hostel…..
Rivière du Loup is for me the town with the friendliest people so far (and imagine: that’s possible, even though they speak French ;-))