Canada 2013: Niagara Falls

By Tamara in Travel

Part Ten: Our final post about Canada is dedicated to the Niagara Falls. We didn’t end up taking many pictures as we were exhausted, hot, bothered and quite frankly, forgot that we had a camera on our arms. We had said our goodbyes to the Cloete family after an amazing couple of weeks with them the night before and had caught a plane to Toronto Airport to spend a day in Toronto before we made the journey home. We arrived in Toronto in the early hours of the morning to all the shops being closed and nothing to do. After waiting a couple of hours we finally found a telephone at an unattended information desk and used it to call a Niagara Falls tour operator.

After checking our bags into storage, we caught a bus (sounds easier than it was) to the rendezvous point at a nearby hotel and when we arrived, we were greeted by a very odd character in a black limousine. Not trusting the look of the situation we checked with the hotel and they had no idea who he was, but he came running in with our names on a piece of cardboard. We had no choice but to climb into the limo and make our way to the promised bus that was meant to take us to Niagara falls. It was 36 degrees celsius that day without a drop of wind. Once we found and boarded the tour bus in downtown Toronto, Imar and I passed out to the sound of our Indian driver’s “tour guide voice” and the motion of the bus.

Our first stop was a wine tasting at a tiny wine farm where our motley little tour group tasted some yummy Ice Wine. We used the opportunity to change into cooler clothes and generally tried to keep as cool as possible. Onwards we went to the “smallest chapel” (in the town/country/world?), as well as to a floral clock and finally on to the Niagara Falls. At the falls we eventually couldn’t fight the sleep deprivation and the heat anymore. We found a shady patch on the lawn under a maple tree and dozed off with the relief of a light spray from the falls reaching us every now and again. We are glad to say we got to see the famous falls and a little bit of Toronto – definitely worth a more dedicated trip sometime in future!

Posted 2 October 2013
Tags: Canada, Niagara, Ontario