A lot has changed between the first part of the story and the second. Remember the three friends I set out with for a journey to Charlevoix – I am engaged to one of them now! Yep. That’s right! Life is good!
So where were we – oh yeah – driving north.
The GPS was an amazing invention (trust me I am all about the GPS) but every now and then it goofs up in ways you will always remember for the rest of your lives.
Ours did too.
The town we were trying to reach is called Saint–Irénée and it is so small that the entire town has only one code. And we, smart as we were, googled the hotel’s code (which was – needless to say- the same code as the city) and started following the sonorous lady’s directions. We kept driving through the beautiful windy roads of the town along the lush green countryside with adorable houses and beautiful farmlands. We drove on with the density of humankind steadily decreasing. Soon no houses, needless also to say – no farmlands. What was visible though was a clear dominating forest line that came into view. We soon came to a point where the paved road gave way to a gravel road. We drove on it for a few mins only to realize that the gravel road ultimately turned a muddy road and was leading us into the thick forest. The car came to a unprecedented halt and for a few seconds no one spoke. We all just kept trying to peer as far ahead onto the road as we could to spot any signs of civilization. The road faded away into the forest. The GPS was clearly taking us to the middle of the city which was – what do you know- a deep thick forest!
I flipped out my phone to confirm the coordinates and a sign of ‘No Signal’ stared back at me. None of us had any signal on our phones. After a quick status meeting – we took a U turn on the noisy gravel road and started heading back. We used the old school GPS to triangulate the position of our motel – we stopped and asked for directions. We started driving on the advised road and within a few minutes it took us out of the city and this gorgeous view opened up.
Our eyes popped out! Was this for real?
Yes it was! We drove further…
The pink flipflops grew more and more excited with every mile.
Oh so many colors! I had not expected Quebec to be so beautiful! I lived there for 2 years and never new this part of Quebec existed.
Soon, we reached our motel. It was a very ordinary place.
But what it overlooked was simply extraordinary!
I have spends hundreds of dollars trying to find such a beautiful place to stay in, on many occasions and vacations – but this was absolutely astounding!
We just couldn’t get enough of it!
This place so so secluded, that we had to drive to another town for dinner. Also this is the part of Quebec where no one speaks english. Thankfully one of our friends was quite fluent in it so we were successful in ordering food we could recognize. A couple of my friends went for a whale watching tour the next day. I didn’t, because I felt it was too expensive an exercise. I am happy I didn’t because I got to see one for free in Tofino. But that is a story for another time.
Quebec is breathtaking and the pink flip flops are ever so glad to know that there is much more to Charlevoix than just that small nondescript metro station on the way home.
Au Revoir Charlevoix! We will meet again!
The pink flip flops... 