Another great example of how sometimes the best experiences come un-planned.
When searching for flights to our destination Lima, it turned out that most of the affordable flights stop-over in the US. After all our previous visa-headaches we were in no mood for spending another marathon for obtaining a US visa, just for a stupid stop-over and were very happy when we found a good flight-offer from Air Canada, stopping-over in Toronto. (Btw, can somebody explain me why US/Canada are not able to accommodate visa-free transits?)
Canada also requires a visa just for stop-over like the US, but all the frightening visa stories from the US and the overall super-welcoming image of the Canadians made this a much more appealing option.
We probably over-stretched their welcome and our first visa-application promptly got rejected (giving us a small heart-attack), but with some additional documents, the second one then got approved smoothly.
Initially we had no plans to leave the airport and wanted to continue straight to Lima, but after all the pains for obtaining the visa, we thought what the heck, we might as well make use of the 48h of approved transit-time. The natural option was to have a closer look at Toronto, but a friend gave us the idea of a trip to Niagara Falls as a good alternative, even within our short time (Thanks Florence!). And that’s what we did. Arrived in the early evening, got a transfer from the airport directly to our hotel at Niagara falls and woke up next morning to a breath-taking view.
It was postcard-weather, blue sky with sunshine, and we enjoyed just walking around and absorbing the great scenery.
The only attraction I was keen to do, was the boat-ride bringing us up-close to the waterfall. But this time Fortuna was against us. Turns out that boat-cruises only start operations after the last ice has melted on the Lake Erie and this year the weather god decided to time it just one day after our stay. Yes, we missed it by one day 🙁
The boats were already performing test-runs, but no passengers were allowed yet.
But we still had enough fun and taking the tour behind the falls, feeling the power of the water is a good experience.
The whole town felt like just wakening up out of low-season and was pretty quiet. When looking for a dinner after 8pm we were really struggeling to still find places open.
There is a lot of other Las Vegas – style entertainment we didn’t really pursue and instead, as good half-Singaporeans, focused on trying some local food and Canadian chains, like Tim Hortins, we haven’t yet seen anywhere else.
My first video trials: