Africa Selection Camp – Day 1

Blog written by Agustina (Argentina) and Marius (Germany):

We have been dreaming of this camp for almost 60 days, getting more and more excited every second and now it is finally coming true.

Eighteen young explorers (16 candidates plus two special guests) representing 11 different countries finally descend on the small Swiss village of Château-d'Oex!

No matter where we were picked up — at the airport or the train station — both of us enjoyed our drive through the Alps. (Except one fellow whose jetlag caused him to sleep all the way to Hotel le Ville! We were too filled with excitement.) After the first wave of us who arrived in the early afternoon had a nice walk around the village, the rest of us the group arrived. Thanks to our amazing hosts, we had a warm welcome and got to know each other in person. Fortunately, we had the opportunity to take our first photos wearing our new Mike Horn equipment as the sun was just setting between the snow-capped mountains. (But it's warm, the temperature is in the 20 Cs) In order to keep ourselves busy during the individual photo shootings, we started sharing our different cultures and some national folklore. It was great fun to learn all those interesting dances and movements from all over the world but we finally ended up dancing a Macarena in the famous church’s foreground.

As soon as we finished our head-shots, we came back had our first delicious camp meal together (for some of us it had been something like a midnight dinner, according to our internal clock!). The first day of our awesome experience ended up with a variety of inspiring autobiographic presentations and a quick introduction of the Mike Horn Team and the specialists from the Mayo Clinic USA. It doesn’t matter how exhausted we are, our excitement of what lays ahead is keeping us fueled for the days to come!

– Agustina and Marius