Andermatt Native: Bänz Simmen – Curiosity, Perspective, Nature, & A Life Of Adventure

0:00The Gstaad Guy:Bänz, what an honor it is to have you here. Nice to meet you again. Great to see you. Thank you for being on the Stad Guy podcast. Even though we're not in Stad, and we're actually in Andermatt, in the canton of Uri in Switzerland. I had the pleasure of meeting you for the first time over two years ago. Yes. And every time I visit Andermatt, I make sure to see you because you're a walking book of knowledge of the valley, but also of the world. and it's really great to be sitting here with you today. Around the world with your host, the Stad Guy, we welcome you back to the Stad Guy podcast, sharing stories of excellence with those in the know for those who just know.

0:44The Gstaad Guy:I've had the pleasure of doing a herbal hike with you where we ate some of the wild flowers and plants that are abundant in the valley here, some of which were brought here, some of which are native. to the valley. I've done snowshoeing with you and followed the James Bond Goldfinger path on the Farca Pass. I've gone up to the glacier with you. I've gone to the beautiful man-made lake, which was used for the hydropower about 100 years ago. It was built. Exactly. And many more in between. Just some beautiful walks. Yes. But I know that although you are a native of Switzerland, and you know this valley very well, you also have told me many stories about going around the world.

1:37The Gstaad Guy:Of course, yeah. You went from Undermatt to Australia by bicycle. Can you tell us about that, why you did that, when you did that? Yeah, it was, you know, as I told you in all these walks we did, I went to the States in Canada when I was 21 because I was a very early snowboarder in Switzerland. And just after my apprenticeship, the curiosity of the world was quite high. And so I was a year in the States in Canada. And I worked five years as a snowboard teacher in Andermatt. And I was 25. And it was clearly, I'm not going to do this my whole life. So curiosity was the main power, the curiosity of a child.

2:20I mean, I saw the Western world. I traveled quite a bit as a teenager in Europe, but America and Canada is basically Western culture. And we knew something about these, but basically cliches, what you hear in newspaper, what you hear in school. So 1990, the Iron Curtain fell, the end of the Soviet Union. The Balkan countries opened their borders, and for me and my friend, it was clear not to take a flight or a car or a train anymore. So we bought a bicycle. We never bicycled before. And direction was clear. Let's go east. And so we decided, yeah, we want to go as far east as the money allows. And so we started in late spring, like in end of May, begin of June in 1990 and started to bicycle towards east.

3:16And it ended up in New Zealand and Australia. And, yeah, it was a big eye-opener towards the Balkan countries, towards ex-Yugoslavia, Greece, of course, Turkey. But what was really inspiring to me was definitely everything behind. We had this Alibaba image, you know. I mean, what you learn in the Western world is basically romantic view to the Middle East. And yeah, it was mind-blowing for us. It was a new world. And we realized there's a lot of things that we call today European coming from the Middle East. Not only language, culture, food. And this was the big eye-opener to not only travel by bicycle, to get in touch with people, to get in touch with their cultures, to share their view to our world with our view to their world.

4:22And this was basically the start of my interest towards history and culture because I realized 5, 6, 7 ,000 years ago, the Middle East was the center of civilization. A lot of things that we call today European is basically from there. And this was a big aha. I had no idea about it.

4:41The Gstaad Guy:What are some of those things? For example, agriculture, domestication of animals, yogurt, you know, very Swiss, very milky. You realize that's not European. Anything which was every day on our menu was basically local food that we knew from back home. I mean, if you dig deeper, you realize cheese is possibly not made first in Central Europe. which came from the Middle East and then then and of course the influences of of Egyptian culture of Phoenician culture if you go further into Iran Pakistan or India you it's never ending so at the end of the day I realized 5 ,000 years ago they were light years ahead of European cultures wow so what was the the bike path you took which countries did you bike through we were basically a little bit like today.

5:40We were basically blocked not by people or by weather. It was basically a political problem. You know, we came through, from Switzerland through Austria, along the Slovenian border into Hungary. Hungary was not a big difference. Of course, it was from the communist time still visible. But when we entered Yugoslavia, we had no idea what's going on because more and more army appeared, more and more police was around. And it was basically the beginning of the big crisis in Yugoslavia. We were about three, four months before the Yugoslavian war started. So we could not buy food anymore in Yugoslavia.

6:27We lost, one day we lost 90 % of our money. it was not so much money but I had a thousand dinar bank bill the next day the same bill was ten thousand dinars so it was the start of the war basically which happened a half a year later so we escaped through Bulgaria into Greece followed the Greek coast and jumped from island to island via Hiosamos Lesbos down to Rhodes then we took the boat to Marmaris Turkey followed the Turkish coast almost to the Syrian border went into central Turkey and we were on the way to Iran and then we had the first next rumor I mean there was no internet there was no mobile phone and we couldn't read Turkish papers so I had an address for a visa for Iran and I checked it in the beginning of Kurdistan and the guy in the office told me, haven't you heard?

7:32The Third World War is about to come. And we said, what? So it was the, it was the beginning of September and Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait on the 5th of August. Wow. And we had no information. So we still hope to pass through Iran or further to Pakistan, but basically everything was quite upside down and we made a big turkey loop with the idea, let's get through in the last moment, but it got too cold, it was too late and finally we bicycled all the way back and Turkey is huge. We bicycled all the way back to Athens, arranged the visa, checked which country is possible, so we basically flew from Athens into New Delhi and then we bicycled up into Kashmir along the Himalayas as long as we could because it was already October, were November so we bicycled down through the plains of Ganga came back into Nepal bicycle Nepal Nepal is not so many roads and after two weeks you basically bicycled all the roads of Nepal in this time and so the plan was to bicycle out of Nepal down to Kolkata following the coast down to Sri Lanka but the Indians closed the borders the Nepalese closed the borders because of a temple conflict between Muslims and Hindus.

8:56And so we were again locked in Nepal. And so the Chinese didn't give us any visa for an individual trip through Tibet. So the only chance was flying out of Nepal. The flights to India were overbooked for three weeks. The only flight we could get reasonably was Kathmandu, Bangkok. So we packed our bikes into the plane and flew to Bangkok. bicycled Thailand all the way down through Malaysia all the way down to Singapore. Wow. Arranged a flight to New Zealand, bicycled both islands and we had a back flight from Sydney via Bangkok back to Switzerland. So we bicycled the last month, was about 1 ,800 kilometers in Australia between Melbourne and Sydney.

9:45Wow. The money was over, the year was over and we were about to come back And so after a year, we landed in Zurich, put together our bikes and bicycled to Andermatt, which was fantastic. I can imagine. To see your home, to see your country after a year. It was, I saw them not so sentimental, but when I saw my home mountains, it was really great.

10:10The Gstaad Guy:How special is Andermatt and Switzerland in comparison to everything you saw around the world? What did it make you feel when you did get home? Yeah, I mean, a lot of things. I mean, it happens to you the same. If you stay only in your environment, you take everything for normal. This is nothing special. I mean, one big experience was I bicycled home to my parents' home. I had all my stuff there. And I went to the toilet and I turned on the tap and had a sip of water. And my next idea was I was just about to take my bicycle bottle and fill it up until I remembered you don't have to fill it up anymore.

10:56You're home. Because in Australia, we could not drink the tap water anymore. It was too much treated by chlorine. And we would get very sensitive on water. But one of the first big experience was definitely the quality of water, which is still even today. I can drink every creek in this mountain. and little things made me kind of what the hell what is this quality like and of course your memories your food your favorite things that you missed one year i wouldn't even say it is typical swiss but it's just things which seem to be normal turn out after a year as an incredible quality especially cheese of course cheese i missed a lot good crusty bread i missed a lot and uh little things made me really thankful to to come back home to to see this environment again

11:52The Gstaad Guy:what is it that makes switzerland so unique in this way where all these little things seem to be nearly perfect. Yeah, I think, you know, it has a lot to do with our past. And, you know, the upcoming of Switzerland is not so long. I mean, we are a young nation founded 1848 with our first constitution. And more and more, if I have groups, they ask me basically the same questions. And I really think the diversity of Switzerland, the fact that we are four cultures, four languages, became the biggest potential of Switzerland. I mean, it was never easy. You know, four cultures, four languages. Can you imagine?

12:43There were always little teasing. But at the end of the day, the only chance to bring these four cultures under one head without dominating, be dominated by one culture, was the right decision to create a democracy. And this democracy is something very active. A lot of people complain about democracy because it's so ruled, it's so organized. And on the other hand, I see even today, right now, we see how important it is to involve everybody in politics, in economy, in education. And this means an active thing. Democracy reflects the society of today. And we're not talking about 300 years. I think democracy is possibly the most work-intent system because you never reach it.

13:45Our society changes, our population changes by immigrants, by different new technologies, by new educations. And our parliament has to reflect it. And we vote every year three, four times for many little issues. and definitely it is. There are easier systems if you are ruled by a king or by a dictator, but for the people it means you're part of the game and you can change things. I mean, when I was 21, we collected signatures to protect the Alps, and a lot of people in my environment, in my canton, laughed about us as you are. you left-wing hippies. We forced a country-wide vote after two years.

14:42We were about 100 people from central Switzerland. We forced a country-wide vote. They gave us no chance to win this vote. We won it. It became a law of Switzerland, and it is still an important law, to not allow more highways, more infrastructure. and this law is, this was for me the proof that you can change things even if you're only 50 or 100 guys and you can do it and we did it. How has Switzerland changed over the years and the Alps? Yeah, you know, like as Europe was changing we were exposed to the world, we are part of Europe we are a result of Europe but not belonging to European company so Switzerland has a big ability to adapt you know we I know that Swiss people is not they don't like to hear things like this but it is not the charging but we basically invented nothing you know we didn't invent chocolate we didn't invent banking we didn't invent watchmaking because we had no rulers we had no kings no emperors

15:58who pushed us down. We had, on the other hand, nobody who supported us. So we had to go abroad as training people to learn about watchmaking, to learn about textiles, to learn, especially our region is a big connector between Venice, the end of the Silk Road, to Northern Europe, to Germany, and then the end. so we saw in venice all the culture of the middle east we saw the silk we saw the rice and we realized we can learn it so if you see negative you can call the swiss in the middle middle in the medieval years like the chinese we copy everything and on the other hand we had no other chance so we copied it and in many cases we improved it if i look at watchmaking this were not engineers these were simple people who had no jobs no labor in the winter and they were so motivated to beat the german watchmakers the french watchmakers the english watchmakers so i was so surprised about the motivation of these people without a big educational background to improve their lives and this is for me very very legal this is not stealing knowledge of course If I learn something which improves my life, that's very, very legal.

17:25The Gstaad Guy:I remember I asked you about that Swiss grit once and why Swiss people really fight for excellence. And we ended up having a conversation about weather. And that the extreme weather, the extreme topography and climate has, over generations, taught people to learn to fight for what they want and need. Because otherwise the weather would... I mean, our nature is definitely not a nature which is average because the mountainous regions are very exposed to the winters. Of course, we have places where we have four, five, six months now on the ground. The plains of Switzerland seem to be very developed today.

18:06You have the industries, you have the infrastructures, you have the big cities like Bern, Zurich, Geneva. This looks today very made up, set up. Can you imagine 500, 600 years ago, we are talking about a flooded country by the Alpine rivers. Every spring, the plains of Switzerland were basically swampy. Not good for agriculture. The mountains were too steep, too long snow. So the environment was not inviting. So I think Switzerland in the medievals was the least place that a king would attack or own. on the same moment all these emperors and leaders of Europe needed a relation to Switzerland because if you want to pass through to the Mediterranean Sea the easiest way is Switzerland if you go east-west in Europe sooner or later you touch Switzerland the Romans already realized and hated the Alps because this was the biggest obstacle in their expansion so they had hardly any road through the Alps but around So Switzerland had always connections to the rest of Europe because we had not a big agriculture who feed our people with wheat.

19:28So the wheat was basically imported from all over the European countries. So this made us more European than anybody else. today it's a little bit strange to be not part of European community but I think this was this is definitely a big point of being a Swiss relations to Europe almost every Swiss family has somehow a relation to a European country by being married their kids married Germans French Italians Italians, or at least you go to the holidays to Italy, to the Mediterranean Sea. And I see Switzerland today as pretty much as a big connector of European culture.

20:22The Gstaad Guy:I feel that while I'm here. Yeah. And I feel it with you because I learn so much about the world always. I feel like you are one of the few people I've met over the years that has such strong control over their lives and the environments you choose to be around and to have knowledge first, curiosity first, and to share that knowledge and curiosity. Of course, yeah, that's important. Which is, it's a really cool thing. yeah you know I feel also how connective we could be if you if you look at these things I have to do with a lot of people from all over the world and if we talk like this politics or whatever how their culture is basically the patterns are the same you know we are we are human beings we share not only two arms and two legs we are basically people who are products of their past of their culture and I I think in the 21st century, we have so many tools, not always to compete, just to say, come on, it doesn't matter where you're from, what you talk, what is your color of skin.

21:34We share definitely more than only looking the same. We are a global species, which has a lot of possibilities to do things right.

21:47The Gstaad Guy:What is it that motivates you? and what is it about gaining so much knowledge about the world and then sharing the knowledge in this valley that makes you do what you do? I mean, I was, as I told you before, I was traveling mainly about curiosity. And of course, as a 20-year-old, the friend who traveled with me in the States and on the bicycle trip, we went to school together. we were growing up together. I mean, we did this at first the same. You compare your home, your quality, your living standard to the others. Especially in the States, I mean, as we talked before, this is Western culture, it's pretty much the same.

22:36Of course, I've never seen a more three-dimensional city than New York City. I grew up in Switzerland, I traveled a bit in Europe. We were blown away by New York City. but it was nothing which was super exotic in the same moment when we were in the states i was an early snowboarder i met snowboarders in the states kind of we shared a fascination and this was the big the big benefit i had so i get into a little bit american culture The same happened in many countries. I traveled on the bicycle. And I was basically traveling because of the world, of the nature, of the differences. But more and more I traveled, I realized the hospitality of people to being a human.

23:30I mean, I was blown away in Turkey. I never forget, you know, we drove along a road. There was an old lady sitting with grapes on the ground. We couldn't talk to each other. But she saw our bicycle and she was blown away that we bicycled through her country. And she loaded our bicycle full with grapes for free, you know. I mean, obviously, she was selling it. But for her, it was so clear. I support you. You are not from here. You need help. You need assistance. And, of course, you can have all the grapes that I have. And this happened in many, many countries. it doesn't matter if there were Hindus, Muslims or any religion I was surprised how protected you are and at the same moment we were as exotic to them as they to us and at first we didn't realize it we were blown away about the food about the colors, about the buildings in so many countries And then we realized we are for them like somebody is coming from the moon, you know, like bicycling through northern India and tiny little villages without electricity.

24:47And they were kind of never pushing or never aggressive. So it was really, really, even today when I'm still traveling a lot in the Himalayas, mainly hiking. and I'm still surprised how much without knowing each other you know this is absolutely normal you come to a place you need support they call you in you can sleep you have a sleeping bag and a mattress you can sleep on this place this is so warm and never with you know in the back of your head it's a business at first so basically you appear somewhere in the Himalayas maybe 50 inhabitants in a village. And you're welcome. And this is mind-blowing.

25:33Definitely. I used to have a little kiosk in Andermatt, as you just missed it. And you know I always put an air pump out of my kiosk. Just, you know, if a bicycler comes need an air pump, here it is for free. I just did it as a service. After about four or five years, one day a couple came along and saw the air pump came in and told me you are bands i've never seen them before and they told me yeah uh we met this and this guy he we met him in madrid he's on the way he came half a year before through switzerland through andermatt he's on the way to south america we met tim and tim told us if you ever go through the gothard mountains go through andermatt and look for the air pump so you realize you see what is possible by nothing you know kind of it was a canadian couple who bicycled the world so you get contract contact with little things it's a little service it costs you nothing and yeah we had a nice connection together and they're still writing here and there some letters where they are bicycling right now and i think this is so much more of a connection than only a quick email or whatever yeah of course i love the story

26:54The Gstaad Guy:about the grapes with the lady it really shows that kindness and hospitality can transcend language yeah and she was kind of you know she couldn't talk she was always hitting their head like this and you know we showed her on the map where we bicycled and she was just like this you It is not that we want to be famous, but for she it was not possible that somebody bicycles to her village. She looked on the map and saw her village and she was out of her mind. It's amazing. When traveling here and seeing the beauty of the valley and Andermatt, I've had the pleasure of seeing a lot of things improve in nature thanks to conservation efforts.

27:42The Gstaad Guy:and to protection efforts, but I've also seen things get worse. And I remember when we were at the glacier, you were telling me about how rapidly it's melting and the glacier is tens of thousands of years old or maybe millions of years old. And it's quickly melting and it'll be gone in 50 years. I'd love to touch on some of the things you've seen over the years that are getting worse that I think many of us are definitely aware of due to global warming, but some of which have improved due to conservation efforts like the wolf that's now back in Switzerland, which is great. One of the biggest constant factors in Switzerland or in our culture was the change.

28:26And I think in the history of man, it was the biggest ability that man had is adaption to learn to fit in. I mean, the challenges today are sky high. Look at the crisis as we have politically, war and on the other hand you cannot improve things if you're not aware of it first of all you have to be aware of it not only saying yeah it is melting but we don't care so I think awareness exchanging of knowledge cooperation of people I mean I see what plastic did in India I traveled in India since 1990, and I saw what India did with its plastic. I mean, they are not destructive people. They are not bad-minded people, but nobody told them, you know.

29:23This was just happening. I mean, in northern India, you have valleys. They look like garbage bins. I cannot say it different. and I mean, there was one of the most beautiful valleys I've ever been. I cannot go back there. I mean, the valley smells like a garbage bin because it was over flooded with tourists, not European tourists, also international tourists from all over the world, but also the internal Indian tourism was basically destroying a valley of the size of double of the valley of Andermatt. and this is not because people are like this but the demand of the tourists to have always bottled water everywhere and nobody was thinking about what can we do with the garbage so it was in the rivers I can tell you this is a shame I mean I was shocked about it lately I saw pictures from Croatia or from Albania I love Albania I was two times in Albania once with a bicycle and once hiking in their mountains it's the same problem the development is much faster than the education and this is the main point so we really have to be aware of what are we doing and I think this is one of the biggest things right now it is not only protection you have to find solutions for the future and create a relation from people to their environment.

31:04We are depending on our world. The world is not depending on us. When I went to school, my original profession is I'm a chemical analyst in anorganic chemistry. So our teacher in our first year of school told us a joke. And this I never forget. so the joke was two planets meet each other in the universe and one tells the other you're looking so bad the other planet said yeah I know I have Homo sapiens you know the other planet said it's over soon so in other words you can see man as a disease for a planet and this is pretty abstract but as more as more as I see it we know nobody can tell me in the western world we don't know what we're doing with our toxic waste but we have to be aware and we have to find solutions and i'm we always found one and i trust the humans the human uh culture that we find solution for better i grew up in london

32:16The Gstaad Guy:in a very urban environment naturally in london and my entire upbringing was about control having control over your life, having control of your environment, your safety, your sanity. And I only really became exposed to nature over the past five years at this level, being in the mountains, going on hikes, going on long walks. And of course, the aesthetic is a massive pulling part of it. The fact that I'm exposed to the elements and to such beauty is big. But also the lack of structure and the lack of routine that you're talking about. It's such a big thing because you really feel like you can be in this flow state where nature is guiding you versus you guiding every element of your life.

33:03The Gstaad Guy:Which now more than ever, many people are ruled by their calendars on their phones. And being exposed to nature is a real luxury. What do you feel and what do you look for when you actually go for a walk and expose yourself? I mean, I don't expect anything anymore. I mean, especially if you do longer things, you know. I mean, if I go with a friend of mine to the mountains, we choose the weekend where the forecast is good, of course. I don't want to do something with a friend who I haven't seen for a long time on an ugly day. But as soon as you do longer things, like two years ago, we walked from Andermat to Brissago, which is on Lago Maggiore, at the Italian border.

33:51This is 12 days over the mountains. So you realize it's very unlikely that we have blue sky every day. So, of course, you need to have a jacket. You need to have extra underwear because it's cold. I think the main attraction seems to be more and more this uncertainty. You know, I mean, I'm not doing my self-reflection, psychological treatments. But on the other hand, you get into a rain, the forecast says, yeah, it's raining in the afternoon, two hours. I mean, I know how much I can trust the forecast or not. So the rain is super strong and it is five-hour storm and you have to react. and everything which is actually at the end of a tour such like this is not, you don't remember the blue sky, the sunny day, the easy trail because what is special about it but we remember the snowstorm we remember sitting five hours under a rock waiting to the end of the storm and realizing oh I took the wrong jacket realizing oh I didn't take enough fuel for my stuff so we only can cook one coffee and I think it's all about this uncertainty and how we react I mean I know the people that I'm walking with I know pretty good but you know two days walking or 15 days walking that's a different story I mean sooner or later you'll have a bad day sooner or later you have a motivation problem or you fall on your knee and it hurts two days and you think why the hell I I actually never ask myself why the hell are you doing this I think I possibly stop walking mountains if I ask myself why the hell are you doing this and on the other hand as long as you have to react to the elements of nature you have no time to have such thoughts in your mind.

36:10Why are you doing this? Of course, when you're home after one week, two weeks, and you think about it, then you think, why the hell did I not start five hours earlier? If I walked five hours earlier, I had no rainfall. So I think if it's all on program, As you said, my world is organized. My daily structure is here. I know the train is coming at this hour. I can go to the theater. What are you doing? You are starting to complain about the train is 30 seconds late. I don't accept this. I could never complain to the nature. The sunshine was 30 minutes too late or whatever. I think I learned a lot of waiting, sitting.

37:07I cannot, even today I cannot explain it or I cannot imagine anymore. And I even don't know how the time was going over. I was sitting once eight hours under a piece of stone and it was hailing and raining and snowing. And all my comfort was, it is dry. and I have enough fuel and I have enough coffee and I can sit eight hours under a stone. I don't remember what I did in this time. You're just waiting and you, I mean, you can be nervous and you can complain, but I was alone, it was my decision, so I cannot blame anybody else. You were sleeping two hours too long this morning. you were sleeping on the field in the afternoon in the sunshine because it was beautiful if I haven't done this I reached the cave but I was two hours below the cave for eight hours and this is yeah this is all about things you I mean you create as you said you grew up in a structure as we all did in the western world but what you're doing in when you're out on you out on you you're definitely out on you and you start to create structures you start to have a certain rhythm the whole day because we are obviously people who grow up like this and this also makes sense but on the other hand as i said you know the timetable is every day a different timetable because the daylight the weather the stock of food you're carrying so I once run out of food in the Indian Himalayas I expected the village after three days I had one potato, one onion I had powder soup for 40 litres the village was about half the size of Andamad but the village is only existing in summer and I didn't know.

39:23It was end of October and there was one farmer left and he told me he's leaving tomorrow. So I had to go over one 5 ,000 meter pass into the next valley and this took me two days and I was only having one onion and one potato. So to whom should I complain? It is not written on an Indian map that's a summer village. It was, so I had to decide what, is it possible or not? Of course, I realized it's possible because I have a lot of soup and I have a lot of water. In these two days, I lost eight kilos, nine kilos. Wow. But it was one of the most exciting hike I ever did. But, you know, I was just, I could not believe it, you know.