Wednesday,
May the Fourth Be With You (continued)
I
came upon the trail shortly after and it began to climb almost immediately.
Before long, I was huffing and panting and that was within the first ten
minutes! The climb was strenuous, I kid you not. I caught with a few others,
another few others caught up with me and we alternated that way. I told myself
I wasn’t in any race and that I should just enjoy it. As much as I would like
to linger longer though, there was hardly any place to do that as we were
climbing up the steep hill. If you pause long enough, you’d just be in someone
else’s way. And I believe the longer you stopped, the harder it would be to
resume your climb.
Before
long, I was shedding off my jacket. My denim vest followed shortly. It started
getting warm fast and yes, the sun was also out in full force. Hard to believe
I was in wet Lecce just a couple of days before and rainy Alberobello just the
day before! I thought back to my last hike which was the trip up to the Tanjung
Tuan lighthouse in early April and up again from the beach. Man, that was mild
compared to this! The trail didn’t let up and it seemed as if I was climbing an
infinite number of boulders and scaling a hill that seemed to have no peak. I
passed a couple of other hikers and asked if they knew how much further we had
to go. The man looked at his watch and said it should take an hour and that
they started about half an hour earlier.
I
finally staggered onto what felt like a plateau and met a few other hikers, and
boy, were they serious hikers with their hiking sticks (or trekking poles?),
hiking boots, backpacks and whatnot. I paused briefly to enjoy the view before
continuing on. There were only a handful of people ahead of me and after a
while, it felt as if I was the only one around with no one behind me and the
two ladies ahead of me some distance away. I kept telling myself I wasn’t in
any competition and that I should not exert myself unduly and unnecessarily. I
passed through some vineyards with gates that you open and close back behind
you ‘to prevent wild boars from entering’ (according to the sign at the gate)
and I started to worry, damn, there are wild boars around?!
I
walked on and this part was relatively mild compared to the earlier part. Well,
of course, as it was like a plateau with hardly any climbing involved. I walked
on and on and finally came upon a group of French hikers – one of them offered
me some biscuits and I took one and thanked them. As the French hikers were
still lingering and admiring the plants at a nearby house, I left them and
continued on.
After
a while, I caught up with another group of French hikers (man, they are really
into hiking, these French, and very fit too! I felt so unfit walking among
them. They looked in their middle age) and we soon came to a fork. The
directions were vague or at least I didn’t recognise the names. No Manarola
anywhere. Some of them were arguing whether to turn left or right, I decided to
turn left and left them behind. I’d walked about 100 metres when I looked back
and they were still there deciding, deliberating, arguing, discussing. I
shrugged and continued on. Pretty soon, I was all alone with not a soul ahead
of me, nor any behind me. To think there were hundreds of people on the train and
descending on Riomaggiore earlier!
I
walked on and on. There were times when I had doubts if I was on the right
trail, if I was indeed on the trail or on a dirt road and I would then study
the trail to discern if I could see any boot prints or tyre marks. I did come
across red-and-white marks – I found a lot of these on the way, on rocks, on
trees and I concluded they were there to provide directions to hikers.
After
some time, a cyclist came into sight and I stopped him to ask how much further
Manarola was. He informed me that I would be arriving at Volastra (what?!) and
in the village, if I turned left, I’d be heading to Manarola and if I turned
right, I’d head to Corniglia which is another of the five villages in the
Cinque Terre. He asked if I was alone (yes), why I travelled alone (I gave him
a shrug), if I spoke Italian (no, just know a few words to get by), if it was
my first time in Italy (no, but my first time in Cinque Terre). I asked where
he was from and he said Italy. Then we parted ways and I continued on to
Volastra. Hmm, how did I miss Manarola? Maybe I didn’t miss it; maybe this
particular trail leads one from Riomaggiore to Manarola but via Volastra. If La
Via Dell’Amore between Riomaggiore and Manarola had not closed, it would have
been a straightforward uneventful easy peasy walk to Manarola and one wouldn’t
even pass Volastra but because La Via Dell’Amore was closed, a walk that was
supposed to take 20 minutes turned out to take 2 hours and more. Oh well.
I
walked down to Volastra and saw a couple in the distance below walking up the
road. We met shortly after and I asked them directions. Turned out they were
also hikers (minus the hiking gear donned by the French hikers I met earlier)
and we stopped to chat for a while. The chap told me I could walk down to
Volastra and take a bus to Manarola. He also told me that the La Via Dell’Amore
between Manarola and Corniglia was closed and that the trail between Corniglia
and Monterosso was pretty challenging. Then I continued on to the small village
while they continued on the route I just left to Riomaggiore.
I
walked to the bus stop but couldn’t find any bus schedule so I set off to find
a hotel or guesthouse to ask for directions. I stopped at a public water
fountain to refill my water bottles then spotted a small square. There were quite
a few hikers there taking a break and having their light lunch. I joined in too
and had some bread. I saw some hikers arriving from the direction of Corniglia
and went to ask a lady how long it would take to get to Corniglia. She looked
knackered and replied softly that it shouldn’t take as long from Volastra to
Corniglia as it does for the reverse trip (Corniglia to Volastra). Essentially those
going to Corniglia from Volastra will be going down whereas those from
Corniglia to Volastra will be climbing up most of the way. Oh sure, she said,
there would be some climbing up too for us but nowhere as bad as the reverse
direction. I was glad to hear of this. I doubt I could go through another
intense one-hour climb like I did this morning! And in any case, I think it’s
better to climb first before descending instead of descending first before
climbing.
A
great view of the sea was had at the beginning of the trail before it wound
through some vine farms and turned away from the sea. The trail even passed
through a residential area and cut through one villager’s backyard! It then went
through some forest so that was great because the tree canopy provided relief
from the afternoon sun.
My
feet started to hurt around this time and my progress was slow. A few people
caught up with me and overtook me. They must have looked at me funny with my
Speedy and LeSportsac bags on each shoulder and me in my Converse too! I’m an
accidental hiker, I felt like saying. I started to descend and, boy, even though
I have always hated going down was I glad I was descending then and not
ascending! I had to dig in my heels though because the rocks and stones could
be quite slippery at times.
I
finally reached Corniglia village and from the village walked down the
Lardarina, a long brick flight of 382 steps down to the station. I bought
ticket to Monterosso al Mare but decided to stop first at Vernazza. I had to
wait a bit for the train as the frequency is every 30 minutes.
Vernazza
is a beautiful village and it’s hard to imagine the village being buried
beneath four metres of mud and debris following torrential rains, massive
flooding and landslides in October 2011. There are some pictures near the
station of the disaster that struck the village.
I
stayed for a while before returning to the station for the train to Monterosso
al Mare. Unfortunately there was a delay and we ended up waiting an hour for
the train. I didn’t enjoy Monterosse al Mare as much as I did Vernazza.
I
considered taking the train to Manarola on the way back to La Spezia but
because of the train delay at Vernazza, I had to change my mind. It was already
getting late so I bought ticket to La Spezia Centrale. The line for the ticket
wasn’t long but I was held up by two passengers ahead of me who couldn’t seem
to make up their minds. As a result, I missed the train and had to wait for the
next one at 19:09 bound for Firenze. I only reached Pisa at 20:35 and limped
back to the B&B.
It
had been a long exhausting day and I had to get up early the following morning
as I planned to return to Cinque Terre so I hit the sack after having some soup
for supper.
The
amount I covered today - but my iPhone was on Malaysian time as I didn’t bother to change the phone time. So I actually covered more distance than this as this was taken at 18:41 at La Spezia Centrale before the trudge up and down the platform and the walk back to the B&B. Which means I walked at least 28 km today
To
be continued
