Thursday, May 19, 2016

Adek’s Week Off: Part IV

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 didnt 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