A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Vernazza...
Trip Start
May 10, 2010
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10
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Trip End
May 02, 2011
Riomaggiore, Liguria, Italy
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Now, some of you have visited Cinque Terre will recoil in horror at my description but let me explain:I arrived in Cinque Terre around high noon—the sun was beating down on my dark hair (at times like this, I wish either that my big ol’ head was not so oddly shaped that I could go bald or that I was blonde—whoa, I take that back, I like being a brunette and Asian blondes always end up a hideous dull rust orange color!). The place I was staying,
Cinque Terre Holidays, was a hostel in the last southernmost village, Riomaggiore. Like the other villages, Riomaggiore is absolutely cute with a single, narrow road winding itself throughout the town. All around, you see old wizen-faced women hanging their newly washed linens and clothes to be dried by the Tuscan sun. However scenic I may have thought about the town was quickly replaced by the other resounding thought: OH MY GOD! I am going to have to walk up this steep incline to get to the hostel! I am going to die! This back pack weighs about a million pounds! Damn, I really should not have purchased that second bottle of Dr. Bronner’s in Milan! Idiot!
To make matters worse, when I finally arrived at the hostel office to get my room assignment, the owner did the unconscionable: he showed me to my room…which was the DOWN the steep incline I just climbed up and then UP what felt like 10 dizzying flights of narrow stairs that zigzagged back and forth on top of each other similar to an M.C. Escher
optical illusion (I thought it would never end!), up to a room I was sharing with two other people. My only consolation: MAN, I am going to have rock-solid calves after Cinque Terre (I did not really fully understand the extent of this statement until days later…).
Once I was able to shed my pack, I was a new woman! I put on a pretty blue dress, my bathing suit and flip flops and off I went. My plan: to conquer the trek to the Five Villages of Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso in one day. From all accounts, it’s is completely doable…for most people. Me, I like a challenge. So after the first trek from Riomaggiore to Manarola, I wanted something more challenging, something away from the maddening crowds of German tourists with their ever-present hiking sticks. I decided to go exploring by myself only to find myself completely separated from the pack of other hikers and was about to get a little worried until I saw two women looking quizzically at the two paths in the road and trying to decide which path to take. Like me, they had wanted a more “authentic” hike without the tourists so decided they would hike to another village higher up on the cliffs called Groppo that allegedly made olive oil. I don’t know why I thought that would be a fun excursion because the next thing I know, we three blind mice took off in search of the elusive town of Groppo (it would have been much better if Groppo was some sort of Shangri-la but it was not). I thought running into Petra and Marie was heaven-sent: here were two women who clearly knew where they were heading.
Unbeknownst to me, it was more of the blind leading the blind. During our sojourn in the woods, I noticed these red and white hash marks which triggered my memory to my trail maintenance work on the Appalachian Trails many years ago—then, it dawned on me! Apparently, trail markers are universal! Thank God! Although skeptical, the women did not have any other ideas and followed me. With the hash marks, I led us all to the promise land: Groppo! Unfortunately, no one told the good people of Groppo that we were coming because every house, every establishment was closed. NO ONE and I mean no one was there in Groppo. Oh, and the olive oil factory…closed until September.
Moreover, our diversion to Groppo was costly: in addition to the hour or so that we hiked to get to Groppo, we had to hike an additional hour or so more up and down the hills to get to Corniglia, the next village on the Cinque Terre trek. To keep our spirits up, I encouraged the women to continue, telling them that we were almost there to the top of the peak. What made up for the pain we felt: the breath-taking landscape—I mean the bluest cerulean blue skies, crystal clear aquamarine water, and brilliantly colorful flowers in every hue under the sun. Not only that, the vegetation was so diverse—tropical plants thrived next to flora and fauna found only in the desert. Even certain sections of the trails reminded me of the woods of Elachee or the Nantahala.
Of course, the one thing that Cinque Terre had that the woods back home lacked was its proximity to the sea. My singular purpose in hiking Cinque Terre was to check out the secluded beaches that dot the trails between the Five Villages. I thought that after a long and arduous hike, I would reward myself with a cool and refreshing dip in the Mediterranean to ease these tired, weary old bones.
So after finally arriving at Corniglia, I left the two Swiss ladies and trekked to Vernazza on my own in search of the beach! The trail by this time was not packed with other hikers except for the occasional one or two hikers coming from the opposite direction. I had the trail pretty much to myself which I thought was a good thing. Now a seasoned Cinque Terre hiker, I had grown accustomed to looking for the hash marks and good thing because about fifteen minutes into the hike, the familiar red and white mark shed the secret of Cinque Terre: the direction to a free
beach was scrawled on the hash marks! I immediately kept my eyes out for more signs of the beach. After another 10 minutes on the trial, I found a clearing to the left and a rock with bold black handwritten letters and an arrow pointing the way to the beach! Eureka! At last! I immediately got off the trail in the direction of the rock only to discover that the only way down to the beach was on a rope ladder. I thought, I can do it—it’s only a fifteen minute descent and then, frolicking in the clearest waters. Rope ladder, how bad can it get?
As I gingerly made my way down the steep precipice to paradise, I happened to look to my left towards a clearing in the vegetation to see a man standing butt-naked (or is it buck naked?!) as the day he was born, holding his "member" and umm..., shall I say…in the “middle” of something. Desperate to extricate myself from the situation and to let the man alone, I quickly made my way down the rope ladder to the closest landing a few meters below. Now, as I saw it, I had two choices: (1) I could continue down the rope ladder in hopes of finding the beach only to have the man follow me down and kill me when he was “finished;” or (2) I could turn back but that would mean having to interrupt the gentleman again. Quickly, Trinh! Think! Beach and certain death or interruption and safety? I had only a split second to decide…Well, I am here to tell the tale so, yes, I chose the second door. I never climbed a rope so fast in my life and I worked hard to avert the eyes of the man on my ascent. When I reached the trail again, I noticed an empty bottle of wine next to the rock with the sign for the beach and something else that I missed before: lightly scrawled with a black ball point pen below the word “BEACH” was the word “DANGEROUS.”
Well, to make up for ordeal, the Cinque Terre gods did smile on me because the rest of my time in Cinque Terre was a breeze. I was rewarded with a free beach at the next beach! I dipped my toes in the water only to find the water a bit too chilly for me so I dangled my feet in the water and splashed around. That immediately stopped though when I saw what looked like used blue condoms floating in the water all around me—GROSS! I later learned that those condom-like things were actually some kind of jelly-fish or water organism. But look at the pictures and ask
yourselves what those things look like—blue condoms to me!! After the trauma of Cinque Terre, I treated myself to a cool fresh fruit shake at this bar in Monterosso that blared old school Willy Nelson and other country greats! Good stuff!
I ended my time in Cinque Terre with a nice, quiet dinner at this quaint restaurant in Riomaggiore. As a testament to how small the world really is, I struck up conversation with the couple next to me. Not only were the Atlantans but we also knew the same people in the A! After dinner, I returned to my room and hung out with my two room mates, Cristiano and Keith, two recent college graduates from Indiana. We listened to music (Avett Brothers!), traded stories about our time in Cinque Terre (their stories: Keith had a sea gull shit in his gelato moments after he got it and Cristiano witnessed some
lady catch on fire in La Spezia) and the horrors of bed bugs.
I can certainly say that when I look back on Cinque Terre, it will be a little different than what others experienced…but certainly memorable and thoroughly enjoyable.
Comments
LMAO about the blue condoms/jellyfish. Perhaps you were simply in a strange state of mind, considering the day's event with the dangerous beach.
Love that blue dress!
Jason and I loved Cinque Terre. That was the highlight of our honeymoon and would love to take the boys there one day, but definitely would require for us to be fit and in shape. Love your photos.
Crazy... one time in Italy I was walking to the train station and came upon a man at a crossroads similarly "in the middle of something"... bizarre. I believe it was a very ineffective kind of come-on (he had passed me on a bicycle a few minutes before, then got off his bike and began pleasuring himself as I was approaching). And I don't know what's correct, but in Queens we definitely say "butt naked."