The walk was lovely, if a bit vigorous at times, to the first two villages. Both absolutely gorgeous. At this point, we were still all smiles. We loved Cinque Terre. We loved hiking. We loved it all. Bring it on, baby!
On the third leg of the hike, things began to change. Instead of a lovely hike by the sea, we found ourselves crawling up a steep mountain, sometimes heaving ourselves up the rocks. "This cannot be right!" was repeated a number of times.
"Has anybody seen the red and white markings for a while?" Nope, a number of times we lost sight of the trail and had to backtrack--back down steep, rocky trails or crawling back up--till we spotted where we'd lost sight of the trail. Ugh. Finally, after climbing to the TOP of the mountain...the trail turned around to head straight back down the other side.
And I mean down. Down, down, down...with quads burning and conversation lagging.
Till we finally hit the village...and lunch. Hallelujah!
We discovered that the regular trail between the 3rd and 4th villages had been washed out a few years ago and has been closed since 2011. So this was the "alternate route"--for insane people. Like us. We saw, like, 4 people on the whole trail. I'm not kidding. And most of them looked like they could compete for the Cross Fit olympics. And then there was us. Geez.
But we still had one village to go. Fortunately, this was the shortest and easiest leg--according to the very nice map at the bottom of the village. Piece of cake.
Well, not exactly. We began another backbreaking, NON-family-fun crawl back up the blasted mountain. Again, all the way to the top of the mountain. What is the deal with this? Can't they figure out an alternate trail that doesn't involve traversing the entire mountain? And did I mention this was a LARGE mountain?
The view was lovely, however...but the village was mighty far away. Sigh.
We finally made it to the top of the mountain....but the bad news was, we had to go back down. For us older folks, this was not welcome news. I'd rather pull myself up rather than try to avoid killing myself falling down...not to mention my knees and quads were not to pleased about all this. "I'm not loving Cinque Terre at the moment," I complained. "Right now, I hate Cinque Terre," was all Janie said as we climbed down, down, down, down.
We're what you call fair weather friends.
Anyway, turns out the last leg of the trail was also closed so only total maniacs would choose to hike the alternate route...well, maniacs and Fountains who don't know any better.
The reward was, finally, more beauty.
I must say, I quoted my Aunt Janie about 100 times: "It's meant to be as tough as you can take it!"
Aunt Janie would have been mighty proud--because it was TOUGH...but great.
What a reminder that anything worthwhile inevitably requires sacrifice. And hard work. And a perspective that keeps an eye on the prize. And always, always a grateful heart.
So thank You, Lord, for the gift of another day...another mountain climbed...and, Lord willing, a fresh new start tomorrow to experience that Your mercies are new every morning.
Now, where's the Advil?
To God be the glory.
No comments:
Post a Comment