My flight into Figari was, apart from an unannounced gate change, uneventful. The airport itself is just one strip of tarmac and one tiny information desk with a nice lady who doesn't speak any other language but french. No matter, my French is ... well, enough to find out that there are no regular busses and a taxi will cost me about €45 to get to Porto Vecchio. And I don't even want to be in Porto Vecchio, I need to get to Conca. You know what, I'll try hitch hiking first. Thing is, after 5 minutes at the not-so-very-helpfull-information desk, all other passengers seem to have already left the airport. I crossed the now almost empty parking lot and started walking in the direction of Figari village. Then, out of nowhere (at least not from the parking lot) a young guy pulled up and said he was going to Porto Vecchio. He also didn't speak English and seemed to understand my limited range of French. We actually managed to talk for about 25km!
He dropped me off at the petrol station from where I walked to a roundabout. On the roundabout a lady stopped. Not only her car, but also all the ones behind her. She said that it's very safe to hitch hike on Corsica, because it's so small, everyone knows everybody. As she was saying this she looked at me quite intensely and seemed to have forgotten she was actually driving a car. Upon realizing this, she put her foot back on the gas and pulled away from a tail of cars that had formed behind us.
On the other side of Porto Vecchio a very old man picked me up. I had a very hard time understanding him. Not knowing what Corsican sounds like, I guessed that this must be it. But as he cranked up the volume of the radio as his favorite singer came on, he happily exclaimed he loved this song because it's in Portuguese and he was from Portugal. Aha!
In St. Lucie de Porto Vecchio I decided to walk in the direction of Conca. It was 'only' 4km and there was very little traffic. After 15 minutes or so a car with 2 ladies stopped. They didn't speak English and didn't bother to try and talk to me in French. It was a bit odd, just sitting there while they were chatting away with a perfect stranger in the back seat. They dropped my off at La Tonella, the first campsite and only official for the trip.
The next day I started hiking. The weather was nice and the trail relatively easy. I camped at Refuge d'I Paliri. From here I continued to Refuge d'Asinau and had the first few raindrops. Coming down from Bavella I had my first go at the many knee-jarring descents on the GR20.
From Refuge d'Asinau, where it had been SUPER windy all night (if you ever do the GR20, take a tent that's not only rainproof, but also one that holds up in strong winds!) I hiked to Refuge d'Usciolu. This was the longest and for me maybe the hardest stage. With little sleep, a heavy pack, with little experience with the rocky terrain and a miscalculated lunch break I only got to the refuge just before dark. I didn't even bother to put up the tent. I not only didn't have the energy to do so, I also didn't want a night like the one before where the flapping (and collapsing) of the tent kept me awake.At Prati I was invited by some other hikers to have a drink and a bite of ... well, whatever they had, but it was all served on bread. One girl actually knew what celiacs was, hooray for her!
From Prati it was on to Gite d'Etape U Fugone. I found this an easy day. However, not everyone agreed. A woman I had seen before at Prati lured me into the Gite. Silently she almost pulled me inside and pointed my towards the hot showers. BLISS!
Next day on to Vizzavona where I would meet up with Ate. A nice hike through forest. Heard thunder in the distance. Ate somehow made all the connections and got there 2 hours early. Good thing I didn't linger longer in the woods. Again, a few raindrops and ... fresh food!
On our way to Cascades Anglais we met a couple coming back down. She said the sky looked black and they didn't want to take a chance of getting stuck. Pigheaded as we are we continued. But soon it rained. We put up the tent fairly quickly, thinking we would get moving again in a few hours at the most. But the rain and thunder didn't stop so we decided to stay put. The storm cleared when it was almost dark.
When we got to Refuge de L'Onda the skies were looking ominous again. That night we had so much rain, the floor of our tent actually turned into a waterbed. Almost 5 cm of water in our vestibule and both packs got soaked. It sucked, but it dried .. well, not the next day, or the one after that ... actually I think there still are some damp spots in my pack.
We bathed in the river because the toilet block at the previous campsite was closed. By the time we got out, it rained again. The weather stayed pretty dreadful all day long but reached it's ultimate low point by the time we were embarking on the last climb of the day. Clouds were floating in, rain was pouring, wind was howling and man, we were cold. The gardien of Petra Piana pointed us to the refuge. It was PACKED. Too many people with too much wet gear. Even considered pitching the tent again for a nanosecond. Seldom had such bad weather on my birthday. Upside was though, after finding out I share my birthday with Andrew the Aussie the people in the refuge sang us Happy Birthday and I even got to blow out 2 candles!
We already had a few exciting climbs and descents, but today was superb. Almost 90 degrees up at places. Downside was, that the descent made my knees hurt a bit. Met a Danish couple who were trying (and FAILING) to hike on postcard sized map of the whole of Corsica. They are still out there somewhere probably.
From Manganu we went on to Hotel Castel di Vergio. The weather was AWEFULL. It was cold, windy and fog limited our view to about 20m all day. The photo (above) of Lac du Ninu isn't mine, but was take by Andrew the Aussie. Hope he doesn't mind me putting his photo online. Got a hot shower again. So hot I actually burned my arm. Skin came off a couple of days later. I guess the hotel wants their hiker clean, but no need to sterilized them, please!
Next day we hiked to Auberge U Vallone. And who do we run into? The Frenchman and the Aussie. Brilliant! They sold excellent stinky cheese at Vallone, and we regretted not getting more only a day later.
Today was Cirque day. According to our book that under no condition anyone should take on the Cirque de la Solitude in wet conditions. Well, we got to the bottom of this bugger fine (though it was a bit scary at some points) but by the time we were making our way our again it was pouring again. Got soaked through and decide not to camp but stay in the Refuge. We got a 4 person, 2 bunk bed room all to ourselves. Great. Met up with the Frenchman, the Aussie and Czech in the hotel. Yummie wine!
From Haut Acso the waymarking lead us to Refuge de Carozzu. A fairly bland day. Nothing special, except the gardien who put up a sign "Don't do anything without my permission and wait until I return". But he never returned. It's the end of the season, but leaving without a note saying "I've left for this season, good luck", no, just warnings and threats.
The hike feels almost over by now. But today was a nice day. Quite difficult at times, but nice. Bit of scrambling here and there and a nice view of our already covered terrain. That night we finally got to see a sunset, not obscured by rain clouds.
The last day to Calenzana was -of course- a bit of an anticlimax. While the trail still challenged us at times it was still just a hike to the end of our vacation. In Calenzana, we found the Spar supermarket, got some real food for dinner and at some snack food straight away. There were no busses to Calvi (That day? That month? That season? That year?) so we had to hitch hike again. We had to wait quite long, but got to Calvi in two rides. Not wanting to camp we tried to find a bed in reasonably priced hotel. Those are hard to find in Calvi! Hotel de Centre Ville (or something of the sort) seemed to be the only one but was -of course- fully booked. The man at the desk was very friendly though and helped us find another hotel. Il Tramonte was about 1km from the Citadel and was €40 per night. Compared to the prices of €125 and €70 we had heard earlier this sounded very welcome. The hotel was nice and clean and had everything you could need, and nothing you don't need (like tv). The next day we met up with the frenchman and the aussie, went for a swim, said goodbye to the frenchman who was the first to leave, had dinner at the campsite of the aussie, said goodbye to him too and had a short nights' sleep.
Friday, last and final day. Were pick up by a prearranged taxi, because OF COURSE there are no busses to the airport (I think it's a conspiracy!). Waited at an almost empty but nice airport for our flight. At Nice, something was wrong with the plane to Amsterdam and we were delayed almost 7 hours. They kept us in the dark for too long, otherwise we would have gone to the city. Now we just spent some time at walking distance from the airport. Not very recomendable. When we finally got to Schiphol at 21u instead of 14u they managed to mislocate our luggage. My patience had evaporated by then, but after 30 inutes they found our packs in the transfer section. Some twat in Nice airport made a mistake connecting our luggage to us (our bags could go through to Schiphol, but we had to get a boarding pass in Nice).
Oh well, all's well that ends well. Like I said before: Corsica was awesome! The weather sucked, it rained A LOT but otherwise it was brilliant! Anyone with hikers heart: go for it!
No comments:
Post a Comment