Mountain Goats

Italy has taught me that plans are no good. We all know this is a difficult lesson for me... I always have everything planned.. to a fault. While Brad isnt much of a planner, he always has an emergency plan mapped out for any situation.
In Italy, plans are useless. Sure, you should know what time your train should depart, where Rick Steves says you can find the best gelato, what time you should get up to beat the lines at historic sites, etc. But with the exception of the cities we decided on and the accommodations we booked, nothing has really gone as planned. All of this worked out for the best, until today. Bum bum buuuummm...
We landed in Vernazza, the 4th town in the Cinque Terre, on time and made it to our hotel fairly easy. From there we walked down the winding road to the harbor and took in all the beauty of this lovely cliff town. Its unlike anything we have ever seen. If we had to compare it would be like Half Moon Bay set atop Devils Slide... but not so scary sounding! The town only has a population of about 500 people, so you can imagine how short our town stroll actually was. We saw everything we needed to see, I indulged in a chocolate, caramel, and coffee gelato, YUUUM, and we took the train to the next town.
Now, Cinque Terre translates to "five lands" or five towns. They are all in the same general area but separated by cliffes and trees and everything else that grows and lives on a cliff by the sea (more on that later). Our town has a ruined castle, a little harbor and a tiny beach. The town we visited, Monterosso, is the only one with a sandy beach. I had fantasies of laying out in the sun and humming "sway" by Dean Martin and speedo watching. Unfortunately, it had just downpoured and everything was soggy with overcast skies. So we opted to walk around Monterosso and then Brad went on a mission to find some new shoes because his current Merrels can no longer sustain is ridiculous platapus feet. His arch is completely collapsed which causes his massive ankle to bust through any shoe he has. Literally, the seems come apart. We found a shoe place and told the man his European size, 48. The man said, "no, thats too big" and could only produce a size 43, which did not fit. He told us nobody has feet that big and it would be nearly impossible to find a shoe place, but to try the one at the other end of Monterosso.
That shoe place only had Birkenstocks and neither of us felt like rocking the early 90s so we passed. At this point we had missed our train and the next one would come in an hour. I decided it was no big deal and we should just walk the trail back to our town. We could see the town from where we stood, so we thought it would be easy. I told Brad walking on earth is easier than pounding the pavement, and we set off.
The walk was absolutely breathtaking. The sun hung low in the sky over the sea and the lights from Monterosso twinkled in the near distance. We stopped a few times to snap some photos and scarcely listened to hikers headed in the opposite direction who said there were treacherous trails ahead. The cleavage sweat one woman was sporting should have been our first signal to head back and catch the train before sunset.
About 20 minutes in, we took a wrong turn and somehow ended up in a cliff dwellers minature vineyard. My guess is it produces one bottle of wine a year. When we finally made it back to the trail, I started to wonder if we should just go back to where we came from. The sun was nearly set and according to other hikers we had about an hour of hiking left. For reasons we still do not fully understand, we both decided to continue on. The path narrowed to a foot wide with no railing and for at least 20 minutes went entirely uphill. Panic set in when the earth became muddy, branches stabbed us in the eyes, and bugs flew into our mouths. I kept telling myself, Im a capricorn and goats were built to do this.. but the thought didnt help. In reality, we arent goats.. we are a couple trying to enjoy the best of Italy. I have already proven to be a clutsy spaz and despite Brads ability to think quickly in an emergency, neither of us had a phone or a flashlight (Brad had attached them to our luggage, not my purse). As we wound through the cliffs and approached a severely shaded area, I slipped and my right butt cheek landed on what felt like a pyramid. From this point on, Brad insisted on holding my hand, which was very brave of him in my opinion because the likelihood of me going down and bringing him with me was very high. We walked like this for the next hour as it got darker and darker, slipping on rocks and mud and praying we didnt fall off the cliff never to be seen again. At one point Brad even handed me a rock which was to be used to throw at wild beasts and zombies that were out to get us in the dark, on a cliff, in the middle of nowhere. If I wasnt so scared of falling or having to spend the night up there, I would have laughed! Instead I gripped on to it and seriously thought about how hard I would have to throw it in an emergency.
The hike seemed to take an eternity, but finally as the sky was completely dark we saw our towns bell tower in the near distance and relief set in. After another 100 or so steps down steep unstable rock stairs, we were both so grateful to have made it out alive. We decided it was our craziest adventure to date, and that at some point, it will all be funny. For now we are just exhausted and laughing out of shock. I was convinced Id have a Lifetime moment and break down into tears in the shower, but so far, Im good. Brad deserves a new pair of shoes and we both deserve another three scoop gelato, and Im thinking the latter will happen for breakfast tomorrow||
:)