Day 0: Flight to Delhi

It’s June 2014. The flight to Delhi was long. It had a stopover at Mumbai. Total flying time may be around 4 hrs. But together with the check in it was a long journey. I left home at 9 am and by the time I reached Delhi it was 4 pm.

As planned, Bru was there at the airport. Though there was some initial confusion with respect to arrival terminal we managed to find each other. The only problem was the heat. The temperature was around 40 deg C, dry heat. Though you don’t sweat like in the south, you will feel like you are walking in an oven!

The little time I spend in Delhi, I did not enjoy it.  The crowd, the dust and the people -  not my idea of holiday conditions. We decided to go to the railway station to check for the train timings. Our booking said the train is from New Delhi (DLI). But when we reached there they said it is from old Delhi! I think it just the beginning of what is to come. We took a taxi to old Delhi. Since Bru is a white guy he immediately became the magnet for people selling things and beggars. Also the prices for everything we asked shot up in split second. Taxis, shops etc charged more than double. And that made my bargaining attempts tighter. As the money without bargaining was not much in foreign currency, Bru was not much concerned. But for my Indian salary, it was not a comfortable number. So I had to do the donkey work of bargaining with these greedy vultures all the time. Na! I didn’t enjoy that either!

We reached old Delhi railway station at around 5.30 pm. Our train is only at 8 pm. So we thought to have some food and Bru suggested McDonalds! Not our favourite, but somewhere clean and air conditioned. We got into the train in time. It was very very crowded and noisy. I couldn’t find our name in the reservation chart. I had booked the tickets online – first time I did that in ages. I decided to wait for the ticket controller and check it. The train was full and we waited in the corridor with all our big backpacks. The train started moving. I went to the next compartment and checked with the controller regarding our reservation. The all the trouble started. He said the number on the ticket is just waiting list numbers. Though they have charged for the ticket, it will be refunded to my account as the ticket is not yet confirmed. Or in other words we are completely screwed! I asked the controller if he can help us in some way, by paying fine or by extra charges for atleast a seat instead of a bed.  But he was very rude. He said we are not supposed to board the train without confirmation and we should leave the train in the next stop! Even after repeated asking he was not ready to help.

We got down at the next station. Some small unknown station in the outskirts of Delhi. Then Bru started vomiting. It seems the food from McDonalds didn’t do good to his stomach. I started getting worried. As per plan we have to somehow get to Dharamsala next day. I walked to the ticket counter to check with the station master for options. Since it is a small local station we can only get general class tickets for trains. Also our next train is atleast 3hrs away. Nothing looked good.

Then someone suggested going to the Metro station nearby and catching a metro to the Kashmiri gate which is 3 stops away. From there we could catch interstate buses. We went there and purchased a ticket for a bus though a ‘backdoor’ ticket agent in a non A/C bus. The tickets for A/C buses were not all available and our only option was to take a bus to Jalandhar in Punjab and from there take a bus to Pathankhot, and then one more bus to Dharamsala. I think its one of the worst bus routes we could take and at this last moment that was the only option available. Nothing sounded good.

The bus driver said the bus will leave in ½ hr. It was already 9.30 pm. In India if one says ½ hr it has a completely different meaning. By the time the bus left the station it was 1 am!!! These people are born cheats. They simply say ½ hr to get customers and wait till the bus is full.

Counting the “King Of The Jungle”

Today is the third day of the Tiger census at the Bandipur National Park in the south Indian state of Karnataka in India. The first three days was for carnivore’s survey and the last 3 days for herbivores. We were supposed to start between 6 and 6.30 am. But in reality we usually start at around 7 am from the base camp (which is the forest range officer’s office)

The census so far has been really disappointing. On the first day I even decided to go back.

As with my luck goes, as always, I ended up unlucky. To start with I was put in a range called Omkar, which is a buffer zone between the Bandipur NP and the adjacent village. To add to that my beat/patrol areas was the region close to the village. The area is a former eucalyptus plantation area, where the villagers still use it for their cattle’s, and more than 50 % of it is actually encroached. There is solar electric fencing around to stop the elephants. So the truth is that the possibility of live sightings of animals – forget about tigers, elephants, bear or leopards, even antelopes or wild pigs – is highly unlikely.

In the last 3 days of early morning patrol the only live sighting was a group of wild pigs. But the area is a known territory of the cats. We saw pug marks of tigers and leopards every day. Some of the leopard pugmarks were very fresh, probably from the same day. But the cats are very shy animals. So I never had any hope of sighting them. What I was hoping to see during patrol was ellies.

In the Bandipur forest range, Omkar is ellie country. And we could see it why. Elephants like to raid the crops in the surrounding villages regularly. Human-elephant conflict is a big problem here. I could see fresh tracks of ellies in the farm land outside the fences of the park. They raid the crops at night. It was highly unlikely to find the ellies in our patrol area during the day time, as they would have moved back into the forest long time back. I was still wishing/hoping to see at least a bull during my beat. But I didn’t see any.

I did see many during other times. My first encounter came at night in our camp. The camp/forest offices are surrounded by the eucalyptus plantations. The camp is on the elephant corridor towards the villages. There is also a water hole nearby where the ellies stop to fill up their tanks! I was walking along the fence when I heard the sound of branches breaking. My torch was not powerful enough to see deep into the forest. The Regional Forest Officer (RFO) was sitting nearby and he asked whether I have seen anything. I said I heard the sound of breaking branches. He said it should be elephants.

After about half an hour I saw some shining eyes and later on the ellies. They came closer to the fences afterwards. I could see four of them – 1 male, two youngsters and probably a cow. There were many more near the water hole as we could hear them trumpeting. The guards started firing crackers to scare the ellies away and turn them back o the forest. It was not having the desired effect, or I would say, they didn’t care!

My guide’s name for the patrol is Ali. Young and a very friendly guy. He is the only one who could speak Hindi with me. The other staffs, almost all of them, spoke only Kannada. That was real disappointment as communication was a big problem. The guards who came with us during the patrol had more than 25 years’ experience in the forest. Almost all of them were really good trackers. I would have loved to talk with them, learn about tracking with them. Now my only chance of communication was through Ali.

Ali told me that during their training they were told to fire crackers when they come across ellies! When I did the EHRA program with desert ellies in Namibia, the one thing that really surprised me was that they never ran when came across wild ellies. Jo, our project leader, didn’t even carry any arms at all. When I asked him about what he will do if an ellie charged at him, he said that he will wave his shirt!!! In India everyone runs! Even the forest guards. My friend once showed me a video taken from the national park in Thekkady, Kerala. They were on a safari inside the forest with the guards on a jeep. On seeing a herd of ellies they decided to approach them to a distance by foot. The ellies got to know their presence and one of them trumpeted. That’s it! The forest guard shouted “run” and everyone ran, including the forest guard!

Even in South Africa, the  rangers always said “whatever happens, never run”. Not just for ellies, but for all kinds of animals. I experienced it first hand in Botswana when two bulls walked into our camp. My friends ran, and I didn’t. I was scared to death, but I stood my ground without any movement just as I have learned. The bull, had a good look at me, smelled the air and after a minute or so (which felt like ages) lost interest and left. In another case, one bull walked straight to our parked car and started feeding. It was magical!

In India everything is different. The guards have no idea about ellies – their family structure, behaviour, manners etc. What they know or told is to fire crackers whenever you seem them!

I am sure it won’t last for long. The ellies are one of the most intelligent animals on planet, and they learn fast. I can say whey this method will fail in the future. The ellies are very protective or aggressive when there are babies or youngsters in the herd. The group that came to base at night had youngsters in them. Still, even after firing the crackers, they didn’t get scared or aggressive. Because they already learned that all these crackers are just for show or they do not do any harm to them. That’s probably why they continued to do what they were doing and didn’t run back to the forest as the guards were expecting. And at some point in the future they will continue the crop raid without bothering about the crackers. And that will lead to serious consequences unless they do something about it now.

Since the beat area is a buffer zone and that too a plantation area I don’t have any hope of spotting resident animals there during my beat. There is definitely cat movement in the area, especially leopards along the river bed regularly, in addition to the ellies. But walking along the eucalyptus plantations most of the time is not much fun. I had been asking the RFO to put me in in the interior from Day 1. But he doesn’t seem to have any real solutions. Today he told me that I could finish the herbivores and vegetation survey for the next 3 days in a day and then he will place me in the camp in the interior. At least something better than nothing.

Last evening I along with the other two volunteers went to a water hole about 2 kms from the range office. Since there were no staffs available to accompany us – all were busy with the ellie crop raid incidents – we decided to go there on our own.  I just wanted to get out of the office atmosphere away from the people and the noise. That was a good decision. The pool is called “Southkere”. It’s a huge area with trees all along the banks. On one side is a kind of a hill with a small walking path on the top ridge. When we reached there it was around 3.30 pm. I hope to see some animals in the evening coming for their evening drink. I picked a spot on the ridge, which had good view of the pool, with my binoculars. I was not disappointed. The first one to arrive was a bull. Afterwards around spotted deer’s, which grew up to at least 50 in the end. Later on came a herd of ellies – 2 adults and 2 youngsters. Another herd of 5 ellies came after they left. Altogether 9 ellies in 2 hours time. In addition a family of Sambar deer – two adults and a kid. I was happy! That visual feast compensated for the last 3 days of empty early morning trails.

On the 3^rd day evening the RFO decided to send me to the anti-poaching camp at Thavalanere inside the forest. Finally, I had something to look forward to. I was excited, not because of the hope of live animal sightings, but simply due to the chance to stay inside the forest.

The camp didn’t disappoint. It was about 10 km away from the nearest civilisation. And the surroundings was dense shrubs and trees. There were already 2 other volunteers staying there and I was the 3^rd person other than the 2 forest guards.

The nights were really beautiful with the skies full of sparkling stars and the sounds of the night time activities of the forest. In addition, there was an orange tree on one side of the camp with full of oranges. After our trails in the mornings, the first thing we do is to sit on a nearby rock and eat oranges. Full of vitamins and nice starter before the breakfast. The tree though not big was so full of oranges that all we have to do is just to shake it.

Our daily schedules started with the early morning herbivores survey and vegetation survey, before coming back to the camp for the breakfast. After taking rest and lunch we went out again for treks inside the forest and returning to the camp before sunset.

The dense forest means that we didn’t have any live sightings. As usual it was just pugmarks and scats. But we did hear tiger roar from a distance. On the second day after coming to the new camp I went to a nearby waterhole in the morning along with the other volunteers. As we reached there a sambar dear ran off. Other than that there were only pugmarks of leopards and tigers on the sides of the water hole. One of the tiger pugmark was really big, probably a full grown tiger.

The RFO came there while we were at the waterhole. I told him that we plan to walk from the camp to the RFO’s office through the forest after the breakfast. He agreed to that as we have already finished our census work ahead of schedule. Our idea was to stop at the Southkere on the way back to the RFO’s office. It should be around 10 kms through the forest.

We started our trek a around 11 am after breakfast. It was a long walk through the forest. It reminded me of the bush walks at the Kruger NP in South Africa. Of course, it’s a completely different landscape here. The trek went slowly as it was close to noon and the temperature was already raising. We didn’t spot anything on the way other than a scared wild pig running for its life. Still I liked being in the wild again. We reached the Southkere waterhole at around 1.30 pm. There were no animals to be seen. We sat on the banks of the lake and enjoyed the silence, calm and beauty of the nature. The first to arrive were the spotted deers. First a few of them and then later on the whole herd. Then came the ellies. As always I was happy to see them. It was a small herd, just 3 females and one of them a youngster. The youngster was in a playful mood, chasing after the deer and the birds. The adults moved back into the woods and the youngster continued to play. I am sure the adults didn’t move far away from the youngster and will be there for the youngster within seconds if any danger arises.

We stayed there for a long time even after the ellies were gone. When the sun was slowly setting down a group of sambar deer arrived – one male, two females and a kid. The lake side was full of activity, the birds, deer, peacocks and finally a big herd of elephants. The big herd came in groups, 5 in one direction, 3 from another direction and a lone female from completely different direction. Initially I was surprised to see a single female as usually you find the single bulls. I thought it might also belong to the other herd. Just as I thought the lone cow joined the big group. It was nice to see the youngsters in the group smelling and touching with their small trunks as the cow joined their group. It was their way of saying “hello” I assume. Later on they all moved back into the woods together

At sunset all of us hoped into a truck which was patrolling the electric fences and firing crackers at the same time to stop the ellies from crop raiding. One of the guards said that there is already 15 ellies waiting at the buffer zone to raid the farm land on the fringes! For the ellies it’s a desperate situation to feed their families a there is not enough food for them in the forest during summer. And for the poor villagers it’s their livelihood which is under threat from the ellies. A perfect human-animal conflict with no permanent solution! It’s really sad!

Instead of staying at the RFO’s office that night we stayed at one of the forest office camps on the border of the forest that night. In the morning we moved back to the office by truck. Our last day of census. Since we have already done our work all that was left was to fill up the forms and collect the certificate. In between we walked to the Northkere or north pool which is about half km opposite to the Southkere. We know that there is cat movement in that area. But since it is lying close to the villages and also there is a road separating the Northkere region from the Southkere region I was not expecting much activity. In addition to that we reached the pool a bit late at 10 am. We didn’t see any wildlife there other than some birds. We stayed there for about an hour and then walked back.

Back at the RFO’s office we submitted our census forms and collected our certificates. I said good bye to the RFO and Ali and asked them to keep in touch via mail. I told RFO that I will be sending him the details of the bee hive project in Kenya and requested him to at least try that near the border areas with the villages on a trial basis. I really wanted the forest officials and the villagers to stop attacking the ellies with fire crackers as it can lead to serious injuries not just to the ellies, but also to the villagers in the chaos.

Since my return bus is only on the next day I decided to go back to the main office at Bandipur on the last day. I wanted to jump into one of the late evening or early morning safaris to try my luck to spot the majestic tiger. The other two volunteers agreed to drop me at the main road from where I could catch the bus back to the head office. After a little bit of sign and mixed languages in different attempts at the passing vehicles I managed to reach the Bandipur camp at around 1 pm.

There in the dormitory I met some of the other volunteers whom I met in the beginning of the census. It seems that almost all the other volunteers in other forest ranges has sighted the tiger at least once during the census. Some lucky guys even spotted tiger with cubs, leopards, sloth beers etc. Other than the army of ellies that we have seen our range sounded like the worst area to spot the king of the jungle!

I jumped into one of the safari trips in the evening which was free for the volunteers on the final day of the census. The safari was for a duration of around 1.5 -2 hrs. Still we couldn’t spot any tiger. The ones that I could spot was a couple of white breasted vultures and 3 gaurs from a distance. Again no luck with cats!

There was some confusion regarding our accommodation. We were initially put in a 20 bed dorm. Then some family of 8 members booked 8 beds online. The forest officials shifted us to a cottage of 4 people. The cottage was nice, but the only problem was that we were 15 people in total! And there were only 4 beds! I found it irresponsible on the forest officials and arrogance on the part of the family to be allowed/expected to occupy a 20 bed dorm after paying only for 8 beds. In the end after a lot of discussions it was decided to pull out the beds from the dorms and sleep on the corridor so that the family had the ‘privacy’ they needed and the volunteers had the ‘beds’ to spend the night! This is how one treats volunteers who take time off from their private lives to help the forest officials in preserving the nature and wildlife that we all care for! That says a lot about the ‘Indian’ way of doing things and the peoples attitude towards conservation in general!

Next day at around 6.30 am I jumped into one of the early morning safaris. The best time in general to spot the cats is early morning, especially for leopards. They are mostly nocturnal and early mornings they will be about to wind up their hunting activities before they recede to the shade of the bush or the branches of the trees to doze off for the rest of the day. And this time we were really lucky. After about 20 mins into the drive we spotted “The King”. A male adult tiger walked through the bush, crossed the mud road in front of our vehicle, and then walked to the water hole on the other side of the road before disappearing into the bush. Altogether around 7 mins of rare sighting. What more can I ask for. After being unlucky for the last 7 days it was heart-warming to spot and watch the majestic animal for such a long time. I badly missed my camera though. Still to watch the beautiful cat was definitely a wonderful experience.

The rest of the time I just walked around. I also got a chance to visit the tamed ellie with its baby at the Bandipur forest range. I never liked seeing the ellies in chains. And this time it was not different. The baby, few months old, was not chained. And like any other babies it was in a playful mood. I was patting on its back and he was trying to push me in return. I just loved being there with him. The little little things in life that can bring more joy than money can buy. Though a baby, it was still very strong and I doubted that if it wanted it could push me down without much effort. The mahout who was watching us somehow didn’t like the baby pushing me and started hitting it with a stick. It had the intended effect and the baby stopped pushing me, but I was really angry. I was surprised to see that another volunteer who was also with me, and who could also speak the language that the mahout spoke, didn’t bother to stop him. I was shouting at him to tell the mahout not to hit him. And the mahout was arguing back that it need the punishment so that he will not do any mischief later. The other volunteer also started saying the same and I lost my nerve. I shouted at him that the animals don’t have to learn the stupid culture of humans. We should just let them to be animals. And I told him that if this is his opinion then he is not fit enough be a volunteer here.

I left immediately so that the poor ellie does not get further beating because of me. The rest of the day I just walked around watching the stream of tourist arriving there for the evening safari. It was soon overcrowded and many of them had to turn back. I left the reserve in the evening. Over all it was an interesting experience. My first experience in the jungles of India. Still I would say I enjoyed my times in the African bush better. Don’t know why! May be because the chance for animal sightings are more there. Or maybe because it is far away from any kind of human interference and you truly get a sense of being in the wild. It was still interesting as I got to see first-hand the human-animal conflict in this part of the world. It also gave me a chance to see how successful we are in the fight for preserving this beautiful nature. Honestly, it doesn’t look good!

Day 4: Riomaggiore – Monterosso – Milan - Germany

 

In the next day, by the time we had our breakfast it was already 10 am. We checked out in the morning and afterward headed to a nearby cafeteria to have our breakfast. Since we had no plans for today other than catching our flight from Milan at 8.35 pm there was no hurry for anything. The waitress was a very beautiful girl. Definitely very young, and her English was just “adjustable”. But how does that matter, she was doing her job relatively good and moreover I immediately forgot what her name was when she told me. She was so beautiful that there was no time to listen to her name! Afterwards we just sat on the piazza enjoying the sun and chatting. When compared to the last days the weather was perfect. Suddenly we had idea. We decided to take the boat back to Monterosso, enjoy the weather and water at the beach and take the train back to Milan in the afternoon.

That was really a good decision.  Because the view from sea towards the villages was beautiful and it looked like a postcard. As one can expect it is quite different from the impression one gets from the land. With the village of Riomaggiore and Manrola almost at the sea level and the village of Corniglia high up in the cliff, the 5 villages had its own charm and definitely justified its status as one of the most beautiful coastal villages in Italy. I was really glad on our decision to take the boat back to Monterosso.  Once we were there we purchased our tickets back to Milan and then headed to the beach. We spend more than an hour in the water. The water was a bit cold, but with the sun shining it became quite comfortable once we came out of the water. It was a perfect ending to our wonderful trek.

Our train from Montrerosso to Milan was at 3 pm. It was quite a boring journey. We lost our seats after about half an hour to other “intelligent” passengers who reserved in advance. For the rest of the journey we sat on the corridor of the compartment. We were not alone, since it was a Sunday, the train was full and a lot of people were sitting on the corridor. I didn’t care! The flight from Milan was at 8. 35 pm. After an hour we landed at Zurich airport. I said good bye to Bru for one last time. I don’t know when we will be travelling together again.  I catched the connecting flight from Zurich to Germany and by the time I reached home it was already midnight. It was a good trip, my last one, to my favourite country in Europe!

Day 3: Prevo – Corniglia – Manarola - Riomaggiore

 

Next day we started in the morning after breakfast at around 10 am. We have a long day ahead of us. Our plan was to hike to the village of Riomaggiore via Corniglia and Manarola. The easy walkway along the “Blue path” is completely blocked as at most of the places the pathway doesn’t exist anymore. So we have to take the “high path”.  The “high path” climb started from Corniglia. It did become really steep at some points especially the initial climb from Corniglia. Most of the time it was steps, and I really hate steps, no matter if I am climbing up or down.  After the initial climb the track became more or less levelled and the path goes through the mountain top. Though the mountain top is at an altitude of around 700 m our path was much less than that at around 350 m. Still we climbed from around 75 m altitude to reach those levels and most of them through steps carrying our heavy luggage! The weather was not so friendly, drizzling initially and then cloudy later on. Once we left the woods the landscape opened up to vineyards. The view was quite interesting with Cornilia on one side and Manarola on the other with the view of the never ending sea ahead of us and vineyards on the background! All standing on the edge of the cliff from a height of around 300 m above sea level! We took the path to Manarola via the village of Volastra. I have to admit it was a long walk.

Once we reached Volastra the path change into cobbled narrow streets which lead to a series of steps. We thought we will first have a look of Manarola before proceeding towards Riomaggiore. For that we have to walk back to Volastra from Manarola to take the high path. The only problem with that plan, as we realised later on, was that we had to climb down atleast 500 steps to reach the village of Manarola. Or to take the route back to Volastra to take the high path we had to climb up all those steps!!!  Once we started climbing down I immediately gave up the idea of climbing back those steps with our heavy luggage. After a long walk through those very very boring and stressful steps we reached the village of Manarola. It was one of the smallest villages in Cinque Terre.
While climbing down the steps the view of the village was again beautiful – small village surrounded on one side by the vineyards and the sea on the other side. There were lots and lots of tourists there. Due to rough seas there was no boat service at the jetty. We sat at a place overlooking the street leading towards the sea and had our packed lunch there. Just relaxing and enjoying the sun. We decided to cancel the plans to trek to Riomaggiore. The very thought of climbing those damn steps where not at all motivating. We decided to take the train instead. Since the boat service was cancelled the ‘piccollo’ train station was heavily crowded. Also the completely crowded trains travelling in the other direction from Riomaggiore towards Manarola became completely empty once it stopped at Manarole. This is definitely a popular tourist spot.  We took the 4 ‘o’ clock train to Riomaggiore. I think it just took 5 minutes to reach Riomaggiore.

We found our backpackers hotel in one of the main streets of the little village of Riomaggiore. It looked more like a room for romantic couples with lot of pink colour and fake decorations all over the place! After leaving our backpack and taking a shower we headed towards the seaside restaurant. We started with a beer, watching the sunset. The wind was a bit cold, still the view was good. We had our dinner – risotto de mare, and a grappa. When in Rome, be a Roman, right? We spend some time at the rocks taking some snaps and enjoying the atmosphere. After leaving our cameras back in the room we went out again. We didn’t had any plans, so we decided to try some cocktails in the nearby pub. I planned to stop after a couple of cocktails. But it didn’t exactly go that way. Some guy started chatting with us. Either he is stupid or very rich or both he started buying us cocktails, for the sake of company (he was also drinking), and we both ended up drinking one cocktail after the other. As usual Bru was in “really good spirits”. I had a Caipirihnia, French connection, 2 Jagermeister and a Bamboosa!!! And Bru had much more. Finally when our good friend left both of us were completely drunk! It has been years since I was so drunk.  We had real difficulty in finding our hostel and climbing up the damn steps towards our room in the 3^rd floor. Since we couldn’t manage to lock the doors properly we placed a table infront of it!!! After a while I heard a loud sound. Bru was no longer in the bed. I saw a head popping up from the floor. It was Bru, blabbering some nonsense. That was the last thing I remembered!!!

Day 2: Prevo – Corniglia - Prevo

 

The next day we had our breakfast at leisurely pace. The weather didn’t look good. It was raining a bit at night and in the morning it war more cloudy than sunny. Still the views from the balcony of the homestay towards the village of Corniglia was breathtaking.  After the breakfast we decided to climb up towards the church of St. Bernadino. We had the whole day infront of us. Our plan was to hike around in the national park and visit Corniglia at some point in the day. We didn’t know the exact hike route towards St. Bernadino. But the church was visible from a distance and there were signboards pointing the direction. The only problem was that due to the landslides some of the marked routes were blocked. We still decided to go up. We reached the church without much problems and from the village surrounding the church we had a good view of Corniglia and the surroundings and also a hazy view of the village of Manarola at a distance.

From there we decided to hike towards Corniglia. As some of the routes were blocked, the hike became more and more tricky as we proceeded. There were tracks partly covered by landslides, tracks which were blocked where we ignored the warning sign boards and finally we landed up in a tarred road. The road was still going up. When we asked one of the road workers for directions towards Corniglia he was surprised and pointed towards the opposite direction!! We decided to proceed further and finally we followed a signboard that pointed towards the village.  We had the direct view of the village as we trekked down. But after a while the marked path narrowed, became bushier and reduced to a small track. We were not even sure whether it was a proper track as the thorny bushes were making our trek difficult. After a while we completely lost track of what ever track we were following and there were no more tracks ahead. We really doubted that whatever tracks we were following in the last hours are probably the tracks of a wild pig. The thorny bushes were so dense that we were scratched all over our body and blood was coming out at many places. Funny thing was that we still had the direct view of the village of Corniglia from a distance. It was too late to turn back as the track we came was no longer visible. We decided to proceed ahead getting further scratched by the thorns. Finally we landed up in olive plantations.

Suddenly I came across a snake lying on the ground. Before I could warn Bru and show him the snake the startled snake ran away. Not sure what kind of snake it was. But if I could remember correctly it was having stripes of black and yellow.  So quite adventurous experience so far in such an unlikely place. After a few meters of walking through the plantations and climbing down the stone walls we reached a road. Finally we reached a place where we had a clear idea of how to reach the village of Corniglia. We sat on the road for some time, eating some fruits and inspecting our wounds. And then we slowly moved towards the village. Like the other villages the fishing village of Corniglia was also very charming. Narrow walking streets and shops, for the tourists of course, and at the end of the street the endless view of the sea.  From there we could see our next destination – the village of Manarola.

We had our lunch there, had some beer, which we definitely earned after our hard day in the bush, and relaxed for a while. We also bought some postcards to send back. Then we started walking towards our homestay at around 1.30 pm from there. The route was easy as it was clearly marked. And walking along the edges of the mountain with the sea on one side and beautiful landscape on the other side was a wonderful experience. When we were back in our place it was around 4 pm. Both of us were exhausted. We cooked some spaghetti and opened our second wine bottle and relaxed watching the sunset, the starts and the illumination at the village of Corniglia from a distance.

Day 1: Germany – Milan – Monterosso – Vernassa - Prevo

 

I met Bru at the Zurich airport and then we flew together to Milan. It was nice to see Bru again. We understand each other pretty well and had been on trips together before. Our flight reached Milan at around 10.30 am. My plan was to take the train from Milan Central to Moterosso al Mare at around 12 noon. By the time we got out luggage it was around 11:30 am. And the train from Milan Malpensa airport to Milan central took us more than 45 mins. So we had to take the next train around 1.

By the time we reached our starting point – the first of the 5 villages  - Monterosso it was around 4 pm. There are two tracks to choose from to visit the villages, the first one and the easiest is called the ‘Blue Path’ which runs at almost the same height above sea level as the villages. This is also the most popular route and one can find a large amount of tourists on this route on a sunny day. The second one is called the high path which runs high up the mountains. That means one has to climb up and climb down as we move from one village to village. It is also a bit strenuous and time consuming and one needs a certain level of fitness to try this route.

At the time of our hike some portions of the blue path was closed due to landslides the previous year. Some of the tracks were partially opened and some others were completely closed till next year. From the Cinque Terre National Park website I downloaded a map of the hike routes and information about the current state of the tracks. The five villages on our hike route were Monterosso, Vernassa, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. And our stop over on the first day was a homestay midway between Vernassa and Corniglia on the blue path.

At Monterosso we stopped by at a restaurant to pick up some food and water. I also wanted to get some information about the status of the hike route. The owner of the restaurant told us that it will take about 1.5 -2 hours to reach Vernassa and an another half hour to reach the homestay. But he is not sure whether the hike route from Vernassa is open or not. Since its already a little bit late to start the hike he recommended us to take the train to Vernassa. “Take the next train at 4:25 pm and you will be there in Vernassa in 5 mins. From there you can easily hike to the homestay. Since it’s a sunny day the hike route may be open today”. Not an optimum beginning to our hike and definitely not something that I would have liked to hear. On one hand if he was right, it was already a bit late to start and if we didn’t find the hike route, it can get a bit risky as we will not be able to find our homestay in the darkness.

We thought for a while and then decided to fuck the risk!!! No risk, no fun, right? We came here to hike, so let’s take the chance. So Bru and I decided to try the luck. With a backpack of around 12 kgs, the hike was not exactly easy. Especially to climb up the stairs from Monterosso. We had to stop in between to catch the breath. I began to wonder if it would have been wiser to do the hike from Riomaggiore to Monterosso. In spite of the difficulties, the landscape was absolutely beautiful. It was motivating enough to keep us going. It took almost an hour before we started seeing Vernassa from a distance. Vernassa lies about 3.3 km from Monterosso.  About 10 minutes from Vernassa we came to a clearing which looked like a perfect  photo spot. With the golden light of the setting sun hitting the village from a distance, it was a quite magical view. We climbed down to Vernassa and walked around the village. In between we stopped to do some shopping for the night and for breakfast the next day.

 Afterwards we continued the blue path towards Corniglia. The distance between Vernassa and Corniglia is about 3.2 km.If the path is not closed then we should be able to find the homestay halfway between Vernassa and Corniglia. From almost sea level at Vernassa we again had to climb up to proceed to Corniglia. But the walk through the woodlands with a view of the sea on one side was never boring. After about 30-45 mins of hiking we reached our homestay called “the heart of Cinque Terre” in the small hamlet of Prevo. It was an absolutely beautiful location. The garden of the house was on the cliff with full view of the sea and from the balcony of the house one has a direct view of the village of Corniglia on the mountain top. Our host Peter was a nice guy. It is a pity that he has only one room to rent. We felt really lucky to have got the accommodation at this beautiful location in the national park and also directly in the blue path far away from all the noises and disturbance that comes along with such touristic places. It was beyond doubt the best place to live in the whole stretch.

We were glad that we found our accommodation in time. Both of us were really tired from the travelling and hiking the whole day. We sat on the garden overlooking the sea, enjoying the sunset, ate our dinner and finished our first wine bottle of the hike! Life couldn’t get any better than this.  We just chatted old stories long after we finished our dinner and also long after we finished our only bottle of wine. I always enjoyed travelling with Bru. Kind of freak like me, but honest, sincere  and more over we both have the passion for the same continent – Africa!

Cinque Terre Hike

Italy is my favourite country in Europe. I usually end up travelling in Italy atleast once in a year. Though I live in Germany, I feel more comfortable and pleasant to travel in Italy than in Germany. Especially when compared to the weather, Germany is not at all an attractive option. More over I like the Italian culture, and of course the Italian girls.

The moment I saw the picture of Cinque Terre in some website, I marked it in my mind to go there some day. But the fact that it’s a bit far away from any of the biggest international airports made me postpone the trip more often. The hike was never in my mind as I didn’t know that one can hike from one fishing village to the other. I came to know about it only when I tried to figure out the nearest airport I could fly to from where I live. Once it was clear that hiking between the villages is the best way to see the region I was excited. I am an outdoor person, so the possibility of hiking was like God send.

I didn’t want to do the hike alone. I checked with some of my Italian friends – too busy, other commitments etc. Then I checked with Bru. I was half optimistic as he is busy most of the time. To my luck, he was very keen to do it. We decided to fly to Milan and take the train to the first village. Since Milan is a big airport, we had the chance to find more cheap flight options. In May I had a long weekend from Thursday till Sunday due to some kind of religious holidays. So we decided to go for the hike on that weekend. 4 days means we had the luxury of doing the hike at a leisure pace.