the Log: Corsica, and the great beyond

here is the story of the past week:

we started out 2 hours late because we took too long saying good bye

alex's package with our tent, his sleeping bag and hiking shoes ultimately did not come. so, he bought a cheap, light sleeping bag fit for 10 degrees celcius, and used his running shoes for hiking. we did not have a tent, nor could we buy one because we were in such a hurry...

we also got to nice in a total of 3 hours, reaching speeds of 180km/hr on the autoroute to catch the ferry--not the best idea...

but we made it in time.

we arrived in corsica at 2am and slept on the beach of calvi. originally we were supposed to go to ile rousse (just down the shore from calvi), but, for some odd reason, the ferry took us to calvi. when we arrived, we went to a hotel to ask for a map of the city...it went like this:

me: pourrais-je voir une carte d'ile rousse
clerk: comment?
me: une carte (using my huge hand motions making a motion of a map)...umm...un plan, de la ville....ile rousse...(emphasis added)
clerk: Non.... non non non non non...vous n'etes pas en ile rousse...vous etes dans Calvi...

the look on my face was priceless, according to alex and erik...

the clerk turned out to be austrian, and alex wooed her with his austrian charm and german language skills...she then showed us a beach where we could sleep...

after sleeping on the beach, we took the train to vizzavona thinking that there would be an atm machine there, we were hurried again in the morning, so no chance to go to a bank before departing--they are everywhere, right?.

no. the town of vizzavona included 3 buildings--a train station, a place for eating, and the house of the person who runs both the train station and the place for eating. so we embark on the trail with no tent, crappy sleeping gear, and no money...

and i forgot my jacket in the car thinking "hey, it's corsica, it will be warm...."

we left at 12:30. we arrived, after climbing 2 ridges (about 1000m ascent), at the first refuge 10km away at 5:30; found out that refuges cost money, 9 euros per person, at 5:45; and that there was no chance to get money between here and our destination at 6...

so we did what any self respecting hiker would do: begged random austrians for some money...thank God alex could speak german...

we decided to press on to the second refuge that night...we took the high road as well....

which was covered with clouds, which is like fog...only so thick that one could not see his hand in front of his body...and night fell...

we did not make it to the second refuge in time. so we were in the darkness, with fog, with a heavy wind and cold temperature (with my jacket in the car), with our headlamps, searching for each marker 10m ahead of us. we did this for 2 hours, and we ended up losing the trail. we then decided to demount and head down into the valley, where we then found the trail randomly, and went the wrong direction on it. at one point, before we were lost, we were actually 2 minutes away from the next refuge...but we ended up finding a goat farm on the other part of the trail, and, thinking it was the refuge, slept there for the night...

until the goat farmer, who only spoke corsican, came...you can connect the dots on what happened next...(just imagine big angry hand motions....)

the next morning, we woke up, ate a hearty breakfast, and shoved off to climb 2 more mountains, one of which required ropes, and was probably the highlight of the trip...and we stopped after 10 km...at a refuge without room for us, so we ended up sleeping outside. that night, it was 2 degrees celcius, and poor Alex had no more clothes to wear...

that is where erik and alex got sick.

also, that night, while we were cooking, we went to wash a pan, leaving our food supplies out in the open thinking "people would watch it"...no.

1/3 of our supplies were stolen, mainly bread, sausage, cheese, and jelly...

_____reality ends for a second (just to make sure you know)

and then a bear attacked us. we defied it by shoving erik down its throat to choke it, and, using our knives, we cut erik back out, used the meat for new provisions, and the fur for a new sleeping bag and tent...as well as nice viking-like clothes for the trip!

_____reality begins again

the next day we did 30 km...passing through valleys...to get to the next refuge at 2300m...
where the guardian of the refuge was an angry old corsican...he advised us to sleep outside...

luckily we didnt heed his advice...that night, it was hovering around 0 degrees with a 200km/hr wind on average with rain. the wind was so strong, that the door of the sleeping chamber kept blowing open...

that was when we made the decision to head down to the nearest town. we also decided that a trip like that is the best way to combat culture shock...

(one of these pictures is of monte cinto under clouds)

dazed and confused, cold, without food or moral, we went to bastia, got a nice hotel room, went to a tex-mex rest. and had a beer or two.

tex mex is incredible.

we walked a total of 80km in 4 days...summited 7 mountains, the highest being at 2400m...

so i have been doing good. grenoble has become like home to me, i realized that this past week. school has started, nothing really too deep. i am taking courses in genetics, cellular components, advanced organic synthesis, quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, crystallography, and spanish.

i love languages, and i am going to take my time to learn as many as possible before i die.

besides that...all is well.

Here are some photos of me on my travels: