Today felt like any familiar Vancouver morning. The damp air and pattering sound of rain greeted me in the morning.
At our appointed meeting time, I wander into the breakfast room to catch up with the group. Everyone is sitting around nursing a cup of tea or coffee as the rain pounded down outside.
Agustina informs us that with all the rain, the planned mountain biking and via ferrata activities are cancelled. Ack!! The best option? A walk to Corvara. Jordan, Kathy, Trish and I decide to do that. Tonia, who’s been a hiking trooper decides to do a different route uphill in the rain, and is joined by Kathy and Keith Dragon.
Thirty minutes later. I head up to pack my bag and am back in the lobby seeing the gang deep in discussion.
The situation?
It was about 10:30 now, and the hike would take about 1.5 hours, meaning that we would get to Corvara – just as the whole town was closing for the afternoon break from 12:00 – 3:30.
Right.
As we all consider our options, our guide Karin offers to drive us to town so we can shop first and then we can walk back.
Problem solved! Karin is a saint!
We all pile into her car and head over to Corvara, where Karin promptly realizes she’s left her wallet behind and needs to return to the hotel. Why don’t we wander the town and she comes back to pick us up for the walk back at 12:30?
It sounds good, except as I am wandering around the town I realize that I really didn’t want to buy or lug anything back, and that what I realllly wanted to do was go for a hike.
I head to the information kiosk to ask for help, where I’m basically told to figure out how to read the map so I take the map with me, head into another hotel only to be given the same vague directions, and decide, what the heck I’m going to do this anyway and call Karin.
“Hi Karin, I’m on my way back to San Cassiano! I’ve decided to walk.” I tell her.
I sense some hesitation in her voice. I think my track record to date on this trip has down wonders for the guides’ sense of confidence in me. :p
“You know the way?”
“Yep, I just follow the river, and I think I’m on the path now” I lie. Across the distance, I think I see the path so maybe it wasn’t such a big lie.
“Ok, just stay on the river and don’t get off the path until you see a sign pointing to San Cassiano and then another to Alta Badia”
“Thanks Karin!”
I start to walk.
It’s actually kind of refreshing, strolling in the rain. For most of the path I’m on my own and I’m left to stroll at my own pace, no pressure, along the road. I’m glad I went in this direction as I was able to see the river cascading down in these mini falls. Very pretty.
I was able to enjoy it for as long as I was able to stay somewhat dry. At some point though, I realized the rain was running down my wet gloves and I was actually getting soaked.
BOO.
That afternoon was to be the cooking demonstration with Chef Norbert Niederkofler, Head Chef of St. Hubertus, a 2 Michelin star restaurant. I wasn’t about to miss it in the world.
At the same time I was getting thoroughly soaked so the thought of a nice hot bath was extremely alluring.
This of course meant I’d better bust butt to get back to the hotel as quickly as possible.
So getting lost didn’t really help my cause.
I have to admit I have a bit of a pet peeve. I hate it when there are multiple names to a city. San Cassiano was one of them. It was also called San Cassian, but I wasn’t 100% sure that was the case. So reading on the map, looking for San Cassiano and not finding it but seeing close approximations got me quite irritated – especially since I just wanted to get my butt back to the hotel.
I began to regret the idea of having come at all.
After comparing my map with some street signs and sensing I might be going in a pretty wrong direction, I begin to consider catching a cab back.
As luck would have it, nothing was to be found around me.
Fine, so be it. I take a stab at the town I’m looking for, grit my teeth and start walking faster. At least this way I can get to the wrong place faster!
The scenery around me was actually pretty cool if I was in the right state of mind to enjoy it, but at least I remember so in retrospect!
Luckily I guessed right and was elated to see a familiar lift in front of me.
Only to realize I somehow managed to overshoot my destination.
Oh well at least overshooting it by a 15 minute walk is better than 40 down the wrong path.
I hurry back to my hotel room, change out of my soaking wet clothes and run back downstairs in time for the cooking demonstration that was about to start in the kitchen.
