Author: Bjoern

Arriving in Sangineto. We have the hotel all gor ourselves, weird feeling. Even the owner left us alone with the keys.

I think I’m going to stop writing on a day-to-day basis. It gets harder every day to think about questions like “How many days are we on trail?” or “What day is it?”. To me all days blur into one and I enjoy this to happen. When I think about our first night back in Portopalo di Capo Passero, it seems to be so long ago and distant. For me right now it’s enough to know it’s February – that’s all I need to know.

Hiking here in Calabria and Sicily is a pretty lonely adventure, at leadt at this time of the year. Apart from towns we only see a handful of people a day, most of them driving by in their cars; other hikers met so far: 1, and this was in Sicily. No one is walking up here in the mountains. And as J. and I usually walk silently, I really enjoy loosing the concept of time – such a relief from mental slavery.

As free as one can be – that’s how livin’ is done!

But, of course, you still can find all new pics on www.instagram.com/jaredturtleneck and on our fb-album “E1 – That’s how livin’ is done!”

And all the stats are still being uploaded. Here are todays‘. And by finding the little arrow to the left or right browse one day back or forth. Enjoy!

We left Calabria today…finally. It was about 580 km of mostly hard work. The trail is usually in a bad shape with poor or no signage, except in national parks where it was okay…sometimes. It was cold, stormy with lots of snow. The mountains here are steep and on hard passages we barely made 1 km/h.

But besides that, we met many great people, nice, welcoming, interested and curious people. Without their help many days would have been so much more miserable. Especially I want to mention the Royal Bar in Girifalco, the La Dolce Vita in San Sosti and of course this one guy we met in every town who helped us finding a place to stay. Here in Calabria one cannot just go to a hotel and check in as they are all closed. We always had to find a bar, order something to drink, talk to the locals until someone gets his phone out of his pocket and makes a call. Usually about 10 minutes later we are being pocked up and brought to a place for the night. Incredible! We started to make a fun out of it and compare this to a computer-game where we have to find this guy in order to level up. 🙂 People here in Calabria are sure something to remember!

And it’s not only the wonderful people here in Calabria, what let us keep going, it’s also the wonderful nature and scenery.

Now we look forward to Basilicata. And I hope you look forward to reading more stories about our little adventure.

We decide to stay at a lower altitude today, walk at the beach and go back to the mountains tomorrow. After a very tasty breakfast at the SeaPalace Hotel, our place for last night, we started at around 11 a.m. 6 hrs and 30 km later we arrive in Sangineto. We were lucky to see a beautiful sunset but now it’s time to find a place for the night. Camping in town is not really an option and all hotel or B&B’s are closed. Only one bar is open; we enter and tell the people we need a place for the night. It takes only one call for a person in the bar and the owner of a hotel picks us up at the bar, opens up his hotel for us and we have a place for the night.

The hospitality of the Calabrian people is outstanding. I am happy.

Waking up and everything’s wet and cold. It rained all night with storms. It’s foggy. Every step takes full effort. We hike through wet snow, my toes are numb. No thinking is allowed. The next step is mandatory. We need to keep going! At around noon we came to a street and decide to leave the mountains and descend to town. It’s 15 km to a hotel, we checked in. Finally a hot shower and the possibility to dry our stuff.

The last 30 hrs. were “character building”

It started to rain early this morning but until around noon it was okay. But then it became nasty, really cold winds, storm-like, lots of rain and fog, snow. Completely exhausted, wet and freezing we find a place to camp. No fun!

Starting at 7 really helps to get some km done, 38 today. It was lots of uphill and most of the time I listened to an audiobook or music. There was not much talking today, just pure concentration; or shall I better say “non-concentration”?! Hiking, one step after another, keep going…that’s all. Well…and eating and sleeping. And tomorrow we do it all over again. If you wonder at what time we finish hiking each day: it’s 6:30 p.m. right now, I already had dinner, it’s dark outside. Sooo….good night.

10:30 is a late start, but we discussed the trail for the next 190 km. We won’t come through towns and decided to resupply for seven days. With full and heavy backpacks we climbed about 1.000 m and declined 800 on our 25 km day. It was warmer today than any day lately and I feel that this has a big impact on our both moods (for the better). I even took a few pics, so don’t forget to check instagram and fb.

I summarize those days in one post. Short: I was miserable and didn’t like much of it. It was cold, it was foggy at least or it rained. I was all wet. I had nightmares, therefore no good sleep. We got lost and had to walk quite a detour. I had to pitch my tent on a hill, that’s no fun. On our day off to resupply I lost my bank-card. Luckily someone found it and turned it in. Yeah! That brings me to the rest of the goid news for those days: we met really nice people in Girifalco at the Royal Bar. Maybe J. wants to write more about them – I don’t right now. Today was long but good for me. Finally some giid weather and my mood lightened up. I have not taken any pics lately but Calabria is beautiful for sure (in spring). I can provide you with stats, though.

Day 25

Day 26

Day 27 was an off-day in Catanzaro.

Day 28.

J. and I are hiking together again. We started late, around 11 a.m. and walked on trail towards Serra San Bruno. Weather was fine, snow-level is at around 1200 m. We found a place to pitch camp around 3 km before town, that gives us a chance for a nice breakfast there. It feels good to sleep in my tent again. 🙂 Good night.

Hiking-stats.

I couldn’t hike on this morning and waited here in Mongiana instead hoping for Jared to arrive today. Luckily he arrived at the Starlight Bakery in Fabrizia about 1.5 hrs ago and should finally arrive here at the hotel soon. I can’t wait to hear his stories.