It was a beautiful Sunday - Pentecost. A perfect day for a group of friends to meet in Pigna for coffee before driving to Buggio and up the precipitous track to the point where we were to begin our walk between two chapels, high in the Italian Alps. We were in good spirits. As we drove up the steep narrow track to the first chapel a large group of wild boar including many young, scattered as the car approached, a deer leapt across our path a short distance further on and as we reached the dappled shade of the mountain path a cuckoo called. It all augured well.
But a walk we know became a walk of wrong turnings, retracing footsteps and near disaster
That Sunday I thought I would have to cancel a planned trip to walk between Santander and Llanes, a mini pilgrimage along the Camino del Nortes. That Sunday, for a millisecond, I thought that I wouldn’t be around at all. Misjudging the edge of the mountain path, my walking pole found a pile leaves instead of firm ground, I fell and rolled 20 or even 30 meters into a ravine. I stopped rolling and looked around me. The tiny movement sent me rolling further down. I came to a stop a few metres above the sheer sides and tumble of rocks that made up the river bed.
I gingerly moved my head, my limbs. I wasn’t bleeding, nothing seemed broken. I shouted up to my friends on the path not to come down, to get help. I didn’t want anyone else to end up like me. With no mobile signal two of them thankfully ignored me and made their way down to me by a safer route than the one I had chosen. With their help I climbed back to the path on hands and knees. Safely on the path but not yet upright, my hands shaking too much to get water to my lips, someone observed how different it would have been if we had been in our twenties or thirties. Not because the accident was any less likely or any less terrifying but because all of my friends had pitched in to help, not one had taken out their mobile phone to film the disaster or post on social media.
We were a little subdued on the two hour walk back to the car and we never did make it to the second chapel that day. Two of our group were successful. They had taken the wrong path and got separated from the main group long before all the excitement. After their own adventure negotiating a raging river and a poorly maintained path, they had reached the chapel, a special place where the ashes of friends (and dogs) have been scattered.
It shook us all. The thoughts of what could have happened are very sobering. But we're all still here, still laughing, looking forward to the next walk. I have fading bruises, dried scratches and a very stiff neck to prove that I didn't imagine it all.
Life goes on and next week I will do as much (or as little) as I can of the 112km of the Camino del Nortes. I had planned to write as I walked. I've had a rest from writing and wanted to make the first blog following the successful launch of Hidden 2 about the camino. However, after my recent adventures, I may need all my energy to walk and all my concentration to prevent me from falling over. We'll see...
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(And whatever I've just said about having a rest from writing, there is a Hidden 3 in the pipeline)
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