08/09.06.2010 Creto to somewhere on the Alta Via 20km

Bad weather has enforced the break, but no one is complaining because we had already been considering the need to take a day out. We are about to embark on 2 or maybe 3 days on the Alta Via in the wilderness. No towns, no stop-off points, just a (hopefully well-signed) path, insufficient maps and our tent. We need to stock up and be sure we have everything we need in case of bad weather, bad paths etc etc. Overnight, the mist turns to rain and everything is soaked outside. We sleep until 9.00, so we must have been even more tired than we thought. Paul elects to go into town, while I stay to look after Nellie, try to dry our kit and update the blog, so here I am, in the sunshine, the mist having cleared at last.

Accommodation – Good/PR everything a camper needs at a reasonable price – 15 euros per person, with a bar/restaurant nearby – horses accepted

09.06.2010 Creto to somewhere on the Alta Via 20kmThe good news – the wilderness is not as wild as we had expected, we have in fact gone through a couple of communities where a beer and a sandwich are available. More good news – stretches of the route are outstanding – views over Genoa and beyond where all the hyperbolic adverbs relating to cloud behaviour should be used and overused. We are walking on top of the world, in and above clouds that engulf peaks and pour into valleys, on tracks that barely break the rocky surface below. I think of the partisans and the impossibilty of finding them in landscape like this – much like Afghanistan today. The bad news is that a large proportion of the tracks run through forests and consist almost entirely of broken stone, making tiring walking for us and Nellie. Nevertheless a good route for walkers. In the evening we find a grassy space off the track and pitch our tent. It seems ideal for all of us and we sleep with clear consciences that Nellie has enough to eat.

Nellie has other ideas. I wake, as I usually do, with the thought that I should check on her, but when I look out she is not there. Paul and I search up and down the road, but initially find nothing, until I say we need to go further back the way we have come – horses instinctively retrace their steps – and sure enough we find her munching her way round a grassy picnic area that had no doubt struck a gastronomic chord when we passed by earlier. She does not object to coming back with us, but when I check her over I see that her lips and nose are drastically swollen. A hundred possible pessimistic diagnoses come to mind, but none of them seems credible. If the swelling is due to an allergic reaction, it would have spread further than her mouth and I would have expected to see some other signs – difficulty breathing etc – but Nellie is apparently unaware of the swelling and happy to go on eating, so I decide to check on her at intervals to see if there is any change and only succeed in waking when her when she was just about to lie down and go to sleep.