Still in Cinque Terre

I heard that this happens often, people come to Cinque Terre for 2 days and stay for 6. I arrived last Thursday in Monterosso, the last village of the 5. I had a 1 bedroom mini cot with sink to myself for 25 euros..I didnt want my own room but apparently there were no hostels. The plan was to hike all 5 villages by way of the National Cinque Terre park, a hike that I could post an entire new entry about. My friend Shara from Vancouver was staying in a town called Asti and she drove out about 2.5 hours to meet me in Monterrosso. We spent about 5 hours hiking from village to village until the last oe RioMaggiore. It is one of the coolest hikes you could possibly do, trekking through the most incredible scenery, you feel like an Indigenous Italian delivering his Roma tomatoes to the next town. It takes you up cliffs with breathtaking views which make you stop and take a million pictures. The trail in some parts is so narrow you have to wait the q of people just to get around them. It wasent easy but well worth it. My newest pet peeve are the 80 year old German tourists with their stupid ski poles. They really outta put that shit away or not hike the trial at all, someone just might lose an eye. In any case Ive never seen so many 80 year olds challenge themselves in such a strenuous activity. You certainly dont see them on the grouse grind and this was physically harder and farther to travel. I digress. We ended up in Riomaggiore and found Bar Centrale, named accordingly, where we ended up making a host of new friends there. Several beers later we didnt make the train home and crashed at Simon, the aussie Bloke who introduced us to everyone. This is were it gets interesting. Ive been here for the past 6 days and people pretty much know me through my connections. Ive been staying in Riomaggiore for the past 3 days now in a hostel I share with Oliver, whoose bed is next to mine. Oliver is the resident croatian Painter, and is here for 2 months. He paints the coolest oil paintings of the towns here and sells them on street. Lisa a fellow North Vancouveran in the room next to us, Aaron from toronto, Jo from London Ontario, and Stacey from toronto as well. We have a communal kitchen and have been hanging out and cooking. In addition, through Simon I have met Kelly from west Vancouver and Priscilla from Texas. Both Kelly and Priscilla are dating 2 Italian guys in Riomaggiore and since we all meet up at Bar Centrale in the evening where everyone goes, the Italians get rather jealous of us for some weird reason. Its so small that apprently there is drama which I actually find quite amusing, but it keeps it interesting. Im actually on their goodside now as I was discussing with Yuri, Kellys Italian guy, the whole Yuri Gagarin Russian Astronaut deal in the 80s in resemblance to his name, which in his broken, 'ah yes Gagarin, Yuri like my name'. so entertaining, it was a laugh. In any case Cinque Terre is amazing, yet unfortuantly is becoming more of a tourist hotbed since Rick Steeves has been promoting it. The beach is nice, yet rocky in Rio, water is this amazing backlit blue, hiking trails for any type of outdoor enthusiast and 5 different villages built on rock that are quaint and picturesque. The locals are nice and will talk to you and its easy to meet people. This has to be my last day here as I must move on, but lest to say Ive enjoyed my time in Cinque Terre more than Florence or even Naples. Im sold on going to Como next, think i'll bang on Clooneys door for a bedshare.

dtm