Heidi Meets the Go-Go Cows

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14th August - Piora

One of the best days of my trip so far.

After the cool night I got up for a cool shower and was ready to scale the summits by 8am. I had a map and I had my ukulele, a packet of biscuits, my camera, my Swiss Army Knife and my sun hat and set out feeling pretty happy because it was blue skies everywhere and everything felt right. The main thing to remember about this day is that it was all about mountains and lakes. Don't forget that. I won't. The first 3 hours or so of my walk I saw nobody else - no need for any touristicide, I was all alone and really did feel like Heidi skipping along the lakeside except I was taking endless pictures of mountains, lakes'n'larches, reflections of mountains in lakes framed by larches and indeed the odd larch reflection. Heidi wasn't into that sort of thing, she was more a hanging out with the goats type of a girl. My camera was soon straining with the weight of all this mountainry and got in a bit of a huff, but after a few nice pictures of little wild flowers it felt better about things.

The flowers were pretty - I don't know what they were called there were lots of different sorts of daisies though. I started to do David Attenborough commentary in my head making up suitable names where appropriate: Now here's a very special bird and from it's distinctive markings and call it undoubtedly can only be a four-toed double-breasted blue-shanked dove-tailed squint-eyed duck-billed skinny-winged Shriek. Sadly there are not so many of them about these days due to the destruction of their habitat - they like to live under trilby hats which are hard to come by in this day and age.

I had actually resorted to wearing my trainers for this walk. Since I'd arrived in Piora all the hikers I saw were wearing hard core hiking boots - no gender involved here, they were boots to crumble mountains with. I didn't have that sort of gear, neither did I have the ski poles, ruddy upper cheeks, grissley legs (nearly there though) or de-bra-d freely swinging breastage (it seemed many of the older female hikers felt it right to let them hang loose, which is all very well but I'm keeping mine strapped in, no roaming free in pastures green and all that). So I wore my bra and trainers and a few other bits between and they were fine thank you.

At a certain point after I'd walked up and up I found a beautiful vantage point and lovely spot to unleash my ukulele for my second video (see video section). Again it's a bit shoddy, the sun made the uke go out of tune, but I thought the song was appropriate even if I'm not a poor young country boy, there was a mountain stream and a field of grass... It's hard to sing - I kept getting the breathing all wrong (was this perhaps due to a lack of oxygen being at such an altitude?). But I'm uploading it as I type, hopefully this Hungarian computer will be better than that stupid Swiss multiplex one. I didn't like that.

I'd like to say at this point that one of my best things is my little mini back-pack, which I bought in Spain with Mme Pickles (she's inspired some excellent purchases in her time, what with the Swiss Army knife...). Anyway I feel it deserves a mention because it looks like it would be the right size for a 5 year old yet it seems to always fit everything in that i need, with still more space for the random pebbles and detritus that I seem to pick up and really don't need. It's a really good bag and sits up there with my mansandals in terms of greatness and usefullness.

At 12.30 I was getting pretty peckish having had breakfast at the crack of dawn. I'd timed it to perfection as just over some rocks (I'm letting go of that whole rocky out crop thing, it was getting a bit much) I spied an eatery - Capanna Cadagna to be precise, though in my mind I kept saying Copacobana (not sure how that's written - a bit like tunnle - TUNNLETUNNLETUNNLE! HAAAAA!) . So I ordered lunch which was a huge salad with a huge piece of cheese on top. It was pretty good and very filling for a salad, so I ordered a cup of tea to wash it down.

You can trace my route on the handy map. How cool is that! Anyway after circuiting Lago Cadagna I took an extra bit of uphill route to see Lago Di Tom because I thought that was a nice name for a lake (it translates roughly as 'Tom's Lake' for those of you lacking linguistic skills). It was an uphill struggle (but I needed to work off that fat salad) but my calves were fighting fit and I sped up and over in no time. As I reached the peak I heard what sounded like a crazed gamelan orchestra chiming out from the hills. Very quickly I ascertained that there was no gamelan, it was in fact the Go-Go Cows with their neck bells dancing along the rocky ridges. They were miles up near the top of a very steep mountain. I could hardly believe how high they were. The bells were going like crazy as they lumbered along with their tap dance routines. I do feel for them with that constant noise. If I was a Swiss Cow I would just refuse to move. They must all be deaf with that noise going on all the time. Anyway I went down to the Lake of Tom where there was a lovely cow IN the lake. Good for her. I took a leaf out of her book and dipped my toes in, it was damn cold but refreshing. I guess with hooves you wouldn't feel the cold though, but I'm glad I don't have hooves, because then I wouldn't get to wear my Mansandals.

One of the small issues I had in Switzerland was the language thing. The area I was in was Italian speaking but most of the hikers were German and French. So whenever I passed people I had to guess - sometimes saying "Bonjour-no" or "Guten-giorno". Then I noticed some people were saying "Salve" taking me back to my Latin lessons with Miss Theseby where every class began with "Salvete Omnes" "Salve Magistrar". That was the trick, just speak latin even if all I remember is 'Metella sedes in atrio'. So that seemed to go down alright.

I headed back to the hotel happy as Heidi on a good day with the goats and a camera brimfull of lake'n'larch photos, ruddy cheeks (all four) and a hunger for cheese. I sat in the still warm sunshine on the terrace with a beer and realised that it was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever been and another amazing day. For dinner I ordered a big slab of cheese - some special Piora locally made stuff - fantastic.

The best thing about walking alone is you go at your own pace. The walk I did should have taken 4.5 hours but I did it in 8 what with talking to flowers, ukulele film shoots, salad stops, cow whispering and stone gathering (there were a lot of those shiney silvery stones shimmering around the place). That's how I like to walk, stopping a lot.

I'm afraid I've failed to upload the film. Will try to upload them in a lower quality format. The quality of those films can't get much lower so I'm sure it won't diminish the experience.

Well it was lovely just reliving that day after the day I had yesterday... more on that to come.

Cx

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Photos

Mountain reflection with a hint of larch
Bob Ross would be proud of this. If it was an oil painting.

Comments

[Patsy]

Awww...
"Heidi" is my wife's name, so or course, the story "Heidi" always figured prominently, if occasionally, in our time together! I love your travelogue, Clare. I feel like I'm walking along with you, about to pick a pretty flower just before I slip and slide down a ravine, klutz that I am.

[Clarification]

Hi Patsy, you and Heidi should definitely go to Switzerland some time if you haven't been - Piora was really beautiful and it was definitely the right time of year for flowers... Cx