Treacherous!

This post is taking me awhile, partly because there were so many pictures and partly because I think we all needed to recover.  Spoiler alert:  we found the hidden beach!  This is the one we tried to find the day before.  We were also going to hike one of the more difficult paths in between two of the villages that day but some lady at the beginning of the trail (who, ahem, was not exactly in shape) told us, "Oh no, girls.  You better have good shoes on.  I mean, it's really treacherous."  So being the angels we are, we didn't mock that word AT ALL in the next few days.  

So this is the story in lots of pictures (and also my comments.)

Starting the day off, getting a hearty free breakfast at our appointed table.  Then memorizing the pictures one more time to find the hidden beach.

On the left, you will see Katie and I being "sporty."  That's about as athletic as I get.  And I even refused to wear my actual tennis shoes because I thought socks would make me too hot.  Ashley is equally athletic on the right, decked out in all pink with her hiking Toms.

 The "hiking" shoes.  We are so ready to find the secret beach!

OMG, this path is so treacherous!  I may have just yelled "treachery" at this point, which doesn't really make sense but it's fun to say.  Below are those "rocks" we were supposed to find.  We did.

Ashley and I celebrating our find, also known as looking for the "spooky tree" a la Berenstein Bears.  Anyone know what I'm talking about there?

After walking on this hidden path for a bit and making fun of how "treacherous" it was going to be, we came to an actual downhill slope where someone had left a rope tied to a tree, so you could scale down it.  I went first because if you recall, I'm in charge of finding the way.  I'm also naturally clumsy and rather ignorantly fearless (don't watch me downhill ski), so I decided I was the most likely to get hurt anyway, may as well test it out.  (I will be proven correct here in a few pictures...)

Of course we had to document everyone scaling the hill.

To be honest, the hike down and up, actually was pretty treacherous.  But this wasn't the path the other woman was referring to.  We will get to that one in a bit.  We paused every so often to catch our breath and enjoy the views.  They were amazing.

Oh, that's me getting caught in a tree with my hair.  I also warned everyone of  'prickles' and things along the way.  I'm a little slice of Murphy's law in foreign countries and active movement in general.

Ashley demonstrating the "treachery."  These make me lolz (el oh el if you will) every time I look at them.

This is Ash and I pretending to be lesbians but also actually holding hands so that we don't slide down the cliff...

The marked plants that kept reassuring us all the way down the cliff...who brings a Sharpie with them when they're hiking??

Demonstrating our excitement for officially reaching the Guvano beach sign!  We are looking super good by this point...

More treachery to come though...but at least you can see the water!

That's what we were shooting for...to the right of those trees!

Remember that creepy tunnel that we didn't want to go through?  Well, we didn't, but to our delight, there was ANOTHER creepy abandoned tunnel to walk through anyway.  Thankfully, we saw a man on the way down there because the beach was literally 20 feet below us and we had no idea how to get down. He showed us the way. Oh duh, girls!  It's through a creepy tunnel!

After that, there were some stone steps and then we made it!

At this point, the documentation stops of the actual beach because in true European fashion, not everyone wears their clothes.  Even though we do, it feel incredibly creepy to whip out your camera.  But trust us, we found it.  And enjoyed it.  But then it started to rain and we also had the hike back up the cliff in front of us, plus another 90 minutes on the path to get to the next village.  So we opted for cloudy weather while we hiked.

The picture below is to show you what we actually climbed down and back up.  Kill. Me. Now.  And then had another "treacherous" 90 minute hike in front of us.  (It really wasn't, minus the stairs on your knees.)  Ashley kept quoting 30 Rock the whole way back up in between "treacherous".  "What goes up must come down, Lemon!"

Ah, pause for the picture below.  You can't see anything but it's a representation of what happened.  Yes, friends, I almost fell down the cliff on the way back up.  I now have a bum knee with a super awesome pus-filled scrape and some other scratches as well.  And quite a lot of bruises. OF COURSE I'm the one that almost fell down the cliff.  There was some loose gravel and the ground just gave way and down I went, frantically grabbing for trees.  I found some and realistically only slid down about 3 feet.  The positives of this are:  

1.I didn't hurt my ankle, making me incapacitated to walk.  (Considering I made myself out of commission by for 3 months by spraining it just via walking, this is quite the achievement.)

 2.We had water to wash off the scrapes.  

3. There were bushes and small trees to catch me.

 4. I didn't even swear as I was falling. (Not that I really care, but hey, positive!)

5.  We actually were almost back to the top, so I didn't have to do too much scaling of cliffs after that.

6. I didn't pee my pants in the process.  Again, achievement, as I was fairly freaked out.  

This is me above demonstrating the boo-boos.  My friends were actually too concerned to take in-action shots at the time so we documented it later.  I apologize for the  boob shot but my shirt got bigger and bigger as the day wore on, from major swack (sweaty back here, not sweaty crack).

Katie, being annoyed at the sign for Corniglia...the place we had just come from.  

Annnnd.  we're back in the village.  And all along the 90 minute hike after we climbed up the cliff, we kept saying to each other as people passed us, acting like the path was so hard, "You don't even KNOW what treacherous IS, people!  We'll show you treachery!"

Oh, and this pic is for Lindsey.  Thank you, gato, for dining with us.

And finally, celebrating with sitting down, diet Coke and each of our own pizzas.  We were starving and to be perfectly honest, the idea of all of these things was probably what kept us going throughout the rest of the hike.  You know, just call me sporty.  

We then sat around the rest of the evening because we were all so exhausted.  And because Ashley and Katie both have colds and I now have bruises and pus-oozing scrapes.  And Ashley has started calling me peg leg because I can't walk up the stairs normally.  So. Rude.