As I
mentioned in my previous post, Mike and I decided to stay an extra night since
we were so in love with the beauty and nature of Cinque Terre. We woke up, ate breakfast, and made
our way to find outdoor adventure. We took the train to the 5th and
furthest village from ours. (We were staying in the first village) We planned
to swim and then hike our way home as we had the day before this time in the
opposite direction. Walking around we came across a kayaking rental station. We
rented a two-person kayak and set forth toward these huge rocks out in the
middle of the sea about quarter of a mile out from the beach. We were talking
to some locals and found out that if we kayaked out to the rocks, there was a
place we could go cliff jumping. Mike being a height junky, and me always being
up for adventure were stoked to do some climbing and jumping! We took the
camera and started making our way to the rocks and cliffs.
The Mediterranean is BEAUTIFUL!
The sea is a deep emerald blue, and could see the sandy bottom as we paddled
through the water. We finally made it out to the rocks and scoped out the
scene. It was definitely deep. We couldn’t see the sea floor anymore, and we
poked our kayak paddles into the water to see if they would touch the floor. We
were in the clear. Mike climbed onto the rocks and I paddled the kayak out
further away so that I could record the whole thing. The cliff was about 2 to
2.5 stories high. He made the jump in pencil drop form and we cheered when he
reached the surface after the deep plunge.
It was now my turn and I began
to scale the cliff. I have to admit this is one if the most adventurous things
I have ever done. Mike got the whole thing on camera. I took my time climbing
as it was really high, and I was much too nervous to climb quickly. Also, doing
this bare foot in a swimsuit, I had to be extra carful not to scrap myself on
the sharp rocks. When I reached the top I couldn’t believe how high it was. I
almost chickened out but the climb down seemed way scarier. I choose to only
look at the rocks before I jumped. With a count to three I ran and leaped off
the cliff! I leapt as far off the edge as I could, and remember looking far out
into the distance. With a massive distance between the water and me I finally
just shut my eyes and squealed the whole way down. I remember thinking that it
was a long drop and wondered how long would it take before I hit the water. My
feet broke through the water and I swam up to the surface. Wohoo! I was on an
adrenaline rush and Mike and I cheered again! He was so proud that I did the
jump! He also got the whole thing on camera and I even gave a shout out to Mom.
It was amazing. We then explored around a bit more and then made our way back
to the main shore. Epic adventure of the trip so far hands down!
When we got to the shore we hid
our things between a large stacks of kayaks. There was no one around to see us
and our things were really hard to get to. I tied our hiking shoes to my bag
and dropped them in. We went for a great swim and laid out on some rocks out in
the bay. When we returned we were laughing and goofing around. We reached in
for the bags and the laughter suddenly stopped. Mikes bag was gone along with
all of his money, his passport and my camera. At that moment everything became
very serious, and we combed the beach looking for his bag. I think he was
desperately hoping that the person would be sun bathing on the beach and he
would get his stuff back. Finally we had to go to the police. He had to file a
claim and then go the American consulate to get a new passport. Here is where
things began to get stressful though. The nearest American consulate was in a
town that was 5 hours away and it closed everyday at noon. His flight back to
California was in about 36 hours in the same city. We looked up train times and
decided to take the 4am train into Milan, we would get in at 9am and pray to
get him in on time to get a new passport before his flight. We found a café
with WiFi and as he canceled his cards and sorted out directions I decided to
plan where to go next. It was while watching him desperately plan what to do
when I decided to make the journey with him. I looked up flights in Milan, and
found a cheap flight to Barcelona. “Mike.. Im coming with you! Let’s make this
adventure of getting you home!” The look of relief on his face made it all
worth wild. So we raised a toast over orange juice, and decided to make our way
on the 4am train to Milan the following morning.
To be continued.
xx
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