friday, 15.06.2012

There they are, my guests. Not that I had planned to take pictures of all my guests and put them in the blog, but seeing they were my ONLY guests in the week I have been here, I think they deserve to be published. Stefano, Elena and Alicia. They seem quite happy, I think they enjoyed the stay. 

Here you can see what I spent hours doing yesterday and today. I feel immensely satisfied just looking at it. It suits my sense of order and tidiness. Even though, I suppose, it may not meet the standards of the experienced Soveltra team. It was rewarding working physically, although I noticed that I am definitely not fit, but still I had a quite intense feeling of happiness when I ate outside tonight (spaghetti with tomato, olive and caper sauce), looking at Campo Tencia, just being in this wonderful, peaceful place and, of course, admiring the lovely piles of wood.

I actually walked about 30 metres today. I went to the bridge that leads over the river “Ri della Löita”, which is a lovely, but freezing place to bathe in: 

I did just that three years ago, it was painful at the beginning, but wonderful in the end. But then again, it was August and we had walked in the heat. And we were in that mood, that incredibly happy mood that makes almost everything possible.

IMPORTANT INTERRUPTION: England should have started playing now. I have no idea against who, but my dear friend Bernd in Germany will keep me up-to-date by SMS as she did with the disappointing match against France (1:1). Ta, Bernd.

Well, you have to cross the bridge if you, amongst other things, want to go up to Campo Tencia peak, which is a long, but incredibly beautiful ascent. I did it three years ago with my ex-boyfriend. We went up to the peak and over to Campo Tencia hut, which is a great trek, but it takes long, I think we took about eight hours. It is marked in white-blue, which are the colours for “alpine route”, meaning more difficult route, because it takes long, you need to do a lot of climbing, a little bit of scrambling and crossing of snow fields, or glaciers.

And this is the new bridge over the small stream of water outside the back side of the hut. The round wooden sign reads: “A new bridge for a new president”. Which is a joke. Because Arturo has been president of the SAV alpine club for,  I think, 16 years or so, and actually wanted to hand the baton over to somebody else. But, apparently, nobody was willing and he was re-elected. So, he has now been declared the “new president” that was sought. And he didn’t approve of the old bridge, which was not in a very good state. If you look closely you can see the corks from the bottles that were emptied to inaugurate the new bridge.

I am really settling in here. It is starting to feel like home. Very, very slowly, I am starting to leave everything behind. It will still take some time, but I am relaxing. No more tensions in the upper back, my sleep is starting to regulate itself, I am adjusting to this new rhythm and feel. Clean air, absolute silence. And I love the sight, every morning, of Campo Tencia, never mind the weather.

Every time anew that I look up there I can hardly believe the amount of water that flows down from the mountains in Ticino. It is incredible. No other place I have been to in the mountains so far has had this much water. I remember regions with quite a lot of water and others with none at all, like Slovenia, or Corsica, where you were lucky to maybe find a described source every week or so. Sad thought to know that one day there will be no more water coming down from these beautiful mountains. The glaciers are melting, global warming and so on. So, please, dear readers, try to do what you can to protect the environment.

21:30: GOAL! England leading against IKEA! ENGLAND, ENGLAND!! Football’s coming home…

By the way, no matter who comes by or not, I ALWAYS have one guest – the mouse. It’s a ritual, I’d say, by now. I set the trap in the evening under the oven with the chocolate and in the morning, the mouse is in the trap. It is sweet, but it’s a mouse. Every day I take it further away, but until now it has always returned. 

Thursday, 14.06.2012

Giovedì 14.6.2012

I was up early, woke up at eight and got to work, cleaned a bit again, prepared “afters” (chocolate pudding with coconut and pears, later cream, cherries and grated chocolate on top), baked an apple cake a la Fiona (which was very much approved of), showered and then spoke to Arturo, which was difficult because the phone just kept going dead. He had called “Orange” and learned that they were having a major problem with the network and were working night and day to repair things. It took various phone calls to give him the list of groceries, which I had put together last night. Then I went outside to take care of the wood that had remained after work on the new table and bench the past weekend. Arturo had already started to pile it on a stone for it to dry. And I continued for some time in beautiful weather (now 30° in the sun).

At about three in the afternoon my guests arrived. They were young social workers and were all “oh” and “ah” about the place. They devoured a big piece of the cake and chilled. I was continuously busy with the stove in the kitchen, which heats the entire hut, the guardiano’s room, but also the main room, very good heating system. But it is tricky, I am not used to it yet and it needs a lot of attention otherwise it just goes out. I was preparing “cena”, which is Italian for dinner (in the evening), when my Italian friend Maurizio called. We plan to meet in two weeks to go walking together in Engadine for two weeks. While my guests were giggling away I found myself looking forward to piling wood again the next day.

The fact that you are able to read all this is owed to Arturo’s son Vincenzo – thank you ever so much Vincenzo! – who was given the USB with my texts and photos and put it all online, in phases, because the poor boy is still studying for his exams that are ongoing. I remember those times and am VERY happy they are over. Apparently, the phone is working better again. My guests went to bed at nine, incredible, but true.

Wednesday, 13.06.2012

Mercoledì 13.6.2012

Time flew today. I spent the early part of the morning trying to find a solution to the phone not working. Then visitors! Up came Claudio, his wife Giovanna and Arturo’s wife Emanuela. Arturo had sent them up to see if everything was all right, seeing he had tried to call various times and found the phone dead. Ironically, about an hour before they arrived the phone showed signs of life again. And I had already talked to Arturo. Something is happening with the coverage and nobody has an idea what the reason could be.

Before they came I tried something. I remembered somebody telling me some years ago that there was a spot outside the hut just where the huge stone with the Swiss flag is where Swisscom worked once in a while if lucky. So I tried it. I wrote an SMS to Arturo and waited for the small lines at the top right of the phone to appear (fingers turning almost to ice at 15°), telling me that I was connected. And it worked, at least shortly and long enough to send off the SMS. Only about half an hour after I went back inside, I looked at the hut’s phone and saw that is was working again. And that was not all. My phone (HTC), which was next to the hut’s phone on the small wooden shelf, all of a sudden went “beep” and I received an SMS from my friend Ute, written two days ago. Things are all topsy-turvy, the phone that was supposed to work didn’t any more, and my phone, that wasn’t supposed to, was. At least well enough to send SMS.

My visitors were glad to see I was fine and after we had chatted a while, I prepared lunch for them (minestrone, polenta with cheese in the oven and lentils) while Claudio split lots of large chunks of wood so it would be easier for me to use and the women were hunched over the hut phone and theirs too trying out if they worked or not. And coverage was poor. Sometimes it worked, then it didn’t. And now, dear readers, it is back to yesterday’s status quo: my visitors have left and the phone has stopped functioning again. It is “malfunctioning” as to quote Wallace’s fiancée in “A Close Shave”, what was her name? Gwendoline? Only this time it is not the Cyber Dog that is out of control, but the hut’s phone. And I wanted to talk to Arturo and give him my list of groceries and stuff for next week, my original week as “guardiana”. Everything will be flown up in the helicopter on Saturday.

The weather has stabilised, the forecast is good and the washing I hung up two days ago is finally try. And this is tonight’s view in the other direction, towards Barone hut, and the path I plan to take in about ten days, if all goes well with my foot (and weather and so on).

This is more like a diary than a blog, isn’t it? I reckon most of you have grown bored and stopped reading. Errr, looking for something exciting to write… oh, yes, I saw a “…” today, I have no idea what it was exactly (German: Hermelin?), it was tiny, long and brown and had a white belly and came right up to the door. Seems to know its way around the place. And, sadly to say, the baby birds have left without saying good-bye. Chirp.

I have reservations for tomorrow! Three persons are coming to sleep and eat. Hurray! I will bake a cake in the morning to celebrate! It was a nice change to have people around today and I am looking forward to doing some taking-care of more people tomorrow. Claudio, Giovanna and Emanuela left at about half four, I cleaned up a bit, found other things to do and here I am again sitting at the fire:

and drinking red whine while the Bavona choir is singing for me again. Not much else to listen to, but I am becoming quite fond of the music.

After I made breakfast for my guests I washed and tidied up and then decided to go back to bed again. I didn’t really sleep, but rested and it felt good. I didn’t see Michele anymore, who had returned from fishing and left a note, not wanting to disturb me. I got up again at nine and cleaned the bathrooms and shower and made a big pot of minestrone in case somebody came by for lunch and wanted something to eat. The weather was very good even though the forecast had predicted rain sometime during the day. And finally around noon someone came by to eat my minestrone. A women and her dog stopped for a break. The dog reminded me very much of Sheba, especially its face, look Uschi:

I had a shower, washed my hair and decided to go for a short walk and test my wonderful GPS in my wonderful HTC smartphone. The wild rhododendron is blooming and looks so nice:

I followed a trace I didn’t know and switched the GPS on. It is absolutely brilliant and I can hardly believe how well it works! I do not have to do anything but switch Twonav on and it immediately shows me the right map and the position I am in (of course that I have the digital maps at all is all owed to Karl in Basel. He has the maps and calibrated them in a way that I could load them on to my HTC. I can not thank him enough!). The small blue triangle indicates my exact position and moves when I move. In this case it would have actually helped me because the path is an official alternative path up to Campo Tencia peak but not marked and, without the GPS, I wouldn’t have known where to cross the river. I feel relieved, feel a little more secure if I get lost, of course the GPS is only an emergency help and if the phone is not charged of no help whatsoever.

I met the sheppard Michele on my way back to Soveltra. We had met shortly last year in September and he stopped to exchange a few words about his sheep and my GPS. Walking back I noticed that the big rock I had passed by earlier was actually a climbing rock, not at all high, but there are carabiners at the top proving that you can climb there. So, dear Ututu, if and when you come here next time, remember to bring your climbing equipment and we’ll have a try. It is VERY difficult to see in the photo, but if you look very closely and use your imagination you can almost identify them:

Just being here and often not having anything to do I take in all the little things, some of them are so obviously beautiful. Like all the butterflies flying around the place all day. So many of them. They love to sit on the walls, and, strangely enough, right on my door step. There is always at least one of them there.

A big part of the day I spend rescuing all kind of insects. Bumblebees, beetles, bees, etc. that have come in and landed in the sink or behind windows they can’t open. Other people may not care or even squash them, but I couldn’t. I’d even rescue a spider if I had the courage. My mouse hasn’t returned by the way and somehow I almost miss it…

My guests arrived at about five, Willi and Therese from Greifenwald near Zurich. We immediately started talking about walking and the paths in the region. A very nice couple over 60 and top fit. They go to the mountains a lot and have been to Soveltra before. Willi will return again in two weeks time with a group of 15 men. He plans to lead them up to “L’Uomo”, a peak at 2484m you can reach on a crest from Passo Fornale, which is on the path from Soveltra leading towards Fusio. He came to test an alternative route. He and his wife Therese had walked to Soveltra from Bignasco instead of, what most people do, from Prato Sornico. Bignasco, which has a station, will be the group’s starting point and seeing there are only a few buses running between Bignasco and only at rather inconvenient times, they will walk from there, which takes at least two hours longer.

We ate together and it was actually the first time I have really sat down in the evening and had a “proper” three-course dinner since the working lot left ten days ago or so. They were telling me about their holiday home here in the valley when the thunder storm came and we hurried outside to take the sun veils down. That is quite awkward and I was glad I had help. We made it just in time before it started to rain. There was a lot of lightning and thunder but not very much rain and the storm was over quickly, too quickly for me, because I love thunder storms, especially in the mountains when I am safely in and not outside, as for example in the “Südabstieg” of the Watzmann, the long ugly descent from that otherwise immensely beautiful mountain, in a panicky frenzy, which happened to my then friend Thomas and me some years ago. Not good.

My first guest arrived early in the morning before ten, but was only passing through on a longer walk and was to come back later. For lunch two men and a boy arrived, ate minestrone, pasta with freshly made pesto and then had my special apricot cake. My next guests were Gertrud, which is a regular guardiana at Soveltra, with her husband Ulrich and their friend Ursula. They had what is here called a “piatto Ticinese”, a cold platter of salami and cheese, accompanied by the mild and very tasty “Bucaneve” white wine. A trio of Italians also made a visit, having coffee and admiring the spot. When they left I sat with Gertrud, Ulrich and Ursula for a long time and had a really nice chat. I found out that they were here in Monte Predee (a stop on the path up to Soveltra from Prato Sornico) for the summer, but live in Basle and Ursula actually grew up the same street in which Roberta lives. And Ulrich is a retired German doctor who once lived in Gießen, where my sister studied medicine. Coincidences.

We talked about my plans and experiences so far and about the region, its dialects, history and legends. Ulrich told me about local writers that are keeping up the tradition of using dialect and writing about the nature spirits, which have always played an important role in the valleys here. He specially named the author Tim Kron and his books “Quatemberkinder” and “Vrenelis Gärtli” as well as “Nicht Anfang und nicht Ende” by Plinio Martin, which I have read about in the guide I have for this part of Ticino. This could be of interest for readers of German at least.

I also learned that the valleys of Ticino were not always as deserted as they are today. In the 19^th century there was an overpopulation and many families had to leave everything behind and emigrate to northern Italy, later to countries like the USA and Australia. My guests were really nice and I learned new things about Ticino. Maybe they will return again while I’m here, even though I’m not sure if it’s because of me they want to come back, really, or just of the cake…

I was preparing dinner and was about to start the fire when my lodgers for the night arrived. They had the first day of the “Via Alta” behind them and were sighing under their heavy backpacks. They weren’t that nice, one of the two especially was really grumpy, never said thanks or anything of the kind and I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t seem to appreciate the elaborate dinner I made for them. Which consisted of champignons in creamy gorgonzola sauce and fried rice cakes for antipasto, freshly made Lasagne and salad and then a tris of desert of chocolate pudding, warm filled pear and the remains of the raspberry delight of the day before.

Shortly before they ate, another guest arrived, who again is not really a guest, but a local, who came up to spend the night and go fishing late in the evening and very early in the morning. Michele is also a regular Soveltra guardiano and lives in Pian di Peccia. I fed him when he came back from fishing and sat with him after the others had gone to bed. We chatted until quite late, I think it was twelve. And I had to get up at six, because the “Alta Via” twosome wanted to leave early.

I went to bed in a triumphant mood because England won. I was on my way to my room when the final SMS from Bernd arrived informing me that The Three Lions had actually won 3:2 against the Swedes. And I slept well, but woke up very early. So, I went down to prepare things for the helicopter that was scheduled to come at 10:40. The mouse was not there. Maybe this time I took it far away enough, or it drowned because it fell off the bridge and into the river trying to get back to the house, or it’s simply sulking…

Claudio arrived shortly after nine to help with the heavy things that needed to be packed into special big sacks for the helicopter to take away. All the rubbish and bottles and the empty gas containers. We had just finished when the helicopter arrived, earlier that planned. I was close to the fountain outside and got showered completely because the wind the helicopter made was blown directly in my direction. Within seconds it had delivered new gas and all the food and stuff I had ordered and taken away the other things.

We spent about an hour unloading the sack and putting everything away. Then Arturo and Emanuela arrived and I started to prepare lunch when there was a sort of explosion that startled us all. It took us a while to realise what it was, Arturo then noticed that the wheel of the wheel barrel had burst. Must have been too much for the wheel barrel, wheeling all that wood around the past two days.

I had all this lovely new provisions and some leftovers, so I decided to serve my friends and again only guests today (I am not counting the two walkers that pasted through and only had a coffee) to a treat and made zucchini in the oven filled with the rest of last night’s pasta sauce, fried zucchini and feta as entrée, served with love by the guardiana:

 then risotto with green asparagus and the rest of the polenta in the oven with cheese and lentils and salad (I know, polenta again, but at least Claudio loves it):

For afters there was raspberry cream “a la Berlin”:

The men fell asleep after lunch, maybe it was all the food, or the sun, or the wine, or the combination of the three. Emanuela basked in the sun and I washed up. Then everyone started doing some work for the hut as usual. This, for instance, is Claudio hammering corrugated tin into the huge slices of wood that remained from the tree that was felled for the new table, preventing it from splitting. They are used as “platters” to serve antipasti or cakes or so in a nice way.

I did some hammering too, but I didn’t like the picture, so I’m not showing you. At six o’clock the three left after they ate the last pieces of cake. And I was on my own again. Nothing to do but make fire again, which I love doing, write for the blog and admire the view. I have two guests tomorrow night, who are walking the “Via Alta della Vallemaggia”, a trek that starts at Alpe Cardara near Locarno and ends in Fusio, or the other way round, and takes five days, passing the huts Alp Masnèe, Alp Slpuga, Tomeo and Soveltra. None of the huts besides Soveltra has a guardiano, meaning you have to take your own food with you. I think I will have to do that trek too one day, there are beautiful pictures and descriptions of the huts and the white-blue-marked path across crests reaching heights of 2500m in the book that was written by Luigi Pedrazzini and published by EdizioniA2 only last year.

Considering the weather is so good, there might be people coming up to eat tomorrow during the day. I will bake another cake in the morning, this time with fresh apricots that arrived by air today.

Tuesday, 12.06.2012

Martedi 12.6.2012

It rained all night and most of the day, only in the afternoon it stopped, but it was quite cool, 15° in the afternoon and look at all that snow on Campo Tencia. Without any sun it just stays there.

Normally, if I hadn’t hurt myself, today I would have planned to go from Capanna Piansecco to Capanna Cristallina, which is at 2575m. I have been there before and know the way. But even if the weather hadn’t been as bad as it has been the past days, it would have been most improbable to go up there for me. I discussed it with Arturo when I was still on the ViaGottardo and he had talked to the landlord of the Cristallina hut. The only option he offered was to start at five in the morning and arrive at ten, because after that the snow becomes soft and impossible to walk on even with crampons. I had already decided to change plans when I tripped and hurt my foot. But now I realise I couldn’t have done it and maybe I will have to change plans again, when I leave here in ten days or so.

I slept rather restlessly, had strange dreams about flying in the helicopter but rather than being safely on the inside I had to hang on outside and was always worried to fall off. Then I woke up very early with the dawn because something was going for a walk on the roof, or in the roof, in any case just above me. That proves that I may be the only human being around, but not the only thing alive. I had another three encounters with the animal world today. First a marmot, a big fat one, came right up to the house and peeped in. Of course, when I went out to try to take a photo, it ran away. Then, when I went outside to get some wood, the bin in which the squashed tins go squeaked and wobbled. I didn’t dare look inside, too afraid that whatever it was it might jump out right in that moment and give me a heart attack. I will not linger on the mouse that tried to get back in and under the oven, but on one of the two major problems I faced today. First, the SPIDER. I share my bathroom with it, and it has been there in the shower tub since yesterday. I didn’t mention it yet, because I’m quite embarrassed to admit that I didn’t have a shower because of it. I tried to make it go down the drain with some water, but it always came back again (water resistant spider?) and just insisted of occupying the tub. In the late afternoon I gathered all my courage, got a glass and a piece of cardboard and actually succeeded in capturing the hairy beast and throwing it outside without a panic attack or any complications. I haven’t looked in the tub yet, though.

This is my main working place, the kitchen. And the site of the second major problem. I had been cleaning all morning and as I emptied the bucket to get fresh water for about the hundredth time, all of a sudden the kitchen was flooded. Completely flooded. Somehow the drain pipe had come loose and within seconds I was in ankle-deep water. My first impulse, besides mopping it up, was to call Claudio, who lives down in Prato Sornico and is the soul of the hut, but I couldn’t, the phone wasn’t working. I have no idea what happened, but there is no connection. No “campo” or “rete” as the Italians would say. So I got on my hands and knees and tried to figure out what the problem was, and I managed to mend it, put the pipe back together again, but I’m not too sure that I am on the safe side yet. And I am a little nervous about the telephone. I have been completely cut off from the world all day and still am. And I have absolutely NO idea what the problem is. When I went to bed it was working. As far as I am concerned it always works. I suppose Arturo has tried to call several times already (he usually calls once a day to see if everything is ok), he may be worried too. Well, sooner or later someone will show up, guests, maybe, or one of the team to see if I am still alive.

I cleaned the whole hut today, for hours I swept, mopped, dusted and tidied the toilets, shower, dorms and the most important room, where the open fire is, where food is served and where I spend my evenings if the weather isn’t fine. I also tried my best to clean away the mess around the wonderful new table outside, which is hard work, especially in the grass. And then I started to take stock of the groceries in the warehouse. There were lots of vegetables that had to be put to some use, otherwise they would go bad and considering there are no guests in sight, I made a huge pot of Minestrone and cooked and put in the freezer other vegetables. It is always good to have a pot of Minestrone on the stove when somebody comes by. And if they don’t in the next two days that will go into the freezer as well.

It is not raining for a change, the sky has cleared, it is painted in a pale blue with pink streaks. Why isn’t the phone working? I’ve had a plate of pasta and am sitting next to the fire again as usual. It will not be long before I go up to my “guardiana’s room”, inspect the shower for spiders and go to bed. I should of taken the kindle with me after all, but who would of expected that I would hurt my foot? I can walk almost normally again now and I have no more pain, but I am very careful with my movements and try not to take any risks.

This is where I sleep: