Camerana to San Giuseppe del Cairo - Goodbye Piedmont, Hello Liguria

8/6 - Camerana to San Giuseppe del Cairo (next to Carcare) - 15.32 miles

The morning after my free campout on the piece of public land, I gratefully paid for the use of the public pool's showers and bathroom. Not much good that it would do me in the body odor department: after a week of hiking in humid +90 weather, my clothes were standing up on their own, and pulsating with a smell that could no longer be classified as human.

I made good time from Camerana to Cengio, the next "big" city on the trail. On the way, I got to say farewell to Piedmont, and triumphantly entered Liguria, smacking the road sign as I passed.

During the late afternoon, I felt a change in the weather. It's amazing how walking allows you to notice such things as dropping atmospheric pressure, and rain before it even appears on the horizon. When I was a few miles away from Carcare, my destination for the evening, I sensed what was coming, and incredibly thankful for the respite from the blistering heat, I sat down to my lunch in the pouring rain. The rain lasted just a few minutes longer than my lunch did, and the earth had greedily sucked up most of the water by the time I arrived at Carcare.


Carcare, a fairly large city, turned out to be completely devoid of any accommodations. Hmmm, who to ask for alternatives? There is nothing more helpful, and at the same time, entertaining, than a big group of old Italian men sitting around a town square. After availing myself of Italy's greatest source of information, I found out that the only hotel nearby was 2 miles back from where I had come. Realizing that this sounded very familiar (see Poirino post below), I was nevertheless assured that this hotel was both open and had vacancies. Apparently, I was heading for an industrial worker's hotel, a 3-star joint directly across the street from the train station at San Giuseppe del Cairo. I could even eat there pretty well, they said, and so off I went, topping off another +15-mile day in the process.

This hotel, a tiny affair in an out of the way village next to an ugly industrial park, turned out to cost more than any other hotel so far. Funny how that works out. I was left with no other choices, so I settled in, took a shower, and headed down to dinner.

The scene in the restaurant could have come from a sociology experiment. I was the first person to come down, but was soon after followed by about 20 other people, all men. Just as the old man had said, these were industrial workers, come straight from what, judging by their demeanor, must have been a hard day at the factory.

As I ate my dinner, I silently observed these men, and could not have found a more depressing scene in a Dickens novel. No laughter, and indeed, very little conversation pierced the oppressive silence that hung over these broken men. It was as if the grey, smoggy surroundings and intermittent rain had drained any color out of their souls, and I felt stifled by my joyless surroundings, relieved to finish dinner and head back to my room.

Still, nothing can pop this balloon (which, I'll allow, is full of hot air), and I awoke eager and ready for the walk. The reason? Well, keep scrolling up.