Today, we didn't follow the stages as described in our guide. We should have had a 4-hour stage, but decided to do a 7-hour stage by doing the first three hours of the next day's stage (estimated at 8 hours). Finally, our 7-hour day became an 8-hour day. Indeed, the descent along the Golu doesn't take 3 hours but really more like 4. It's not difficult, it's just a reasonable distance. I can only presume that those who wrote the guide found a "wormhole" on the trail, and we missed it. That, or just as ridiculous, they assume hikers were going to jog with their bags on their backs. In any case, I can tell you they assumed incorrectly. I didn't see anyone jogging with a 15+ kg bag on their shoulders during the whole trip, and we crossed no fold in spacetime that would explain the extra hour.
I can hear you saying from here: but maybe they were wrong about the time to descend but perhaps that means tomorrow will be a shorter day. I'm going to give you a scoop about tomorrow: no, there were indeed 5 hours of walking left.
After this long day, we were delighted to arrive at Castel de Vergio. For those who followed our adventures 8 years ago, this is where we got sick. Good news for us, it's changed quite a bit as a hotel, and the dinner was excellent. Unfortunately, there's neither Internet nor wifi in this hotel. They even have a sign announcing it at the reception.
We also realize that 3 months without rain in Corsica means a very, very dusty trail. It's in the hotels that I do our laundry and can tell you that dust really goes everywhere, and you have to scrub vigorously and rinse several times to get it out of clothes. I'm sure we'll find some in our clothes and bags next year!
Today's photo shows an altitude cow. Indeed, since the start of the trail, we've been crossing cows at over 1500m altitude. They roam freely and seem to find the GR20 a convenient trail to walk on. We learned that these cows are actually raised for their calves. How the Corsicans track their herd or find the calves in question to make cold cuts from them, I couldn't say. It seems like a very complex way to raise meat. That said, the cows seem to find it very cool.
