The Grande Rota (GR) 45: Highlights And Insights.

Put simply, GRs are a massive network of long-distance hiking trails in Europe, like the USA has the National Trail System, with its famous Pacific Crest Trail and Appalachian Trail, and Scotland has the Great Trails. They are in existence to connect stunning scenery often against a historical background.

My self-imposed task was to cover as much distance on the Grande Rota 45 as possible in forty-eight hours, alone and self-sufficient.

Other than soaking up breathtaking views and an occasional ray of sunlight, my hours on the trail consisted mainly of scaling the rocky paths and relishing tributaries on steroids and rain. Various parts of the route were subject to wear and tear in both surface and signage. As a result, there were some time-consuming moments to keep on track.

The plan

Guillermo and Javier, two top blokes from my town were willing to take me up north by car. The main plan was to start somewhere around noon in Vila Nova de Foz Côa and take two days to get to Foios over the trials. This is against the flow of the river Côa, so back up towards its ‘nascimento’ or origin. Over the total duration, I wanted to go more up than down, because downhill has a greater negative effect on my knees and ankles. In hindsight, it probably wouldn’t have made a great difference, due to the speed I could produce. It likely would have stopped a good trail flow in earlier stages, as now, coming from the North, the crossings became more problematic towards the end.

I eventually laced-up at the start at 13:00.

Only a few days before departure to Foz Côa, I figured out my return leg from wherever I’d come off the trail: I’d have to get to Sabugal to catch the 18:00 bus. This place turned out to be right on the GR45, so with that, all the puzzle pieces seemed to fall into place. Not only did it provide me sufficient time (forty-eight hours plus some) to get to seat number ten, it also meant I had the option to come off the trials earlier without much detouring.

Citadelhe

During the first hours I had passed a couple of settlements, but the first time I felt in need of something was in Citadelhe. Before I reached the place, the rain had gone through all the layers of my clothing and the temperature had dropped, while dusk fell rapidly. I didn’t understand the directions my newly acquired watch showed me, and it felt like it kept sending me back and forth. By the time darkness had taken over, I’d lost the trail. “Are you fucking kidding me?”, I kept repeating to myself, half in disbelief and half in grump. ”The first hour of darkness and you lose the trail?” For a minute, doubt ruled my mind, but this was immediately kicked in the face by my military training and trail experience. “Back to the last known point”, my brain formulated. “GO!”. With double the speed I ran back to where I last saw the white and red stripes that indicated the trail.

Before this is actioned, there’s always a little one-on-one with the ego, because you become very aware of the time that is lost doing so. It sucks to apply this golden rule but you have to put your ego aside if you want to be successful. This is similar in life, albeit with a slightly different technique. When we’ve lost our direction in life, we don’t have to run to the ‘last known place’. All we need to do is slow down and have the benchmark, which reminds us where we’re heading, catch up with us. Sounds easy, but is less so, because it feels like a step back.

I’ve been struggling to apply this in a repeated manner for the last decade of my (daily) life, and only when I am in hard physical circumstances it seems to take more effect naturally. It looks like I’ve forgotten the cognitive process for some reason, and often I keep rushing around in the circumstance for too long, in the hope that the direction becomes clear again. 

Citadelhe felt like a ghost town. It was only around 20:00 in the evening, but it didn’t seem to have any inhabitants. Not a single window showed me the glow of some light behind it, indicating there could be some folks watching ‘telly’ or something. The hope to find a café or something like that, disappeared with the rain in the drain. For over half an hour I strolled through the streets, looking for that one soul that would prove this place wasn’t just a mock-up town. I was mentally gearing up to get a move-on, when a door opened and a female face promised me there was a café.  Not sure if open though…

Inside, the surprise hung around for five minutes, while I ordered a coffee and started unpacking. Six men and a lady, the wife of the owner I assumed, observed the man dressed in shorts, while outside the wind howled and horizontal driving rain tested the putty of the windows. Soon after, I was part of the furniture and an hour later I walked out with two shots of coffee, two shots of a different kind and food in my belly. No wallet drawn.

The transition from the cozy community space, where the owner had placed a gas heater behind me to going outside was mental. I’d rather spend the remainder of the evening there, but I had a mission. The rain had changed to a drizzle. The locals followed my every step, getting ready. With my man-the-fuck-up-cape I flew straight back to where I’d left the trail. After a kilometer I had adapted to the night and found my rhythm again. One hundred and sixty more kilometers to go.

Acceptance

I left the town at close to ten and was ready for the night ahead of me. Both mentally and physically I was in a good place. The rural tracks lead me to Azevo, where at some point I realized that I hadn’t seen any markings for a long time. I didn’t give it a second thought, because according to my watch I was spot on. The trail led me onto a road and at that point the arrow on my watch started to deviate from the line that indicated the pre-loaded direction of the GR45. This was a trigger to double check on my printed 1:50.000 maps, as my phone didn’t have reception. It didn’t show any roads. I was heading in the wrong direction and decided to put the arrow on my watch towards the route line and walk till they’d meet again. Not long after, I saw the first white and red since forever. Relieved and pleased with my great new tool I marched on. Just after one in the night, I hit a familiar point. The signpost read ‘Citadelhe, 1.2 km’.

The past three hours I’d walked a circle and with seeing this signpost it became clear I’d followed the GR22. Ninety minutes later I was back in Azevo at the point where I should have gone differently.

At the signpost, close to Citadelhe, I sent a half-emotional voice message to Laura to inform her on the mistake and after that accepted what was. Circumstances wouldn’t change. It was up to me to choose the right response and create my further reality. I had a long way to go still, and about six hours to the dawn of the second day.

Too wide, too wild

After a handful of water crossings throughout day two, ranging from three to six meters in width, with water rushing like it had to be somewhere, I stepped in the Côa at Praia Fluvial de Vale de Madeira. Two steps in, the water had already reached the private terrain of Ballsend. While my foot searched for the bottom, the big stick I had found slipped out of my hand by the force of the stream. Within seconds it was out of sight. I looked across the hundred and twenty meters of angry H2O. Nope…! Both my ego and I agreed this wasn’t going to happen. I pulled myself out of the water, started looking for an alternative route, and took the decision to take the road back up to Vale de Madeira and then loop around over the N324 to Vale Verde.

Although still positive, the all-nighter started to take its toll. The monotonous road was a drag. Coffee crossed my mind every twenty second. Thirteen kilometers further, I walked into the hamlet expectedly without cafés. Someone pointed me in the direction of a brew: “Five hundred meter that way.” My experience with ‘civilian meters’ is crooked. To temper my excitement, I focused on the mantra: “I will have coffee in the next hour”. Most people in the Western world have no sense of direction or distance anymore, because everything is done with GPS in a car. I wasn’t wrong. After two kilometers a ‘café cheio’, an ‘espresso plus’ ran down my throat. My brain switched on again and not long after I was back on the trail at Pontão Manual José…with a companion.

The second night

The second night started at camping Rio Côa, where I had a short stop at a winter abandoned campsite. In a sort of locker room, I had time to get better acquainted to my new K9 friend, which had been running with me since late afternoon. He looked good and healthy and I figured he would tag along for the night.

I was on a high, likely due to some Ibuprofen I had taken to ease off the stingy pain in both hands and left shin, due to inflammation. The bubble wouldn’t last and this night would become about grinding. Thirty hours I’d been pushing forward on the path and thirty-eight hours ago my ‘day’ started. An hour before midnight Porto de Ovelha appeared. Desperate for a location to close my eyes for a bit, I stood there under the roof of a bird poop loaded bandstand, the rain pounding on the roof. Drenched to the bone, I weighed up the options. Option one: crack on, because I wasn’t tired enough to accept defeat and collapse in the shit. Option two: crack on, because I wasn’t tired enough to accept defeat and collapse in the shit. Two minutes of uncontrolled shadow boxing, gave me the fire in the belly to get going again. I’d spent a little too much time taking a decision and could feel self-pity trying to sneak into my system. Time to give myself a kick in the butt. The trial was calling, at least, so I thought.

Once back on the trial at the river, I was immediately confronted with the next impossible crossing. Sharp decision making became blunted. From the valley I made my way back up to Porto de Ovelha and from there the five kilometers to Miuzela, in the hope of something suitable to nap. The movement was slow. With every step towards the side of the road I lifted my knee to step ‘on’ the white line as if it was a fifteen-centimeter-high edge. I had to sleep.

Having the dog with me was nice, but it started to annoy me in Miuzela, where I tried stealthily to find a shed or similar for a power nap. It turned out impossible with Mr Snout.

At 2:30am I found a lady’s restroom open and locked myself in. It was time.

For three hours I sat on the loo, no newspaper, fully dressed, emergency blanket wrapped around me. Incessant chills prevented me from falling asleep for more than a minute at a time. The decision to not further pursue the GR45 was made there and then. According to the map, it wasn’t the last water junction. Fifty hours of no sleep and constant physical activity whilst battling the elements in the dark obviously coloured the decision making process. Fact is that immense amounts of water had flooded the banks of both Côa and all her sisters far beyond their usual riverbeds, and had slowed and wore me down properly.

These circumstances are perhaps not unusual for the time of year, and I might have been able to know about this in advance. Nevertheless, this is how I planned on doing it. Just go, see and adapt. Seeing the birth of the river wasn’t meant to be this time.

I knew from the start that a continuous forward motion without sleep would become a determining factor and had accepted the consequences of that. The question was how far I’d cover before it would become a problem. At that point it became one. I decided to continue on an alternative route for the remaining 30 kilometers to Sabugal.

In hindsight, back at the kitchen table, fed, slept and warm I could see the opportunities that possibly could have kept me on the GR.

In the end I covered 170 kilometers, of which 45 not on the GR45.

Insights

What follows are some notes I scribbled down in the bus after sixty hours with two 15-minute powernaps.

“Reclined, in the warmth of the bus my eyes follow the shapes of the fields and forests. The day is turning into the third evening away from my loved ones. Overall, there was more connection, than we’d expected. It was very supporting to hear, see and read that Laura had my back, whilst I did ‘my thing’. I know from my soldiering life, that it’s equally hard, if not harder, to be on the ‘waiting end’, due to insecurity. The home front is often undervalued, but it’s an essential part of the best outcome.

It was enormously eye-opening to become aware that in situations of great physical and mental adversity I have more headspace to deal with the situation than I have in running day-to-day life in our family. I found that both remarkable and weird, but it also confirmed this kind of stuff is innately me and it should be part of my life as long as possible, for the sake of sanity.

Looking through the window into the twilight, the sun kissing the horizon goodnight, it’s hard to imagine someone would enjoy climbing the slopes through the inky darkness, while getting drenched and cold. Yet, for me it’s the ultimate way to recenter and find my benchmark.

Not long ago, Laura touched on this, lying in bed. She said: “Lying here, comfortable and warm it’s hard to imagine one would want to be lying tucked up in a sleeping back in a tent on a lost coordinate, but when you are, it’s the most natural and blissful thing.”

It’s a very striking thought that begs the questions how and why we make the change from perceived comfort to discomfort. I’m sure I’ll touch on that (again) later.

“I wonder if anyone realises, let alone understands, why I choose to put myself through this kind of stuff: chosen sleep deprivation, non-stop cold, non-stop activity, pushing the body, straining the mind, voluntary (inevitable) inflammations. There seems to be no gain. I’m not a paid athlete, nor do I have a significant following I need to entertain. Nobody cares. Do I even understand fully myself?” All I know is that throughout the hardships and adversity I re-center and my mind comes to rest.” That’s enough for me, till I find a better answer.