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Corsica, 18th of August, Tavignano gorges 

Another Corte trip, 
having with the intention to combine it with a dip in the waters of Tavignano stream. Searching the internet about the entry point for Tavignano gorges will give you mixed starting points. At the end of the citadel, close to the parking lot, there is begining of the trail. As always, I had a hard time to find it and started very close to the stream, following a path used by the locals to enjoy the pools along the gorge. At some point we were forced to climb up and join the marked path. It was a steep ascent and only seeing other people on the normal path gave me confidence we corrected a wrong starting location. The funny thing is that many tourists like us were doing the same mistake and "suffered" an abrupt ascent at some moment. 
 
One of the problems was that we needed time to be at the starting point and I did not want to wake up Emma very early, still. We always managed to be at the beginning of the trail before 11 am, and all days were in 36-38 Celsius degrees. The salvation was the trail was passing through forest patches and the descending breeze (the top is always warmer than the valleys).

Emma, as always was asking, "Are we almost there?" and as always I was lying "ten more minutes". One of my observations was the time posted for the hike. We were slow, for Emma was the second real hike on a mountain, with rocky paths and high ascents. That day, my watch measured a trip of 21 km and an ascent/descent of 440 meters. There are two source of water, one at the beginning and one at the end of the trail. We did not have time to swim in the pools but I strongly recommend to try it. Locals are doing it in the first two, three km of the stream.
 
There were a few spots along the trail worth stopping and taking pictures, let me know if you agree with me.
 
Another surprising fact was seeing people running the trail. After reading Spark by John Ratey, the theory that human's brain have developed by the distances we were forced to cover in search of food and protecting against predators and also the focus needed to control your body and observe the environment in the same time might explain the resurrection of this type of activity.
On the other hand, the CrossFit movement, promoted by Reebok has started to have traction among fitness aficionados and running on trails even trickled in the running shoes industry. John Ratey has a few pages about it but I would recommend the Netflix documentaries about the CrossFit finals - Fittest on earth. 

The marketing effort of Reebok goes again the grain - to invest money in the best sport performers but to promote sports at the grass roots level. Our society promotes excellence in sport at the detriment of spreading the sport to the masses. That is another advertisement driven market which says a lot about humans as self-preservation species - instead of promoting movement/sport at the grass level, people are spending money on following "star-athletes" in their events. 
 
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