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My Aching Sacroiliac
Underway the next morning, partway up a long pass, we approached seven workmen standing on the road edge who earnestly studied our approaching forms. As I reached them, one spotted my red and white flag and cried out, "Japanese?" What's wrong with him? I wondered. Can't he see I have water bottles? (Sharon and I had a running joke that anyone could do our trip and Japanese cyclists would do it without water for an added challenge.) I stopped to chat, rest, and to enlighten our friends that we were not Japanese. "Canada," I said, gulping a swallow of water, and extending my hand to greet the man closest. "Cycling on Sardinia is tough work!" I said, replacing my water bottle, and mopping my brow with a jerseyed forearm. "Our mountains are old!" one elder gibed. "Yes, but they're steep," I assured him. A lively conversation ensued with the short men peppering us with questions while we did our best to decipher their Italian and provide answers. The usual questions: where we had been and where we were going, were easy standard fare. But the little men soon got down to brass tacks. They began innocently enough. "How old are you?" they wanted to know. Upon learning our ages, they gushed that we were so young, and began joking about their own ages. They poked fun at their youngest member, 44, and ad libbed their way along the line, steadily progressing to the eldest, their boss. Reaching him, they couldn't resist jesting about his advanced age, and made a big fuss over his elderly state of affairs - even though he was only 56! One fellow-worker maintained that the headman was so old it was shocking he didn't need a cane to get around. A younger chap gave a whimsical demonstration. Bracing a hand on his back he mimed a stooped old codger hobbling along - his other hand outstretched clutching an imaginary cane. Moaning and groaning and twisting his lips like someone with no teeth, he circled the group three times, while we all roared at his antics. I was laughing so hard, I had to wipe a tear from my eye. Even the foreman chuckled good-naturedly. Unfortunately, the men didn't limit their capers to making fun of themselves. When they learned we had been married ten years and still had no bambinos, they thought our lack of children was a worthy comedic subject. They amused themselves for several minutes, discussing various possibilities as to why it was we had no little ones, and called into question everything from my virility, to the apparent impotency caused from jostling atop a bicycle seat all day, to the plainly obvious (I was slouched over my handlebars): I was simply too tired from riding all day to ride at night too. I agreed with their 'too tired' assessment: after a full day of loaded touring, I considered "getting lucky" as being able to keep my eyes open long enough to write in my Journal! Refreshed from gales of laughter, I was ready to tackle the remainder of the pass. I didn't want to hang around the workmen too long - they may have gotten to know me better, and things could have turned personal. After shaking everyone's hand again, we were set to resume our upward toil. However, our start was delayed yet again. Before the roadworkers would let us go, they voted unanimously that rather than follow our proposed route to Costa Verde, we should detour on a special road they knew. The turnoff was only a few kilometers farther up the road, they said, and it passed through Bau, then over to Costa Verde. I was a tad hesitant to take their advice, especially after I checked our map and noticed there was no road marked on it. Having already concluded what jokesters the workmen were, I thought perhaps they were trying to send us across terrain that was even more rugged. When I protested, they assured me I had nothing to worry about. "It is the most beautiful road on the whole island," one said. "Trust me." Warning bells dinged. (Wasn't "Trust me" one of the world's most famous last words?) We shrugged, decided not to decide until we got to the turnoff, and set off. When we reached the unmarked Bau turnoff, the main road still loomed upwards. The unmarked road that purportedly went to the Green Coast also shot up. "Shouldn't a road to the coast descend?" I asked Sharon as she pulled to a stop beside me. "I'm not so sure this is a good idea," Sharon said, still puffing from the uphill exertion. "Isn't 'Trust me,' right up there with 'Follow me. I know a shortcut.'?" I flagged down a passing motorist, and confirmed that it was possible to get through to Bau. "But," he added, "I've never done it personally." The car drove off, and Sharon and I were left to ponder. "It can't possibly be any more torturous than the road we're on," I reasoned. "And it's probably a shortcut," I grinned. Thus decided, we set off towards Bau. The road wiggled up and down and around, but no more so than the main road we had detoured from. The jolt came just before Bau. After pedalling an hour, we arrived at a barricade manned by police toting machine guns. "The workmen neglected to mention this," Sharon whispered, as we halted in front of the barrier. One officer curtly informed us: "Bau. Prison area. No unmotorized vehicles permitted." I protested (Hadn't they heard about the touring cyclists' rule: Never go back?), but they maintained that without a motorized vehicle, we were not allowed to proceed. Practicing my Italian, I argued (politely) with the officers for a few seconds. Then, before I was shot (one officer absentmindedly fingered his machine gun), we turned our sorry little bicycles around and unhappily retraced our convoluted tracks. After half an hour of backtracking, we came to a fork in the road. With some arcane reasoning, I convinced Sharon we should follow it, even though I had no idea as to where it went. Perhaps I was carrying the touring cyclists' rule 'Never Go Back,' a tad far? As we headed off into the unknown, I knew one thing for certain: Sharon would not be pleased if the mystery route ended up back at Bau's blockade. We pedalled a gravel road for forty minutes, not having a clue as to where we were headed. Eventually, we arrived in Ingurtosu, a pathetically small town with a dirt main street, and rode past a boarding house and a boarded-up hotel. The road dipped, and we realized we were departing Ingurtosu. Those two sad establishments were the extent of Ingurtosu's thriving commercial area. With our water bottles as empty as Ingurtosu's abandoned hotel, we slammed on our brakes. A cloud of dust swirled behind us as we wheeled around and trooped over to the boarding house in search of a refill. We pulled into the grassless yard. An aged woman with a surly expression on her dour face appeared at a side door. I couldn't help but wonder if she had a sister working at a deli in Portoscuso. Brandishing my water bottles, I strode up the stairs towards her. On her doorstep, I held out my bottles and courteously asked for acqua. Her wrinkled scowl still firmly affixed she wordlessly took my bottles and, giving me a final evil stare, disappeared inside. When she returned - glower still firmly etched into her ancient features - she wordlessly held out my filled bottles. I plucked the bottles from her gnarled fingers, thanked her, then bravely attempted to forge our stimulating conversation onward and asked for directions to Costa Verde. She responded, her arms thrashing wildly like some double-jointed marionette as she ranted caustically in Sardinian or Italian. I couldn't distinguish. Deciding not to enquire further (sometimes it's better to quit when you're behind), I turned to Sharon. "Did you get that?" I asked. "Oh, sure," Sharon replied brightly. At the sound of Sharon's voice, the frozen grimace on our reluctant good Samaritan's face broke into a wide rotten-toothed grin, reminding me of a jack-o-lantern that had sat atop a fireplace mantel a week too long. But no more directions were forthcoming. There was only one road out of Ingurtosu anyway. A gravel road barely wider than one lane stretched seven kilometers alongside a disgusting chalk-coloured stream; the waterway had picked up its noxious milky formula while passing through abandoned mining quarry slag. Signs tacked to withered trees warned: contaminated water. Skeletal remains of burned-out mine buildings appeared as though they had been bombed. The blackened frames and broken windows were quite fitting - the entire surrounding gray landscape resembled a nuclear fallout zone. The series of gorges, precipices and pinnacles of stone ended - interrupted by imposing dune formations - and the rutted road we had complained about turned to sand. We were well off our map. Amid towering dunes, we selected the left arm at a fork (why not?), and forayed a kilometer on the sandy branch before dead-ending at a deserted beach resort. Maybe we should have stayed there. Instead, we retraced our tracks. Back at the fork we chose the only remaining option and followed it. Our chosen route soon disappeared underwater. Looking hard, I could make out faint sandy vehicle tracks on the opposite bank. Unfazed, Sharon pushed her loaded bicycle into the shallow forty-foot-wide stream. I watched her, secretly hoping she would change her mind and come back. (I hated wet socks.) Sharon leaned precariously against her bike, steadying herself. Stepping on strategically placed stones, she made her way across. When she arrived on the opposite shore unscathed, she looked back and motioned impatiently for me to get a move on. I sighed and pushed my bike into the current. I made my way across on half-submerged stones, wobbling like some off-balance clownish high wire act, and surprisingly, arrived on the opposite side mostly dry. The sand path deteriorated to intermittent tire brush strokes on a giant windy, shifting palette. For a time, I imagined we were going to have to rely on my ancient Indian tracking skills. (Not a good idea, since I usually can't find my way out of a parking lot on my own.) We climbed a steep section of lumpy sand. At the top - looking off into vast sand-coloured nothingness - I realized it was going to require more than tracking skills. It was going to require luck. All vehicle tracks had totally disappeared. There was nothing save for a few goat tracks here and there. "Is that workmen's laughter I hear ringing in my ears?" I asked. Unfortunately, the road - or lack of it - was no joke. Sharon, by this time hotly vociferous, blamed me (unfairly, I thought) for the predicament we were in. I, in turn, cursed, and blamed the workmen (unfairly, they would have thought) for the situation we were in. As I came to grips with our sorry state of affairs, I decided that in the future I would heed those dinging warning bells! We bulldozed onward, blindly following goat tracks to who knew where. I prayed that the wind and shifting sand weren't going to obliterate what little hope we held in those few hoof prints. After an hour, we came to (surprise!) a herd of goats. With treacherous-looking horns sticking obliquely from their skulls, they effectively blocked our progress. "There's nothing to worry about as long as we talk to them softly, calmly, and confidently," I told Sharon. "You go first," I suggested as one head-butted another. "Keep your eye on them," I advised stoically. "But don't look them directly in the eye they may take that as a challenge." "Uh-hmmm," Sharon said before determining there was truth in the old adage of safety in numbers. "We'll both go at the same time," she informed me. "One for all, and all for one, and all that," she stated as she hesitantly pushed her bike towards the milling crowd. "I'm right behind you," I called out. We inched our way through the potential bicyclist gorers, keeping our bicycles between them and us, and doing our best in unsure tones to talk soothingly. It worked! We made it past the cantankerous old goats. Relieved that none of them had decided to ram our bikes, and safely out of horn-stabbing range, Sharon joked, "Ride your bike through them, and I'll take your picture." "You're such a kidder sometimes," I said, only half-believing that she didn't want me to end up on the horns of dilemma. I refused Sharon's kind offer and elected instead to make tracks while the getting was good. After all, there was no telling when the Billy Goat Gruffs may decide to exact their toll. After another hour of sandy slogging, we finally made it back to pavement. I was never so glad to get back on solid terra firma. In facetious mock gratitude (and hopes of lightening Sharon's somber mood), I dropped my bike to the ground, and in my best John Paul II imitation got down to kowtow the blacktop. It worked. Sharon laughed, thought I was a card, and all was forgiven. But as soon as my lips brushed the dry pavement, I knew I had made a mistake. The long hard day had given my arms, legs, back, and knees a severe pounding. Only with incredible determination - and every ounce of remaining strength - was I able to will myself to stand. Shakily upright, I suddenly realized how high I had to lift my leg to get back on my bike, and almost cried. No doubt the workmen would have been disappointed to learn it was going to be another productionless night. |
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