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Amityville Horror
When we reached Nuoro, exhausted from slugging it out against a gale force wind all day, I must have been delirious to suggest we weave our way to the top of Monte Ortobene's 955-meter summit "for the view." Sharon, even though she had spent the day tucked behind my slipstream, must have shared my delirium, for she agreed. Partway up, we came across a house that had developed a strange symbiosis with a rock. The house's walls and roof were partially formed by an enormous unusual-shaped boulder. "Is this where Barney Rubble lives?" Sharon jested. I persuaded her to pose with her bike in Barney's front yard. "Think like Betty," I advised as I composed the shot. That's when I noticed a barely visible column of white smoke lackadaisically curling from an aluminum flue. Remarkably, someone was living there. Even a television antenna poked bizarrely from the rounded roof. At the top of Monte Ortobene, a bronze statue of the Redeemer stands poised in flaring motion, hosting a stunning gorge and mountain view. He towers above the pine and chestnut trees, their branches wind-twisted into respectful genuflections. We were there only a short time. The numbing wind had dulled our senses. We started down the mountainside - the cold wind and drizzling rain chilled us to the bone - and shuffled out of Nuoro towards Fordongianus along an almond tree lined roadway. Last year's bounty still clung to their stark branches. Some trees were burnt - toasted almonds? As a reward for our hard cycling we stopped to pick a few. We stood on a strategically-placed rock wall and reached branches that were beyond the grasp of the shorter Sardinians. When we had filled a bag, we improvised a rock nutcracker the way Mr. Tubby had shown, and liberated the nuts' delicious contents. As we pedalled away from our impromptu harvest I shivered. The wind chill had numbed my fingers, toes, ears, and nose. I flexed my digits, trying to revive the circulation. "Do you think it'll be too cold to camp in the open tonight?" I asked Sharon. "Let's keep a lookout for a shelter," she wisely advised. We battled the frigid wind, and scanned the countryside for some semblance of refuge. Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it began to rain. "This is the worst weather we've had since we got here," Sharon complained. "It's colder than it was in January!" In a few kilometers we chanced upon an abandoned farmhouse. "Fortune has smiled on us," I said weakly, and pedalled towards what, to me, looked like the Hilton. When I reached it, however, I discovered it looked better from a distance. "I won't need my American Express after all." Apart from the crumbling stone exterior there wasn't much left. But still, even though room service had taken the night off, I wasn't complaining. "One more payment, and it's ours!" Sharon remarked, surveying the turmoil. A barn with a partial roof was attached to one end of the house's skeletal remains. I peered through the open doorway. It was a virtual honeymoon suite in comparison. So what if we had to share the dirt floor with a few cow pats? At least they were dry. We pushed our bikes into the barn and leaned them against a wall. The wind suddenly shrieked like a witch that had flown into a tree. A wooden door in the upper reaches of the barn swung violently open, nearly yanked itself off its protesting hinges, then reversed direction violently and slammed shut with a ferocity that caused the tumble-down structure to reverberate. "Oh, man, I don't think I can handle that all night," I said, and shivered again. We set up the tent inside the barn (mind the cow pies). The wind, seemingly upset that we had found somewhat decent shelter, worked itself into a ferocious frenzy. It seemed to develop talon-like claws and reached deep inside the barn. In a frighteningly good imitation of the Amityville Horror, plaster began to rip off the walls, and tiny fragments whipped through the air, pelting our faces. The barn was being demolished before our eyes! We jumped into our tent to evade the stinging particles, and prayed that the clay-tiled roof wouldn't collapse on us. The barn swayed and shook. "Holy cow!" Sharon exclaimed. "Maybe we should sleep with our helmets on." |
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