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Out of Gas
We spent a third night in our claustrophobic snowbound mountain retreat. In the morning I flung open the door of our cramped two-person tent and cheered each time the sun peeked through the cloud cover. "It's clearing!" I announced jubilantly, as snow began to melt from our tent. We were completely out of food and, snow or no snow, we had to make a break for it. We packed our crusty tent and hit the road. A mighty northwester pushed us all the way to the tiny mountain village of Villanova Tulo. I entered the first grocery store we found and restocked our provisions. As I paid at the checkout, the husband and wife owners grilled me. When I had difficulty answering their questions, the husband furrowed his brow. "Are you Italiano?" he asked. I assured him, alas, I was not. "Mamma and Poppa Italiano?" he squinted. "No," I answered, shaking my head. "Momma and Poppa no Italiano." He looked perplexed. I supposed his confusion arose that from my being outside all day, every day, I had become as dark as most Italians. Perhaps that was the reason it took locals a few seconds to figure out why my pronunciation was so poor. I left the store with the shop owner still scratching his head, and searched the town for a gas station to refill our fuel bottles. But the little village had no pumps. "We'll fill up in Esterzili," I said confidently as we pedalled towards the town's outskirts. We rocketed down a steep roadway out of Villanova Tulo and blasted onto the valley floor, the wind tugging at our eyeballs. Sharon whooped in exhilaration. Unfortunately, it was a short-lived high: standing directly in our path was a not-for-the-feint-of-heart ascent. "Who paved this cliff?" Sharon wanted to know. We shifted onto our granny gears (so named because it was thought that with a gear so low, even a Grandmother could make it up) and started grinding our way up the precipice. Two long and sweaty hours later we had covered multitudinous ups and downs, twists and turns, and finally stopped at an overlook to catch our breath and lower our pounding heart rates. "Surely this hellacious road had its origins as a mountain goat path," I wheezed, feeling like some emphysemic old geezer about to have a heart attack. I regained my wind and looked up. Gazing across the valley, I was shocked to see Villanova Tulo's church tower in the not-so-distant distance. Sharon, still keeled over her handlebars, sweat dripping off the tip of her nose, followed my stare and groaned, "It doesn't look all that far away." "It's not," I said. "At least as the crow flies." I noticed she looked a little peaked, and kidded, "Feeling a little vertically challenged are we?" "Actually," she replied with a grimace, "my stomach is feeling a little horizontally challenged right now. I feel like I'm going to puke." We waited until some of the colour returned to Sharon's face, then struck off still uphill. Our mounts seemed unusually heavy and sluggish as we wrestled with them for another two aerobically challenging hours. Finally, on a near impossible pitch just outside Esterzili, we stood on our pedals in our lowest gear, and inched past an elderly woman walking along the roadside laden beneath a massive pile of firewood. We beat her into town and stopped beside a small park, our legs like jelly. Sharon dropped her bike, stumbled to a bench and sat cross-legged, knees huddled to her chest. She murmured weakly, "Water. I need water." I ran to a nearby tap and twisted the knob. But it was drier than an abandoned prairie well. I looked around to see if there was somewhere I could get water. As I gazed down the road towards a row of houses, the old woman with the woodpile atop her head came into view. She topped the slope, slowly materializing like some galleon on the high seas. Her huge bundle of sticks appeared first, followed by her hulking form. I marvelled. She was, no doubt, in extraordinary shape. She plodded to a nearby gate, and hoisted her cargo onto the six-foot stone wall that surrounded the property. I saw my chance to get water and rushed over to her with my two water bottles. When I reached her, she had already unlocked the gate. Without regard to me she tucked the key back into her apron pocket and carefully repositioned the blanket to cushion her head. I nearly offered to move the bundle for her. But, surveying the large stack on the high wall, I wondered if I could even lift it, and held my tongue. I consoled my manliness by telling myself she would have been offended by any offer of assistance. And, I noted wryly, she had that head-carrying technique down pat. I watched as she rearranged the stack atop her head, and then asked her for water. She waved one ham-fist towards a spigot on the side of her house. I thanked her and started towards it. Halfway there, her scolding voice peppered me with questions. I stopped. From the tone of her voice (and its volume) it seemed she was chiding me on the frivolity of riding a bicycle up a mountainside for fun when I should be out working like everyone else. I turned around. "Me scusa?" I asked politely, looking for clarification (I still hadn't entirely figured out the intricacies of Italian's intonations). She waved one muscled arm in Sharon's direction. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Stomachache," I explained. I knew what was coming next; I had been through the questioning routine many times before. To expedite the process, I blurted out - in my pigeon Italian - all the pertinent information folks usually asked us: our names, our ages, where we were from, where we were going, that we were married, that we had no children, and that we thought Sardinia was beautiful. The old woman nodded approvingly. I hurried to the spigot and filled my bottles. As I trotted back to Sharon, the old woman was excitedly repeating my facts to some just-arriving neighbours. I had to smile. We were probably the weirdest news the little village had had in years. Sharon drank the water. "I'm feeling better," she announced after a few minutes. We got back on our bikes and searched Esterzili for a gas station, but found nothing. "We'll have to fill up in the next town," I said. We battled uphill some more and finally reached a windblown plateau where we cycled a short flat stretch, then began a downhill run. We zipped along, making good time. In late afternoon sunshine, we approached a sparkling river. "This looks like a great spot to camp," Sharon said, pointing out a flat spot by the river's edge. "But we still don't have fuel," I reminded her. "I'm sure we can make it to Perdasdefogu before dark. There's sure to be a gas station there." I crossed the bridge. Unfortunately, the easy freewheel we had enjoyed since dropping off the plateau ended. And, to my dismay, the route shot skyward once again like some evil stunt pilot intent on making his passengers vomit. I geared down and started cranking, trying to ignore the muttering that was coming from behind me. A cold wind blew down the mountain. But even so, it wasn't long before I was soaked in perspiration (partly due to terror - I was waiting for Sharon to tell me off). An hour passed and still we climbed the top nowhere in sight. At our snail's pace, I realized we weren't going to reach Perdasdefogu before nightfall. "Do you think we should look for a camp spot?" I asked. Stony silence met my query. In the shade of that mountain, the atmosphere had grown decidedly chilly. I stopped at various intervals to investigate possible camp sites. Sharon waited on the roadside, doubled over her bicycle, still unwell. But I couldn't find anything suitable: they were all too steep and rocky. After my third failed attempt, I proposed we break the cyclist's 'Never go back' rule, and said, "Do you think we should turn around and coast back to the river?" A glacial stare overturned my proposal and the hot sweat trickling down my neck turned to an icy rivulet. We continued upwards. Two kilometers farther, a final sunbeam struck a handful of leaves, and lit them in a prismatic burst of colour. I glimpsed a faint track leading off through the grass, and we bumped along it to a small outcrop just large enough for our tent. Soaked from the exertion, we pulled to a stop. The cold wind sucked the marrow from our bones and our core body temperatures plummeted. We were tired, cold, and hungry. With numb fingers we quickly pitched our tent and jumped inside to get out of the freezing wind. But, to our dismay, it gusted through the mesh openings in the roof and created a wind chill inside the tent. "I hope our stay with Bruno and Iole is worth all this," I grumbled, shivering. "I can't imagine a worse time to be out of fuel." A steaming mug of hot chocolate would have improved our conditions majorly (and our dispositions). Without fuel, supper options were slim (even famished, raw pasta didn't sound all that appetizing). We settled for oranges and cookies instead. With my fingers tingling, I peeled an orange. "Here," I said, offering the peeled fruit to my prone companion. But there was no response. The exhausted form beside me was already snoring raspily. |
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