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January 20 Friday Bicycle touring Italy from our free camping spot alongside the Mannu River in Sardinia to Banari Sardinia Either the chicken or the water didn't agree with Sharon. She has been up more last night than sleeping -- expelling from both ends -- poor kid. Still doesn't look or feel well this morning, plus she's tired. We head for Banari, seven kilometres away. In about four kilometres we see an artesian well flowing into a twenty-foot-long concrete watering trough. We stop to filter water and wash Sharon's hair. The water is too cold for me. In a kilometre we cycle up to an old fella and his son by a fence along the roadside. We pull our fully loaded touring bicycles to a stop as they are now standing on the side of the road watching intently our uphill struggle. After exchanging pleasantries, which doesn't take long with our non-existent Italian, they ask questions and, with a great deal of guessing, map pointing, and arm waving, we explain to them where we are from, been, and going to. They then invite us to their house in Banari for lunch. Banari is two kilometres uphill, making me sweat in the sunshine. Why is it when cycle touring that uphills are in the sun and downhills in the shade? We arrive in village square at the centre of the village and as I ask a passerby for directions to the Giovanni's, Papa himself shows up and waves for us to follow him around a corner. In a narrow lane, we lean our bikes against the rock wall of a neighbor's house. We follow Papa into an inconspicuous doorway on the other side of the lane. Straight ahead, a stairway leads to a second story, we turn left into a dining room where his son, Marilo, and I sit briefly doing better introductions of ourselves. We meet brother Angelo before being invited into the kitchen. Angelo says he saw us yesterday in Sassari. Papa slices cured homemade sausage onto a plate. Mama cooks up a fish that resembles trout and many tiny baby finger length battered fish as well, complete with heads and fins that make a pleasant crunch in my mouth. Olives, two types of bread, and hard white cheese with a rind. All are home produce we're told. A friend, Pierre, who was very good in English at school we're told, shows up to translate. Sharon's stomach is still queasy, but she politely forces herself to eat the greasy meat and tangy olives. I'm almost finished mine when Papa heaps the remaining platters onto our plates. "Eat. Eat," he commands. I am hurrying to finish, as they are waiting for us so they can have coffee and an alcoholic drink. The table wine is home produce too -- very good. When I am enthusiastically masticating, all of a sudden I bite down on a bone hidden in the sausage and hear a cracking in my back molar. A filling? My cap? I take the bone out and feel a little wiggle on my molar. I finish eating, then have an orange, coffee, and Sardegna wine made from a local mirto berry. One of their two daughters, Carmella, shows up and asks if we would like to walk around town. They've offered to let us stay as guests overnight in their ranch house half a kilometre from here. It is already 4 PM. As we go with Carmella, I feel my molar and pull out one-quarter of my tooth which leaves a big hole in my gum. Interestingly, it doesn't hurt much when I touch it with my tongue. It's not too sharp either. A large filling leads up to the now missing space. I put the baby-sized tooth fragment in my pocket and smile while thinking in the spirit or Roger: "I still have 31 left." We stop at Tony's. He teaches French at school and knows English too. He is our translator and we ask lots of curious questions that we have been gathering in our minds the last few days. They wonder why we came to Sardegna and can't believe we would when we don't know any Italian. We find out Sardegna is a completely separate language. Tony says we must be arrogant to think we can go anywhere and only know English. We assure him this is not the case, we were deeply worried about being monoglots and were aware of the difficulties we would encounter. But if we waited until we learned every language of each country we went to we wouldn't travel around the world on bicycles. We delight in making new discoveries. We didn't know anything about Sardegna before we hopped on the one-hour ferry ride from Corsica, other that the obvious: It was an island, governed by Italy, used liras and we figured it is south of us so it must be warmer. They are mystified. At lunch we also met Patricia, originally from Ireland (Derry), married an Italian who was in the forces, has a house three doors down from the Giovanni's. A conspicuous bright red one to match her hair! She was passing by and saw our Canadian flag and had to come and see. She has three kids. Two sons, 23, and 29. One daughter aged 12 in school in Italy near Venice. This is her summer home but she came for Christmas and stayed a bit longer than planned. She met her husband in Africa when he was an air force pilot. We see the community fountain and troughs, basketball and tennis courts, soccer field. Library. All in a town of 500. We take our touring bikes to the ranch house. Joseph, another brother, is there. They all work on the large farm and have cows and pigs in addition to sheep and goats. They have made ready a pot of coffee and a pot of milk for our breakfast. The fire is smoking hotly away in a corner. They show us how to use the gas stove and lights for the house. There is a washroom too, but no hot water. That is quite usual for houses here we are assured. Carmella invites us for supper. Sharon feels we have already imposed too much and refuses her offer, but I accept anyway. Carmella's sister and Tony accompanied us to the ranch house in two cars. One in front of our fully loaded touring bicycles, leading the way, and one behind us lighting the way. We pile into the back seat for a bumpy ride down the rocky road to town. Carmella and her husband, Tony, who is a lawyer, have an apartment which is very modern inside -- lots of glass furniture and black appliances. The floor tiles are a lovely pink design -- the island colour we are told. Friends come and go while Carmella prepares dinner. Some just talk, others have a drink, too. Around 8 PM, we eat rice with thinly sliced tomatoes. Hey, no bones this time! Olives, cold meats, and wine. Chocolates named Pocket Coffee and fruit for dessert. A group of friends show up for painting class.
The Group of Four they call themselves. They are all the instructors
they tell us because no one knows how to paint. They join us
at the table and alcohol of all sorts flows very freely while
they ask questions and tell tales all the while poor Tony is
trying his best to translate three different conversations at
the same time in a mixture of English, Italian, and Sardinian.
By midnight he is looking pretty frazzled. They have a remote control for the ceiling mounted furnace; movable heaters are in each room also. They said the coldest it has ever gotten on the island was -5º C and that is very rare. Their friend Benjamin with big mutton sideburns explores caves and says he wants to go to Mammoth Cave. We told him we have been inside it three times (cycle touring across the States) and it is superb. Marilo has an earring. His dad wants to cut his ear off. Some things transcend cultures. One time Papa invited ten German motorcyclists to their house and they drank so much of his great wine that two of them fell off their motorcycles on the way to the ranch house and slept in the ditch. Tony asked what Canada's National dish was and didn't believe we didn't have one. The country is very big we told him. Lots of immigrants. I finally came up with doughnuts. It must be the sugar that makes us stick together. |
