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January 26 Thursday Bicycle touring Italy from a forest past Aritzo Sardegna to a farmer's field near Orroli Sardinia Night of the wild boars! Holy pig! Surrounded on all sides by grunting marauders, marooned in our tiny island of a tent. I grabbed the cayenne pepper spray and tried to fall back asleep, clutching the tiny canister to my chest. One time I heard them at my bike. I have placed the garbage bag on top of my bike to keep it away from the rodents. I am worried about the huge bag of flavorful oranges we still have stashed under the tent fly. Pigs eat anything, don't they? This morning we arise to find massive digging and trenches in the earth by the boars' sharp strong tusks in search of roots and insects, not more than ten feet from our tent door. A huge hole has been dug in the ground too. Yikes. I had the pot inside the tent and was going to clang on it if they started rooting through the tent, but I held off, not wanting to startle them in case our tent was between them and their home. Nothing like getting bowled over by a rampaging boar in the dark of night. Judging from those trenches scraped through the ground they have major strong tusks. Pigs on the wing. Grunt. We packed up our soaking wet tent and fly. The only dry spot around was where our tarp had been placed. We pushed our bikes through the snagging bushes and thorns back to the break in a falling down rock wall that lines both sides of the road by the forest. Yesterday we saw a fellow with only shorts on sitting on a mountainside meditating, sitting on a small purple blanket and a smoky fire alongside. Sharon had pangs of homesickness and phoned home. She mentioned hurrying up the trip so we can finish sooner. It kind of feels as we are not going anywhere as we wait for the weather to warm enough so we can head for northern Europe. When we're supposed to be going around the world, not much progress is made by going north and south. We decided to think of this portion as the European Tour, rather than around the world. Maybe that will help our easterly problem. The trip has entered a new phase. Before, we found the scenery the best part -- everything was different. Amazing how quickly one becomes accustomed, and now the cork, olive, orange, and plane trees are familiar trees to us. Oh, another castle. Want to look at the church? Naw. Seen enough churches. We realize people (both on the road and at home) are the most important aspect of the trip. I am going to try and get more dynamic people pictures while I'm still on the lookout for magical scenery. A chain barrier was strung across both sides of the road on either side of a train track crossing. A woman was standing there and as we slowed on our downward cycle coast she unhooked the chain so we could cross. A different way to handle level train crossings. Dropping down out of the mountains, we cycled onto flat farm land. Fewer trees. Lots of rock piles and rock fences. The time it must have taken to clear those rocks! A lot of wiener roasts and there are still lots left. We found a park when cycling out of Nurallao with green grass and palm trees. Quite inviting with a lack of people. I'm tired of being stared at when I eat. As we ate our ham and cheese sandwiches an old fella with a walker cane -- that's a cane handle on top and at the bottom are a three-pronged structure -- came along and sat down on the rock ledge to chat. Here is what I comprehended. Maybe. He has had the walker for three years. He has three kids. He lives across the street. A woman he knows who lives near Cagliari speaks four languages and has traveled around the world. There's snow in the mountains and (making large sweeping motions) he either plays the saxophone or has had heart surgery. Some things are difficult to construe. Needless to say, it is not a good idea to laugh and say buono when one doesn't fully understand. "I had a heart attack." Ah, buono! Ha ha ha. See? It was amazingly warm in the sunshine -- 30º C. I don't know how they can stand it here in the summer. Gak. We decided to cycle for a lake. The day is cloudless, quite the contrast from a mere 24 hours ago. The scenery was great on the way down the mountain, especially compared to the all encompassing fog yesterday. It reminded me of the Going to the Sun road. We cycled back towards the hills. Almost all the lakes are man-made and are enclosed by surrounding gorges. The road to Siurgus was gravel and I thought I was back in Portugal bumping along the rocky road on my fully loaded touring bicycle. Sharon said this road was better than the roads we were on in Portugal and it probably was. The roads on Sardinia have been excellent. We enquire for water and a group of boys tells us there is none. They make farting noises as we ride off on our bikes. Around the next corner a row of elderly men sit on benches. It looks like a classic picture. I stop to load new film as my last shot was of a little one car train (combination engine) of trains in Sardinia. Two kids on bikes pull up. The same group. Probably the farters. We can't understand what they're saying and in this little mountain village it must be a unique experience to encounter two retarded mutes. I tell them we speak English and that brightens their hospitality. They ride down an alley to get into a picture with Sharon, then tell us where we can get water -- follow them, they indicate. We don't. We cycle back past the men on benches and stop to ask them since they're talking to the kids now. We are directed to a bar across the plaza. We lean our bikes against the bar wall. As Sharon takes two water bottles inside, I take my camera over to see if the men are willing subjects. They are more than willing to comply and are very pleased with themselves that someone considers them worthy of a photograph. As I back up to compose the picture a town woman in traditional black garb walks across in front of them. The men are trying to tell her to get out of the way, we're having our picture taken, but she continues on her way, looking neither left nor right. Perfect. I catch her in the middle of the frame. That done I thank the men and they introduce me to Senor Gomez who is 94 years young. I doff my hat while shaking his wrinkled hand and he looks up at me through his hat brim with a gleam in his eye and a toothy grin. As we collect our bikes, several men wander over. We are surrounded by young boys, old men, and one woman. The men ask if we would like wine, and we settle on beer. We go inside the bar amidst card players who look up and greet us before returning to concentrate on the cards they are holding, as if nothing unusual was happening. Again, a woman in a bar is unheard of. The boys stare at Sharon -- they have followed us inside even though they are not usually allowed inside. We quaff a Sardegna beer with "ching-ching!" one of our few Italian words. The sound of glass clinks together in cheer. We get on our fully loaded touring bicycles and totter off in search of the lake which should be near. It turns out to be way down off the main road. We can see it, but don't know how to get to it -- or even if we want to -- it's low with a ring of rocky gravel around the edge. We continue on our fully loaded touring bicycles, looking for a camp spot. A windbreak has been planted near a plowed field. We find a flat rocky spot near the bottom. It looks like a secluded place on the side of the road between two indistinct villages. The wind is gusting. Well, as Nigel and Rae have told us, there is no perfect spot. Nigel and Rae will scout out all around, find what they think is ideal, then when they park they will be awakened by any number of occurrences. Like the time they chose the spot behind a quiet little church. Perfect, right? Wrong. Every fifteen minutes the church bells would gong. Midnight shook the entire motor home. A deserted wood will turn into a parade route. Only happens once in a hundred years, but tonight will be the night. And dogs. Everywhere dogs barking. One will bark, then another on the hill will answer. They will go back and forth all night. You will lie there listening for them and then they won't bark for half an hour and you'll wake up your partner and say, "Do you know those bloody dogs haven't barked for half an hour?" Tonight three cars and a motorcycle pulled onto the little side road and sat there for half an hour. This is a farmer's field in the middle of nowhere on a Thursday night. I don't get it. Anyway, it was dark by this time and they didn't appear to notice us. I slept for a long time. Then I work up and had to pee. All that hot chocolate. I looked at my watch. It was only 11 PM. Am I getting enough sleep? |
