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January 29 Sunday Bicycle touring Italy from Villa Salta Sardinia to a seaside ledge with Serpentara Island in the distance Sardegna Our peaceful little forest turns into a major hunting ground and shotgun blasts are heard echoing around us. Sheep herders are moving flocks to other grazing, creating a pandemonium of dinging bells. A fire blazes and crackles on the slope above us to flush out small game, sending up a billow of grey smoke. It is still windy and gusty. Birds chirp out their happy carefree songs, interrupted only by the buzzing motors of strung out cars full throttle on the mountain pass. Five hundred cc is not a lot of power, but it makes a tremendous racket. I look out our little bicycle touring tent door, expecting to see a car flying by at 100 mph, and see an unwhizzing Fiat with its sewing machine motor hammered past its maximum. I suppose that's why we see cars abandoned in the ditch. It just dies and they leave it there to rot and rust. Sharon appears unconvinced to leave our mountain hideaway, now that six fearless hunters have passed our spot on the way back down to their cars. I want to go, as sitting around all day gives Sharon too much time to think and soon she has a bad case of homesickness. "We could be lying around at home," she will say, "with people we know." She wants to see familiar faces again. We have set a date to be home by: August 15, two years from now ... in time for Edmonton's Fringe Festival. As we ride our fully loaded touring bicycles down out of the mountains we see many good camping places along little dirt roads and along the river. As some aspiring poet once said "Spring has sprung. The grass is rizz. What a lovely time of year it izz." Yes, fruit trees have beautiful white and pink blossoms. Workers are in the fields trimming the vineyards. Huge oranges hang bountifully from laden branches, surrounded by orange polka-dots lying at their base. Bright yellow lemons gleam in the sunlight. Red hibiscus flowers adorn ranch house walls. Buds on spiky cacti awaiting rain to bloom by the hundreds. What a great day for a long distance bicycle tour. Along Costa Rei, we get our first glimpse of the Tyrrhenian Sea -- a part of the Mediterranean Sea between mainland Italy and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia -- with bluest aqua and darker cobalt. I take a picture of Serpentara Island. I can't see mainland Italy though. We cycle along slowly, searching for two Nuraghe in the area, at least according to our map. But we can't locate either one. Has Nur taken his rockies and gone home? We end up cycling to Cape Marina to eat a late lunch. I spy a view of the sea through old bricks and a semi-circle of wrought iron. Shortly after cycling away from our impromptu lunch spot, we begin looking for a camp spot to pitch our two-person bicycle touring tent. But either the sites don't have a view, or they are too rocky, windy or slanty. We see a beauty by the sea, but it would entail pushing our fully loaded touring bicycles on a long and bumpy steep dirt road. We pass it by. An hour later, in gathering darkness, we are still looking. We cycle through a village where a lot of people are out on the street. They stare at us in amusement and watch us ride past. I learn a camp spot in sight is worth two out of sight. Sharon suggests looking behind some bushes at a pull out and discovers a spot on a ledge overlooking the sand and sea. Weird red pastel sunset. |
