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February 9 Thursday Bicycle touring Italy Sardinia from Costa Verde Sardegna to Palmas Arborea Sardinia We set our bicycle touring tent up on an area not much larger than the tent itself, between two low bushes. There wasn't even room to stake out the fly. When the wind picked up from that direction it slapped the tent against my back all night. We ploddingly pushed our touring bikes back up to a main road through loose sand. Huge whitecapped waves were hurling spray against the rocks. The wind pushed us and our fully loaded touring bicycles out of the mountains and onto flat farmland. We sought shelter from the wind beside an electrical building, but the wind still gusted around the building's sides and ripped Sharon's ham and cheese sandwich from her grip, throwing it into the gravel, which did not make her a happy camper. We managed to find another road to Oristano that was missing huge chunks of pavement as we threaded our way with our skinny bicycle tires between massive holes. In Arborea I went into the Hotel Gallo. The bar owner wouldn't have anything to do with me when I couldn't speak Italian. I showed him the phrase from our English-Italian book, but his only response was, "No capiche! Adios!" with a wave of the back of his hand at me to get lost. We haven't met too many narrow-minded people here. But the ones we do meet help me better appreciate the ones who are nice to us. Dejectedly, we got back on our little touring bicycles and pedalled out of Arborea. On the way to Fordongianus we met a racing cyclist with his sleek light-weight titanium machine coming towards us. He waved for us to stop and indicated the road ahead was under construction and impassable. Guess he hasn't seen what we have cycled over the past couple of days. The racing cyclist showed us an alternate route and insisted we follow him back to a crossroads. When he turned south towards home, we waited till he was out of sight, then we continued north. Near Oristano we saw a huge flock of pink
flamingoes flying like a huge candy floss cloud across the sky.
I wonder where they go at night? A guy came out of the bar where we met the old bicycle rider. The fella from the bar walked over to my bike, grabbed a hold of my flag and took a good close-up look at it. Then he let it go and without saying a word walked back inside the bar. The gate to a soccer field was open as we pedalled by on our fully loaded touring bicycles. We went inside and set up our compact bicycle touring tent behind the change house. Just as our pasta was finishing cooking we saw car headlights and heard engines approaching. A soccer practice soon began. Luckily no one discovered us. I wonder if we're locked in the field now? |
