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February 17 Friday Bicycle touring Italy Sardinia from a wild camping spot at a cape near Cape Caccia Sardinia to Ossi Sardegna It was nice flat riding on our Sardinia bicycle tour for a change this morning. We are seeing cows now. The pasture land in this part of Sardegna has thicker grass too and supports more sheep in the same area. Even the houses look richer. We pulled our fully loaded touring bicycles to a stop in Olmedo to buy bread. An old farmer, selling oranges out of the back of is farm truck, called us over and gave us a bag of oranges that he helped stuff into Sharon's already bulging rear bike panniers. He points to my flag and says "Canada." "Intelligent," I say as I point to him. "Si," he replies. A short distance cycling out of town I get a flat tire, on the one Sharon just replaced. Isn't that always the way? We haven't had a flat on our bicycle tour for a long time. Then when we put on a new tire, I immediately get one. Something weird about the touring cyclist gods. We check the tube and find a hole on top of the tube. Maybe it is a spoke end that stuck into the tube? We put a patch on the no-flat tube (never a good idea) and put tape over the offending spoke. We jump back on our fully loaded touring bicycles and cycle along until we come across an ancient burial chamber. We drop our bikes to the ground and head off to explore. Sharon pokes her head into a small doorway. After her eyes adjust she reports that she can see a large room with two stone pillars carved out of the rock. We walk above on a hillside and find lots of tombs. A couple have water in them. One, near the top of the old volcano plug, is huge inside. The ceilings are low. The people must have been short. It must have taken a long time to carve the rooms out of the rock, even if it is volcanic tuff. We get back on our fully loaded touring bicycles and pedal onward till we stop for lunch overlooking tiny Cuga Lake. We are in an almond grove. Pink and white blossoms surround us. We sit with our backs against a rock wall, out of the wind. People are working in an adjacent vineyard pruning the plants. After lunch, we get back on our fully loaded touring bicycles and begin some serious climbing. Just before Tissi I get my second flat tire of the day. The patch has come loose from the no-flat tube. Told you that wasn't a good idea. They advertise 'patches like a normal tube,' but it just ain't true. We decide to put in a new tube. We cycle onward till Ossi where we stop to look at a town map beside the squirting lion heads fountain to try and figure out how to get to Santa Trinita church. Two guys from the next-door garage come over. They start arguing about the best way to get to the Santa Trinita church, with much waving of their arms, slapping of our map, and continually pulling on my arms. They finally settle on a good bicycle touring route after we insist we want a little road with no big trucks. It doesn't have to be the fastest or shortest way to get there. The mechanic goes back into the shop to continue working while the customer acts out the cycling route for us. A shepherd comes to fill his jugs at the fountain and comes over to check out what is going on. We attract a bit of attention on our fully loaded touring bicycles. The shepherd has a route suggestion too. Arguing and yelling begins anew with the customer and shepherd yelling at one another. Sharon and I are just standing there, straddling our fully loaded touring bicycles, looking at each other and shaking our heads and laughing at how only Italians could get so worked up about giving directions. Suddenly we hear the mechanic's voice yell from inside the shop and he rejoins the fray in a spirited way. This really breaks Sharon and I into hysterics. I would find it even funnier if only they would quit pulling on my arms. After tag-teaming the shepherd into submission we are invited into the mechanic's shop for a congratulatory and celebratory beer. This results in an invitation to spend the night at the customer's home. He says he is worried that we were going to camp at the church. He keeps telling us there are criminals that will cut our throats out there ... or worse, whatever that may be. He is a policeman, he says, and keeps showing us his police badge. "Maybe you should phone your wife first," we suggest. "No problem," he says. "Follow me." We retrieve our fully loaded touring bicycles and follow him to his house, cycling up the same steep road he and the shepherd had just argued about for half an hour as the way we should not go because it is too steep for anyone on a loaded touring bike! When we arrive from our steep bicycle tour, sweating, outside his front door, his wife doesn't look pleased at all to find us on her doorstep. With a cigarette hanging from her lip and an expression on her face as if to say: What the hell is this? Unsmiling, after brief introductions: "They're from Canada." She goes into the house as we stow our touring bikes in the garage. Our host waves us inside the main hall and says, "No problem" again. "My wife -- no problem," he says. Yep. I could tell. Rita makes chicken, fried in olive oil. There is also pasta with tomato sauce. They have three girls. Tania, 10, Ilania, 8, and Ilerie, 3. Sal and Rita both chain smoke. The TV is on throughout supper on some game show with a busty blonde that Sal keeps ogling while sending me hand signals. After supper Sal gives us a Scotch whiskey nightcap. We end up pouring it into his glass, which he knocks back in one gulp. Sal told us he was a special police in Italy. No normal police, he said. Special police. No normal police that writes parking tickets. Sal, special police. For a task force or undercover Mafia work or something. He made a point of telling us at least six times -- No normal police -- Sal special police. He said he got shot in the butt on three occasions and has three medals to show for it. That is one reason why he is back in Sardegna now -- for his protection from the bad guys. Italian words: Use their vowel sounds and add a vowel on the end of an English word. It works many times for Sharon. When Sal asked how we pick camp spots, without waiting to look the word up in the English-Italian dictionary, I blurted caw-shown-ee (caution). Both him and Rita get wide eyes and go "Huh?" With worried glances they grab the dictionary to look it up. How does one explain you have just been making words up? I find out caw-shown-ees or a reasonable facsimile is a slang term for balls or testicles. We sleep in the combination dining-living room on a sofa and a cot pushed together. |
