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March 7 Tuesday Bicycle touring Italy Sardinia from Perdasdefogu Sardegna to Sardinia We get an early (for us -- besides it's just getting light) 7:30 AM start to our bicycle tour. In Perdasdefogu we pull our touring bikes to a stop to fill up our two 650 ml fuel containers after finally coming across that elusive gas station. We buy bread and eat it with honey (from Argentina I read on the label). After breakfast, it is back on to our fully loaded touring bicycles for more climbing. After 16 kilometres of steady uphill pedalling, we hit the summit of Genna Su Ludu. The wind is crazy, it is tossing me from side to side as I begin the long coast down on my bike. Amid notches in the craggy purple mountains I can spy a cloud-like Tyrrhenian Sea far below. The road we are cycling to Jersu is amazing. It is a series of writhing turns, akin to a giant serpent struck with a stick, as it coils and wriggles down the mountainside. It is a fun descent on our touring bikes in the sunshine. I can feel the air warming as we descend. The surrounding purple mountains look striking with their sharply eroded pinnacles. Now this is bicycle touring at its finest! We cycle into Jersu. It is a long narrow town virtually clinging to the mountainside. Lots of people gape. They return our greetings as we bicycle past. I cycle down a one-way street the wrong way. The street must go for about two kilometres before we cycle back out into two-way traffic. I marvel that at least I didn't have to worry about cars behind me. Sharon is less kind. We cycle out of Jerzu, and continue to drop in elevation. I cycle past a parked truck that is trimming roadside shrubbery. I pass the truck just as another truck approaches (of course). Both the driver and I smile broadly as we pass side by side -- me and my fully loaded touring bicycle with bulging bicycle touring panniers hanging out over both sides of the centre white line. Sharon yells at me. I tell her it was okay, because I was going slow (not!). She says that just means I would die slower. The downhill on our bikes is fast and smooth with numerous curves; enough to keep any touring motorcyclist thrilled. We see a grassy road leading up a side hill. We pull our touring bikes to a stop to bask in the warm sunshine. We eat lunch while lying in luxurious green grass alongside a small almond tree. The tree provides a sweet dessert to include our impromptu picnic. The remaining 30 kilometres to Arbatax rolls by quickly on our touring bikes. It is slightly downhill to the sea and a breeze sometimes helps us along. I pull my bike to a stop to admire a grove of pink blossoming peach trees -- or is it almond blossoms? In Arbatax we stop our bikes at a phone booth to call Iola and Bruno. Iola answers cheerfully and sends Bruno in their little car to meet us. We follow him on our fully loaded touring bicycles, back to their apartment complex. In short order, we are enjoying the best hot shower since our arrival in Europe! Fresh and clean, we are invited to eat pasta with fresh wild asparagus with Iola and Bruno. Cheese with the consistency of yogurt, made by a shepherd friend of theirs, is spread onto a thin wafer bread. Delicious! Iola tells us that shepherds on Sardinia make cheese with little white worms in it. It is a delicacy, they tell us. Shepherds are not allowed to sell the cheese in stores. We tell them we've already had some from a shepherd friend. They say we are very lucky. I have a different word for it. Oranges from Bruno's orchard complement our meal. Bruno has had to replant about 200 trees because of the metre-high rainwater that fell in seven hours a year ago. So much water killed many of the orange trees. Bruno and Iola were vacationing in Umbria, a province in northern Italy, at the time of the rain and saw the flood on the news. When Bruno phoned his brother, he told Bruno, "You can take the ferry right to your front door now." They are a kilometre from the sea -- usually, at least. Fruit cake and espresso coffees conclude the meal. We retire to a cheery fire, made from sizzling chunks of orange tree wood, in the living room's open hearth. Nino, a seconded school teacher from Naples, teaches English at a nearby school. He lives in Bruno and Iole's apartments for the school year (he will be gone by the time the tourists arrive to rent the apartments in the summer). Nino vigilantly corrects my Italian pronunciation and syllable stress. Later that evening, we watch American news on Bruno and Iole's satellite TV. Not much has changed. And to think we thought we were missing something on our long distance bicycle tour. Wearily, sometime after midnight, we retire to a vacant furnished apartment upstairs from Bruno and Iole and quickly fall asleep. Graciously, Bruno and Iola have invited us to stay for a week. We gladly accepted. We're frazzled and exhausted. It will be like a vacation from our vacation. One needs those every once in a while when they're on a long bicycle tour. Miscellaneous thoughts or quotes I have come across while on this long distance bicycle tour. Bike tours are a great time for thinking to oneself. "It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness." Now isn't that the truth? Yikes, how many people have I come across that seem to enjoy doing the opposite. "To live long enough to fart in the face of the devil." Dorthy Dunnett "When in doubt tell the truth." Now, there's one to live by. Come to think of it, why not tell the truth all the time? Except when the truth is going to hurt someone, I suppose. The a softening of the truth may not hurt. "It took a lot of careful planning for all of us to be this miserable." (Sharon commenting on our cycling vacation with Susan.) Commercial episodes we never expect to see: Name for water park : Wet Screams Bumper sticker for our touring bikes: Tired,
Hungry, Irrational, Desperate (Sharon commenting on any cycle
tourist who hasn't eaten enough and is bonking.) Female urinary device that allows women to go standing up: The Shepee. (I think this may be an actual device I heard about?) |
