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19 Dead End Good Sharon was worried the metal door leading into the fort may get locked overnight, but it was still as we left it the night before, albeit the sheep turds were more trampled than when we first found them. The coastal road continued to roll at gentler grades than the interior of Italy. The Ligurian Sea was a placid dark blue. The atmosphere was smoggy and hazy from the air pollution created by the numerous cars and factories in the vicinity. Since Sharon's bike repair had worked out so well, I decided that I may as well get mine overhauled in Italy also. I stopped at a bike shop, but being a Saturday the mechanic was too busy. He sent me twenty kilometers down the road to Reale bikes in Albenga where the narrow cobblestone streets were pedestrian only. Reale sold Cannondales. They were busy also. The mechanic there said that to replace my cluster and chain with genuine Shimano parts it would cost $100, and that wouldn't include greasing the headset, hubs or bottom bracket. I couldn't convince him that I didn't care if the replacement parts were Shimano. Genuine Shimano parts cost twice as much as anything else and, as my independent study had shown, didn't last any longer. We continued on our way without new parts. Ate lunch at a rock wall overlooking the mostly dried up river. A few ducks swam or huddled camouflaged in the old brown grass by the bank. The temperature was cool. I had on my worn through wool gloves and the tips of my fingers were freezing. But still, I was glad I hadn't retired them yet. San Remo was packed wall to wall with tourists. If, as some guide books alluded to, the Italian Riviera's time had come and gone they sure forgot to tell a lot of people! Two loaded tourers were stopped in a park looking at their map. Both were wearing helmets, so we assumed they must be North Americans (European tourers were not fond of wearing helmets). As we approached to say hello, Sharon noticed a small Canadian flag sewn on the woman's rear pannier. John was a principal and Denise was a resource teacher (finally, names I could say again). They had taken a year leave from their jobs in Winnipeg, began their trip in Faro, Portugal, eight months prior. "I did my bit for women's lib by cycling there," Denise laughed. I told her so did Sharon--even going into the male's bastion--bars. "We started out with camping gear," Denise said. "It was the first time we had ever camped and we had a difficult time finding campgrounds in Portugal. And I was so cold we started to rent rooms to stay overnight in. When our two kids visited at Christmas we sent all our camping gear back with them. We've been pampering ourselves ever since." They were following Highway 1 to Pisa (there wasn't much choice), then across to Florence. They wanted to ride to Greece, hop a plane to Malaysia, then on to New Zealand and Australia. "And we want to spend our final two weeks lying on beaches in Tonga and Samoa," John stressed. They had to be home by mid-July--only three months away--in time to go back to work. That wouldn't leave them much time for dilly-dallying. The coast was so heavily populated we didn't have a hope of finding a camp spot, so again we headed inland. Sharon noticed a dead-end road and, for reasons unknown, I talked her out of taking it. Instead, we climbed. There continued to be nothing around us but humanity. Finally, we reached a point where we could look across the valley. I noticed on the far side there were tracts of terraced olive trees. We went all the way back down, then up that dead-end road.... |
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