Images: Our Beautiful View of Etna from the Window of Montesole, our House; Mudslide on our Mountain Road; Etna from our Courtyard ; Montesole from on High
I do not know when you will read this, as I do not know when I will be able to post it. There is no Internet in the mountain casa.
I do know it is 5:45 PM, SL is napping before dinner, and it is pouring rain outside our tiny casa in the mountains in Sicilia. So far, in our 2011 adventure, we have endured trial by tornado, by Losthandsa, by telephone, by mudslide and by rain – and I thought two weeks in Sicily might get dull?
Yesterday morning we awoke in Al Hambra B and B in Giarre to fresh cappucino and cornetti, and wonderful conversation with the other Italian guests, one of whom knew someone who lived in Ontario, and wondered if we might know them.
We left our comfortable Band B and headed out, wondering what was next in store.
What was next in store was that the phone we bought last year in Sicilia would not work. Actually, it worked, but when I charged it up and turned it on for the first time, it had the impertinence to expect that I might actually remember my PIN (pronounced PEEN, by the way– rhymes with BEEN). Three wild guesses later, it locked me out and now I am supposed to enter my PUK (rhymes with …).
Needless to say, we still don't have our phone activated.
This, by the way, is the same phone that we were supposed to use to call our Sicilian travel rep, who would arrange for a facilitator or “fixer” to meet us. Possibly the same “fixer” from the Godfather movies. Remember “The Godfather -Parts I to XL?” Remember the Godfather? Cast in Sicilia??? You see, there is no address for our piccola casa in the mountains. No signs, no directions. You follow the fixer.
So we did, we followed the fixer, who spoke very little English, but made us an offer we couldn't refuse to show us the way up the mountain. We followed, and followed. Remember the empty luggage carousel sense of dread? It pales in comparison to the feeling you have as you make the 37th hairpin turn with your wheels spinning just to maintain purchase with the treacherous incline, realizing you have to remember the way back down the next day to buy luxuries like water you can actually drink. I needed to remember it, and remember it the next day without the fixer to follow.
Remember SL's stop for a few food items? We were grateful that she had, and she put together a pasta of tomatoes, olives, prosciutto and cheese for dinner.
Today, we tried to remember the way down. The LONG way down. We didn't. Whatever road we were on last night certainly did not have a huge pile of stones, mud and uprooted trees blocking our path. So we tried a different fork in the road, and ended up in a farmer's front yard, welcomed most ceremoniously by his seventeen very vocal dogs. So we tried another different fork in the road, and it just stopped. Now you have to understand that when the road stops, that means you have to reverse up a 20 degree incline searching for a place to do a 17 point turn. We tried another... (you get the picture).
Eventually we agreed that any road going down was going to have to do, as we were quite certain that our starting place had most definitely been (rhymes with PIN) up.
We finally made it into a town.
Sicilian VILLAGERS are some of the warmest, kindest people we have ever met. We asked a family who were BBQing in the alley in front of their house where we might buy some wine or beer and were told everything was closed, due to the “festiva”. They then insisted we take a bottle of their homemade wine – in a two litre Coke bottle. We asked for help with our phone and were taken to the wife of the mayor, who allowed us to make multiple phone calls and use her Internet connection to discover that Losthandsa had found our luggage! Her husband, the mayor, was chatting with a man who turned out to be the local butcher. He insisted that Sweet Lorraine go with him in his car to his maccelleria to get whatever carne we wanted.
So here we sit tonight getting ready to cook what we were assured was beef steak in the pouring rain, drinking homemade Italian wine.
Guess what? Life is good, and the homemade wine is terrific!
Tomorrow – our luggage and the phone?
I do know it is 5:45 PM, SL is napping before dinner, and it is pouring rain outside our tiny casa in the mountains in Sicilia. So far, in our 2011 adventure, we have endured trial by tornado, by Losthandsa, by telephone, by mudslide and by rain – and I thought two weeks in Sicily might get dull?
Yesterday morning we awoke in Al Hambra B and B in Giarre to fresh cappucino and cornetti, and wonderful conversation with the other Italian guests, one of whom knew someone who lived in Ontario, and wondered if we might know them.
We left our comfortable Band B and headed out, wondering what was next in store.
What was next in store was that the phone we bought last year in Sicilia would not work. Actually, it worked, but when I charged it up and turned it on for the first time, it had the impertinence to expect that I might actually remember my PIN (pronounced PEEN, by the way– rhymes with BEEN). Three wild guesses later, it locked me out and now I am supposed to enter my PUK (rhymes with …).
Needless to say, we still don't have our phone activated.
This, by the way, is the same phone that we were supposed to use to call our Sicilian travel rep, who would arrange for a facilitator or “fixer” to meet us. Possibly the same “fixer” from the Godfather movies. Remember “The Godfather -Parts I to XL?” Remember the Godfather? Cast in Sicilia??? You see, there is no address for our piccola casa in the mountains. No signs, no directions. You follow the fixer.
So we did, we followed the fixer, who spoke very little English, but made us an offer we couldn't refuse to show us the way up the mountain. We followed, and followed. Remember the empty luggage carousel sense of dread? It pales in comparison to the feeling you have as you make the 37th hairpin turn with your wheels spinning just to maintain purchase with the treacherous incline, realizing you have to remember the way back down the next day to buy luxuries like water you can actually drink. I needed to remember it, and remember it the next day without the fixer to follow.
Remember SL's stop for a few food items? We were grateful that she had, and she put together a pasta of tomatoes, olives, prosciutto and cheese for dinner.
Today, we tried to remember the way down. The LONG way down. We didn't. Whatever road we were on last night certainly did not have a huge pile of stones, mud and uprooted trees blocking our path. So we tried a different fork in the road, and ended up in a farmer's front yard, welcomed most ceremoniously by his seventeen very vocal dogs. So we tried another different fork in the road, and it just stopped. Now you have to understand that when the road stops, that means you have to reverse up a 20 degree incline searching for a place to do a 17 point turn. We tried another... (you get the picture).
Eventually we agreed that any road going down was going to have to do, as we were quite certain that our starting place had most definitely been (rhymes with PIN) up.
We finally made it into a town.
Sicilian VILLAGERS are some of the warmest, kindest people we have ever met. We asked a family who were BBQing in the alley in front of their house where we might buy some wine or beer and were told everything was closed, due to the “festiva”. They then insisted we take a bottle of their homemade wine – in a two litre Coke bottle. We asked for help with our phone and were taken to the wife of the mayor, who allowed us to make multiple phone calls and use her Internet connection to discover that Losthandsa had found our luggage! Her husband, the mayor, was chatting with a man who turned out to be the local butcher. He insisted that Sweet Lorraine go with him in his car to his maccelleria to get whatever carne we wanted.
So here we sit tonight getting ready to cook what we were assured was beef steak in the pouring rain, drinking homemade Italian wine.
Guess what? Life is good, and the homemade wine is terrific!
Tomorrow – our luggage and the phone?
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