Thoughts and happenings from a life on Malta

That first full day at Feudo Bauly I was the only guest and consequently I had the rather spacious breakfast room all to myself. It appears that I also caught the staff unawares because there was hardly anything prepared when I walked in; admittedly it had just gone 0730 and maybe they’re used to a more tardy clientele.

Notwithstanding this, I was immediately treated like royalty, invited to have my morning meal served while relaxed on a sofa and given a whole list of food and drink options, with Loredana toing and froing for my requirements: pastries (trellicine, cornetti, …), yogurts, fresh strawberries, orange juice and cappuccino. Had I wanted, cereals and milk were also available.

By 10:00 I was on the saddle, my body’s energy stores adequately replenished and, thankfully, without the need of a weighty rucksack! In lieu of this, I had a waist bag to carry the essentials, listed here in no particular order:
=> video cam
=> head torch
=> wallet
=> spare batteries
=> security chain
=> tissues
=> wet wipes
=> fig rolls
=> extra water bottle (only one cage on the bike)
=> notebook
=> pencil

For this week of touring, I had decided that direction would take priority over destination. Of course, I consulted my map each evening to see roughly where I would head the following day but this was only to have a general idea in which area of the Monti Iblei region to head towards. Today, it was Ferla and the nearby archeological park of Pantalica but should I have spotted an interesting side road, then I’d have had no qualms in riding it.

As it turned out, I did arrive at the entrance to Pantalica, which I reached after exiting Ferla and heading down a deserted, 11-kilometre, winding road, with only 250ml of water left on a day when the temperature was already climbing up the 30s. According to my 10-year old guide book, there should have been a kiosk near the entrance. “Should”, unfortunately, does not always hold much water with reality; it certainly didn’t help in replenishing my meagre fluid supply. Now, the only way was up and back to Ferla, a Calvary where even vinegar would have been a welcome alternative to bone-dry bottles.

Resurrection was to be found on a plastic chair on the sloping sidewalk outside Al Ranch bar, with the adjacent seat occupied by a 1.5 litre bottle of refridgerated water, a cool can of Coca Cola and two choc-filled sponge cakes. Church bells ring but my GPS shows it’s 13:52. They also rang 15 minutes earlier so it appears that time was out of synch in this hilltop town. And if it weren’t for these bells, there’d be little evidence of it’s passage, as the gents silently staring from some of the other chairs seem to confirm.

Cloud cover eased the ride back to Feudo Bauly and I cycled through the gate at 17:00, after having gone up and down 80kms worth of hills.

Video clip here: Nature scene

(For the previous part of this travelogue, click Part 3)

Part 2

Midweek, eight-thirty in the morning, and there already were a few people on the beach while I was cranking out the first of many revolutions that would take me from sea-level to 630 metres some 52 kilometres later. The route was worked out using a Garmin Oregon 550t GPS, with a bias for secondary, hence quieter, roads.

Route of Day 1

Along the way, I made sure to remind myself that this was not a race, neither a challenge but a tour. As such, I was entitled to stop as often as I wanted, pedal as slowly as I pleased and not feel an iota of guilt about it. To prove the point, I was soon stopping to take the first of many photos and video clips with my Sanyo Xacti digital movie camera (the waterproof version, for those just-in-case situations).

Space-age vegetation

A lonesome building

   

I knew I was in trouble when, after some upward twists and turns, I saw a chequered line painted across the one-lane country road with the word START (aha, it was in English) in bold red paint. This could mean only one thing – a hill-climb course. Though I normally relish climbs – that’s why I chose this part of Sicily for my tour – I wasn’t exactly ecstatic with the thought of what lay ahead, especially with the water in my bottles seemingly evaporating in the relentless heat and with shade in equally short supply. What choice did I have but to deceive myself into thinking that the FINISH lay round the next bend … or the one after that.  

If you listen carefully to my voice in this short commentary to the video clip 40kms on, you’ll realize I’m not kidding! As an aside, this is also where I took my first pee on Sicilian soil.