Blog Entry Week Two: Slippery Sicily and The Best Hostel I Have Ever Stayed In
Week two of the travels is complete and I’m still alive. Some didn’t think I’d make it this far, and admittedly I had my doubts.
Last time I wrote I was spending g my last night in Malta and enjoying life very much.
I’m now in Sicily but still enjoying life very much. Coming to Taormina, and Catania both felt a lot like coming home. One day I really do hope I can spend a real chunk of time living in the south of Italy. The people, the landscapes, the food, I love it all.
So the flight from Malta to Catania went very smoothly, strange that 40 minutes can cost 100 euros but it seemed like we landed before we even finished taking off, and with my history I suppose short flights are safer than long ones.
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| The view from the Terrace of Hostel Taormina! |
One thing has not changed much, and that is the blistering heat (Though admittedly the nights seem to get a bit cooler here in Sicily.) Still I arrived in Hostel Taormina, the best hostel I have ever stayed at and one I hope to return to many times in my life, and from that moment I felt at home. Greeting Francesco the hostel owner on his impossibly lovely sun terrace felt very much like seeing an old friend. Just how a return visit to a Hostel should feel. For those of you who don’t know I came to Taormina for 2 days last year and ended up staying a month. Although it is overrun with tourists it holds a special magic to me and creativity flows so well here. At any rate if you are ever near Sicily, visit Taormina and definitely st
ay at Hostel Taormina the best place in town. (www.hosteltaormina.com)
By the time I’d settled in to the hostel the sun was already down so it was just grab a quick pizza and head to bed. I woke up the next morning and went to the Alcantara River with my friend Stu.
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| Relaxing in the Alcantara. (This is one of the least ridiculous shots) |
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| This is one of the more ridiculous shots. |
The Alcantara, an hour outside of Taormina, is a freezing cold mountain spring, with narrow gorges of volcanic rock. The river cut through and quickened the freezing of an active lava flow of Mount Etna and left a landscape worthy of gasps. Stu and I made it there and like always it was swarmed by tourists at the mouth, but walk for maybe 15 minutes and you are practically alone. Well we walked/swam/climbed for almost 5 hours until the river eventually became impassable and we had to climb some cliffs and wander through farms until we found the road. I fell in the water more than a few times and cut my legs up a bit, with some nice bruises, but such are the trappings of running water, and I am forever at its mercy. It was a thrilling start to Sicily although it did end on a bit of a sour note. Once we found the road and reached a tiny town with a bus stop we waited and waited but the last bus failed to come so we were stranded in tiny Italian town, luckily we found three Swiss/Italian/German young people in the same boat and a helpful bar owner who called us a taxi. This wasn’t the sour not as I love to have that sort of adventure where you don’t quite know if you’ll make it home, but upon my arrival back home I found my waterproof hiking bag was not quite so waterproof as it claimed and my I-pod was wrecked. I will definitely be more careful in the future because at 250 euros and a trip to Catania on the weekend to find a replacement, it wasn’t a cheap wilderness hike.
The rest of the weekdays passed peacefully in Taormina spending the days writing, wandering and enjoying Gelato, Granite, Arincini, and of course Pizza and Pasta. I had the inkling that the new book needed a little more actual action at the beginning and struggled for several days with the proper writing of action using this magic system, but, with the help of some simple similes I think I found success earlier this evening and have probably just reached the halfway point of the book, which is very exciting to me and I’m eager to use my last few days in Sicily to keep pressing onward.
The only incident to disturb the peace of the weekdays was yet another reason for the title of todays blog. Wednesday morning I was walking to the grocery store, having emptied my backpack to carry back the large amount of water needed to survive in Sicily. It was a lovely morning and I donned flip flops, walking through the narrow flowered streets of Taormina with a smile on my face. Reaching the path down to the Cathedral and the grocery store I idly strolled down the steps, taking them slowly, when suddenly my feet were no longer underneath me and I was falling hard onto the stone of the steps. I crashed down and instantly was surrounded by concerned tourists and citizens asking if I was okay in about 5 languages. It was quite embarrassing so I gave the universal thumbs up and hobbled away, worse for wear but not broken from the fall.
It turned out one of the restaurants by the steps had chosen to water a few of them, and flip-flops, wet ground, and my giant’s frame and heavy stride do not mix. Still I survived and am now almost all healed up just in time for another visit to the Alcantara tomorrow.
We have two highlights left before we reach the end, and the more I write the more I realize I need to study the art of brevity. Friday night came and I headed down to the sea and Giardinni Naxos to see Stu and, somewhat skeptically an Italian circus.
Walking there we had little idea of what we were getting into, but for 7 euros figured it could not be too big a waste. Besides there were literally thousands of posters plastered in every possible place of eastern Sicily, and the posters had a tiger on them. I was worried about the idea of such incredible animals in a circus and that concern certainly was well deserved but it was still a worthy a chance to se something out of the ordinary. We joked on the way there that they would be so wildly impressive that they would have dozen’s of Giant Panda’s. We weren’t exactly that far off.
We arrived at the smallish tent surrounded by countless transport trucks a little early and bought tickets. It was strangely almost empty with maybe 3 dozen spectators. I still wonder how these traveling circuses turn a profit if this is an average show, gas costs alone would be astronomical. To make things more awkward every one even remotely adult in the audience was with a few young children. I definitely felt creepy but thankfully one old unkempt Italian man showed up alone at the last instant, and with all his missing teeth he certainly looked creepier than us. (Hard to imagine I know.)
So before the show actually started a man in normal clothes emerged holding something in his arms. He started going through the audience members and we gasped. The only thing he could have been holding was… A BABY PANDA!!!!! He worked his way through the crowd with me calling him over with every fiber in my body. We could not understand how for Canada to get a panda took millions of dollars and multiple visits from our fearless (and possibly soulless) leader Stephen Harper. Undoubtedly his greatest accomplishment. And also, that was just for a loan. How did this tiny circus have one?
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| Not the actual one but you get the idea. |
Well the man worked his way to us and held out the baby panda. Only when we saw its face did we realize it was a Pomeranian with it’s hair died and grown to look exactly like a baby panda. The scary thing is we decided that just about everyone else in the audience believed it was a Panda. From that moment we knew we were in for a show. Oh and they charged 15 euros for a picture with the panda, and people paid!
The show got off to an average start with some donkeys and horses and clowns. The next bright moment came when the M.C. announced there was a criminal in the house. A man dressed in the jailbird black and white striped jogged slowly around the audience, followed doggedly by a police officer who, eventually bumped into him and then released him to the custody of backstage. This is where it got interesting. With an audience full of families and young children, this police officer started a strip tease. She was quite attractive actually and the soundtrack was epic as she stripped from a normal cop to teeny shorts and a bikini top. We really started to believe it might all be coming off, but then the did some actual circus things juggling and spinning huge tubes with her feet (Which was still somehow very sexual)
Over the course of the rest of the 2 hour show we witnessed a tightrope walker almost fall to his death while trying to jump rope, he caught himself and the fear on his face could not have been faked. They also, after intermission brought out 4 tigers (believe it or not they were not house cats painted orange and black) and a hippo. The hippo certainly seemed less than happy but the tigers were amazing to see even if a little sad. There was also a very bad ventriloquist making sex jokes in Italian with audience volunteers. At least that’s what we understood of it. We left knowing we had seen something one of a kind. The “panda” emerged again at the end and more Italians paid for the privilege of a picture. We just shook our heads.
The next day I caught an early morning bus to Catania and met up with my friend Federico and his lovely family. I met Federico last year working at an ACLE camp where he was a helper. He was also kind enough to open his home to me for a full weekend last year and show me a great time. He is a remarkable young man and it makes me shake my head to think that he is only 16. If 16 year olds in Canada were like him people would be lining up to teach high school.
He and his mother and father showed me a great day, starting by taking me to the apple store in a distant shopping mall so I could replace my Ipod. I don’t think I ever would have found an Ipod in Sicily without his help, although convincing the apple store to let me leave was a bit of a struggle. They kept wanting to set up more and more things on the Ipod. From the store we headed to the radio studio right in the mall. Federico, at 16, works with a radio station which has almost 90,000 listeners on a daily basis. So for all those asking. Yes, I am now incredibly famous. We did a three hour show and I even said a few things, though my mastery and understanding of Italian was pushed far beyond its meagre bounds. At any rate Antonella and everyone else at the radio was incredibly welcoming and friendly and I had a great time being a guest on Radio Studio Centrale. (http://www.studiocentrale.it/). Federico was kind enough to promote my books on air so who knows, perhaps I’ll get published in Italy before anywhere else, though I suppose I would have to properly learn Italian.
After that we headed to Federico’s house for an absolutely delicious lunch prepared by his mother. It’s a miracle Italian’s are not all obese, the food is so good. We had a nice afternoon rest and welcomed a new stray kitten to the property then headed down to the sea for dinner and goodbye’s before I caught the bus back to Taormina. As I walked back to my hostel fireworks exploded from the gardens and gave me a joyous ten minute show. Of all the wondrous things man has created, fireworks have to be one of my favourite frivolities. The fact that they take gunpowder ( a tool of death) and turn it to such beauty seems somewhat poetic.
Today was a day of planning and glory. I will stay in Taormina for 3 more nights before heading off to Palermo for a brief two nights. From there I will fly to Milan where I will eagerly await my transfer to a new ACLE camp. Seeing Federico and his family really made me excited to go back to teaching and living with real Italians. It should be a fun few weeks.
I also have to toss in that Manchester United triumphed over the mighty Wigan in the community shield today. I managed to stream the game as I waited to see if I’d have to sleep on the streets of Taormina tonight. (I don’t because Francesco and the whole staff are incredible and found me a bed in their booked up hostel) Let us hope it is United’s first of many trophies under David Moyes.
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| Ro– Robin Van Persie!!!! |
At any rate it’s been an amazing week and I’m still loving traveling. I wonder if I’ll ever get tired of it.
Song of the Week: J Cole- The Cure
Cole kills it and this song and countless other Cole classics provided the soundtrack for my writing of the successful action scenes of my novel Disappearing Eyes this afternoon.
