When we awoke Monday my plan was to get going early so I could set myself up in Rome for the following day's departure. I was hoping to arrive in Rome early enough to see the Palatino and Emperor Nero's home, the Domus Aurea. I had set up a night back at our original hotel weeks ago so I could have a jumping off point for my AM departure on the 9th. Cholo has assured his girls any myself that he'd manage to find someplace to crash and I fully expected he would. He's resourceful and seemed unconcerned so I trusted his confidence.
Bar Ercole
Pizzo is a small town and not quite the most plugged in place on earth. Somehow on our first afternoon there I discovered a weak wireless signal in the main piazza. Walking around, staring at the bars on my phone I found the signal was emanating from one of the many coffee/bar/gelato joints on the square, the Bar Ercole. One of the guys inside the joint saw me fumbling with my phone and drug me inside tapping the WAP password in to my device and later, Cholo's laptop. We were in! The staff got to know us well after a few days and there was even an ex-pat American, from Santa Barbara, happy to speak in English for a change. But for Bar Ercole we would have been in a data vacuum since my attempts to get my phone on the Italian phone & data network failed. We would go there every morning for coffee (yes, amazing) and pastry and every night for tartuffo and maybe a shot of grappa. This let us stay in touch with home and loved ones via skype, plus let me look up stuff on the net and fire off blog entries and photos. Internet whore that I am, it proved indispensible, especially this Monday morning.
Things change
Now I had been encouraging (nagging?) Cholo for some time to find himself a place to stay for when our paths would separate but like I said he never seemed concerned. I just assumed he knew what he was doing. The way each of approached this showed where we are different. Before traveling I like to plan and plan and plan. Long before our departure I had researched a dozen and a half cities and who knows how many B&Bs and shitty hotels. We had no reservations before we arrived in Calabria (unheard of for me) so for my piece of mind I wanted to have options. Lots and lots of options. For whatever reason Cholo had the same confidence despite making no arrangements whatsoever. His plan was to ask the owner of the B&B with whom we'd been staying for the past 4 days to cut her price in half after I left. He figured she had no ther clients so she'd take what she could get. This plan was hatched Thursday but not executed until Monday morning.
She declined and suddenly Cholo seemed out of ideas. He asked me to look for some other options on the computer. I already had a few in hand and added a couple more with a web search while we sipped cappucino on the piazza. I spent the next few hours trotting Cholo around to 4 other B&Bs in Pizzo that had vacancies. Places with stairs were disqualified immediately. I found him a place at ground level overlooking the Gulf of Eufemia but he rejected it upon inspection, complaining about the lack of a private bath and the elderly, smelly proprietor. Suddenly he was very picky. 2 Other sites in Pizzo proved unsuitable and the 3 others I found in nearby Vibo Valentia Marina and Briatico where there weren't quite so many hills didn't make the grade either. The morning had evaporated while I searched for a bed, my plans for sightseeing scuttled. I still had hope to make Rome by dinnertime when in an abrupt an unexpected change of plans Cholo decided he would cut the trip short and try to get on my flight back home the following night.
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| Piazza Nationale at night, Pizzo. |
I don't know why I was shocked. Coming home with me made perfect sense and had for months prior. Why he came to his conclusion late this morning I have no specific idea, but plenty of guesses. Maybe the reality of being alone and without a car and my assistence had sunk in. Or he was worried about the cost and/or less comfortable living conditions. His fitness was certainly in question given his avoidance of any slopes or stairs and the swollen foot episode two days previous. He was feeling every one of his 73 years. Or maybe he realized that his distant cousins just weren't going to be offering him a bed for a week or two. Some grand combination of all of the above, I'm sure. Still, it didn't stop me from being annoyed. Even pissed off. Our time in Calabria had been run on an open itinerary but I had made a concrete plan before we left for my eventual exit based on Cholo's own plan for hanging out for the next 3 weeks. At this point I was prepared to get back home and looking forward to a brief cushion between my departure from Calabria and the anticipated grind of the flight home. So now I had wasted the morning finding a place for Cholo to stay, a task I had been reminding him to take care of for days, only to have him shut all these options down. Then a good chunk of the afternoon was being eaten away while I feverishly tried to get his flight changed and a Rome hotel arranged. Any chance I had of seeing any part of Rome or relaxing on my last day was now dead and I wasn't happy about it. Of course I wanted to help Cholo. That was my entire reason for joining him on this adventure. My frustration arose from him deciding at the last minute to do what seemed obvious from the get go while seemingly being committed to just the opposite until just moments earlier.
Let's go home
After spending the past few hours failing to find Cholo new digs we retired to our apartment to give the laptop a chance to re-charge while we began to pack our bags. After about an hour we set off again for Bar Ercole so I could Skype-call US Air and pose as Cholo to ask for a flight change. After 20 minutes caught in their telephony system I was greeted by a human voice and another 10 minutes and $472 assfucking later Cholo was booked on the following Thursday's flight, Tuesday's being fully booked. That meant we had to find Cholo a pace to stay in Rome and since I was already booked for a night back at the Crowne Plaza St. Peters that made the most sense. We booked an additional two nights at a rate that would have kept us our apartment in Pizzo another week. On second thought, maybe I should have extended? Honestly the thought never occured to me and I was more than ready to go home. I was annoyed by the morning's events and the day growing longer and longer while I worked on re-booting his itinerary.
By two Cholo had packed. I had to walk over to the parking lot to fetch the car so before walking out I began to stage the bags on the narrow Via that bordered the tight two lane street we sat on. I had successfully been able to squeeze next to the doorway with the hazards on to unload four days earlier and was hoping to do the same now in reverse. Cholo insisted upon taking the bags out while I ran for the car so we could save a bit of time. I gave way. I found the car, pulled it in front and we loaded up with not too many angry honks from the few cars trapped behind us.
I had my swimsuit on so I could take a last dip in the Tyrrhenian sea. I needed to mellow out for a moment and water is my heroin. It was one of the best moments of the trip. I love the motherfucking ocean. I even dove down 20 feet to rescue a Heiniken bottle from the sugar sand bottom and introduce it to the trash when I trudged back on to the beach. Pete Meyaart: International Recycler. 15 minutes later we were underway, cutting switchbacks up the mountains, with a detour to the supermarket so Cholo could load his cooler up with food for the next two days of exile in Rome. Somehow he managed to knock a bottle of Amaro off the belt at checkout, spraying sticky herb scented booze everywhere. The cashiers glared. It just wasn't his day. I lowered my eyes and we made a hasty exit.
Finally by 4 we were on the Autostrade and on the long path back to Rome. 600 kilometers and more than six hours of driving stood ahead of us. The GPS had our arrival time at the hotel at 10:30 but my aggressive driving was beginning to reel that in as I begged the hateful Lancia for everything it had. Then the phone rang. It was the proprietress of the B&B. We had left a bag behind. Cholo's laptop. I steamed quietly and did my best to laugh it off while I turned the car around to backtrack an hour back to Pizzo. I was gutted. I had tried to stage the bags outside our B&B to avoid just this kind of problem and Cholo, prideful to a fault, insisted on doing the job himself. It's no surprise that the combination of a bad memory and bunky eyesight left his most valuable possession behind. He apoligized in his funny castellano idioms and while I was as frustrated as a man with no hands trying to tie his shoe laces I couldn't really be angry at him. Maybe I should have insisted that I load all the bags myself, but I didn't want to treat the man like a baby. I think he was feeling badly enough that afternoon after coming to a frank and unwanted conclusion about his ability to survive this place solo. I dropped him off back at the B&B and stewed while I set out to make a u-turn, replaying the wasted morning, phone calls, research, delays, broken bottles and forgotten items in my mind. I allowed myself to be pissed off internally, but didn't want to let any of that leak out to Cholo so I swallowed it all down. By the time he had recovered his laptop and we set out again our arrival was now anticipated for well after midnight. I grit my teeth knowing I was now looking at crossing the mountains in the dark and pushing against probable weariness. That would only make the driving slower and more dangerous. This was going to require a lot of coffee and thankfully I was in the right country to see that done.
Up, down, rinse, repeat
The A3 runs along the west coast of Italy from Reggio Calabria to Naples crossing over the Apennines once again. Even worse the A3 has been undergoing massive renovations and expantions for years. Much of the road sits on impossibly high and delicate looking briges while other sections literally bore through the center of mountains. Currently they were building even higher bridges and wider tunnels. I had seen some of this work on our day trip to Reggio Calabria but it became way more extensive as we headed north. For almost 80 kilometers we were down to one lane, frequently stuck behind some slow going commercial vehicle while navigating narrow switchbacks and rutted pavement. The A3 takes you up hundreds of meters and dumps you on the other side of some small range, over and over again. Throw in shitty signage, no lighting, lots of trucks and trying to coax every molecule of speed out of a 1.3 diesel while changing gears incessantly between coffee and piss breaks and you have a jangled nerves cocktail. I was drinking it deeply. I consider myself a pretty good driver but I can't say I enjoy driving. Between the cranky GPS directions, narrow roads, high speeds, tight spots, impatient drivers and impossible parking I had been dealing with the toughest driving I had ever seen. Perhaps most painfully we had been driving through dramatic country with glorious vistas that oversee mountaintop villages and miles of blue sea and I had to keep my eyes rigidly on the grey asphalt in front of me.
By 9PM the mountains faded and the roads began to straighten. I had the Lancia pulling a solid 140 km/hr when I could but the car was at its reasonable limit for safety at that point. Bumps and seams in the road floated us and would drop us hard on the backside, eating up all of the travel in the suspention and bottoming the car out at high speed. Once again kraut cars glided past us like birds in flight. At midnight Rome came in to view and we pulled in to the parking lot of the hotel shortly after. After settling in to our room, chowing on some bread and sausage and killing a bottle of wine we passed out, the misereable events of the day thankfully now in the past.
Home again, Home again, jiggity jig
5 Hours later I'm awake. I tidy up the car searching every corner for anything Cholo might have left behind accidentally. All clear. In the hotel lobby they have a coffee station set up. I find a styrofoam cup and fill it with noxious lukewarm coffee and add a creamer. A moth floats on top, murdered by the wretchedness of the brew. Somehow I've stumbled upon the Worst Cup of Coffee in Italy. After notifying the proper authorities I shower and carefully pack my bags, tenderly wrapping the jars and bottles of delicacies I've been collecting, securing them in my sturdiest bag. Ready, I say my farewell to Cholo and set out for the airport. I dump the car and tally the mileage and fuel: 1567 miles, 41.5 gallons of diesel at a cost of $330 averaging 38 miles/gallon.
Getting thru check-in is the spastic, time-wasting mess I expect and I'm at the gate with just 10 minutes before we board. I do a quick run through duty free but nothing looks like a deal, including the 900 euro Prada handbag I'm sure my wife would love. My smiling face and the sausages I've tucked away in my carry on will have to do.
Except when I arrive in Philly a snotty little weiner dog sniffs my bag and the customs agents marks me for the agriculture line. They confiscate the sausages and root throught my bag for other contraband ultimately setting me loose with a lecture and a warning instead of a $300 fine. The customs agent did spend what seemed like way too much time typing on a computer which I'm sure has me marked for body cavity searches at customs for decades to come. I get to the gate for my Philly-West Palm Beach flight with just minutes to spare. It turns out I could have taken my sweet time. We have trouble leaving the gate when a plane stalls out right behind us. Then a brief but intense rainstorm shuts down all traffic for 15 minutes and we finally depart the gate only to learn the wind has shifted and we're now 60th in line ot take off. Much later, 3 planes from takeoff, they shut down the runways for a corridor change and we limp back to the gate to re-fuel. 4 hours after first setting foot on the plane we're back where we started. The passengers are irate and an old greek guys screams at the flight attendants "who is authority here! You are being asshole to us! We are not sheeps and goats!". Oh, but yes were are, sir. Tired, I bleat weakly. Another hour and multiple leg spasms later we're finally under way. I'm too tired to sleep and half heartedly read my book, intermittently staring at other passengers like a delirious creep. I hear the sound of crying and the plane smells like dirty diapers. And that's just the elderly.
I arrive home, quietly unlock my door and drag my carcass inside. Shedding my bags and clothes I dig out the PJs I've been wearing for the last week. I'm too tired to argue with myself about their cleanliness. When I enter my bedroom ready to slip in to bed next to my beautiful wife I find my youngest has snuck in beside her, monopolizing my side of the bed. Oh yeah, I'm home. I head back to the living room, find the couch and pull a beach towel over me for a blanket and finally close my eyes for the first time in more than a day.
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