We leave the bubble of our Hungarian home. We made an account on TrustedHousesitters, committed to 4 homes, and are off to our first in Pescara. Our plan is to care for other people’s pets while we live in the home of the owners. House-sitting enables you to see the country from another perspective and have the heart-warming interactions with pets.
Geo tried to find and set up a football club for seniors where we live but there was zero interest and less people to warm up for the idea.
As soon as we are out of Hungary, the unexpected happens. Being an outfield player and goalkeeper in the past Geo is challenged, age 63, by an exceptional talented 12 years young athlete on our stop in Slovenia. After the dynamic training, the mom of Urban comes to give us homemade pastry. We gleefully eat it at our camp spot adjoining the football field.
Our first dog is a Mastiff breed and as soon as the introduction with the owner of home and dog is over and we are alone, he surprises me with a headbutt. The second night I feel the pain in my jaw settling in and the spots where his teeth begged for attention are marked in blue. An unexpected pull on the leash has my tennis-elbow going a few levels down on the ladder to healing. I guess I need to show more authority…
The three year young Aka is cute, as he sits on my feet while I am trying to cook in a kitchen that has the smallest size ever. Locating to the sunny garden he follows me, begging to sit on my lap. If he does so, I am crushed and when I play with him I come out of the game with pain. In his playfulness he simply forgets he is a dog that can maul me, or any other creature – and indeed, when we walk our rounds twice a day, the reactions of people passing us are often that of intense precaution, maybe because I am so unfit to accompany this stocky muscled ‘pet’.
From the countryside to a city apartment, I feel I am stuck. Surrounded by others from all sides, including a school with screaming kids, work men with drills and most of all: dogs. As soon as we set out for a walk with the dog, so do others. I find it the most unnatural thing to see so many humans crossing roads with large dogs. What is the purpose of a dog in a city? Barks sounds from all angles, small balconies high above and slits in fences. Some people don’t adhere to rules, and poop sticks to the pavement and pee drips anywhere that has a surface to pee against.
Am I merely in transition from a cat woman to a dog sitter? Must I adjust? I certainly look forward to become better and more patient. In fact, I learn a great deal at the moment.
The only way to walk this strong dog where I will have least troubles and pain-free wrists and arms, is to tie the leash around my waste.
Has the dog become a substitute child?
I can not recall what I do ‘walking with a dog’, it is shuffling, pulling, being pulled, tripping over him, jumping left and right and be watchful. Stopping, peeing, sniffing, scratching. A muscle snaps, my arms get torn and my wrists hurt. This cute dog with so much expression never wants to return home when I start the route towards it. Somehow he knows and I can not pull him in the direction I want. How pathetic to get irritated by a dog but I am and this makes me feel annoyed. My irritation about walking and the need to show affection grows and so does my feeling of guilt because I like this dog but not his forceful ways. I feel sorry for this energetic dog that can’t live as I suppose he would want, instead sleeping and snoozing inside a small enclosure. We walk twice 45 minute a day and I never expected that I would dislike such a task. And so feelings bounce into each other and all I want is to be away from it, on a hike in a nearby National Park.
I take advantage of the possibilities a city at the sea offers. I do things I haven’t done in perhaps 20 years: going to the hairdresser and Geo buys me a bikini so we can go swim together in the October warmth.
Walking with Aka, my dog for the moment, I feel I am judged by the way I look. We are in Italy after all and when first thing in the morning is to walk the dog, I see literally everyone has stood quite some time in front of the mirror. Ladies are high-heeled and fully made up. I, on the other hand, start walking almost straight out of bed.
A few things come to mind when I think about our long stay in Italy. We all know Italy well, it is super touristy and heavily advertised, and these places we avoid, so what I see is a country that has kept it’s own style and as a whole is not too much following the big American template. The variety and quality of the food bought in supermarkets is remarkably good. The pastries are with a minimum amount of sugar and therefore so very delicious.
The immigrants are following the mindset of the Italians and seem to have become the best of both worlds: polite, friendly, helpful and happy. The people we meet are at times wanting to present us with free stuff. Like a Senegalese showing his ware, instead I inquire about his origins, whereby he presents me with a bracelet (that I kindly decline). The chubby Italian-Tunisian girl behind the bar telling us her Tunisian grandma isn’t happy with her liberal life-choices (having a child from the man she lives with but is not married to). When we say goodbye, she’s giving us a wrapped cake.
Other travelers we talk to are optimistic and Geo and I feel indeed surrounded by positive vibes. The man who calls his cat in cafe to return to their home makes me smile, or the Somali guy jumping impressively high on the pavement trying to touch a high post. Italians are kind, helpful and so very goodlooking. People take such good care of themselves that it is a pleasure to just watch them. There is an identity of taste and originality. Most people are slim and confident, aware and probably careful with the pastries they consume. My self-image automatically adjust and with some new items of clothing I transform a little more away from Hungarian countryside.
Is Italian food really that good?
When one is used to knit woolen pullovers, one will not buy an expensive sweater knitted by the thousands on a machine somewhere in China. Same is it with me and food. As we heard a Sicilian, who worked for 40 years in Germany, say: ‘There are many who have Italian restaurants and say they can make a pizza, but only a few are able to make a good one’.
(Geo does not agree with me, he likes Italian pizza and pasta in all variations a lot).
Italy has a lot of own products that makes the eating experience very tasty. Pasta being the least of my favorites, I came to Italy not for the food but as a great escape into nature. And here, Italy delivers dazzlingly well.
As soon as the line below Rome is crossed, everything changes. The buildings along the route are less cared for, crumbling or abandoned. The built-up parallel to the road is hiding the beauty that lays into the heart of the town. There is no way to judge an Italian town by the road passing alongside. The dirt starts to pile up as soon as you enter the outskirts of Naples. I feel thrown back to Paraguay, Brazil and even a little of India flitters past in my memory. Needless to say I love it. There is suddenly so much abandoned, run down and left that it becomes utterly interesting. Wait until you reach Palermo!
We often are in towns at siesta hours and retiring at 7 PM does not give any worth to late opening hours. And so the siesta hours are redundant to me. Except in the big supermarkets, nothing can be bought at midday. The charm of towns has faded; they’re just brief pauses to gather food before the mountains call me back.
We have developed a routine when we are in the van. It is not the easiest way of travelling for me and rather tiring but there are a few moments to look forward to. One is to cover a lot of distance when in undesired landscapes. Stiff and sore of sitting long times I stumble out of the van into cafe’s for coffee with fantastic Italian pastries. Entering a supermarket makes me leap in excitement. Though we wonder how other couples make van-life possible, even pleasant? We can not really find another reason than that they both like driving (Geo doesn’t mind long drives).
By the time this image was made, we had found the sweet van-life spot where both of us were comfortable and at ease.
Never had the desire to drive a car, nor ever bought a car instead always covered distances by bicycle, I have issues of sitting motionless in a motorized vehicle. The constancy of sounds and the amount of stress that traffic always delivers. I see danger in every curve that is too curved and the lines on the road are most of the times too narrow. Italian villages on top of hills are most stressful, as is speed, oncoming trucks, passing trucks and cities. Geo however tackled Palermo and adapted rules, regulations and suggestions to the Italian standard. Italians in the South drive rather different than we are used to, yet Geo picks it up and becomes incredible confident. Confidence and perseverance are the main rules in South Italian traffic: all the rest adjusts.
Video calls and getting to know one another
Having other people watch your home and pets can be quite a risk for the owners. Often there is a video call being made upon accepting the dog-sitters into their home. We made a good impression because we were chosen before more video calls with others were conducted.
It is funny when you think of it, driving many hours to another house for an introduction-meeting and short trial: only for a dog. Their home, many times bigger than our first apartment in the city, is located in a gated community and it turns out to be a very different experience: one where we immediately bond with the hosts. Geo and I are aware that our living secluded in the countryside of Hungary seemed to have made us adverse towards society as it is. Now we are in contact with several different people outside Hungary, and we realize we are not.
It is refreshing to be among foreign people in Italy, as they seem to adapt to the Italian character. As for us, we are now being able to measure ourselves and come out just fine. Here we are with French Valerie and Jeff from the USA who rescued Chakra dog.
Chakra, the things we do for a dog
What strikes me most about Chakra is that she was a stray dog roaming the neighborhood to find food from bins, getting into gardens and yards, only to be chased off by annoyed people. Humans had discarded her and no one was kind to her. Chakra became a vicious barking and aggressive little dog. Until Valerie decided to save her. Now, Chakra is coming to you to be walked through that very same neighborhood. She agrees to be on the leash and lead the way through an area she once was forced to wander alone. Relief washes over me, as she doesn’t pull the leash. I soon fall in love with her, yet there is only one setback: she doesn’t like to be hugged. ‘Wait, she will,’ Valerie says in confident knowledge.
With a bag full of pomegranates from Valerie and Jeff, we add more health to our ‘cornetti’ and ‘cappu’ in the cafe’s at morning time.
Sicily captures me from the start
Being in Sicily fits my preference, as it is less polished and less restored. The open-air-museum-feel is gone and is replaced by a chaotic, enthusiastic atmosphere. It seems rules, regulations and artificial neatness have faded. I don’t mind the dirt, Geo hates it. I feel a lot more comfortable in Sicily. It stands in stark contrast with Abruzzo: I am encouraged to make a fire. Not just words, no… a whole truckload of wood is delivered at a refugio when the forest ranger explains me how to make a fire. I am at the pista Altomontana near the volcano Etna when this happens.
Sicily is heavily built up along the edges of the coast, and houses, abandoned buildings (always fenced off) and renovated old cottages are dotted randomly in lush nature, disturbing my view. Once the hills become too steep, nature starts to flourish, with the area around the Etna being magnificent. Always wanted to go further and more East into the world, I had no idea what Italy really had to offer. Off for a hike at the base of the Etna volcano, I wonder: ‘Is this volcano actually safe?’
Like in Hungary, villages are slowly dying out and elderly people who still live there are sometimes depending on most surprising solutions. We meet with a man from Kerala, caring for 94 year old Salvatore who invited us into his home. Dementia has started into Salvatore’s brain and while he talks endlessly in a Sicilian dialect, he starts to cry. His Malayali caregiver, Joseph, has made the old man’s language his own and is 24 hours, 7 days a week with him. Once per month he has a day off. Joseph earns 1200 euro a month for his job while he paid 10.000 euro to get here. Initially aiming to become a food deliverer he ended up in a forgotten village in the hills of Madonie. But Jospeh has a family to feed. I wonder: ‘Is this worth it?’
At the tip of the Sicilian island
By chance we find a designated area for camper-homes to stay the night and sleep peacefully. It is a most idyllic spot and removed from the bulk of overnighters’ we stay, go and come back to. We wash in the sea, a soft feeling enwrapping us. The waves make hard sounds on windier days, its color becomes dark, making the whole feel a bit scary to sleep so near to. The area starts to fill up with snails and I discover they have a side arm with which they can hold themselves, like a rock climber to a vertical wall.
So why do we travel?
Isn’t it odd to stay somewhere and just hang around, doing little. I think we travel to have another scenery than that from home where everything becomes familiar that it starts to become an automatism. But why did I do that before I had a home and still longed to go? The answer, while sitting in my tent, preparing chai while Geo is parked in my back, is simple: to see better and more intense. To feel alive and deal with new circumstances. To see what it is like where I am not: that drives me to go to places.
Madonie National Parc
I am dropped off at an altitude near 1000 meters and walk towards Palermo. This gives Geo ample time to discover the capital. And I can release my desire to walk where a few moments ago I could look down on. An endless landscape of hills tumbling over each other, some winding paths in between and villages enough to stock up in.
When I join Geo again, his pace goes down and he has to adjust to my slow and peculiar ways but also, the stress of the spots he chooses is over. Geo likes to sleep at industrial zones, louche areas and often noisy spots. Not seldom he has to move several times in one single night. What he prefers I find dangerous and not the least suitable to pitch a tent. When I am back with Geo my meagre diet changes into a copious one. And with my female intervention we sleep at rocky beaches where the calm of what I prefer returns.
After the walk through Madonie Geo takes me into Palermo. Such transitions are never smooth and this one feels like stepping into a war. After a few days of rest, we go back. In perhaps the only, most walked pedestrian street of town, among a string of tourists, loads of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, some Arabs and Africans I feel rested and balanced. I face this enormous city that feels a bit like India. Palermo seems to be buried in trash, that the poorer try to sell on the pavement, or just leave behind in containers, if there is one.
Almost all touristy shops are run by Bangladeshi, not much interested to run a store filled with unnecessary trash from China. Most of these guys are wonderfully to talk to. Street food is picked at by doves and reheated in microwaves (but I need to try some of it nevertheless). For our belated breakfast I long to go to the Emmanuel African restaurant but Geo rather wants Italian fare (if you can go to one restaurant only, make it this African one). With a plastic container in my hand, enclosing a reheated arancini that I eat when it’s gone cold, I meet Heike. As if I watch a movie I see her walking right in front of me. Not knowing of each other where on earth we were, it is here we meet the next day, over sugared chai and Bangladeshi biryani as breakfast.
Incredible. Geo and I are out of Hungary and another world opens, one where we meet people to whom we spontaneously start talking, forgetting time and laughing out loud. Heike, to whom I do not need to explain myself the tiniest bit, feels marvelous to be with. Geo and I feel wonderfully connected and alive. Also in the middle of the night, where we are woken up by a fairground music system on the parking lot of a builders market.
Zingaro Natural Reserve
Time to stretch the legs and inhale some nature, to revive the heart and kickstart the senses. The hill has been calling out for some time and having traversed it from all angles, only one direction is left: up. In all my excitement I forget to seek a spot that gives shelter. Instead, my marvelous chosen spot is met with a storm. The Durston starts to spew pegs and I have to rapidly pack. Than, the Durston starts to vehemently shake and I decide to ease her, taking the walking poles down and simply start walking.
I start returning back down but doubtful about sitting in a van while rain slashing around, I turn around, continue walking up the hill. This pattern repeats itself four times until I am well aware that walking is the very best option. Soaked and only seeing clouds I can not say I liked Zingaro National Reserve that much.
After the walk, where I got soaking wet, Geo brought me to a best possible café.
We return to our spot at the beach, where snails are abundant and the sea still act as a shower. It is November and warm in the sunshine. Someone returns each day to fetch the snails. We greet each other when I go for laundry or dishes to my rocky bathing patch.
Cycling Cindy 