Stepping into a supermarket when emerging from the van, you buy too much and so, after 5.5 kilometers walking with an overload, I have to stop. Yesterday I went with Geo to the second highest peak of Sicily, now I sit some distance underneath, finished for the day.
Our trip together from home to home-sitting in Italy and on towards Sicily can be seen here.
What fascinates me is that when overlooking such vastness, I know I can get at any spot I pick out when I am hiking alone with my ultra light gear. From high up at Pizzo Carbonara, the second highest peak in Sicily, I can see where I want to go. It spurts me on to (figuratively) great heights!
I found an excellent camp spot at a creek where I can wash myself and make lots of tea. And I try eating as much as I can. Being in Madonie Regional Nature Park I am surrounded by wild boar and deer, they both hop past me as if a rabbit would.
Aware that wild boars can fetch my food supply at night, everything is safely secured under the thin fly of the tent. Near the mesh inner tent and the outside, a titanium bento-box stands soaking oats, seeds and nuts. Asleep in nighttime I hear sounds too sophisticated for a wild boar, upon which I scream to scare it off. When it doesn’t, my earplugs are removed and the headlamp switched on. A fox. A lovely orange creature trying to get a hold of the bento-box with oats. Never knew they fancied oats?
In my half sleeping state I start to wonder: ‘What if here are wolves? Would I be able to chase them off so easily as well?’ and ‘What if here are Abruzzese shepherd dogs? Or… or, a bear?!’ suddenly I realize how irresponsible it is to have so much food so near to me. Not only that, I start to fret about the spot I’d chosen: under a dead tree with many fallen branches on the ground. A bit later, I wake up by wild boars snorting at the creek behind me. Deciding to rise, I prepare several chai on a fire and the day looks good.
Clouds drifting in, being at a 1000 meter altitude the tops of my fingers are cold, they sting like miniscule needles. Also I have attracted an itchy rash, scratching myself exactly as I heard the fox doing this night besides my tent. Even so, I am back in my own pace and it suits me grandiosely well. Geo and I had a couple of wonderfully aligned days in the van where we both enjoyed all the little compromises we made for each other. Now it is back to my very own slow train. With Geo, it remains the fast lane.
Passing through forests so unclear of where the path is, I walk bluntly in the wrong direction, sure I was going correct. Paths shown on the Maps.Me app aren’t always correct. I have to barge through pastures with cows. In doing so making myself heard in case a shepherd dog is taken by surprise. I need to duck under fences and trespass without intending.
Walking makes me be in a whole different Sicily than when I explore together with Geo. Together with Geo life happens fast, focussing on cities and places I would not go myself. Walking alone is calm with long and good sleeps. Without Geo, however, I would not have found milk powder, a commodity that is impossible to find in Italy. We found it in Caltanisetta, a town with an Arab quarter that more or less seems to be inhabited by Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nigerian and Syrian. They settle into bare, near to abandoned buildings in the old town. One of the traders had milk powder, in a more than authentic Bangladesh setting (small shops with very little variety). And now I can have my treasured chai again.
All my pouches are made in camp spots and when traveling. Curious to see them all?
Being together with Geo in a café is nicer than alone, so now I skip on cornetto and cappuccino. But I have my own camp in return and I treasure it like milk powder.
I need to climb now and then. A tired mind, at the end of the day makes up its own intent: ‘No, I don’t want this. I walk back and go around the hill’. Of course, I don’t. Instead I just think of how my pace must align with my breath and how I must look only one step ahead. Then I sink into a heavenly pace of walking where I utterly enjoy the views.
I find it miraculous how the body recovers overnight. How the body needs so little food as well.
The Sicilians are more open and outspoken. More enthusiastic, speaking quickly and smiling more. Have you ever seen people smiling when driving alone in a car (without earbuds in to listen to something or someone)? It happens here and I try to do that too. A smiling face is nicer to look at, and it comes naturally easier when walking.
On the walk I am often surrounded by the sound of sheep bells and barks of deer, snorts of boars and twittering of birds. I don’t often meet people and the ones I do are Dutch, telling me their experience with the trail they just hiked. One I think over at night and come to conclusion it was a masterpiece of Dutch confidence and turning the truth slightly to one’s best interest. Instead of ‘not wanting to disturb the sheep’, I come to realize it was ‘I am afraid of the Abruzzese shepherd dog’, and for good reason. These dogs are huge, and it is exactly this kind of dog we have to care for on our next house-sit assignment. In my inattentiveness I thought it was a Labrador. No ignorance on the stretch I am walking now, but pure vigilance mixed with the pleasure of non-thinking before I reach the town of Gratteri.
Tried buying antiseptic soap to wash the itchy rash on my body that has become impossible to not itch. These villages are beautifully located and utmost pretty yet they lack well stocked shops. I carry on without antiseptic soap but do wash myself at one of the water reservoirs. I go naked in two separate parts while the other half is dressed. Had I know those little 4 wheel-drive Fiat Panda’s would be able to pass had I not done it.
Clean and at a perfectly level patch of cork trees I decide to stop. In total alignment with the beautiful forest I am in, I feel met in all my desires. How I feel a little shepherd when I walk among cows and sheep, my mind making up it is I who lead them. With patience I give cows right of way, so that they won’t trip over the rocks. What is more beautiful: quietness of nature that impresses without threatening animals around?
Hiking is a balancing act in keeping clean, fed and rested and when that works out it feels like the sound of a cat purring. Even on my short hikes the feeling is sublime. To witness the morning starting up, the sun rising over the rocky tops that I passed the day before. Knowing Geo is in Palermo while I hear the winged insects buzz, birds chirping while the sun gleaming its welcome rays. Sounds reminds me of the Punjab in Pakistan. Tastes of Chaco in Paraguay. What is more real than this, when it is such a climate? All my senses fulfilled. A body that is so able.
Totally knocked out I fall asleep. A body sapped of all energy from 3 days with little food, I feel I still carry too much weight. Strapping the backpack onto my hips, after a glorious morning in camp, I want only one thing: food. I want food and a lot of it. Buying supplies in Collesano my backpack is heavier and my mind indecisive on which route to take. I drink a coffee to figure out a route but find the sounds in town too overwhelming. My body still itches a lot and with the newly bought soap I wash it once again. I leave the bra out as straps and tighter bands seem to worsen the problem.
The route I choose is only existing on the phone, not longer in reality, yet I plough through bushes, a riverbed and overgrown meadows. I duck under fences and end up at a farmer who at once reminds me off all the frustrating men I met in India, Syria and Pakistan. These men who swing their arms too broadly and have their fingers coming too close to my breasts, today without the bra. I need my intuition skills and use all my sensory power to get out of the situation: on top of a hill, his farm overlooking a big area. One where I may not continue walking. A farm where he is alone with an elder companion who retreats inside. Once I make a photo of him, he changes his attitude completely and I feel I am out of another prickly bush: ‘Okay, go through the dry riverbed but be quick, it gets dark, and close all the gates behind you or crawl under it’.
I do as I already did and continue on in the dry riverbed. I find a spot where the farmer can not see me but am right under his farm, some 40 meter lower. Cows surround me and I am certain the farmer will not come where I am: his stature did not witness that of an agile gaucho.
Need some inspiration for food while on the road? I got that covered over the years : )
Meanwhile Geo is fed up with being in Palermo. He is mostly done with parking his van in dubious parking spots, some of which turned into local garbage dumps. I am still far removed from Palermo and so I have to be picked up. I don’t mind really, as each side of our travel medallion has sweetness stuck to it. For now, I enjoy my camp to the maximum, here at the bank of an almost dried up river. Then I walk towards where Geo will come and continue together towards Palermo (where I will meet Heike by surprise!).
Switching from the left path to the right track, literally the right one.
Late in October 2025 – average distance that I walk: 10 to 15 km a day.
Over the previous year quite some pouches have been send their own way into the world. Some readers of my blog are still waiting to receive theirs, and soon I will be able to send them. This is a selection of what is still available.
Cycling Cindy 