Hiking Matera

I am dropped off at the highest point of a low hill and walk towards where I hope to find a camp spot. It is dark when a Jeep comes my way: ‘Where are you going?’ I answer the man I am walking to Matera. He tells me this is not the route to Matera and I better return to the road. I tell him this is exactly the route to Matera. He asks whether I am on bicycle and when he sees I am not, he tells me it is okay. Seeing no logic in this I nevertheless answer ‘grazie‘. It is a track consisting of rough gravel and later on becoming karst landscape. Doable by bicycle, foot, with a walking trailer, and by car.

A karst landscape is a distinctive type of terrain shaped by the dissolution of disintegrable rocks, most commonly limestone, dolomite, or mineral. Over long periods, slightly acidic water seeps into cracks, slowly dissolving the rock and creating dramatic surface and underground features.

It is here in Matera that the production of ‘The Chosen’ is filmed. A crowd-funded series over the life of Jesus. Most of this production is filmed in Utah but the crucifixion, with Jonatan Roumi, is made in Matera. Jonatan’s performance is unusually warm, human, and intimate. His father is Egyptian with Syro‑Lebanese roots. His mother is Irish and he has Armenian ancestry through his great‑grandparents. This mix gives him a look that makes him feel fit to embody the historical Jesus more closely than traditional Western depictions. When I heard the crew filmed in Matera, I had to go there.

Matera has become a go‑to location for biblical films because of its visual power and authenticity. Italians describe it as a place where ‘the stone seems to hold centuries of faith and biblical atmosphere,’ making it ideal for portraying the most dramatic moment of the Gospel narrative. Now, I hear you thinking: ‘Boring, Bible stuff.’ Well, not ‘The Chosen’, that is such a powerful series!

The view from the comfort of the van after I packed the tent and follow Geo to the cafeteria. At the end of the day Geo will drop me somewhere that I pinpointed on Maps.Me

Just a day before I start walking our previous camp spot was one of Geo’s favorites. At a parking lot for trucks with a very short distance away, a luxurious trucker restaurant and patisserie with bar. Plus large restrooms with hot water taps and even separate toilets for the confused gender (visited by a farmer kind of man who could not make any sense of the pictogram). The bar decoration was designed by a gay man and the coffees were excellent. We are fully back in Italy and the Sicilian vibe is over. It is a difference. One where everything seems bigger, wider, broader and newer.

An older American woman with lips like floating beacons posing for a photo and cooing: ‘but it is a great coffee’, when we asked how much the price was (7 euro!), was not what Geo hoped his favourite mafia movie set would bring him. Flooded by busloads of tourists the set of ‘The Godfather’ is rather an unrealistic Sicily.

Now the roaring engines of a cooler truck are exchanged for screams of birds. The constant buzz of an electricity transmitter are falling drops from the tree I am camped underneath. It is half into October and the tent, from now on, is always wet from condensation. Does this temper my happiness? Not the slightest. I walk the walk like a happy trooper and soon meet the man in the Jeep again, we wave each other a ‘hello, you again’ and within no time I feel fully emerged into a filming area that could have been from ‘the Chosen’. When I enter a medieval building I do see a styrofoam decor.

The walk becomes soon beautiful and I feel as if walking in India. Without the challenges that this country would bring, which is not to say I wouldn’t want to be there. Although I soon meet with signs again, one that promises a rather high fine when crossing a certain boundary. The sign has a Google earth photo with red lines drawn where no one ought to trespass. The fine can reach up to 20.000 euro or so. How odd.

The beauty of walking is perhaps the perceiving of the surroundings. It changes for the better and becomes multiple times more beautiful and intense. For me, it is not just somewhere in Italy, it is lifetimes back in India. The depth of the river is only 300 meters and the edge of the canyon not high yet I feel soaring on a high plateau. I am not supposed to be here. I am not allowed to camp nor to make a fire, not even the tiniest. It is private property and I am in the red line drawn on that Google photo pinned to fences. Am I really doing something outrageously bad?

But I can not resist to walk in nature. There is even a path, among countless caves, ancient churches hewn out in rock and I am supposed to walk on a road? Back in Italy mainland, I prefer to keep the Sicilian mindset.

No restrictions in Sicily. Probably the least European feel in Europe. It is messy, it is unruled yet it flows. It is unorganized. Undone. Alive. I don’t want signboards to tell me what path I need to take. If hunters are allowed to walk on it, so am I. I feel an eagerness when I walk, turning into excitement to set up the tent in the late afternoon. To lay down on a comfortable mattress under a warm, smart quilt. Smelling of smoke from the tiny fire I made and feeling safe in my shelter, I doubt anyone would arrest me here. The mornings present me with zeal to pack it all into my small portable pack and walk over new terrain. It is all so exciting and challenging in it’s own good way.

I feel torn between staying in a place and exploring further. My body is felt after the first full day of hiking and I eat as much as I can to lighten my load.

It is on a Sunday that I arrive in Matera. I hoped for a dramatic built up of arriving at the lower edge of the ravine where the town is situated. Instead I slowly walk into town to meet with an overload of tourists. Sundays are outings for the Italians and so Matera is now flooded with them. I escape as quick as I can and in doing so I descend into the ravine on a steep path, among screaming adolescents, ladies with make-up and plenty of folks with Sunday clothes and city shoe-wear. Some go so slow that I can’t wait in line to move down.

I end the day in an utmost beautiful spot. One I hoped-for yet never thought it possible: a medieval church. My very own ‘Chosen’-set is complete. However, full contentment mingles with disappointment for my knee that has started to hurt. Another let-down is the landscape that stretches in front of me: flat agricultural fields. Basilicata is as boring a province as Apulia.

My plan to walk towards Geo is dropped and I walk back to Matera to see the town in quietness. Upon seeing Matera from the best possible angle, the mind is boggled. It simply stops thinking. I call it the surrender of admiration. When the moments of pure wonder settle, the brain tries to grasp what it sees and register, it attempts to bring it to one whole: Syria, Yemen, India, Tibet, Matera, Mathura. Looking out over something that enlarge the iris of the eye, I see an unparalleled spectacle. Unprecedented.

Arriving nearer to town I am met by Titi and her friends, none of whom are interested in Titi. It turns out to be a meeting never to forget. I feel totally in sink with India and the unrivalled moments of spontaneity and laughter. The change of plans to not walk further and my painful knee, that actually doesn’t hurt any longer, are beautific.

The evening has us together, surrounded by wild boars. Geo in the safety of the van, I in the tent, falling into a deep sleep. But not after Geo howled back at the roaring boars.

A shower in the cool morning among dirt that locals like to throw in nature.

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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.

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