Friday, March 5, 2010

Day 4 - 75? Km from Catania

This morning we managed to get out of Letojanni where we've been stuck for a day and a half. Beautiful town, but being stranded was making us both a bit stir crazy. Paddled down the coast to Nizza where we met up with Antonello. 

Antonello brought us to his mother's place for a truly amazing lunch. Homemade wine, homemade sausage, pasta with zucchini and pistachio pesto, these amazing cauliflower fritters, octopus he caught himself... Just lovely. 

Our boats were definitely sitting lower in the water after lunch than before, but maybe that was the dinner Antonello's mother made us to take with. (And despite swearing we wouldn't be able to eat another bite today, we managed to put a pretty good dent in it after setting up camp.)
If all Sicilian mothers cook like Serena's and Antonello's, Sicilians are lucky indeed. :)     

The kindness and generosity of the people we've met has been truly astounding. No matter how beautiful the scenery is here (and it is beautiful), the people are even better.

After lunch, Antonello joined us for an hour of paddling. Conditions were lovely all day despite a forcast that promised rain. We rounded a point and made camp on the beach at a little town I don't know the name of, but it seems to be across from the toe of the boot. 

Chores and dinner over, I decided to take a walk into town. Walking through the dark of the deserted beach, all of the sudden I hear footsteps to the side of me. I shine my light. Nothing. I keep walking. Then hear them again. Then all of the sudden it feels like a cloud of butterflies is trying to grab my arm. I scream and turn around and rush back to camp. It felt like someone else was there. René thinks I am crazy, but I am sure it was a ghost. I think it may be a couple days before I take a dark walk down a beach alone again.

Tomorrow we'll get through the strait and head along the northern coast. It's been a slower journey than we'd planned, but I have faith we'll make it up.

2 comments:

Michael said...

Hi Cori - I was hoping to read more of your Sicilian trip, but it seems not to be, at least this time. I'm sure there will be other adventures to come, perhaps even another try at Sicily.
Of course, there's always lots to paddle in Canada where I live! Do visit! LOL
Cheers!
Michael

Cori said...

There was more to this. We went through the strait and around the north side a bit before the weather got too bad to go on. I'd started working on a post about it, but it kept getting delayed, and I'd already told most of the story through facebook. As we've spent some time traveling since then, it seems more pointless to update this, but I suppose I should at some point. :)