Fences snag box scraps,
A bag dances on the wind,
Urban tumbleweeds.
Today was karmic rebalance day, I guess. It started out middlingly, continued into terribly, and concluded with grossness. Agh.
Last night was actually pretty fantastic for sleeping. We listened to a thunderstorm raging above and around our tent, and the lightning that lit us left no pause before thunder rumbled through. Rain falling on the sides of a tiny, unfortifiable tent is beautiful sound; we can't do anything to keep it out other than trust our waterproof fly. When we woke up, we realised the importance of pegging out the sides of the fly (not just the front and back). The foot of our sleeping bag and a lot of our clothes that had been stashed at one end of the tent were soaked. Sigh.
Anyway, we loaded up our bikes and munched on some snack, then headed to Gaeta to pause at a café for morning espresso and pastries. My goodness, those pastries were actually quite delicious! We also got caught up on some blog posts, charged the laptop, and watched television which showed the strange idea Italy seems to have about American music. It played a mix of Donna Summers, Usher, and Kelly Clarkson. Um.
On the way out of Gaeta, traffic was slow. The cool thing about riding a bike is that you can make your own lane when it's convenient, so we poked through some holes in traffic and escaped into free, open road. Shortly after leaving city limits, an exceptionally angry driver began tailgating us and honking. He pulled up in front of us, stopped, and went to get out of his car, but we continued on. He angrily followed us again, and we finally pulled off to the side to see what the hell his problem was.
Apparently, on the way through one of the smaller gaps, Evan's bags had hooked themselves on the man's car's mirror and pulled it askew. He complained in Italian (in our experience, very few Italians speak a second language, so sadly our English, French, and Spanish are all useless here except for providing approximations of what Italian words might mean) that we should follow him to the mechanic in town and pay whatever the estimate was for the damage. We tried to patch the mirror up with duct tape (it wasn't in bad shape), but this just pissed the little man off further, so we reluctantly followed him into town. He didn't seem to realise that bikes are slower than cars, so he nearly lost us a few times. Shame that he didn't; the mechanic's estimate was €50, and we had to pony up. Sigh. Lesson learned: no more tight spaces.
Out of Gaeta finally, we headed along a stretch of road that was unpleasantly busy. We had to pause, though, when we saw an Enoteca (wine shop) that offered wine on tap. We still had our pastis bottle from Montpellier, and we knew that it was destined to hold great things. So we grabbed a half litre of their red.
That didn't go very far, though. Outside the wine shop, I discovered that my front tyre was flat again, and my attempts to patch it went awry. I had to install another new tube (we broke an additional tube by improperly pumping it, so we now only have one spare out of the four we usually carry), and we irritatedly continued on our way.
Down the coastal road, which was actually not precisely a coastal road since it was a couple kilometres inland, we witnessed sights that were surely caused by a trash workers strike. Garbage blew across the road in waves, towered over bins, filled every corner and fence-hole, and emitted a scent unbreatheable. Biking was miserable.
We planned to stop early, about 20 km from Napoli, at the Lago de Patria, which was marked on our map as scenic and adjoining a nature preserve. It sounded perfect, but when we got there the lake was putrid and covered also in a layer of garbage, and its shores were rife with sand fleas and spiky weeds. The nature preserve itself was lovely, but that's only because it was fenced off from everything else and protected from trash. Scratch that plan.
We passed through a few other towns, also sleepy and covered in garbage, when I noticed something dripping from Evan's bike. The wine bottle had shattered in its holder, spewing its contents all through his clothing pannier and rain cover. Now we smell even worse than usual.
Down further, we hopped off the main road down one that actually followed the beach. The beaches in this area, though, are not public. Instead, they are entirely owned by bars and parking, and also entirely fenced off from the road. And entirely coated in garbage.
The sun began setting, and we started getting desperate for a place to camp. Our map showed some mountains rising up behind Napoli, so we headed up there on the assumption that it would be less inhabited. It... wasn't. We happened across a cyclist who didn't speak English but offered to help us if we were lost. We explained that we needed a place to put our tent, and he suggested going down to the beaches. Sigh.
We did, rather close to dark, manage to find a big open field with a space removed enough from the road that the trash doesn't reach. There's a line of trees that will keep out lights and road-noise. It appears that they were planted there to protect... bee boxes. Oh, good.
Well, from what I can remember, bees aren't nocturnal, and this should be close to the time they start hibernating anyway. I explained to Evan (city boy) what those weird little wooden things were for and recommended that he not shake them around too vigorously. We cooked some pasta a fair distance away.
We're settling in for the night... at least we feel removed enough from people here that we aren't fearing for our bikes. Napoli is pretty notorious for being a theft capital, and although we don't know how true the stereotypes are, we don't really plan to find out. It's U-Lock time.