July 18, 2015
Palermo: The End Of Italy.
Sicily really feels like the end point, not just one of the most southern points in Europe. I have a feeling of elation having put the road from a cold January day in Morelli's ice-cream parlour back in Ballycastle under my wheels to here. Italy has been tough to cycle-tour in after the well organised order of France, which you expect in a western European country, to Italian disorder and chaos. It is almost like a third world country, the roads at any rate. I have read that the country is ungovernable; that the politicians are so self-serving and corrupt, that money for the public good disappears into fat pockets. I ask myself how can a country, supposedly a modern advanced industrial nation that has contributed much to the world, exist in such a state. Though the warm friendly people, the scenery, the food, architecture and of course the two-thousand year plus history more than make up for the negatives.
In the Sicilian capital Palermo, I've been staying in another great hostel run by local bother and sister team Santos and Claudia and their parents that come into help daily. Mother bakes cakes for breakfast, while father sits on the sofa watching the Tour de France. I've been here a week, such is the nice friendly ambience. The other long term stayers are a New York couple, Kabrina and Math, and a nice girl from Paris, Aude, who on the first day when I told her how far I've cycled, she says "ah, you ave strong legs, non? Let me see your legs"
The temperature is steaming hot. The humidity is such that you sweat constantly. The first couple of nights here the air-con wasn't working in the room and I would wake up in the night sweating like being in a sauna. And it is uncomfortable out during the day. One afternoon I come back from a walk around town and my shirt was plastered to my skin with sweat. The only relief is showering and rinsing the shirt out.
There's a washing machine which I can use for the princely sum of four euros and as well as the usual laundry, I had to wash my sleeping-bag which was sodden and smelly with sweat.
And today I opened my email to discover an email from home and one from "Hostel Bongo" in Belgrade signed "Bongo Girls", both wishing me a happy 50th birthday.
Monday I hope to be on the ferry to Genova, from where I'll start a new faze of this tour, cycling west to Spain and Portugal and hope to rap-up there by the end of September and fly out to Buenos Aires. So time is slipping by, not just my own age. These days we say "Your as young as you feel" I don't make any comment.
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