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Category:
Travel
Publisher: Gareth Evans
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 162
Copyright: Jan 1 2003
Summary:
In the summer of 2001, a young man named Gareth Evans
set off from the south of Sicily with the idea of
cycling the entire length of Italy. On a
mountaineering holiday in Chamonix after the end of
the ride, he climbed Mont Blanc, Western Europe’s
highest mountain. He then realized that he had
traveled from Europe’s most active volcano to its
highest summit in under six weeks. It was not easy.
Many logistical, emotional and physical hurdles were
overcome to produce the end result. Through dogged
determination, the epic adventure was completed,
history explored and cultures experienced. An
entertaining tale, the book makes an enlightening read
from anybody’s perspective.
**PLEASE NOTE: If after reading the summary and excerpt you wish to purchase a copy of the book, or sample the remainder of the book, then please email me at gaz_evans@yahoo.co.uk (completely non-profit) As well as the story of the journey, the book also contains a detailed route description, coloured maps and 32 colour photographs. I am able to make you a bound copy on A4 sheets, nothing particularly proffesional. All copy rights remain my own.**
Introduction:
I never intended it to turn out quite like it did.
Not just the fact that I ended up cycling the length
of Italy and then climbing Western Europe’s highest
summit, but everything else that went with it. I
never intended to lose my panniers in Catania airport,
I never intended to reach the Austrian border by
myself, I never intended to get stuck in Chamonix
without any climbing gear and I never intended to
effectively solo up Mont Blanc from the valley. Oh
well, that’s life….or at least a dramatic microscopic
version of it!
Excerpt
An excerpt from Chapter Three:
3. A Day to Remember:
The island of Sicily is dominated by the cone of
Mount Etna, still the most active volcano in Europe
and arguably the world. It has a long history and
yet, perhaps surprisingly to the uninformed, it has
taken very few lives. When it erupts it usually gives
plenty of warning. It produces fantastic firework
displays of Stromboli emissions, high streams of
laser-like appearance piercing the sky, and yet the
main lava flows are lethargic. Etna merely spits and
dribbles rather than completely boiling over. That
however makes it no less spectacular or impressive.
Etna is the Queen of Sicily, majestic, mighty and
eternally vigilant. Even during periods of relative
calm she is crowned by vast plumes of steam rising
serenely from her summit crater. She brings tourism
and creates fertile soils around her slopes. Locals
take advantage of this at much risk to themselves, as
Etna is a terribly moody sovereign. At times of
crisis, residents, being highly religious, flock to
the churches to try to appease her anger. In 1169,
1329 and 1381, its eruptions caused lava to reach the
sea, and Catania was wrecked in 1669. In the decades
before our visit, she had still been active too. In
1971 an eruption destroyed the observatory built to
give warning of such an event, nine people were killed
on the edge of the main crater in1979, and the cable
car that takes tourists to the crater was brought down
in 1983. On the 13th and 14th of June, we had a date
with the Queen of Sicily.
At 7am we awoke to discover the harsh reality of our
position. All appeared different in the light of the
day and consultation of the map revealed just how
little ground we had covered in our epic night time
adventure. We were left with no option but to
completely revise the route yet again in an attempt to
get back onto our rather tight schedule. The simplest
solution lay in continuing northwards along the coast,
but we agreed on cutting back inland before reaching
Catania. Having already experienced those busy
streets two days previously, we did not fancy
torturing ourselves with stress and fumes a second
time. It would have probably been exceptionally bad
for morale too, as it would have emphasised our zero
northwards progress since landing at the airport.
At 9am, Ioannis cried out his staunch catch-phrase for
the tour. “This is crazy! It’s midday!!” We had
planned on taking a four hour break in the middle of
each day to avoid the heat, but due to late starts
amongst other things, this had not so far happened. I
knew what Ioannis meant. It was not midday yet, but
it certainly felt like it. The air seemed to heat up
so quickly, so that midday could effectively be
classed as taking up the entire time period between
about 8am until 6pm. “It’s no wonder all these
buildings are so primitive,” joked Ioannis, “if I
lived in this sort of climate, I would never bother to
do any work either!” I felt that perhaps there was a
hint of realistic substance in the foundations of this
joviality.
With hindsight, I have absolutely no idea how I
managed to keep going through these early days. My
stomach wrenched, my head throbbed, I didn’t want to
eat and I felt like all my energy had been
mysteriously sapped. On two occasions, I was forced
to stop and rest. It wasn’t a choice. I had to,
otherwise I might possibly have plummeted from my
saddle. I had no idea what was happening to my body.
I was drinking water like a sponge with a hangover but
still I was unable to retain it. I thought that
perhaps I needed more salt and munched on salty
biscuits, but to limited avail. My agony was
intensified by the terrifying site of Etna, a constant
reminder of the toil that lay on the horizon. All
interest in photography temporarily ceased. I
wondered if Ioannis knew how to treat me for sunstroke
or how to contact the emergency services, but
fortunately things did not quite progress to that
extreme. The body is an odd machine, and, somehow, by
the time we reached the campsite at Nicolosi, I felt
fine. We eat some chip butties in a café in Nicolosi.
It was the only place open apart from cake shops on a
Wednesday afternoon. I took a refreshing shower,
using spare clothes to replace my towel that was in
the lost panniers, and did some exercises and yoga.
Several hours later, I awoke to find myself on my back
in the middle of the campsite. I had drifted into
slumber halfway through my yoga session. Completely
relaxed, I moved back into my gore-tex bivvy-bag and
fell asleep for the second time, listening to the
fireworks mimicking eruptions in the distance. I was
looking forward to getting a closer look.
Attempting in vein to dodge strange glances aimed at
us from the locals, we began our intrepid ascent of
the volcano. The glances did not concern us too much.
We guessed that such looks would be received in more
or less any country in the world. We really did look
quite ridiculous. Cars passed us and hooted their
horns as we toiled forever upwards. I ticked off
heights of UK mountains as we ascended. We stopped
for a break at the height of Snowdon. My altimeter
watch proved a great hit in this respect. I had
bought it specifically for the Alps, but it was
brilliant for telling you how much hill was left, and
how quickly height was being gained. From this, I was
able to work out roughly how much longer had to spend
heaving away on the pedals in order to reach the
bigger mountain passes. I found I was able to speed
well ahead of Ioannis. As I waited, I wrote parts of
my diary, fed on tinned fruit, and admired the views.
I was enjoying myself, but it seemed a different story
for Ioannis. In his exposed, exhausted and dehydrated
state, he declared Sicily “a dump.” He seemed not to
be joking for once, but I realised his judgement was
extremely clouded. As the never-ending switchbacks
were conquered one by one, so the experience became
more and more interesting. I was astounded by the
eerie reminders of the power of our host. A
half-buried house, a destroyed lampost, scars of lava
diversions carved into the hillside. I was alerted to
a change in the surfacing of the road by a marginal
increase in wheel drag causing my speed to drop
slightly. The road had been re-surfaced in sections to
mend the damage created by past lava flows. I tried
to imagine what it would be like to be riding up the
volcano when it erupted, but I soon thought better of
it. I was making me feel hot. Mercifully, the
conditions became noticeably cooler with every extra
metre of altitude gained, until we finally reached the
top of the road. Ioannis puffed his way up where I
was waiting. I was amazed at how he wanted to
continue. “Shall we continue to the crater then?” I
didn’t like to disappoint, but there was simply no
chance of making it up the track that wound its way
towards the summit. It would have been at least equal
to what we had already taken so long to accomplish.
The top of the road was now a big tourist attraction
with hoards of souvenir shops, cafes, hostels and
pizzerias. Spectacular pictures and postcards of Etna
erupting were displayed everywhere. I was
particularly impressed by views of the volcano in
winter. A cold white body with a heart of fire. We
stopped for a well-earned pizza and ice-cream, before
we both went crazy with our cameras. We posed amongst
the volcanic debris and clicked away at small craters,
the views, and the tourist attractions.
Unfortunately, the summit was now surrounded by cloud.
I also took time out to telephone Alitalia about my
lost panniers. I remained frustrated because I failed
to get through to anyone who knew how to help. It
seemed to be the usual waste of time , money, and
effort. However, I was determined not to let this
frustrating reminder of modern flaws upset my day. We
eventually forced ourselves to leave this elevated
paradise to return to the stifling heat below. We
hurtled round the hairpins, and for once it was
Ioannis that had the advantage. My excuse was that I
had a lower centre of gravity, and so could not lean
into the sharp corners as effectively. I was now also
carrying all of Ioannis’ heaviest gear to ease his
troubles in climbing up the steepest hills.
Nevertheless, it was an exhilarating experience,
speeding at over 50kph enthrallingly close to the
corners as the tiny towns below grew in size. I
imagined myself to be fleeing from hot lava flows, the
rubber on my tyres smouldering in the intense heat.
Vast clouds of dust rose behind me as I made my
escape. An orange glow lapped at my sides and
threatened to swallow me up. I daren’t look back,
speed was all that mattered now. The dust stung my
eyes and the smell of burning rubber became
overpowering, but I knew that I could make it out
alive. I kept telling myself “I must survive, I must
survive,” over and over again. Then, I woke up from
my daydream to find myself with no more mountain left
before me. The rush of the air over my body had had
such a dramatic cooling effect that the lowland
temperature came as a bit of a shock. Reality had
returned, but the reality was still unreal to two
young cyclists on an adventure from wet and windy
Britain. The landscape was craggy and precariously
placed villages and towns tottered spectacularly on
edges dropping sharply down to the coastal plains.
The white buildings glinted in the sun set against an
amazingly bright blue sky, towering high above the
motionless waters below. Towns such as Taormina were
built high up to provide security in warring times.
The old hilltop towns were now accompanied by sister
coastal towns that crawled with tourists and all the
modern paraphernalia that goes with them. Ice-cream
vans with blaring radios abounded along with hoards of
bronzed, scantily clad foreigners.
It was late afternoon by the time we reached Scaletta.
It was high time to practice my Italian again.
“Senta, scusi, dov’e il refugio?”
“Che?” They hadn’t understood. “Must be my accent,”
I thought to myself. I tried again.
“Errrrrm, dov’e il refugio per favore?”
“Ah refugio! No. Mi dispiace.” Apparently then,
there wasn’t one. Apparently, our road map was again
suspect. However, I was also suspicious of the
Italians’ collective ability to make things up when
they didn’t know the answer to questions. I therefore
persisted in pointing to the red symbol on our map and
insisting that there must be a refuge hut somewhere
around. As usual, an entertaining display of
consultation amongst friends and neighbours ensued. I
had, not for the first, or last time, started a heated
debate in the high street. After a while, the
conversation became impossible to follow. Folks
seemed to constantly repeat themselves, get left and
right confused, and everybody appeared as stubborn as
the next person. I slunk away quietly to find someone
else to ask. Thankfully, the fourth person we
consulted was understandable and seemed confident
about his facts. We learnt that there was a refuge
hut, but it was closed for the season. The man and
his friend advised us to camp on the beach. As they
were also suggesting that we left our bikes in their
garage, you can probably imagine my initial
scepticism. Eventually though, I was convinced of the
quality of the suggested campsite, although we did
elect to look after our bikes ourselves. To be
honest, given the circumstances, we didn’t really have
a lot of choice about where we could have slept. The
view across to the mainland was beautiful. It was an
appealing notion that this narrow strip of water was
all that now separated us from the huge European land
mass, and that home was on another island on the other
side of the mass. As night fell, the lights of all
the small coastal towns began to appear on the
opposite shore, until the entire coastline was awash
with flickering orange lights to contrast the steady
white lights of the stars above. We were too tired to
erect the tents immediately, and were a little
embarrassed at our laziness when our advisory host
returned to see how we were coping. To our delight,
he had brought a gift of tubs of ice-cream and a big
container of water. I had already gorged myself with
a typically odd supper of cheese, green beans and
Borlotti beans, but still found room to politely
accept the delicious present. Our friend for the
evening clearly had a lot of respect for what we were
doing. He entertained us with tales of his own
travels, many of which contained place names which
were linguistically universal and thus recognisable to
us. He had visited Morocco, France, and Granada in
Spain. Having been on two student exchange trips to
Granada when I was younger, this was of particular
interest to me. He was also a rich source of
interesting information about the rest of Sicily, some
of which we had passed through. We learned that it
was the Greeks who first settled on the east coast,
and that there was a long and complicated history of
conquests ending with Garibaldi seeing off the
Bourbons in1860. Many examples of towns famous for
their Sicilian wines were given, including that of
Floridia, which we had passed through completely
unaware of the fact. When he mentioned it, I
remembered stacking bottles of Floridia wine in my
local Kwiksave back home. He had also visited England
and been to Liverpool when the Beatles were in their
prime. The man knew very little English but could
recite the words to “A Hard Day’s Night” better than I
could. The chap was both amusing and interesting, and
his company capped a near perfect day for us. When he
left, Ioannis and I stared out across the Straight of
Messina and contemplated our luck. Ioannis
re-evaluated his previous statement that Sicily was a
dump thanks to our experiences on Etna and the efforts
of one very kind and friendly resident of Scaletta.
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