This week we were invited to dine at Monica’s house. Monica was born in West Germany and has lived in Sicily for 22 years. She came here for vacation once and decided Sicily was where she wanted to spend her life. On Thursday she prepared a traditional German meal for about 12 people. There was onion soup, kraut, cabbage, beef stew and strudel all washed down with some Becks beer. We ate our feast on her patio surrounded by the very plants that provided the herbs in our meal. She told us stories about the sixties, JFK and how she and her friends actively worked to show support for West Berlin during those times.
Pascal is a Frenchman who owns an outdoor adventures company in Sicily. On Sunday we took a trip “canyoning” Essentially they give you a wetsuit, a lifejacket and helmet and guide you down the Alcantara River Canyon (no boat).
They take you up in a Land Rover and you hike to an access point and with the help and supervision of two guides, one French one Italian, you begin to make your way down the river. You take the river in stages and before each stage they give you instructions and strategy for how to negotiate the upcoming section. The first one was simply to jump into a chute and ride the rapids until you see a rope, then swim to the rope. However as we proceeded downriver the tasks became more involved. There are some ropes permanently anchored in the canyon walls, but the guys in the group also carried additional coils to get through certain sections (somehow by the end I was carrying two coils). You do things like climb sheer faces hand over hand with a rope. Jump into pools of water from ledges. Shuffle along rock shelves holding anchored ropes. All the while avoiding certain rocks and areas known to have whirlpools. It was a riot.
