Fueled on gelato and strong espresso, I take a sunset run through town and down into the canyon. Past the chapel dug into the canyon wall and west toward Modica. Nobody but the goats go beyond the shepherd’s farm.
I forget how wild it is out here. There are pomegranate plants, boughs bent with plump, almost-ripe fruit, wild herbs, particularly a form of sage that’s got a near-fruity smell and cactus full of prickly pear are everywhere. Dried carob beans litter the ground, thistles dot the trail and an owl-like bird I’ve never seen flies out of the trees and toward the sun.
I come to my turnaround point, legs nicked from the thick, high tufts of grass and turn on Green Day. The right music makes you feel like you’ve got rockets on your feet. I go as fast as I can the whole run home, thinking I’m going to lose it on a rock and they’ll hear the pop of my ankle echo down the canyon. Instead, I grunt, snort and make animal noises all the way back - who’s going to hear me? It’s the best run of the year.
Past the shepherd’s place, I pass a teenage couple, the air thick with hormones and perfume.
Staring at me, she shrieks “L’uomo lupo!”
Wolfman!
I howl obligingly.
Back in town, the sky purple after the sunset, noisemaking fireworks detonate in the air. Pigeons scatter into the air and school kids in uniform play soccer in a church square. A pair of widows dressed in black walk toward me and say good night to each other and turn in opposite directions, giving the scene an unintentional symmetry.
I’m back in the Motherland. It’s time to eat.
Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @joe_diner.
What happened with that teenage couple? Will you please describe in some more detail?
Posted by: Cafe Bruges | 02 November 2010 at 06:17 AM