Around the world with The Bear – Part 24

The King of Every Kingdom
Around the world on a very small motorcycle

With J. Peter “The Bear” Thoeming

One definite advantage of travelling in Italy is that you can buy wine in bulk. We bought a five litre plastic container for ours.

Northern Sicily is a rugged place, with awe-inspiring cliffs sheltering long ranges of hills like overstuffed pillows, with a fine needlework of vineyards embroidered on them.

Despite the drizzle, we had an enjoyable few days exploring. Every now and then the padrone back at camp would get worried about us and offer us alternative accommodation – first it was a little wooden house, then a caravan. All free of charge. He couldn’t understand that we were quite happy in our tent.

As the skies looked clearer to the south, we finally packed, had a last cup of coffee in our little bar on the harbour and headed across the island to Selinunte. We rode through seemingly endless fields of yellow flowers and discovered a peculiar system of motorways.

These roads weren’t on our map, and seemed almost like miniatures – a proper motorway scaled down to Fiat 500 size. Altogether in poor repair, the system didn’t seem to lead anywhere. I had some vague memory of the fascists undertaking construction programs in economically depressed parts of Sicily; this could well have been one of them. Later we were told that the Mafia had had the contract.

A chap we met along the way showed us a rather eerie place to have our picnic lunch – the main square of Gibellina, a town destroyed by an earthquake in 1968 and never rebuilt. We were stopped by the police a little later, but our total inability to speak Italian foiled them and they let us go. I’ve found that ignorance is generally bliss when talking to cops.

The Greek temple at Selinunte was in better condition than most of the ones in Greece itself, but the campsite that had been recommended to us there didn’t seem to exist. We carried on to camp at Sciacca, after endless rows of holiday houses in various stages of incompletion and invariable poor taste. The sun came out, and in the morning we were served excellent Espresso coffee right at our tent. A great institution, the waiter-service campsite.

Cobbled streets proved a challenge in some locations on the fully laden XS

As Caltanisetta’s bypass road wasn’t quite finished, we had to go through the town itself. This is the one environment in which a heavily loaded XS1100 really doesn’t shine. The narrow, cobbled streets with their sharp corners gave me quite a bit to do.

An additional problem is that you can’t get yourself out of trouble with the throttle – there’s nowhere for the bike to go if you accelerate. We were caught in a Communist Party march as well, which slowed us down even more. Caltanisetta had good ice-cream, though.

Down past Enna, we took the spectacular autostrada, which just ignores the lie of the land. When it isn’t swinging itself over the valleys on a ‘viadotto’ it’s drilling through the hills in a tunnel. It must have cost an absolute fortune to build.

On the coast once again, this time the eastern one, we found a supposedly closed campground called ‘Bahia del Silenzio’ at Brucoli, which opened just for us. With typical kindness, the people offered us a small bungalow, but we stuck with the old tent. We’d finally woken up to the most economical way to supply ourselves with wine, and bought a five litre plastic container which we regularly refilled with the local vintage just like the Italians do.

After a quick look at Neapolis with its amphitheatre, near Syracuse, we turned north once more, to Catania. The inland road looked good on the map and turned out to be quite exciting, with steep hills and ridgetop runs, but on the way back down it became a little too exciting when we hit a sizeable patch of diesel and went sideways for a little while. No damage, but a bit of heavy breathing and cursing resulted.

A very thorough tour of Catania then, helped by the motorway signs, which pointed around in a large circle taking in most of the town. We both got really annoyed with this and rode around swearing at the tops of our voices until at last the autostrada entry ramp came into view. Fortunately, the Italian motorway cafes serve excellent coffee. We recovered our composure over cappuccino.

Road conditions could be questionable, and road markings at times were confusing, luckily the coffee was good

Camp was at Acireale, just north of Catania, in a clifftop campsite that had a lift running down to the beach. Talk about luxury. Another sort-out left us with quite a bit of gear to mail home, and we parcelled it all up neatly and took it up to the post office. It wasn’t to be that simple, though.

First of all, I hadn’t left enough loose string for them to put their metal seal on. They retied the parcel for me. Then, I hadn’t put a return address on it. I tried to tell them that I certainly didn’t want the parcel returned to the campsite, but it seemed that a return address was required by law.

So I put the same address on the parcel twice, which made them very unhappy, but they took it. Losing a little weight made the bike look much neater.

We rode up around Mount Etna, through hazelnut plantations and past pretty little towns balanced on hilltops, and on north through a national park and a vast hunting reserve. Lovely country up here, with some excellent road over the passes that took us to Milazzo and a German-run campsite called, inexplicably, ‘Sayonara’.

The weather was pleasant but the locals still seemed to find it wintry. At a petrol stop on the way to Messina, the attendant came out of his office shaking his head, pointing to the bike and crying ‘Freddo! Freddo!’, which I took to mean ‘cold’ in Italian. Either that or he’d mistaken the bike for a friend of his called Fred; unlikely under the circumstances.

The ferry to San Giovanni on the toe of Italy was quick and cheap. They once again had excellent coffee on the ferry, and nice pastries, but the signposting out of San Giovanni reminded us unpleasantly of Catania.

When we finally made it out of town, we rode up the coast through Scylla (Charybdis must have given up monstering, it wasn’t to be seen) and on north. People seemed rather offhand and not particularly friendly, even suspicious. When we tried to change some money at an airport, the teller regretted that the bank had run out of money. Fruit and vegetables didn’t seem as fresh as those in Sicily, and the roads were worse.

Italy has some amazing temples and ruins to explore

We really didn’t think much of southern Italy. There was a lovely campsite in an olive grove at Lamezia Terme, admittedly. We took to the autostrada to get us north – it’s free as far as Salerno as some kind of odd economic boost for the south – and we followed it up through the southern mountains, past occasional snow patches, with our warm clothes, heated handlebar grips and GloGloves on. The hills were lovely, with only a few factories polluting the air.

Naples welcomed us with its expensive but invaluable ‘tangentiale’ ring road, which introduced us to a new and, as far as I know, unique hazard. I was used to buzzing up between stationary lanes of traffic, such as the ones queuing to pay toll on the ring road.

Even with the rather wide Yamaha that had always worked. Not in Naples. None of the tiny Fiats I was trying to pass had air conditioning, so when they stopped in the queue they would throw open their doors. Oops! We weren’t going to get through that!

We nevertheless followed the ring road to its western end in Pozzuoli and a campground that had been highly praised. The site featured a swimming pool fed by a hot spring, and we spent as much time in the water as possible. Pozzuoli is famous for two things: it is the most earthquake-prone place in Italy, and it is the birthplace of Sophia Loren.

We did feel some ‘trembles’ but Sophia didn’t seem to be home. I met her many years later at an Italian motorcycle industry dinner. She must have been in her mid-80s, and she looked stunning. Where was I?

Ah yes. Naples itself was a disappointment. It seemed to be little more than a permanent traffic jam; we were glad to get out. Pompeii was the real attraction and we spent some satisfying hours there. With a little imagination, the town comes alive just as it was before the ashes of Vesuvius swallowed it.

Annie and I also looked through the creepy underground ruins at Cumae, with their huge trapezoidal tunnels. On a lighter note, we bought a little chess set and I discovered to my delight that I could actually beat Annie. Only because she hadn’t played before…

Neil and Millie were there, too, both looking well. They had had a little trouble with the GS in the desert when one of the carburetors had jammed and drained the petrol tank in less than 40 miles, without their noticing. The locals had helped them.

Neil and Millie were also in Italy but had issues with their GS in the desert, where the XS was still going strong

We rode up to Rome in bright sunshine by way of Cassino and the Via Appia, picked up our mail and found the ‘Roma’ campsite without any trouble. Along the way, we discovered that the intricate Rome one way system doesn’t apply to bikes. You can ride anywhere you like, in any direction. At one point we scattered the crowds around the Trevi fountain.

Misbehaving in Rome is all very well, but there was still a chilly winter Italy out there to traverse.

Source: MCNews.com.au

Around the world with The Bear – Part 23

The King of Every Kingdom
Around the world on a very small motorcycle

With J. Peter “The Bear” Thoeming

In the last instalment The Bear has just reached the Tunisian border, and was now stuck at the border with no visa, no money and no food. What the hell. Let’s party!

Tunisia

When we reached Hazoua, the Tunisian border post, a slight problem emerged. The tourist bureau leaflet had assured us that visas were issued at the border, but the sergeant on guard thought otherwise. ‘Not possible.’

I told him about the leaflet and he smiled gently and said, “Ah, the tourist bureau, it is their job to get people to come to my country but it is my job to keep them out.”

Problem. We couldn’t go back, as our single-visit Algerian visas had been cancelled half an hour earlier at the Algerian border, and we couldn’t go forward because this officious idiot wouldn’t let us. We couldn’t really stay there, either. Without money changing facilities or a shop for even the most basic necessities, Hazoua didn’t really make it as a campsite.

But one of the skills you develop if you travel a lot is knowing when to shout and when to whisper and I decided this was a shouting situation. So I waved my press card and introductory letter at the sergeant.

After recently sampling fresh fish off the boats, The Bear and Annie found themselves at the Tunisian border without visas, food or money

The letter, from Middle East Travel Magazine where I had been art director, was in Arabic and impressed the guard sufficiently for him to get on the radio. He came back and said, perhaps, but it would take three days. We sat down to wait. I was fairly confident they wouldn’t let us starve, and I was right.

One of the guards saw me rubbing Nivea (another sponsor, thank you!) into my hands and delightedly shouted, “You are woman! You are woman!” I invited him to look at the monster that our XS11 Yamaha had become with all of its fairings and our luggage. ‘Could you ride that? No? Then beware whom you insult.’ He gave us half his dinner, and some of the others kicked in as well.

Then followed a hectic night for all. The guards were nervous and afraid of the Lybians, who had attacked the nearby town of Gafsa a few days earlier, and they spent the night prowling around with loaded guns and flashlights.

We slept first on the veranda and then, at the guards’ invitation in the Customs post, more afraid of those guns than of the Lybians. A false alarm involving a Belgian camper van which had scared the sentries lightened the atmosphere a little as the terrified Belgians were dragged in at gunpoint and interrogated.

“Do you think we are fools? What were you doing out there? I do not care if you are a policeman!” North African French is relatively easy to understand because it has a small vocabulary and no grammar whatsoever, so we could follow all this. It was nevertheless confusing; why pick on these people? One of the guards came out and winked at us. “Belgians!” he grinned.

Things looked better in the morning. The Chef du Poste (who is the boss, not the cook) arrived and cut through some of the red tape, and with visas in our passports there finally seemed to be a way forward. But we needed duty stamps for the visas, and they were obtainable only in the next town.

“We shall do this,” said the Chef du Poste. “You,” pointing at me, “will take the motorcycle to get the stamps. She,” pointing at Annie, “will remain here.”

‘Ah, no.’

“Then we shall do this. You and she and this guard will go on the motorcycle to get the stamps.”

‘Ah… no. Why don’t we just ride to the town and get the stamps? Of course we will return.’

“Ah, no. We shall do this. The guard with your passports will take the bus. You two will follow on the motorcycle. You will pay for the stamps and the guard will give you back the passports.”

‘Ah, yes. Thank you.’

“No, no, it is nothing… welcome to Tunisia.” All of this in ‘the broken North African French, of course, mine considerably more broken than his.

There was one more hurdle, however, in the form of a police checkpoint just outside town. The bus was checked and went on. Then it was our turn. As I tried to explain in my combination of schoolboy and gutter French that the passports the cop wanted to see were on the bus (voila, les passports, er, marchons dans le autobus!).

He became more and more annoyed and began to toy with his sidearm. Fortunately, the guard on the bus remembered us around about then and made the bus turn back. He was abused for inefficiency by the cop, who then let us pass with a big, toothy grin.

Tunisia didn’t really turn out to be worth all the trouble. We rode up to the coast at Nabeul through uninspiring country, camped and went in to Tunis to pick up mail and book the ferry to Sicily. Annie scouted out a replacement gas bottle for our stove, which was a relief. Nice to be able to do your own cooking.

Setting off to Tunis, the next step was a ferry back to Sicily

We moved to a hotel in Tunis for our last night, because the ferry left at 6.30 am and the nearest campsite was two hours from the port. The Hotel Medina was nice; our hosts insisted that we park in the lobby, which I’d intended to do anyway. Then we went out and bought some English newspapers as well as pate, salami and bread, and had a feast of eating and reading in our room.

We explored the medina as well and found it pretty if a little tame, discovered the excellent produce markets and then slept until one am. Then the alarm on Annie’s little calculator, the desk clerk and the muezzin from the nearby mosque woke us simultaneously.

Getting the bike into the hotel lobby had been easy with a dozen helping hands, but now that it was just Annie, the desk clerk and me it wasn’t quite so easy to get it out. After a 36-point turn – scuffing their paintwork with my front tyre on every one – I managed it and we rode off down to the ferry followed by the desk clerk’s blessings.

While we were waiting aboard the big Yamaha in the light, sprinkling rain for them to open the gates, an XS500 arrived… then an XL125… then two bicycles. I kept expecting someone on a skate board. After an elaborate check of papers, which failed to turn up the fact that we had overstayed our visas, and a confused Customs check, we finally rolled aboard. Back to Europe!

Italy

The ferry to Trapani wasn’t exactly the QE2, but it got us there; everything was rather shabby and the bar and restaurant were expensive and generally closed. In the third class saloon, where we made our home for the 12 hours of the crossing, there was strict segregation – the Arabs sat on one side, we Europeans on the other.

The curious thing was that you didn’t actually see this division happen – it just developed. When we first sat down, there was an Arab family sitting near us, then, as more Europeans arrived and sat on our side, they moved.

We spent most of the crossing playing cards with the French guys riding the bikes we’d met at the gate. True to form, these two let me struggle along in my idiot French until they wanted to explain something about the game we were playing – and then they both suddenly spoke passable English. The French are hilarious; they always do that sort of thing.

The Immigration check in Sicily must have been carefully designed for the absolute minimum in efficiency, but the Customs check that followed was considerably keener – it involved our first encounter with drug-sniffing dogs. One of them, a cheerful hyperactive German Shepherd, was much more interested in chewing our tentpoles than in looking for drugs. I politely asked the handler to restrain his beast.

Then it was out into the chilly, wet evening and up the autostrada to Palermo. Sicily in the failing light was almost unbearably picturesque, although I’m sure I would have enjoyed it more had I been warm and dry.

Arriving in Italy, saw some dreary weather to kick things off

We reached the ‘Pepsi Cola’ campsite just as it was closing and the padrone took us into the office and poured us a brandy before we got down to the signing-in formalities. Sicilians are very perceptive people.

It dawned wet and cold, so we inserted ourselves into our Alaskan suits and MCB boots – waterproof boots are a real blessing when you get several days of rain – and went exploring. The site watchman warned us to beware of pickpockets in Palermo, but apart from the post office giving us change in stamps rather than cash we weren’t robbed.

You can never be sure what you’ll get when the Mafia builds your highways – as you’ll find out next instalment.

Source: MCNews.com.au