Sicily
Pizza in Sicily
Part 1
As you may have realised, I’m not exactly known for my Lonely Planet style travel tips. For example, my next story is about a 200km stretch of dirt road between two mountains.
But from time to time, even I find myself thinking:
‘What the hell am I doing?’
And what’s stranger still? Is how often this happens when I least expect it.
For example, I used to work with this Italian fellow. One day Nico and I were arguing over who was going to have the last Nespresso Pod when out of the blue, he announced.
“Did you hear I’m organising a race in Sicily?”
This came as somewhat of a surprise. And as ridiculous as it sounded, I couldn’t help but conjure up images of Vespa scooters and a plentitude of boozy lunches.
“What sort of licence do I need for this race?”
“No, it’s going to be an ultra-marathon.”
‘Well I’m not doing that,’ I thought to myself.
Could you imagine anything worse than having to get up to run 50km after a perfectly agreeable boozy lunch?
But yet, from that moment on, that’s all we spoke about. Not the luncheons, of course, but the race. And it wasn’t just one race. My mate Nico was attempting to hold, on his own I might add, a 100km, 24-hour trail run a 52km ultra marathon and a 22km half marathon.
Clearly he was more than just a little undermanned. So in a moment of madness I enquired:
“Do you have a photographer?”
Considering his lack of safety marshals, among other things, his answer didn’t come as much of a surprise.
So that night I went home and spent €37 on a return flight to Trapani. And in so doing was inaugurated as the first official photographer of the annual Segesta Marathon.
Brillant? Only what Nico really needed wasn’t so much a photographer but another set of hands. Another race marshal and most importantly, another driver!
So before I even had time to pick up a canaloni, I got handed the keys to a battered and beaten Fiat Panda. Any romantic notions I may have had about a Sicilian sequel to The Italian Job were well and truly put to bed.
Having established that the car had no petrol and an expired VRT Nico instructed me to follow him and then took off as though he had just been shot at by the Mafia.
‘Oh Shit,’ I thought.
Here I was under the impression that I was going to spend a weekend soaking up the sun and snapping a few photos. Instead, suddenly my right foot was glued to the floor as I tried to keep up with Nico through massive multi-lane intersections laced with kamikaze drivers.
If there was ever a moment to reconsider my life’s choices, that may have been one of them.
It was thrilling and dangerous. Exhilarating and bloody scary. And since I had no one to talk to about it, I decided instead to pull out my GoPro and start commenting on the situation.
Since chasing a madman through Sicily while manually changing gears on the wrong side of the road wasn’t already enough to deal with.
Somehow I made it out of the city where I found Nico waiting for me on the side of the road. Seemingly annoyed, he strolled over to my window.
“Larry, you’ve got to drive faster.”
I burst out laughing, only seconds later to realise that he was being deadly serious.
‘What the hell,’ I thought to myself.
I was driving a 20 year old Fiat Panda whose life I had become convinced could now be measured in Potholes. Every time I hit one, and there are many potholes in Sicily, I would think to myself:
‘Well, that’s it.’
And yet, somehow, Mr Panda just kept going.
Much later I found Nico on the side of the road again, only this time he was staring at the sun and the mountains. I got out of the car and strolled over to see what was happening.
“I’m trying to figure out where we are?”
Oh, I forgot to mention, Nico wasn’t overly fond of using the GPS. But this was good news because my gosh, it was beautiful. The olive-scented Sicilian air was intoxicating, and by the time Nico had figured out where we were, I felt Sicilian.
I was given fresh instructions to which I replied:
“Sì, sì, signore”
But since I was now Sicilian I ignored everything Nico had just said and went off in search of a local deli! And my goodness. It was like Willy Wonka’s factory, but for adults. Vats of olive oil, mountains of spaghetti. Wine, chocolates, cheese.
My word, there were a lot of cheeses.
But that all paled in comparison to the forest of cured hams hanging from the roof, and there was no way I was leaving Sicily without one. Only remember when I said earlier that I had spent a princely sum of €37 getting to Sicily? That amount didn’t include luggage; and suddenly I was regretting that decision.
I couldn’t imagine that it would be easy to convince Ryanair that my leg of ham, roughly the size of a walrus, would conform to their cabin baggage policy.
Even the old Italian get out of jail free card:
“Mi scusi, Mi scusi.”
While doing whatever I wanted wasn’t going to get me past the boarding gate staff at Ryanair.
This saddened me deeply. Instead I left with 1kg of coppa ham and some crusty bread. It was going to be a long day. I picked up the last of what we needed and made my way to the starting point of Nico’s epic.
Where to hear that story you will have to wait for Sicily Part 2.
But I can tell you this. When the dust eventually cleared on a weekend of sheer chaos, we settled down to dinner on the rooftop of Nico’s house overlooking the country.
Tired, dirty, and mentally exhausted. It was, without question, the best Pizza I had ever had. And one of the most enjoyable weekends I’d spent in a long time.
If you are interested in Sicily, Google Tempo di Segesta. It is extraorganary. If you run Marathons, message me, and I’ll put you in contact with Nico.
Take care, and see you next time.
