Sicily to Catania and Dubai up to UAE desert walk with Saad
Escaping Squat the Planet due to issues with losing drafts. Continuing the travelog entries listed at bit.ly/2021cpl
So this may be an abuse of what has until now been a once-yearly list. If I keep using it this way maybe I’ll tag the year in review posts so they can still be found separate from these sort of slide show posts. For the travelog leading up to this point visit bit.ly/2021cpl.
After the last entry, I spent a night near Vibo Valente and then did a long day and caught the ferry to Messina.
(Getting close to the ferry. Maybe it is on the other side of that point in the distance.)
The Strait of Messina is where the whirlpool Scylla and the monster Charybdis are apparently. Maybe search “messina whirlpools” for more info. From a Mediterranean cruising guide I thought there were two whirpools, but wikipedia suggests that Charybdis is a monster not a whirlpool.
I found my photo of the cruiser guide:
Scylla is a monster living in/near the rock Scilla, and Charybdis is a whirlpool.
I crossed at dusk, and it was dark when I got off and I hadn’t planned any place to stay. So I ended up spending the night between fishing boats. Next to assorted trash, and other unpleasant things I discovered in the morning.
So I didn’t sleep that well.
The next morning I went through town and found a nice place to sit looking out over the strait. I think I was mostly looking at my phone, but did watch the boats from time to time.
The Millennium Falcon, were it a catamaran, passed at one point.
There was also a young African guy who showed up and did a whole exercise routine with no equipment but his headphones, a piece of cardboard for a mat for ab work, and a heavy rock. And the guy was very well built. Good inspiration for bodyweight fitness and cheap equipment. It’s just putting the time in every day. I’m not as good at putting in the time for daily exercises as I used to be, but now his example comes back to me and makes me more likely to get in some pushups, pullups, rock lifts. Inspired by a jump rope star on instagram I also found some cord for a jump rope. I’ve only used that a few times though.
I lazed about for a lot of the day on this beach, using that concrete block as a wind screen and probably for some shade too.
I could look at my screenshots for the day to figure out what I was doing probably.
That night I managed to find my kind of paradise:
Conifers along the coast. Mainland Italy had been difficult because undeveloped coastline was not so common. Sicily was basically the same. But I was very lucky to find this kind of place for my second night.
I took the opportunity to swim and to do some saltwater laundry (final rinse was with fresh water).
Looking back at paradise.
And looking back again.
Now the island of Vulcano is off this coastline, and a ferry to that island leaves from the city of Milazzo.
That island looks like the cartoon south seas volcanic island. I’m not sure why I don’t have a good picture of it, but it does make this ride along the coast more exotic. . . Apparently it is the vent from the forge of the god Vulcan.
I did take a picture of a very large smokestack on my way to Milazzo, however.
There was a posh-looking woman in a blazer with a crest near the ferry terminal. Seeing her got me imagining a different mode of travel. What if I didn’t schlep so much around on my bicycle for camping out and just paid for places to stay and got my exercise by doing exercises or running around whatever new place (Vulcano?) I happened to be visiting at the time?
The thought did cross my mind.
But I’m still biking.
Now I had found a new bumble date in the town of Tonnarella, her name is Cinzia. We met at the Art Cafe, and it was fun, and I found a very nice and reasonably-priced airbnb near by. So I got it for two nights and Cinzia came by for dinner later.
Her english wasn’t super good but we got on well enough. She had to go to a job competition the next day, no, two days later, we had hoped to meet the following day but it didn’t work out for her and by the time she was ready to come over I was ready to go to sleep—I live on a different schedule from most Italians.
At any rate we tentatively planned to meet again after she got back from Syracusa.
And I headed toward Palermo.
(Looking back toward Tonnarella)
(A hilltop town. Interesting to contrast with a town here in Oman I just went by:)
So, the weather turned not so good and not only that I had a headwind. I didn’t put in much mileage and after a few days decided to bike back to Tonnarella instead of taking the train to get back from further away.
Some scenery from the way.
(cactus growing out of the top of a ruin)
Part of the unfun weather that got me to head back.
There is snow back there!
Unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding (language barrier—her use of english vs what I took it to mean), she wasn’t free until the day after I thought she was. And that following day, I having rested the previous day, and the weather being sunny, I was ready to try to do something hard.
So I set off to bicycle over the mountains to Taormina.
And I succeeded, and managed to get partway down the other side, but still had a very very windy night in a flapping hammock sock.
Here are some views from the top:
I’m pretty sure the other side of that tooth is visible from the coast near Tonnarrella.
And that is Mt Etna! It is incredibly windy where I’m taking the photo.
And two evenings later, that is Mt Etna from Taormina on my old Note 9 camera (Most of the others are from a Fold 2).
The night after I crossed over the mountains was my last (very windy) night in a hammock until about December 25 in UAE. I got Airbnbs in Sicily ($18-25/ night) or I was with my friend in the UAE at his small room or on our 5 day desert walking trip.
another view of etna.
There I am on December 10, the day before I leave for Dubai, after skinny dipping for the last time that year in the Mediterranean.
I set off to get my RT-PCR test in the center of Catania after that.
My airbnb host printed the results for me that night.
I also picked up a bicycle box I had asked the Decathlon by the airport to save for me. A band of wild dogs chased after me as I rode away with the folded box, but I squirted them with my waterbottle, kept ready and filled for that purpose, and I escaped after their second attempt.
The next morning I rode early to the airport and spent quite a while packing the bike into the box, and by 11am or so I was on a direct flight to Dubai via Wizz Air. I want to say it only cost $150 including the luggage fees and my RT-PCR test had cost EUR 50.
Saad aka Mike Metzger met me at the airport in Dubai and we had our first adventure trying to get back to his place with a bicycle. Turns out they’re not allowed on the trains but he thought they were.
They give you a Du mobile sim when you go through immigration. Later that night I used that sim to order an Uber XL to get us home.
That’s the outside of Ski Dubai in the Mall of the Emirates (second largest mall in Dubai) viewed from Saad’s bathroom window.
I soon figured out that I could ride my bike to a nice swimming beach.
Which I swam at every morning I stayed there.
Here, btw, is the sign Saad made to greet me at the airport:
This is where we stayed:
I think there were about 13 rooms total carved out of what was once a luxury apartment suite. Or maybe 13 people in about 8 rooms sharing three bathrooms.
Oddly enough for an outdoorsman, Saad belived the moon was never full in Arabia, hence the crescent moon motif on mosques, so I took this photo of the moon over Lulu Hypermarket from the parking garage of the Mall of the Emirates in an attempt to persuade him otherwise. Perhaps this was a hoax on his part, but with him it can be difficult to be sure.
After a week in Dubai, we set off for five days in the dunes.
Some of which is documented at http://youtube.com/colinleath
I was carrying 13 L of water and food for five days. Fortunately we generally didn’t walk very far. But when we did walk Saad walked very quickly. He is 6’7” I believe.
He was going through relationship issues at the time, exacerbated by the hope that he might hear from his sweetheart via his phone. Not at all uncommon for oddballs like us wandering in the desert I might add. . .
We survived the trip and are still speaking to each other. It wasn’t easy. But it helped me to feel comfortable in an environment I would never have otherwise considered spending time in.
It was nice to get back to the mall of the emirates and his air conditioned cave.
Soon I set out on my bicycle trip, but before I did I made one friend at the swimming beach because he asked me to film him with his camera as he swam. This is Wilberforce from Uganda (or possibly Kenya)—a very positive guy. He monitors CCTV cameras. And I believe he has a degree in communications from a university in Uganda.
I think I’ll send this now and the next entry will contain photos from my bicycle trip from Dubai to Salalah.
10000 thanks to Saad for making this whole adventure possible. I'm not generally an easy guy to put up with (so used to traveling solo perhaps) and not the best houseguest I'm afraid. Too self-centered or something. So I'm very lucky he took the time to show me around and host me.
The whole thing, if you add in the bike ride to Salalah, has certainly been one of the more epic adventures of my life.