The Curse

Maybe it’d be better just to skip the story of this day, I believe I had a curse on me that day – although it started off so well. So I wake up in Pizzo, thinking I would reach my destination, Reggio di Calabrio', that day (well, I just gave away that I didn’t), which was just over 100 km away. Starting off fully motivated, and after some deliberation as to whether to take the somewhat longer coastal road or the somewhat more challenging, but shorter, road over the hills. Arfter taking a nice last look at Pizzo, I went for the road aling the water, thinking I’ve had the pleasure of enough hills already. The road went right along the coast, offering some beautiful views - here, the world seemed to be round and intact. The region is famous for the harvesting of onions.

At around noon I got to Tropea, an ancient village built on white cliffs overlooking sandy beaches – I went in for a relaxing swim. I will have to return to this tranquil place with its crystal clear water…was a real delight…

Now what followed, that wasn’t so delightful. The road out of Tropea had a huge incline and I was panting uphill, but made it back to the main road. Somehow, after a quarter of an hour, I found myself still going uphill, with the coast being pretty far away…I must have missed a sign or a turn, and, having asked someone, I realized I was heading in the wrong direction, back to the north. Great. Well, that was silly of me, but even sillier was what followed: thinking to be a smart guy, I went for a smaller road, heading seemingly for the coast; the curse of Iskanderbej was still on me, the asphalt ended (of course), then even the road itself ended, I found myself on someone’s fruit farm, being barked at by a bunch of guard dogs (or maybe they were wild ones...I did not bother to ask). Luckily, just barking, as they were just as afraid of me as vice versa. Let’s see my options - one alternative was to ride all the way back (uphill) or to cut through the farm; and as I hate backtracking, I went for the latter. Uh-oh. The farm ended – and then came a cliff, but just at the foot of the this were rail tracks. Getting down to the tracks itself was a challenge: I had to cut through some thick vegetation, with many thorns, so I did first without the bike. Of course a train had to arrive just at the same time when I got out of the bushes, the locomotive driver honking and cursing at me, with screaming brakes, he must have thought to have spotted a guy weary of his life. He almost killed me with his eyes, that’s how I felt. OK, with the train gone, it was time to get the bike, that took quite an effort. My arsm and legs were bleeding, having been scratched by the thorns. Now walking on the tracks, I had to cross the bridge over the cliff with my bike, hoping for the best, that no train would be coming. Had one actually shown up, the only option would have been to jump into the abbys...not a good option. Walking on tracks with my bike shoes, my equipment weighing some 30 kilos in no fun, believe me, the track ballast is made up of rough, sharp-edged stones. It was extremely hot and I quickly ran out of water. It must have been half a kilometer and I needed about half an hour to cover that. Finally an asphalt road crossed the track, so I was back to safely. The only issue is that it led straight uphill - tired, a bit hurt, thirsty - it was grueling. I finally spotted at a small gas station, where I managed to gulp down over 2 liters of liquid in one go (really), first a large bottle of water and then some ice-tea.

Thinking the worse was over, I continued on the main road, which finally reached the summit; and yet again I had a great view of the coast line.

Yippieee, finally downhill!!! And here I made yet another mistake, riding all the way to the water. Blunder. The little town of Nicotera was a quiet place right next to the coast, but it was also dead-end…I have to concede it wasn’t so quiet when I started swearing (in Hungarian), looking up at the road I had to cover uphill. Oh, I s-u-f-f-e-r-e-d, kicking myself for not having checked the map before the descent. So I was once again climbing, in the heat of the Calabrian sun. Getting back to the coastal road (and making a wrong turn yet again, but this one wasn’t as bad), I got to a water melon stand, with an old lady, who, when looking at my pitiful state (I must have looked horrible), gave me half a refrigerated melon as a present, which I gulped down in no time.

It was then that I got to the town of Rosarno, which is probably the ugliest towns I have ever seen in my life, well, at least on this trip. The word ‘decay’ is the one that best fits this place, with rubbish and litter all over the place, there is absolutely nothing positive I could say about this place.

It was here that I first found out that my train ride back to Austria will not be an easy one, having found a station (after getting lost a bit, but that is hardly worth mentioning), the lady behind the counter, who was apparently chatting on the phone with her friend, while serving me, listed that I would have to change trains like 6 times, to get from Reggio to Austria. Hmmm…not really promising.

The situation didn’t improve when I got out of Rosarno…the road was anything but nice, with huge piles of rubbish everywhere and cars honking at me (it was getting dark). Once again riding uphill, I eventually reached the town on Palmi, where I found a dreadful (and only) motel, where they wanted 40 Euros for a night. Had they paid me that much for staying there, I probably would have, but not there, not for that amount. So I had this idea of going down to the coast – and of course it was the other direction I had come from (I missed a turn), backtracking some 6 kilometers, but finally I made it to Taureana, here I found a small camping (for 5 Euros!), right on the coast. The swim at night was a real relief of the sufferings of the day - not the most successful one of my biking career.