Day 4 (Oct 28)

So far, the best day yet!
Rosario and I woke up around 8, got ready, and jumped in his, oh wait, I didn't mention it. Rosario has an old Fiat, from the 70's, it was his grandfather's car. They leave it in Ventimiglia and use it when they are harvesting their olives.
Coolest car evAr!! It was a four speed, and I should have taken a picture of the console, but it shook your whole body while the engine was running. It was a four speed, with the engine in the 'trunk'. The car came up to about my shoulders, and you had to slam the doors to close them.

This was a view down the street from Ciro's childhood home. Rosario and I went looking for cafe (espresso) and a croissant for breakfast, and once we found the place he wanted, we had our coffee, and we were off. In Italy coffee (cafe) is espresso, if you want our version, you have to say 'American Cafe' which means they pretty much take an espresso, and water it down. The espresso is served in small cups, and you stir it for a few seconds, then pretty much drink it like a shot of Tequila. I love it, and wish I had a real espresso machine at home. Rosario explained we were going to see the man made lake. It was only about 25 years old, and the whole town was very proud of it. As we left town we pulled onto a road I imagine here would be 4x4's only. We were in a car that the tires were about the size of a large platter. It was pretty much large gravel, very windy, lots of potholes, bumps, etc. As we steered in and around the bumps, Rosario was grinning ear to ear, laughing over every bump. There wasn't a soul in sight for miles, so we were all over the road, sometimes even driving into the grass to get around the holes. I felt the car scrape bottom more than once. I couldn't help smiling along with Rosario.

Here is a decent shot of what most of the road was like. -->








We stopped for a second at the edge of town, while we were on the last part of pavement. So we drive for maybe 30 or 40 minutes. When we got to downhills, he would sometimes kill the engine, and just steer down the hill, then start the engine towards the bottom. As we topped a hill, and were on a flat stretch, Rosario realizes he can no longer shift into any gear. He stops the car, and explains to me, we might be in trouble. We both got out, and he crawls under the car. When he comes out, he tries to tell me what he saw. I'm no mechanic, but from his hand movements, I am guessing the drive shaft had split apart. I'm think, man are we screwed. We haven't seen anyone for some 40 minutes. Rosario gets out the tire jack, a pair of pliers, and a short piece of wire. We jack up one side, and he crawls back under. A few minutes later, he comes out, and we move to the other side. I jacked up the car, and he went back in. When he comes out this time, he is smiling. Climbing into the car, he tries the shifter, and laughs as he can now put it in gear. I once again hear a voice inside my head that says, did he just seriously fix the drive shaft with a piece of wire? He signals me to get back in, starts the car up, and that voice says, guess we aren't seeing the lake, but that voice was wrong, we putter off towards the lake again.


That was Rosario after fixing the car, you can see it barely comes up to his shoulder, and I was maybe half a foot taller than him. Talk about a Sicilian MacGuyver. As we kept driving I got to see the lake, and he explained it was very low, they hadn't gotten much rain for awhile.


You can see the dam, which was our destination.


Castle Caccamo, in the distance.








You can see the normal water level on the column at the dam.
We spent a few minutes there, and headed back towards town. I'm just waiting every time he shifts to hear the engine fall out the back. A few minutes down the road, a car appears behind us. Rosario stops and signals them alongside. They pull up, and he asks about a side road I think he wants to use as a shortcut. They stare blankly at him, and to my shock, say they are Americans! They then asked us for directions. How the heck they got where we were I have no idea. We sent them off in the right direction, and Rosario tested his very good luck on the side road. It was mostly uphill, and I could have gotten out and walking faster, while doing a handstand, we were both laughing now. A few miles down that road, we stopped at a house, but nobody was home, so we kept going. A little later, he spots a family working in their olive grove, so we asked them directions. Our luck held out, and the road was going where we needed to be. Once we got to pavement, Rosario recognized where we were, and we "sped" off back to town. I use sped very loosely, since I think the Fiat's top speed was about 45mph, hehe. When we got to town, we went straight to the mechanic, who used the lift, and took a look underneath. He fixed it with I'm guessing a clamp, didn't charge us anything and our lake adventure was over. We drove over to Gino's for lunch. He wasn't there yet, so I met his parents, and when Leena showed up, she started cooking. Gino and Linda came a few minutes later, right before a storm rolled in, and it started pouring like crazy. We had a good lunch, Linda and Gino left, and we sat around and chatted. Well they mostly did while I listened. They turned on the TV, and I started dozing off. Ciro was on his way to pick us up, but was delayed because of the rain back in Palermo. Once he did get there, we said our byes, and made a few stops in town for some local stuff you can't find in Palermo, locally made/grown. We got back to Ciro's and it was dark, so we talked a bit about me going to Mondello the next day by bus. We had dinner (9:30pm) and I went to bed.


ciao!

I almost forgot.....the album/slide show is now online. You can go look now, but as I write this, I'll pepper in some of the stuff I'm writing about, so your choice, to look now or wait.

Please don't use the images without permission, at some point, I'll be changing this back to private view only.

SLIDE-SHOW

If you don't want to view it in slideshow format, you can use this next link to see the pictures as well.

ALBUM


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Now playing: Beastie Boys - The Sound Of Science