Today was a day of walking. Without a map of this area, I just started walking down the hill from "Soto di Pini" the B+B where I am staying and working. It means "under the pines" which are all around the house. Any direction you go here is either up or down. We are located at the very rim of Mt. Etna Park which surrounds the active volcano. Zafferana Etnea is the name of the town and at this part of the mountain is the first town you get to when coming down from the peak. In 1992, which was the last time lava flowed down the mountain, the lava stopped just short of the towns' limits. They say it is active because it never stops smoking and could start flowing lava at any time. It's not an explosive volcano like Vesuvius in Naples but it is always a threat to the little towns around here.
My feet are killing me right now. I think I walked about 10-15 miles. I went up the mountain to the downtown area of Zafferana-Etnea after first going down to the town of Santa Venerina and accidentally met up with Tonda, a WWOOFer from our house from Hungary. It was a really good thing I met her because she was able to show me the way back. It was a very, very long walk back. I had walked from a town called Santa Venerina and wanted to find my way back a different way. I really got to get myself a map.
All the little towns around Mount Etna are kind of connected to each other and each town has townships with distinct names. Like Zafferana has Fleri, Sarro and Pisano townships but still in the town called Zafferana. We are in Pisano.
Most of the roads here are made of black, square blocks. All made of lava of course. And no matter how far you walk in any direction, just look up and you see Etna either smoking or in the clouds depending on the weather. It's all snow covered now. They even have a couple of places to go skiing with ski lifts at Etna. Who would think of going to Sicily to ski?
HARVESTING AVOCADOS
Yesterday we all (4) went to the land where Paolo (our host) owns 330 avocado trees. In and amongst all the avocado trees are orange, clementine and mandarin trees all loaded with ripe fruit. We were only there to pick up some of the avocados which had fallen. The ground under the trees is a blanket of ivy. Being that the ivy and the avocados are both green, it was sort of like going on an extended Easter egg hunt. Three hours and 18 crates (cassettes) later and we had enough avocados for Paolo to take to Palermo's market today. Of course eating mandarins throughout the day was mandatory. So 10-12 mandarins later.....Yes I ate that many. How could I not? There were just there for the picking and eating. And by the way Paolo does NOT harvest these citrus. He said he just can't make any money on them. I think there are just too many for sale at the markets. And they sell for about .50Cents/Kilo (2 lbs.)
More later...The sun went down and I am outside and it is cold!
No comments:
Post a Comment