Ciao, Pellegrini !
As the Wizard of Oz said:
The Magna Via is over!
Let’s get the first two (of three) Questions
answered:
1. Where did you start?
2. Where are you going to?
The stroll across Sicily:
Started at Palermo on the North coast: and
Ended at Agrigento, overlooking the Mediterranean across to Africa
#JobDone !!
It’s never just about the Statistics …
|
|
Miles |
Miles
per Day |
Kilometres |
Kilometres
per Day |
|
Distance |
114 |
13 |
184 |
20 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Feet |
Feet
per Day |
Metres |
Metres
per day |
|
Ascent |
22,000 |
2,500 |
6,750 |
750 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Memories Forever.
As I look back on my time in Sicily, DH
Lawrence well-summarises my feelings:
Anyone who has once known this land can never be quite free from the nostalgia for it.
Of course, over the millennia many have been this way … and left their Footprints in the Sand.
Humans were living in Sicily in
around 14,000BC.
Since then the island has been ruled
by the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the Normans, the Spanish.
On the Magna Via you see their continuing influence in the buildings, in the food and in the welcome of the Sicilians !!
Almost a thousand years ago, Al-Idrisi described what a pearl Sicily is:
Please Note:
The Book of Roger is not about Pilgrim Roger who walked with me !!
---
As always on Pilgrimage, there were all The Usuals.
Cathedrals & Churches
Bridges
Never forgetting the Valley of the Temples
Stunning Views
Towards Mount Etna
Villages
Elevenses
Drinks
Meals with Pilgrims - familiar & new
.jpg)
Ice-cream
---
But as the Wizard said …
It’s not Where you go.
It’s Who you meet along the way
As Rudyard Kipling wrote:
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by !
---
So, Ol’ Ric, … What about Question 3?
Why do you go on Pilgrimage?
Well; I do like the Planning …
Who doesn’t love a Spreadsheet ??!!
It is a real privilege to be able to
be outdoors, walking with friends in wonderful countryside & glorious
weather.
And who doesn’t enjoy the Challenge of the Ups & Downs.
But there is Another Reason why I go on Pilgrimage.
In the scene-setter blog Of Virtue & Motion of the Feet I
referred to Sandy Brown, the Editor of Cicerone’s Pilgrimage guidebooks.
Sandy sets the challenge for Pilgrims:
You can walk 1,000km but when you
arrive, there you are.
Still you.
On the other hand,
If you walk with openness and wonder,
if you walk thoughtfully and gratefully,
If you take the opportunity to
reflect, if you listen to the voice of the road,
And if you take a moment to make and
love new and dear friends, you will arrive refreshed, renewed,
Maybe even Changed.
As I look back on the Magna Via, how - if at all – have I Changed?
Since I was a little boy back in the late 1950s attending Sunday School at St Peter’s church hall in Forest Road, Tunbridge Wells and listening to Reverend John Hurst, I have loved the New Testament’s Parables.
You will probably know the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which seeks to answer the question:
Who is my Neighbour?
The Gospel of St Luke Chapter 10 gives Jesus’s answer:
A certain man went down from
Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his
raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
And by chance there came down a
certain Priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
And likewise a Levite, when he was at
the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
But a certain Samaritan, as he
journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
And went to him, and bound up his
wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him
to an inn, and took care of him.
And on the morrow when he departed,
he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care
of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay
thee.
Which now of these three, thinkest
thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
And the lawyer said, He that shewed
mercy on him.
Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
Across Life, I have to confess that I have too-often been the Priest; and the Levite too.
I hope that you might think that – on occasion – I have been the Samaritan.
But as for the man left half dead,
needing help …
Well - perhaps because I am an only child - I’ve not seen me playing that part in the Parable.
Offering help – OK!
Asking for help – that’s not what a Piper does!!
But Pilgrimage - as Sandy Brown wrote – is about Maybe even Changed.
On Day 6 we were walking from Cammarata
to Sutera.
Having stopped for early Elevenses in
Acquaviva Platani, we headed on through Case Bozzillo.
As we approached Case Sant’Antonio
farm, three dogs ran through the copse towards us.
There was plenty of barking, but no sense of any real danger.
As we walked on along the track at
the bottom of the farm, the dogs stopped following us.
We turned left. The farmer was in a tractor in the field and high above, near the farm buildings, was his wife, with another dog.
To our left, the three dogs we had
encountered a few minutes before charged across the field.
In truth, I wasn’t that worried; perhaps - naively - feeling protected by being in the vision of both the farmer and his wife.
Suddenly; Jeff - who was bringing up the rear - called out that he had been bitten on his inner thigh.
With no common language between us …
The wife did not - from her body language & tone of voice - (seem to) apologise.
She did call the dogs & get them
away from us.
And she led us to the path through the col which leads to the collapsed ridge which takes you to Sutera.
David had some anti-septic spray
& I had some plasters.
But Jeff’s wounds needed much more medical attention.
Jackie texted Calogera, the owner of
the B&B Casale Margherita in Sutera where Jeff & she were going to
stay.
We needed Help !!
A man on a bike tried to call emergency services in Sutera. But no reply.
For the first time ever on
Pilgrimage, I feared the worse.
The blood was oozing from Jeff’s wounds, the plasters ineffective.
We couldn’t expect Jeff to walk to Sutera, perhaps an hour away from the - probably closed - Emergency Services in Via Orti, on the far side of Sutera.
But Calogera was a Good Samaritan.
She had got two friends to drive a
pickup along the track on the collapsed ridge to find us.
They collected Jackie & Jeff, who
was soon off to the hospital in Mussomeli, with further help from the pharmacy
and the doctor in Campofranco.
The Mayor of Sutera, Guisi Cantanis, sent a message to Jeff saying how sad he was that this incident had happened and wished Jeff well.
When I look back in the years ahead on Sicily, I will remember the Kindness of the Sicilians.
And know that – even for a Piper - it
is OK to ask for help !!
---
" over the millennia many have been this way … and left their Footprints in the Sand. "
As an Ol' Pilgrim remembers his time in Sicily
One night I dreamed a dream ...
---
Until we meet again,
May God hold You
Safe … in the palm of His hand.
ciao, Ricardo
PS
The Fourth Question
The Magna Via was almost over as we headed on the final ½ kilometre of the long climb up to the Cathedral in Agrigento.
We were walking with Inne & Maxim, a young couple from Belgium.
Maxim asked me:
What Advice, Ol’ Ric, would you give to your 30 year old self?
I remembered that Laura & I had often spoken about the advice a friend of mine had given me, now 20 or so years ago:
Treat life as a
never-ending exam
Don’t argue that an
exam question wasn’t what you wanted
Or that you hadn’t
revised for it
I knew instantly I must answer The Fourth Question …
As I look back over
40+ years to being 30, I’d like to think I hadn’t done too badly on:
· Start small
· Act now
But the sad truth - as I find myself in what a friend from schooldays calls the Snipers Alley of your 70s - is …
I haven’t Dreamed BIG (enough).
A couple of days
after I got back to the UK, ( by co-incidence?) an Advert popped up on my
Facebook feed.
Has Mark Zuckerberg found a way of Tracking
my Thoughts …
Well, perhaps !
As for what the Advert was for …
Let me do a bit of research & prepare draft version 1 of the Spreadsheet.
This looks likes The Ultimate Adventure.
It’s got Your Name
on it; Obviously !!
We are all Stories in the end,
remembered by the Adventures we
had,
the Achievements we made and the People we loved.
So make sure Your Story is a
good one.
|
Nishan
Panwar |
