Camino a Vendicari

This idea was born thanks to a couple of siblings from Slovakia (brother and sister that get along well enough to travel together, what an idea!!) They tell me about a rastafari camp on the way to Noto. The idea is consolidated when a Sicilian we met at the beach tells me about the wonderfull city of Noto and the Natural Park of Vendicari. I’m in.
The adventure starts, of course, by missing the bus, and having to take the one to the closest town and try to catch another one from there. No biggie, I take a look around, come back and wait for the bus. 15. 30. Nothing. Then an old man offers me a ride. Sweet. Im in the car now, shooting the shit, and I tell him about the reservation, he tells me he’ll take me all the way there. Ok, I thought I’ll pay (since I had no clue where we were), but the price was just a tad to high. I’m not one for handjobs. Now it’s me and my backpack in the middle of the highway. The only thing I knew: head west. After a 15 minute walk a van pulls over and flags me in, of course I try again, the greater surprise was what I found inside: rastas!!! Now I’m in the right car. It’s one Brazilian and one Italian. I wish I had a tape recorder and tape our conversation. Everyone stuck to their own language, pretty cool. Doesn’t take long to reach the camp, I ask the lady owner about the reservation, turns out it’s just across the highway, near the ocean. Awesome, a 30 min walk puts me into the waters on this refuge (stopping point for all birds and turtles emigrating to Africa, in case you were wondering).
Next day I try to catch a lift to Noto but I couldn’t get one at the camp. Italians are very helpful as long as they don’t have to put more than 5 people in their car, rookies. So, I’m sitting on the highway handrails when a dude picks me up, yes, I don’t learn. We got to talk and turns out his dream is to go to Nepal and … Perú. Small world, so we just chatted. He was on his way to Noto to pick up his son, but right before we get there, the son calls. He’s running late, so it’s me, the old man, a couple of cannolis and some coffee and now I have a private tour guide. Noto, what a city, beautiful, but I digress…. Now, to go head back to the campsite. Of course no urban bus goes that far, and the intercity ones don’t want to stop in the middle of the highway, so I take the urban bus that takes me to the furthest beach west and start walking. I had no clue how long it was as the touristy maps have no scale, but after asking around, I got a figure between 12 and 20 kms. Not too bad, I can walk it, and I’m glad I did. What a fantastic view!
The geography makes for isolated beaches one from the other and in between there is this little hill with a cliff at the waterside to jump in the water, incredible, I saw some good spots to take your girlfriend and enjoy a day alone at the beach maybe even have some apple pie. Deep blue is the color of the water and I’m almost in a trance when I hit this beach where something was just wrong, the ratio was out of control, 200.000 men to 1 woman! I’m sorry; it’s just hard to get an accurate count when they are all naked! Some of them were even wearing makeup. I noticed it on the ones that came over and try to make small talk with me. Got out of there as quick as I could. As Im tryng to put that thought behind, I saw the Sveva Tower, the signature landmark of the Vendicari Park and right in front of it, the campsite. Goodie, almost there. By now the sun is setting, red-orange skies on my left, deep blue ocean on my right.
Im hungry and I have no food packed with me. I pick up some tunas and I get stubbed. I pick up some berries and they are sour. Hungry still but nothing can stop me from enjoying another beautifull sunset in Sicily….