Sharing the adventure with invisible but very real compari

A couple of nights ago I made an impromptu decision to make a third conquest of Rocca Massima. The night was still and tutto nero, the moon marking its absence with total blackness. It was nine o’clock la sera and I made the usual meticulous preparations – the brain not letting the body know what was coming. The only way to achieve that is to not let the brain know what is about to happen. These decisions need to be made and implemented simultaneously for the reasons previously cited.

I remembered the torch this time but it did not leave the tiny backpack. Dressed in what is best described as long shorts (or short longs, depending on your psychological orientation) and a T shirt I packed a cotton jumper – “just in case”. No provisions. It is autumn here now. The temperature is moderate and, traveling at night I found drinking unnecessary.

This was my third assault on the 10.3 kilometre, 740 metre accent (which avid and un-senile readers will recall from a previous account) and I must say it gets a little easier each time, even though I am now a seventy year old rather than a nearly seventy year old. Well at least the ascent seemed easier – now familiar landmarks seemed to flash past at a rapid rate and I was at the 3 marker in what seemed record time (there are nine markers along the road). The abandoned and derelict three roomed brick cottage at the half way mark made its appearance, the two disused stone cottages up the road now appeared to have moved closer to the first and the lovely new roadside chapel, unadorned, flashed past too. The 6 marker appeared and disappeared, beyond which was total darkness.

The sound of a horse neighing ahead made me jump. I scanned the paddock alongside the road but there was no sign of movement. I had that eerie sense of a presence and made out a black spot in the blackness on the road ahead which turned out to be the exact size and shape of a rider-less horse. You know - when there is a shadow in complete darkness? Everything is black but there is a spot that seems to be a little blacker than the rest. Well the blacker spot accompanied me on the journey. He didn’t seem to be terribly fazed about my un-announced appearance although he confided that in all his time on the mountain he could not remember the last time he had struck a two legged traveller walking up the mountain in tutto nero and he had certainly not previously encountered one who spoke such a funny kind of dialect! We were traveling companions for about half a kilometre before he made an abrupt disappearance, Harry Potter style, through a Hogswarts train stop in a solid stone wall of the cliff face and returned to his pasture and vanished.

If I thought my nocturnal journey had sprung its last surprise I was mistaken for another four hundred metres further up I came across a number of huge white rock formations that seemed to move. In fact they were accompanied by a fairly familiar smell – just like freshly laid cow pats in damp grass! Yes, I found myself negotiating moveable boulders that were synchronised with the gentle tinkling sound of cow bells! The cows were a little less talkative and a lot more lethargic than my previous traveling companion but they added novelty and accompaniment to the climb.

[Aside: It is not such a surprise to find horses and cows in this neck of the woods. Historically they have been long-time occupiers of the land and in days not long past horses were the mainstay of the agricultural labour-force until someone invented pocket-sized tractors. Dairy cattle have traditionally occupied the high country and have never relinquished their occupation rights.

In nearby places they still breed donkeys which are employed to this day in performing daily necessary work in the pedestrian villages which can’t be negotiated with mechanised vehicles which fail to handle the very narrow, stepped, almost vertical terrain.]

The final three hundred metre climb was as challenging as before - the cimitero lights playing their usual mobile tricks and becoming progressively more distant.

Reaching the summit I made a victory lap of the piazza. The big clock in the middle struck eleven as I passed the office of the municipio (where the lights were on and a couple was being entertained) and the bar was in full swing sans patrons with video pop songs in full glory and the proprietor getting ready to close for the evening.

My previous experience with nocturnal hikes of this magnitude had left an indelible memory of limbs losing their elasticity when rested for an extended time so I thought it wise to press on with the descent before the body caught a glimpse of respite.

Unlike the ascent, the climb down the mountain seemed to get longer and longer the further I went. The second chicane seemed to have relocated a good two kilometres from its original position on the way up, the miniature village at the 2/3 mark seemed to have slipped down the hill and the distance between the nine roadside markers seemed to have doubled. By the time I had successfully tackled the way down the mountain and entered the village at the foot of the climb I was wishing my four legged and talkative companion was still with me, to share the joy of the tiresome trudge along the flat road back to Giulianello but, alas, I had to tackle the remaining section solo. Back to the snoozing population of the village – the final steep ascent from the roundabout to the huge brick porta marking the entrata being the most challenging climb of the evening.

As is the usual practice, post-event recovery improved with each expedition and the following day it took but a couple of hours of movement to regain the use of my limbs.

It is a hike that most locals and even more visitors prefer to forego and I am rather proud that I have tackled and survived three attempts and I am still counting.