A haven of tranquility

What does an autistic person like me crave most of all?... Yes! Right first time! I need rest... A place where I can be on my own, far away from all the stress, the hassle, the incomprehensible complexity of everyday life. Now, if you look at these pictures I took this morning, would you say that I found it?

And what if you asked them?... :-)

If they haven't learnt their lesson by now...

... they'll never learn it.

Yes, it's that time of the year again. Since three or four weeks the hunters are on the loose again in their relentless frenzy to kill innocent, beautiful wild animals just for the fun of it. They justify themselves by saying that they're the proud inheritors of a 'beautiful tradition'. Well, twothousand years ago they believed that the gladiators were also a 'beautiful tradition' but eventually the human race grew out of it, at least to some extent because we're still blood-thirsty animals. Just look at the success of the tabloids and these websites full of 'sensational news'. The more blood, the bigger their success. Will we ever become true civilised beings? When I look at these idiots who're roaming the countryside over here these days, I doubt it. Of course, in Italy it is a requirement for a hunter to have an IQ under 30 so that may explain some part of their behaviour. And we shouldn't take away the hobby of the poor, demented ignoramusses. They too are entitled to a bit of fun. But there are limits.

Just before the hunting season started we had a friendly chat with one of the local forest guards. The man took our case very seriously, moreover because we're now running a B&B and we wouldn't want our most honourable guests to get shot. The forest guard was going to have a word with the local hunters and, surprisingly, it did seem to work. They always maintained a safe distance from our property and we weren't even bothered anymore by their dogs. For the first couple of weeks though. Because this morning we hit the jackpot again. I already saw it coming... Dogs were running closer and closer to our house. First in our woods at the far end of our field, then in the woods below our field. These dogs usually run in circles because that's the pattern a hare makes when it's trying to escape. I didn't see the hare popping out from between the trees. But six big dogs were suddenly running towards us, barking like mad. Christine still tried to chase them off the gentle way, with little success since the dogs were just everywhere and didn't pay any attention to her shouts and gestures. So I took out... THE SECRET WEAPON! Following the advice of my closest Italian friend, I got me one of these: the humble football horn! :-)

The blaring noise scared the living wits out of those dogs and they ran off ten times faster than that they had first appeared. But... I had barely let go of the 'blast' button when we suddenly heard a furious hunter shouting at us from a small open space behind our field.

- "You imbeciles! You bastards! I'm going to sue you! I'll have you! You dirty sods! Stick that horn in your wife's *ù§!&£µ, you , !àèaji)!éù$^$iipu (not for senitive readers...) ... ù$'àço-à:;é'!ç ... µù*£$^[; ... "

And so on (for the next five minutes or so). Then the well-educated gentleman called his dogs back (which were still in a kind of shock I presume) and went away, still shouting very rude words. Obviously I should have been more understanding and forgive him the fact that he was breaching the law at least tree times: hunting within 100m of an inhabited house, hunting with more than 2 dogs per person (he was alone) and art. 649 of the Italian law code which prosecutes disturbance of one's rest at his/her home. 

But then we also heard him shouting at someone else, a bit further on. Eager to know who we were dealing with I jumped on my scooter and rode along the road which goes uphill behind our house and then runs parallel to our land. There I saw his mates, posing on the middle of the road with their guns as if they were the local generals. Or perhaps my new friend had left so many valuables in his two cars that he needed four armed men to protect them. This was in fact another breach of the law: hunters are not allowed to carry an assembled gun less than 100m from a house or 50m from a road. These men were carrying loaded guns ON the road. At first a bit of fear crept in me that they would perhaps try to stop me. But fortunately they stepped aside as I approached and I drove past, trying to have a glance at their licence plates. When I rode up the next hill, I could just see their mate arriving with his dogs, which he put in the dedicated trailer and off they went. Probably to harrass somebody else.  

That's the sort of people we have to put up with during the hunting season. And you know what's the most shocking thing of all? In Italy you are NOT allowed to stop a hunter from entering private land! A hiker, a biker or anybody else you can throw off as you like, but a man wearing a gun you can't! Unbelievable, isn't it? And you know whose fault this is? A guess anyone...??? 

Dear old BENITO MUSSOLINI!

In the twenties or thirties (somewhere) he passed a law that allowed men wearing weapons to roam freely across the country, private property or not. The goal of this law was to stimulate 'heroism' and to create a national sense of 'war'. Isn't it astonishing that even today Italian hunters are still using a law from Mussolini in order to defend their interests? People who'd swear they'd kill every fascist they'd come across, but at the same time try to prevent the laws of Mussolini to be changed or deleted. Now do you believe me about this IQ below 30?  

Well, we're confident that these prats will from now on think twice before they come too close to us again. They spend years training their dogs and they will not risk that this training is completely overturned in a matter of seconds by our horn. When you're dealing with idiots and you've tried talking and being nice to them for a year without result, this is the sort of thing to do. It's the only languge these savages understand.

In the meantime, we're getting ever more visits from the local wildlife, as if they sense that there's a safe haven for them at our place. Especially a mummy roe deer with her calf is visiting us every day now, early in the morning and in the evening. She's also getting ever less shy and I already managed to approach them to about 15m without scaring them off. A couple of days ago, they even came right next to our house! These two pictures were taken with my mobile and through the side window, so please forgive me the bad quality. And you can't see the calf on them either (though it was there!). But just to show you in what a stunning place we're living!

 

The Monte Cisa Challenge

It has been a dream since I first came to live in Italy: climbing the Monte Cisa. Not that it's a particularly high or spectacular mountain with its 1698m, far from it. But it's been staring me in the face right from the start. On the following picture, taken from our terrace, you can see it on the left, with its steep rocky westerly slope. If you look very carefully, you can see that right to the left of the summit there is a meadow. And in that meadow there is a tree. Well, I've always said that one day I'd be standing right next to that tree. So I went for it...

I rode with my Vespa along small, winding mountain roads to get as close to the mountain as possible. Here I'm already getting nearer... tension is rising... I'm filled with anticipation... I simply MUST get to the top!

The road is getting worse, only dirt and rocks. But I carry on unabated. The problem is that the road goes through the forests so I haven't got a clue anymore whether I'm close to the point I had selected to start my climb or not. Eventually I guess I must be close enough to have a go so I park my scooter and look up through the woods. I can hardly see any sky, let alone a recognisable point, but I just know the mountain must be there. Filled with courage I start to climb. The ground is very steep and slippery with all those leaves, but by jumping from tree to tree I have sufficient things to hold on to in order not to slide all the way down again. Apart from painful, this would have been quite embarrassing... :-)

Slowly I'm beginning to make out more and more blue in between the highest trees. Could it be that I'm already approaching the summit?... No... It's just a wide open space filled with what looks like an avalanche of rocks. Above these rocks there's another forest. But it appears to me that the summit couldn't be far beyond that so I just carry on, leaping from one rock to the next until I reach the outskirts of that second forest. The view is just spectacular and I can already see our house way below in the distance, so I must already be quite high indeed.

I climb through the woods again. Steep... tiring... slippery... The top can't be far now... it can't be far... Again there's more and more blue in between the leaves... it must be right over there...

Uh... not quite. Apart from having slightly miscalculated my point of departure (i.e. much too far to the west, right under that incredibly steep wall of rock in stead of the easier way through the woods on the left) I'm absolutely gutted to find out that the hardest part is yet to come! Oh bother...

Holding onto branches, leaves or even lumps of grass, I manoeuvre very carefully to the east, high, forested cliffs as well right above as below me. Very scary but still doable. Again there are more and more trees which give me grip and places to rest and I climb and climb... And then... the trees in front of me open up... behold... the meadow with the tree where I wanted to be so very much... I've made it!!! 

The panorama is just breathtaking from the summit! Here's a zoomed-in picture of our house, indicated with a red arrow. I called Christine with my mobile and told her to get the binoculars. "Yes!", she said, "I can see you, barely, but still...!"

As usual I've made a 360° panorama. You can download it here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24841015/Panorama.jpg

It's over 6MB but I can assure you that it's well worth it, at least I think so...

Then, after about half an hour of gazing and feeling good about myself, I decide that it's time to go down again. By chance I meet a local sheep herder who was looking for his flock (they're roaming about freely in the mountains) and he told me that there's a much easier way down, right along the westerly edge. It's steep, he assured me, but not too difficult. I'm holding my breath because I'm not really a big fan of "steep", "deep" and ladders but decide to give it a go. All in all, this mountain is steep everywhere. One last look at the summit...

And one other piece of rock, sticking out just a tad lower...

The way down...

When I've finally reached more solid ground about half an hour later, I meet the road again I was following earlier on to reach the mountain. Now I'm following it down, hoping to find my dear little Vespa again. It's almost an hour's walk, during which I actually spot a male deer, and eventually... there it is...

Riding home again, watching the sunset...