Sulcis and Carloforte
Time is fickle here. On lecture days, we get home after the afternoon session and sit down to start doing homework and look up to find that it’s already 8 o’clock. Then, it feels as though every minute that slipped away over the past week snuck back in into the past three days, lengthening them beyond their normal capacity to accommodate sand and salty air, winding roads from the back of a Land Rover, and the sound of ocean waves.
Saturday began with our departure from Cagliari in a convoy of white Land Rovers (with one black sheep), a trek across flat plains eerily reminiscent of the U.S. Mountain West in how mountains rise to bracket the horizon to both sides, and then our ascent through those mountains. The roads were steep, narrow, and winding strips of cracked asphalt that blended into dirt, encompassed by slopes of green. The approach to Montevecchio was punctuated by a barren riverbed appearing to our right, banks coated with an orange tint, heralding the arrival of industrial structures poking up above the tree line.
Exploring Montevecchio was an experience both alien and familiar. The site itself was solemnly lovely, heavy masonry buildings and steel machinery bearing silent witness to the scuff of our footsteps as they did to the miners who worked there for almost a century and a half. The grim towers above correspondingly deep shafts seemed to call accusal at the commodification of the lived (and died) experience of those who came before, inescapable even in the land we walked on - ground terraformed with the overburden. At the same time, the experience of those at Montevecchio that was described was heartbreakingly familiar to those of American miners: company housing, a company store and scrip, unsafe working conditions maintained by the bottom line, and mine waste left to poison the surrounding land.
Piccolo Shaft at Montevecchio.
The sobering experience was followed by a visit to Piscina, a picturesque beach tainted on one edge by a stream tinted orange by mine runoff, the delta flanked by crumbling concrete structures. I spent some time watching the river ooze its way to the ocean before exploring the rest of the dunes. It was interesting how much like a desert it felt like if I didn’t turn to look at the ocean behind me. While wandering through the sand, I met up with a group from the Dialogue and together we discovered clay along the riverbed, wild mint growing in a small river (this one not visibly polluted from mining), and a couple of cows.
The orange-tinted river running alongside La Piscina.
More cows were encountered later in the day at the Agriturismo Sa Perda Marcada, alongside donkeys, geese, chickens, sheep, cats, dogs, and a beautiful horse that allowed us to pet it. We helped prepare dinner and dessert, making gnocchetti and seadas from scratch and losing ourselves for a bit in the rolling, shaping, and cutting of dough. Later that night, we enjoyed the fruits of our own labor alongside other dishes prepared by the Agriturismo. The best part of the night was looking up the stars that night, since it felt like every first night coming home from Boston when I can see lights in the sky that aren’t from the nearest highrise. With some remote guidance from my girlfriend, I was able to capture a sliver of their majesty in a photo (see below).
The stars as seen from Sa Perda Marcada.
On Sunday, we first visited Porto Flavia, where minerals were brought through a tunnel and dropped down hoppers before being loaded by conveyer belt and an extendable metal arm into the holds of cargo ships, protected from the Mistral wind by the the bulwark of the Pan di Zucchero rising from the cerulean waters. The technology was fascinating to see, although only fish and scuba divers can observe the metal arm in its place on the seafloor now. Its efficiency was phenomenal, reducing the time it took to load ships by a factor of ten or more. A true engineering marvel.
The Pan di Zucchero. |
From the parking lot of where we stopped for lunch, Danielle and I hiked down to a large ruin overlooking the sea through a roofless arcade of arches, riddled with tunnels accessible by cave ins. The views were spectacular, but we didn’t have enough time to explore the hidden quiet places and history as much as I would have liked before we had to leave. Our afternoon was capped off by rough sand, thundering waves, and a breeze that cut the sun’s bite before we boarded the ferry for Carloforte.
View of the ocean from the ruins.
The sunset was beautiful from the west coast of the Isola di San Pietro, the westernmost point in Sardinia. Orange and pink rays caught the droplets of salt spray thrown up by waves kissing the cliffs, clung to the edges and ridges of the stones, and dappled the ocean surface. A road half overgrown led down to water, where boats used to bring supplies in to be carried up the staircase, a small abandoned building watching the waves through missing windows. It struck me here first, sitting beside the water, how much history this island has. No matter where we go, driving or walking, there are always abandoned masonry structures, their stories forgotten in part by their multitude. Even Danielle’s camera can’t do the scenery full service (although they come closer than anything else).
The sunset from Capo Sandalo. Credit: Danielle Stone
On Monday morning, we visited another distinct and stunning landscape (I’m beginning to think no corner of this island has not been graced with beauty). The Piscina Naturali di Nasca are surrounded by an almost lunar landscape of barren, jagged rocks that house an incredibly clear (and cold) pool. The water is so pristine that the rocks look close enough to touch even when your feet are far above the bottom. After another ferry, we spent the afternoon at a beach near Maladroxia, getting a final dose of sun and salt and sand before returning to Cagliari in the evening, where we bid farewell to our driver for the weekend, Paolo, who shared history, Italian rock and rap, and many laughs with us over the course of the three days.
Comments
Post a Comment