It's when I'm standing at the top of a roaring highway, looking up through the smog at the volcano - that I realise I can see his point. After all - when he told me how to get to Mount Etna (a bus, a train, another bus, another train) - he omitted to mention that the first bus of the day is also the only bus of the day. So here I am, in Catania, fresh off the train he recommended I take. Only I am half an hour late and 20 miles short. And that's as close as I am going to get to the mountain today.
I've been sent from pillar to post by the locals - all unwilling to tell the 'stranieri' that her trip wasn't going to happen. Eventually a woman at a local travel agency confirms my fears. "And so", she says; "there are now only two things you can do. One is to go home. The other is to go to the market and then to the church where we are celebrating the Festa della Madona del Carmine."
Santa Carmine is the patron of the Carmelite nuns. I was brought up Catholic so this intrigued me. And so, of course, I opt for the latter.
The market was packed with humans and with goods. Heaping scales of fish, miles of shoes, seas of swimsuits, acres of fruit and veg. Pradda, Guccy, hamsters and trilling red-beaked songbirds. I love it. How come we don't have markets like this? Why did we turn a real-life, in-yo-mouth adventure into a stroll down the sanitised aisles of a supermarket? This is much more fun.
I make my way into the church. It is roiling with worshippers. They have bought long, drooping, yellow-wax candles and handed them over to young noviates outside who were setting them alight. Molten wax was everywhere, the smoke stinging our eyes. White flowers are bunched up on all the altars and their scent is making it hard to breathe. The women and children are wearing rough brown cassocks with little string necklaces, bearing S. Carmine's likeness. People were coming and going, taking calls on their mobile phones. Children were crying and the organ was severely out of tune from the heat. I sat watching for a while until the humidity and constant jostling became unbearable. On the way out I noticed the holy-water font was parched. Not bloody surprising.
I walked until I found myself again confronted with a distant Etna, then I gave up. It was just too hot and the joke was getting old. I stood at the bus stop for 20 minutes. An old woman insisted on showing me her arm muscles. Earned, she insisted, from carrying such heavy bags. She was strong, she said, 'forza' and mimed boxing my jaw. Like she needed it - her breath could have killed me at 10 paces. Losing interest in me, she got into an argument with another old lady - something to do with the 'scifo' quality of the bread on offer at the Spar. The fault of shit American grain they're using. Next thing everyone at the bus-stop is involved, screeching at each other. Then the bus arrives and they all stop and hustle onto it. Except for most vociferous of them all, a tiny old bat, the height of a 7 year old, who suddenly turns frail and asks the 'bella signora' for money. I stepped over her.
A crazy gets onto the bus behind me and starts singing 'Volare' loudly in my face. I could see his spit hitting my sunglasses. I move to the back of the bus and he follows me, still singing. I am almost beside myself at this point and suddenly hear myself shouting "LEAVE ME ALONE". The bus stops abruptly, he gets off and everyone goes quiet and looks off towards the horizon and the volcano. Mortified by my eruption.
It's time to move on. And I am tomorrow. Naples for a day then meeting up with Carla and Karen for a week on the Cilento Coast. It'll be fun to drink a glass of wine with someone I know.
