Sat. 09-22-07 -- Sorrento and Positano, Italy
Burned out. This morning I woke up and I felt like doing absolutely nothing. Kara got up and took a shower at 7:30, but I stayed in bed sleeping until sometime after 8:30. Once I was awake, I still stayed in bed and just read, I just couldn't bring myself to get out of bed to face another day of sight-seeing.
I had a restless night last night with many dreams that followed the basic theme: We were on this trip, but Kara made us go home to Portland early for some reason. We were back in Portland, and I was trying to frantically find a way to get us back to Europe to finish our trip before our railpass ended and our return flight occurred. A little pop-psychology dream analysis tells me that there are two sides of me at war within. The dream-Kara is the side of me that is exhausted and just wants to do nothing or go home. The dream-Jake is the side that knows that this is the adventure of a lifetime and wants to get out there and see as much as I can before the trip ends.
Anyway, this all put me in a serious funk this morning. Kara was understanding, and we just hung out and read in our room until the maid barged in around 9:45am. She said she'd be back in 5 minutes to clean the room, so I was forced to actually get up and face the day. Part of my exhaustion is due to not having a place to just veg. When we're out and about, you can grab some rest on a bench, but you can't comfortably hang out there for hours. Instead we are bouncing from place to place where we are constantly being treated and charged like the tourists that we are. I told Kara as we left, "I just want a place where I can veg on the internet and drink free water for a few hours..." But unless we were going to rent an apartment and move in, that just wasn't going to happen.
Our original plan for the day was to bus along the Amalfi Coast, stopping in the little beach towns along the way, and eventually make it to the Greek temple ruins in Paestum. We were already talking about not doing that, but just taking it easy for the day, but we figured we might as well start the journey and see what happened. We bought all day bus passes and waited 30 or so minutes in the surprisingly long line for the Amalfi Coast bus.
The first town on the bus line was Positano, about 50 minutes away. The ride was in a large bus along a very curvy cliff-side road that was a bit too narrow for the size of the bus. Some of the turns we took were hair-raising to say the least. The bus had to swing wide around corners, so we'd head straight for the guard-railed cliff edge, then the driver would yank the bus to the left at the last second and barely clear the rail and a death by driving off the cliff.
Positano is a vertical town built between the water and the highest cliffs above. We got off the bus and wound our way through narrow streets to the water. We saw a private beach that charged 10 euro per person for a spot with a lounge chair and an umbrella, and that looked pretty great to me.
But we were hungry so we found a little lunch place and had sandwiches. Over lunch we decided that we would rent some beach space and just relax all day. We stopped by a store on the way back to the beach, and bought potato chips and beverages (Coke for Kara, beer for me) and then we spent many hours just relaxing in the beautiful weather on the Italian Amalfi Coast. This was exactly what the doctor ordered, and I said as much to Kara. Later, Kara said "screw work" and we both laughed it up for a long time. This perfect day at the beach in Italy wasn't our vacation, this is our lives! We don't have crappy jobs waiting for us when we return!
Later in the day, after a wonderful beer-induced nap in the sun, I smelled someone smoking a cigar, so I got up and walked through town to see if I could find a Cubano of my own. I found a tobacci shop that had a nice humidor, and picked out a relatively cheap cigar (4.70 euro) that was "Hecho en Cuba." I smoked it on the beach and while we walked on a cliff path to another beach.
The town was having a festival of fish later that night and we tried finding out where it was going to take place. We walked up to where I had originally seen the announcement board, and when we got there, we found a group of 5 people parading through the streets holding the festival banner and playing percussion instruments. There was a colorfully dressed marshal of this little parade that was making humorous proclamations in Italian (unfortunately I don't know what he was saying, but I could tell it was funny from his bombastic delivery, and the crowd's reaction). The banner holder, marshal, and drum section made its way through the tiny streets, and everyone followed them. We were part of the ever growing parade!
I really wanted to stay for the festival, but it was getting late, and we needed to catch the bus back to Sorrento. So we decided to abandon the parade and make our way back to the bus station in the dark. From the cliff edge bus stop, we could see the coastal town lights sparkling in the distance, and the bright moon leaving a light wake on the sea. It was the most picturesque (and romantic) time I've ever had while waiting for a bus!
The 50 minute ride home was no less hair-raising in the dark, and this time there was some tricky maneuvering required by the bus driver to get around oncoming traffic. Now we're back in our room, Kara's sleeping and I'm feeling 100% recharged. This was such the perfect day for how I was feeling this morning. Kara was singing "What a difference a day makes" while getting ready for bed, and man is that ever true. I'm ready for tomorrow, whatever it brings!
