Learning Lessons in Sicily

July 2011: When I caught the train to Sicily I was shocked by a couple of things. The first; I woke up on the train about half way through the 12 hour journey to find that I was on a boat. I was slightly dazed and confused (having taken a Restavit or two 6 hours prior) and asked some fellow passengers what was going on. They confirmed that yes, the train had driven on to a boat, a boat that was now crossing the strait between mainland Italy, or the ‘boot’ and Sicily, the ball. The second shock was that when I arrived, there was no Al Pacino, no Marlon Brando, in fact no mafia (that I could see, anyway).

It was here that we learned a very valuable lesson: make sure you write down the address of your hostel. After about five hours, having to wake up my mother at 4am in Australia to teach her via text message how to open emails, and a confused taxi driver now €40 richer, we made it.

The next day we decided to see the sights of Sicily by getting a three hour train out of Palermo to a secluded little town called Milazzo, where we caught a bus into town, and then a ferry out to the island Vulcano, which has, you guessed it, a volcano. The Volcano hike was amazing, and apart from needing to go to the bathroom half way up, went off without a hitch. We explored, we inhaled the toxic sulphur fumes, and then came back down to bathe and delight in the warm mud springs said to work wonders on your complexion.

My travel buddy and I felt we had had one of the best days of the trip to date. We hopped aboard the last ferry back to Milazzo, jumped on the last bus to the train station, and arrived safely at the train station to discover the last train to Palermo had just left, and there were no more buses running back into town.

Being stranded in the middle of Sicily (Pacino or no Pacino) was quite frightening for two young girls, and we were at a complete loss as to what we should do. Should we sleep here at this dingy train station? The chances of being raped and pillaged are probably quite high, we thought. So we wandered around (in our still muddy, and only change of clothes) until we found a little B&B. “No room here” was all she knew how to say evidently. We kept wandering until we came upon a little hot dog vendor, closing up for the night. We asked if he could help us, and for the bargain price of €15 euro, he said, he could drive us back into town.

As we lay prostrate on the crummy bed in the dingy little hotel in our muddy clothes, we hugged and cried with relief that the day was finally over, and we weren’t dead.