The Greasy Pole Competition

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Today I’ve booked a full day tour to the Valley of the Temples and Scala dei Turchi, both of which are about two hours away near the town of Agrigento on Sicily’s south coast. They do things a bit differently here in Sicily. Issy never had any intention of doing the tour, but when I tried to book for one person I was told it was sold out, but if I booked for two, well no problem…..?

It’s an early start so I try very hard to leave Issy in dreamland, forgetting of course that she’s got no chance of sleeping through the earth shattering “shooting of the traditional nine blanks” at the bright and early time of 9am.

I was expecting the cross island road to be a goat track, but no, as we remember from our previous visit to Sicily most of the roads here are excellent. This is no exception, most of it‘s a four lane highway, much of it on massive viaducts above a river valley. The landscape looks a bit parched and brown, but there’s no shortage of agricultural activity - grape vines, olives and vegetables, and even some sheep and cattle trying to extract some nourishment from the brown paddocks.

We’re told that the Valley of the Temples contains the remains of seven Greek temples dating from the fifth century BC. The best preserved is the Temple of Concordia, which is also widely recognised as one of the best preserved Greek temples in the whole of Europe. This all came about as a result of the fifth century BC Greeks being keen to expand their empire. Our guide tells us that this particular part of Sicily came to their notice when they were cruising by one day and happened to notice the area was covered in “crap”. …well that’s what I thought she said. I would have picked ancient Greeks as being a bit more discerning than that, and so they were; she soon clarifies that it was crustaceans that took their fancy, “crabs”. I think I need to get my ears cleaned out.

The Greeks and the Carthaginians were involved in various scuffles over Sicily over the ensuing centuries. The Carthaginians won control of the island at one stage, and decided they didn’t like temples, so went about destroying some of them. The site is spectacular, and extends for several kilometres. One downside is the backdrop to all of this, a lot of which is industrial chimneys and the ugly modern day apartment blocks of present day Agrigento. It seems a pity that the Carthaginians didn’t hang around for a few millenia, preserve the Greek temples, and save their destructive urges for the chimneys and apartment blocks.

I think it would suck to be a tour guide. There are nearly forty people in our group, and keeping them together on a massive site packed with visitors is like herding cats. As per usual there are some problem children, in this case “the French group”, and “the young couple”. Our guide would like to be spending her time educating us, but the most common phrases we’re hearing through our headsets are “if anyone‘s seen the French group or the young couple could you please let me know”. And it’s hot, stinking hot. The Red Cross is here in force armed with water bottles and first aid kits, and a few visitors do indeed look like they might be about to melt into the bitumen. At least these young first aiders look like they might be capable of rendering assistance; the Red Cross contingent we saw in Cefalu a few days ago comprised two seventy year old blokes on dodgy looking red vespers, and they looked far more likely to be the ones needing the assistance than handing it out.

So it’s back on the bus for our next and final stop, the Scala dei Turchi. But first we pass a road sign that just says “Caos”. This has got to be a multi-car pile-up surely, but no, that’s the name of the village, and very organised it looks too.

The Scala dei Turchi, or Stair of the Turks” (apparently some reference to medieval pirate raids), is a virtually pure white stepped seaside cliff made of the sedimentary rock marl. It looks pretty spectacular. But before venturing down there I dine on “shrimps asleep in dressing” at a restaurant on the clifftop; I hope they don’t wake up while I’m eating them. The beach is packed, and all the usual enterprising African suspects are here; "sunglasses man", and his mate "hat man". There’s also a newcomer, "mobile greengrocer man", wheeling a trolley packed with corn cobs. He seems to be doing a reasonable trade too. An activity of choice here seems to be to grab a few handfuls of marl, crumble them up into powder, and rub them all over yourself. I’m sure there’s a good reason for doing this, but it’s escaping me just for the moment. Maybe there’s another sheep theory at play here; it all started one night when a few blokes wandered down onto the beach after spending too long in the bar, decided to have a bit of fun with the rocks, other people saw them and assumed it’s what everyone did here, and the trend took off from there.

Back in Cefalu chaos reigns supreme. It’s the last day of the feast and half of Sicily has hit town. It seems Issy’s had a front row seat to today‘s entertainment. Top of the pops was apparently the greasy pole competition - thirty odd blokes (just blokes apparently, not sure why) competing to see who could be the first to grab a flag from the end of a large pole covered in oil and pig fat hung out over the edge of the breakwater. The whole show took a couple of hours, and the task got progressively easier as the fat got rubbed off by a succession of blokes dunking themselves in the drink. The eventual grabbing of the flag was apparently met with rapturous applause. And then there was a DJ overseeing proceedings, including the local version of aqua aerobics - hundreds of people in a conga line in the shallows, culminating in them all wildly splashing each other on cue. It did look very amusing in Issy’s videos.

We’re about to head into dreamland when cannon fire breaks out yet again, this time half an hour or so after midnight. We can sense an all night party coming on. The cannon heralds the start of a fireworks display. I’m not usually into fireworks, but this is something else. The whole sky’s lit up, and the flimsy medieval balcony we’re watching on from is shaking and feeling distinctly like it’s about to give way and plummet us twenty metres or so down onto the sand below.

It’s our last night here and we’re very sad to be leaving. It’s been a blast Cefalu. We’re going to miss you!

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Valley of the Temples
We were there in May. The ruins are lovely.