Paying to Cover Yourself in Smelly Mud

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There‘s no water coming out of the taps in our room, so I trek down to reception to have breakfast and to tell the receptionist about the water. I hope she doesn't try to bite my arm off. Fortunately it’s a different receptionist and this one even seems moderately friendly. She‘s very apologetic and tells me that the water will be back on again shortly. Issy’s asked me to bring her back a whole fruit. She doesn't specifically say that she wants a watermelon but I don't ask for clarification just in case.

This morning we‘ve decided to head over to the neighbouring island of Vulcano to scale its 500 metre high mountain peak. It seems that this is also an active volcano, which I suspect we probably should have been able to work out from the name. It wasn’t on the trip’s original volcano list, so this has now grown to four - Vesuvius, Vulcano, Stromboli and Etna.

We walk down to the main port to buy our ferry tickets. It‘s only a bit after 10am, and the ferry doesn't leave until noon, so we kill some time by walking around the waterfront and climbing up the hill again to the castle. We‘re a bit over hotels telling us that they want to charge us five Euro to wash a pair of undies. We pass a laundry where the lady tells us that we can get a kilogram washed for five Euro, or five kilograms for 20 Euros. That sounds like a bargain; I reckon there might be quite a few pairs of undies in a kilogram. We stroll down to the smaller port and into a small church on the pier. It doesn't have any pews, and one whole wall‘s a model of a fishing village, including a tank full of goldfish at the front representing the sea. It‘s very cute.

We join the long queue for the ferry. It‘s nearly noon, and it’s just arrived….. well we thought it had. It seems that this is instead a ferry back to mainland Sicily and it was supposed to get here over a hour ago. Most of the people in the queue have got all their luggage with them and look like they’ve probably got planes to catch. Perhaps unsurprisingly a lot of them are looking more than a little agitated. A very rude and officious lady yells and waves her arms to try to get everyone into the right queue. She’s almost rude enough to get a job with immigration at Melbourne airport. Ooops. If we weren’t on an immigration watch list in Melbourne before I’m sure we will be now.

The smell of rotten eggs as we get off the ferry is almost overwhelming, and signs at the base of the trail warn of the risks of “intoxication” if we get too close to the sulphur vents on the mountain. The first part of the trail is through loose black volcanic rock - it’s like walking through loose dry sand - two steps forward and one step backwards. It then changes abruptly to a dusty yellow clay with ruts deep enough to swallow us whole. We reach the top of the clay section and we can now see up to the crater rim. The reviews on TripAdvisor said that the whole climb should only take about fifty minutes; I wonder if whoever wrote them has ever been here - we’ve been going for fifty minutes now and we're only about halfway up.

We plough on upwards around the lower side of the rim. The crater‘s massive, and totally devoid of vegetation. It looks like the path goes right around the rim, and we've still got a lot of climbing to do to get to highest section. The views are spectacular - Stromboli off to the north, and Mount Etna to the south. We struggle on up to the peak, and stop to take in the stunning vista across all of the Aeolian Islands and over to Sicily’s north coast.

But it seems our troubles aren't over. The path down is much steeper and rougher. It seems to be a series of zig zags through loose rocks, but it’s a bit hard to tell exactly where it is in the barren landscape. We’re doing more sliding than walking. Issy‘s not happy. I hold her hand to stop her from slipping, but she’s now calling me “David Sheehan” which is never a good sign.

The path flattens off, but the danger’s still not over. We’re now surrounded by the sulphur vents we were warned about, and most of the rocks are stained bright yellow. The smell‘s almost overpowering. I stop to take some happy snaps while Issy tries to struggle on downwards to get away from the fumes. She says that she’s trying to convince herself that the smell is just eggs and that she likes eggs, and I suppose that might be true if the eggs weren’t rotten. I lose sight of her in the fumes, but it seems there’s more than one way to find her. In her rush to get away she‘s slid down the mountain once too often and fallen over, and she’s now howling in pain. She’s cut her hand and her shoulder hurts so badly that she’s struggling to move her arm; this is not good.

Back at sea level Issy sits on the dock to rest her sore arm while I go wandering. The road leads me past a massive yellow stained rocky outcrop and then a huge pool of hot grey smelly mud behind a fence on one side of the road. The pool’s well populated with bathers who it seems have paid to immerse themselves in the mud; they come out looking like they're covered in ash. The smell here’s almost as overwhelming as it was in among the sulphur vents up in the volcano. I remember reading reviews about this place. It seems you might as well throw your bathers away after you’ve been here for all the chance you’ve got of ever getting rid of the stench. I think the whole experience is supposed to be good for your skin, but I’m not sure I’m all that convinced.

Back at the hotel, and I take a dip while Issy rests up. Her shoulder‘s still sore and she keeps getting cramps in her legs. She says she‘s not physically capable of walking back down to the town and back again for dinner, and suggests that I should instead go down there and get her some take away. She says she’d like some lobster mornay, but if that’s not available she‘ll settle for some Japanese food.

….. We walk down into town and settle in at a restaurant in the main street. The waiter looks just like Al Pacino and he tells us that he has friends from Lipari in Melbourne who run restaurants in suburban Carlton not too far from where we live.

As we return the hotel dog greets us at the bottom of the driveway; its humour hasn’t improved. It barks and snaps at our heels all the way up the long hill to our room. It thinks it‘s a great joke to hide in the shadows ahead of us, and then spring out with teeth bared. I wonder why it doesn’t just chew our arms off now and get it over with.

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Comments

[Suzanne Conroy]

What is the name of the hotel?
I tried to send this before but couldn't tell if it went through

[DaveandIssy]

Hotel room, pool and view were great. It is called the Hotel Villa Enrica.