Marto the Italian who lives in the mountians.

---

2,763 meters above sea level, 4 hours from the nearest dirt road, and up a path so unbearably steep that you have to use your hands to keep from sliding down, is the house of Marto the Italian farmer. tall strong and thin, with long hair, a big nose, and a short black beard, marto seems to be more arabic than italian, not to mention the vast collection of percusion instruments he has tuned to the arabic scale. Marto lives alone, but alluded to the fact that while him and his 2 best friends (he is a master carpenter) were building his house, one of them slept with his wife, and 9 months later, just as the house was complete, she gave birth to the friends child. so now they are the x wife and x best friend. since the house is actually in the middle of nowhere and you can barely get a horse up, they built the house completely with a chainsaw and pine trees that grow around the house, which is intense because he cut every board perfectly, and the house is the most beautiful ever. there is no electricity obviously and he was completely sustainable until his divorce, but since then he has neglected his land, and that is why we all went up there for the weekend...to help him get it all back in shape. so after the hardest hike of my life we arrive at his house in the afternoon and sit around until everyone else arrives carving potatoes and whatnot for a big soup we cooked on the woodstove that evening. after dinner he pulled out his instruments, of which there alot of, and we all started jamming and kept at it for 2 hours. i played guitar, Marto played his nifty instrument thats like a travel steel drum in the shape of a spaceship, and everyone else played some kind of conga or bongo. it sounded pretty good because marto is incredebly talented and has CD´s and everything. it was cozy that night with all 9 of us sleeping on the floor, it felt like a middle school sleepover. the next day he put us to work, i worked with him transplanting grass from one 60 degree slope to the other using a long solid steel bar resembling a massive crowbar, and everyone else weeked another hill. once enough weeds accumulated, he would bunch them together and roll them all the way down the hill, which was pretty cool and kinof dangerous (because of the speed and inaccuarcy of the rolling weeds). hard work for once. the view from his house is the best i have ever seen of mountians, you can see everything because he is above everything and there is a string of valleys infront of him. my camera ran out of battery before we got there. i´d also like to add that marto is the most animated man i have ever met and spoke in excited soundeffects and grunts. amazing experience.
chow
Antone

---

Comments

[its o'douls, bitches!!]

antone, remember me?
i was in the skybed last night, reading this, and just like, "oh" ... .... ..... "shit" ..... .... ... im glad you are living the dream. meanwhile, i have the flu and a couple exams in two weeks. sweet deal, huh? holla at ya bro, readc