DAY 82

Saturday 1 October 2011

We got up by 7:30 to drive the van into town before 9 which was when the mechanic would be open for business. Ceglie Messapica is only about 10 minutes from Greg and Fiorella’s place out in the country. Puglia is known for its old cone-shaped domiciles (trulli) and many are whitewashed and renovated.

Making cactus fruit juice.

At The Peace Garden, as they refer to it, we each were given a task (per our request ) and the novelty of picking cactus fruit with fireplace tongs or collecting walnuts from the ground made the chores easy to accomplish. Our breakfast under the pine tree was espresso, tea and best of all biscotti from Anna’s bakery. (She has the space directly below Greg and Fiorella’s apartment/office in town). We learned about each of our Mayan calendar aspects and enjoyed reveling in the synchronicity of life. All while taking cactus splinters out of our hands with tweezers.

Before going to the harbor town of Otsuni to visit their boat, we picked up the van in Ceglie (which had received a new fuel line as the old one had a small hole, and the charge was only $40!) We hoped that would finally solve our spraying fuel problem, and it seemed to.  We bought picnic provisions of prosciutto, local cheese called cacao cavallo and beer to mix with lemon soft drinks.

Charles and Greg going to the sail boat in Greg's electric-powered skiff.

We connected with the harbor master on duty through Dian’s girl scout knot tying skills and he gave her a nice piece of rope to keep practicing with after demonstrating a few of his own. Greg ferried our quintet to their beautiful 32 foot sailboat in an inflatable dinghy with electric motor (not gasoline putt-putt -- another of their live clean and simple innovations they hope the locals will catch on to) and after a reading of Dian’s book Neptune’s Tavern (now we've heard it in Dutch and Italian!) everyone chowed (no pun intended) down then took a nap to the gentle lull of the waves. Since Fiorella had an appointment we opted not to leave the harbor for a sail although we heard some great stories about their harrowing adventure in a storm off Corsica.

Outside the Peace Garden

Gettin' artsy with the trulli

Back at the ranch (which measures six hectares), we filled  two giant buckets with walnuts after Greg climbed the tree and shook the branches raining nuts on Charles and Dian. Their dogs actually crack the walnuts open and eat the meat.

Prehistoric bone?? "No, just a rock," Greg said.

When dinner time rolled around we were delighted to have pasta with homemade pesto, olives from their trees, a chard-like green and tomatoes, with Anna’s bread curls and homemade wine. It don’t get better than that! Nicole and Dian were requested to play some music, which they did and that was the perfect capper to a lovely day – our first full day in Italy.