A constant drizzle made it a cool autumn day. The clouds were hanging very low over our heads seemingly just out of hands’ reach. We reasoned that the clouds would remain clinging to the hill sides. Over breakfast, we therefore decided that we would go looking for the sun on top of the hills.
With our little Fiat we headed into the valley on the single road leading into the hills. Crossing the bridge at the bottom of the valley we watched the brown waters of the river churning under us, filling the normally half-empty river bed from side to side. The movement seemed sluggish like molasses. For the duration of the ride over the bridge, water seemed to be all around us.
Driving along the hillside, the rain got heavier, changing from heavy drizzle to constant heavy rain and eventually to downpour. Water streamed down the windows taxing the wipers to their limit. We seemed lost in a world of water on a stretch of road boarded by low brush coming from nowhere and leading into the unknown. Our progress had slowed to a crawl as I tried to figure out the winding road that became steadily narrower.
In time, the road resembled more a mountain pass than a road as we steadily crept upwards and inland. As we gained height, we crept lower to the black clouds overhead. Without prior warning we suddenly found ourselves in heavy fog, obscuring everything around us except a few feet of tarmac in front of the car. We crept along even more slowly, not sure what surprises the road would keep in store for us.
Coming around a sharp corner, I hit the brakes to come to a complete standstill. There were cars standing on the road and shadowy figures walking around in the rain. We got out of our car and went to see what was going on. Five cars on, we met the hillside that had poured in a mudslide over the road. A foot of mud was covering the surface, and we could only guess as to where the slide ended several yards on.
The shadowy figures converged on us and everybody joined in a discussion on how to proceed or to reverse. It was decided that we would all together push one car after another through the slide. My son as the lightest got into the first car. He drove it slowly into the slide while everybody else pushed from behind when the wheels started slipping in the slick mud. In the end, it turned out to be surprisingly easy if exceedingly muddy. We all looked like earthworms by the time our car had been passed through at last.
We soon lost the cars in front of us. They were all locals who knew the road; whereas I more groped than saw the way ahead. We navigated the pitfalls one by one. At one point half the road had disappeared downhill. The fog turned a pearly colour and suddenly we came out into blazing sunlight, the storm and the wet a memory behind us.
Further up the road, my son made me pull out on the curb. We got out of the car and watched the black rolling and churning clouds in the valley. Lightning was striking downwards followed much later by the dull boom of thunder. ‘Seeing it from the top makes you understand how the ancients attributed it to the gods’, my son said. ‘It looks like there are footsteps stirring the clouds’, I replied, ‘maybe Grendel is walking the valley.’ ‘Don’t mention him, he’s creepy. And we are in the Mediterranean, not up north.’ ‘Maybe the Normans brought him along when they conquered the Island.’ My son shuddered and turned away in disgust. ‘Let’s get to Nicosia to dry out and drop their mud on them’, he said.
Further reading
Emperor Frederick II: A Model Ruler?
Doors to The Otherworld
Naval Arms Race in The Mediterranean
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