This was our second full day in Selinunte, starting at Cave di Cusa, an ancient limestone quarry that is now a fairy wonderland. All the stones have been taken over by thickets, flowers, trees, and nature. We had been sorely misled about the warmth of Sicily though. Ortigia had been warm, but it was quite cold in Selinunte, and at the quarry the sun was very off and on. It was beautiful when the sun was shining - everything had an ethereal glow to it, but without the sun it was really windy and no one seemed to be dressed appropriately!
After the quarry, we went to a series of temples set on a huge hill - the first was still standing, the second sort of half fallen, and the third was effected most by a huge earthquake, and was completely toppled. Which meant...rock climbing time! We spent over an hour traipsing through the ruined temple, climbing up columns and over fallen walls and huge rocks. It was crazy to imagine the immensity of an earthquake that could bring down such a sturdy stone structure.
Then it was a longer walker through more meadows to the last temple further away. By this point I was exhausted and cold, and fell asleep on the literally 2-minute bus ride back to the hotel. And yet...I summoned enough energy to go down to the beach with Christina, Hamed, Jess, Susie, and Katy, and laugh as they all (except Katy) froze and got hypothermia in the freezing water. I went in up to my calves, and that was enough for me! That night was another group dinner at the hotel, then I promptly fell asleep at 10pm haha.
Wednesday March 7th - Poggioreale, Gibellina Vecchia, Gibellina Nuova, & Trapani
This day was...strange. It was a day of ghost towns and bad juju going around. We started off by visiting Poggioreale, a town that was hit by a huge earthquake in the '60s. Something like half the population died, and now it is completely abandoned. There is a gate blocking entrance into the town, so we climbed over and spent the next hour and a half just walking through, feeling the presence of what happened. The place felt trapped in time - there were still newspapers, books, clothing, briefcases, shoes, and more from the '60s. Some people found soccer cards, boxes of papers, and old letters. It was strange because in America, if a place like this existed, it would have been trashed, everything taken, destroyed even further. But this place was untouched. It felt very heavy, I don't really know how else to describe it, and like I was in a videogame. Also it was cold, rainy, and very windy, which was fitting somehow.
There were also four baby goats that Michael found "trapped", and we were about to liberate them until Molly realized that they were obviously owned by somebody. And there we were, about to ruin some poor shepherd's entire livelihood! Whoops.
Onward to Gibellina Vecchia. This town was hit even harder by the same earthquake, and the people who lived there had to stay in make-shift shelters at the base of the mountain for 10 years. Rather than keep the rubble as in Poggioreale, in the late '80s an artist was hired to do something about the situation, and so he created a huge sculpture of concrete. Concrete blocks stand at eye-level, encasing each city block's rubble. You can walk through the streets, but all you see is concrete. By this point the rain and wind were nearly unbearable, and so it was like we were all feeling the pain of this town.
At some point, the mayor decided it would be a good idea to create Gibellina Nuova. He hired a bunch of famous architects to build a new town away from Gibellina Vecchia, in the hopes that it would become an attraction that would bring in new people, and also to give the old citizens hope about their past and future. Except...the project completely failed. Gibellina Nuova is a town filled with sculptures, crazy futuristic buildings, a church that looks like the Death Star...it's weird. Just plain weird. People still live there, but not nearly enough to feel populated. There's no stores, only 3 restaurants, like 2 bars, and no industry, fun, or liveliness.
We pulled up at a cafe for lunch, except it was closed, like everything else in the town, and so spent the next 45 minutes searching for food. There were no people. It was like something out of the Twilight Zone. Then we toured around the sculptures a bit, and went to a museum a little further away (we were the first visitors there in over a month). I don't even have any pictures of this place. It was too strange to even comprehend.
Next was a drive to Trapani. That night was Youbin's birthday, and the bar attached to our hostel was usually closed on Wednesdays but opened especially for us! So we basically had a private bar for the 24 of us, in which we hijacked the stereo and played bad '90s music and danced terribly. Then there were 14 girls crammed into bunk beds with only 2 bathrooms between all of us. Like I said, strange day. And sort of when everything started going downhill...
Thursday March 8th - Trapani & Palermo
Our second day in Trapani was, somehow, rainier, colder, and windier than yesterday. First we visited the salt flats, which are supposed to be stunning in the sun, but well...there wasn't much of that, so we hid in the museum and learned about the entire process of how sea salt is collected and turned into something edible. It was really interesting, but the whole time I was just wishing we could be warm and have sunshine!
In the afternoon, we were supposed to visit Erice, a medieval town at the top of a mountain, except looking up...it was completely covered in fog, and you couldn't even see the town in the denseness of it. So Nick and Ezio made the executive decision to skip Erice (sad), and drive straight to Palermo. It was a rough bus ride...with a lot of people feeling sick, things going wrong, and the rain making the ride longer...mostly everyone was in pretty low spirits. We got to Palermo in the afternoon, and had the rest of the day free. I ended up exploring with Susie, Julee, and Jess, except (after buying a kilo of strawberries from the market, with fresh chocolate cream), we got lost. No map, in a foreign city...I got unreasonably stressed out, from the entire day, lack of sleep...I don't know, something snapped in my head. We weren't actually that far from the hotel, but of course we had no way of knowing that. Somehow we figured out the address and were able to make it back by asking for directions, but it was a stressful afternoon. Palermo was like what I though Naples would be, but wasn't. Naples was beautiful and sunny, Palermo was dirty, loud, and rainy. I did eat an awesome dinner that night though, which made up for everything.
(Stay tuned for part 3, though I think I may post some art first!)
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