There's that age old question, "if a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound?" I was wondering the same thing recently about pictures, "if there are no pictures to document your travels, did they actually happen?"
We thought we were on our way out of Sardinia, ready to move on to Sicily, but the wind wasn't cooperating so we decided to take advantage of the extra time and rent a car to travel inland and see the sights that weren't available from the water. And a funny thing happened, it poured rain most of the time for the first time in months making it difficult to pull out a camera, and we forgot to bring along chargers so both our cellphones died. In some ways it was nice to remember what it was like before google, we had to navigate the windy mountain roads with just a paper map to guide us. It was difficult for us to navigate with GPS, was it really possible to find our way on our own? We did. We didn't always end up where we thought we were going but it was always interesting. We drove through the coastal town of Bosa on the hill with it's beautiful pastel colored houses, wish I had a picture. Past hilly meadows with countless sheep, making us realize why pecorino is so abundant. I would have loved to snap a picture of the rock grafitti that we passed as we crested the hill which looked like a giant climbing up from the other side with his large hands scaling the rocks. There was the traditional Agriturismo, a working farm in the middle of nowhere, where we stayed for the night that roasted pigs on an open fire and served endless courses of food for dinner. We drove through mountain roads and tunnels always with an aggressive Italian driver behind us anxious to pass, speed limits seem like vague suggestions, past small colorful towns clinging to the mountain side that appeared out of nowhere as we rounded the bend. There were the grottos deep in the mountain that housed criminals on the run, the remains of the hilltop colony from 600 BC, and the winery making the local Cannonau wine, and no pictures.
Oh, I wish we had pictures of it all but the memories we are taking with us, they may fade and get distorted, but we will think back fondly on our time in Sardinia as we let the wind blow us across to Sicily. (well, there was that one picture protected from the rain in the grotto, that really happened)
