The Kindness of Strangers a lá Nancy

Buongiorno from Italy's boot heel. Speaking of heels, my entire lower half of my body hurts.

We are having a great time. Hard long day today, but every new surprise and experience is fantastic. We got our bikes this morning along with perhaps 14 other people - seems like mainly british and French    and German retirees. Quite a few couples that look about 55-65? We got acquainted with our fancy lux bikes, bike lock, helmet, repair kit, package of maps and tips. We left beautiful old Matera early and got biking on busy narrow highways leading out of town and past cow farms. Luckily pretty overcast this morning, so we didn't fry. But after the umpteenth steep hill climb, we were wrecked. 45 + miles today. And we unwantingly went without food for way too long. Then got shaky and crabby and spent. We biked hard, navigating all these weird turns on smaller rustic roads past cool deteriorating farms and fancy villas and olive tree groves and pastures. I had the map on my handlebars in this slick Velcro doodad that I liked a lot, I liked knowing every turn and Dayna would find the small arrows (stickers from the company) on certain turns on signs and she liked it like a scavenger hunt. We fantasized we were on the Amazing Race. When we saw other bikers from our "group", we'd help them find their way. It was easy to miss the unmarked turns. Our two little encounters helping these couples get back on path was nothing like the help we got in return from sweet strangers. There are sights or diversions you can independently opt to do (we chose a non-guided tour so we could do our own thing at our own pace) and everything we tried today didn't pan out. All closed. We biked down a gravel road to a private farm where we could "sample products" like bufala mozzerella and veggies and salamis, etc. As we got closer, it was obviously not inviting for visitation. Chiusa/ Closed. Many large dogs viciously became unglued, Cujo style, so scary. If not for a huge gate & fence... We turned around and passed by another farm, where two big growling , barking dogs got out of their gate and came running after us down the road. We pedaled so fast! A tiny black bunny raced alongside us excitedly :)

Back on the road. Decided to try detour #2:

We ended up in a dead town Putignano- which you had to leave the main map trail to do an optional detour, if you wanted lunch or gelato or a lil break. We'd been biking hard in the heat for maybe 2 hours at this point and were out of water and very hungry and exhausted- I was panting. We went up this insanely steep hill forever to get into this weird depressed town that was all shut down because it's Sunday and it's siesta nap time. Nothing was open, hardly no one out or even driving cars. Seemed like a ghost town of ugly high rise buildings, which is very unlike anything we've seen so far. We searched for 2 possible suggested good restaurants. Both closed. Every cute pizzeria and wine bar and gelato place, closed. Google maps kept failing us. We were shaky hungry. We thought we saw one gelato cafe open, but it was a high end patisserie with fancy cakes and weird little fancy sweets. The owner/ baker guy spoke zero English and was our guardian angel. He tried to think of an open restaurant. We all couldn't understand each other and we couldn't go on another goosechase to perhaps find another closed restaurant . He poured us an unknown milky white sweet liquid to drink. Almond milk from a glass bottle that was unlike the almond milk I drink daily. We lapped it up and he poured us more. He refilled Dayna's 2 water bottles and even apologized so kindly and graciously for not knowing English (Dayna was like, we're the fools who can't speak italian!)
We felt refreshed and ready to hit the road for the next town, all uphill about 1-2 hours away. Getting hotter outside as we get into the afternoon, and we have to backtrack to where our original trail map's detailed turns were. We got back on our bikes and looked at maps and he came outside with two tiny chilled ice cream cones dipped in dark chocolate & sprinkled with pistachio dust. The gelato under the hard chocolate shell was maybe strawberry gelato, so creamy yet seeded and we could have cried. The lil cone was like the size of 2 pinky fingers together, but it kinda saved us.
We biked for about another 18 miles , started to see the traditional 18th century Trulli houses more and more as we got closer to Alberobello. Weird whitewashed little gnome home with pointy witch hat roofs made of grey flat stones. Steep landscape. We saw bikers getting off their bikes and walking up. But for the most part, it was just me and Dayna all alone in the middle of nowhere. Which was nice :) We wave to oncoming cars and motorcycles and even some dogs and cows.

Got a little lost trying to find our hotel check-in. Locked up our bikes and picked up our bags and had to walk quite a bit further away to our own little Trulli! I'm writing from my own bed tonight. The bathroom door is a short hobbit arched wooden door. Dayna has to be extra careful not to clock her head (again.) the shower is just an attachment head above the toilet, very petite. Like my old apartment in Denmark where the entire bathroom IS the shower. We peeled off our sweaty spandex, power washed off, got dressed up nice in dresses and makeup, walked like broken people into the piazza square to find a 3 star fancy schmancy restaurant and got lost. Again. Our theme so far. I love getting lost and navigating maps, but we were pretty much at our wits end tonight and overly hungry after just having a little gelato cone and biking 45+ miles and walking all over with heavy luggage and whatnot. Thank Jesus for internet and google maps. I hated caving in and looking it up on my phone, but we were on a wrong path . And the street names change like every other block- just for fun times!
We found the swanky legendary restaurant, ready to throw down serious euros on fine dining, and they were just closing. The bearded waiter said we will find nothing open for food in the entire small town because it's Sunday and everything's over. It's like 4pm. We were more than deflated. Now not speaking, just hoofing around bumpy cobblestones in fancy shoes, we tried every bar/ cafe/ pizza window. No dice. We contemplated buying our own pasta from a vendor on the street, but then what? We kept looking and Dayna walked up to this crappy looking pizzeria that was just closing and had just rudely turned  

away a lady in front of us. The gal behind the counter was bitchyfaced and obviously done with being a service person that busy tourist summer day. We bought the last two stale, cold pieces of pizza left sitting out on display (unforch one had mushrooms and corn on it which makes Dayna gag.) we ate them cold out of the paper bag on the bench outside in our fancy outfits, not speaking, our fingers actually shaking. My eyes hurt ? My left fingertips hurt? And omgee my poor big butt. The owner or cook guy stepped outside where we were sitting and I asked him if he speaks English. No. We asked as best we could if any place has any food tonight. He said sorry, no, it's all done. We

wondered what all the other older slower bikers were gonna do for a meal tonight when they arrived to town later. He left, then came back and showed us a picture of a plate of pasta. Oreiechette , the local jam- the ear shaped pasta that I love. It's a puglian thing, big time. Originated right around here. He offered to cook for us and invited us back inside to sit. He gave us white plastic cutlery and plates and made us this family -of-five size huge serving bowl full of fresh oreiechette , fresh tomatoes, fresh salty grated cheese- not sure what kind, never seen it like that, and fresh basil and a tish of olive oil. It was better than the $$$ fine dining food we had 2 nights ago in a cool cave in Matera. And objectively, not just because we were starvin' Marvin. He didn't want us to pay, but of course we did. I hugged him, he asked us for a photograph, we tipped him extra, we had our 2nd saviour of the day.

 

Then I bought a bootleg of Primitivo red wine on the walk home and I asked the shop owner to open the bottle for me, and he did. We are now crashing out and we get up early tomorrow morning to bike to a winery in Locorotondo (Spumante samples for lunch- and guess who's glad she packed Clif bars) then to Ostuni, a port town. Water! The Adriatic coast. Supposedly not the cutest city but the seafood is tits.
Each day has been great and full of surprises. D is a great travel partner, down with everything, up to everything. She cheerily exclaimed "Buongiorno!!" To every speedy, chiseled italian cyclist we passed this morning. Caio, NJ