Trailing Off....: Sardinia: Walking in the Wilderness

Looking down on Pedra Longa

It’s the middle of the afternoon on the second day of our trip. We’ve been walking for nearly five hours and though we’ve seen countless goats and lizards, a few wild boars, and an overly-protective sheep dog, we’ve yet to see another human. Though we get lost and emerge miles from our intended destination, I am drunk on the abundance of fresh air, the scent of pine and eucalyptus, the technicolour brightness of wildflowers and sea, and the mountains that stand like guards against the rest of the world.

On the way to Dorgali

On the map, we covered just a few specks on the edge of the 35,000-hectare mountain range, Supramonte, located in a mostly uninhabited area of Ogliastra province in eastern Sardinia. It seems like an odd choice given how much the island has to offer, including an entire cat colony on the beaches of Su Pallosu on the western coast. After spending nine days in this remote area, walking on old mule tracks, zigzagging up and down the mountains and through valleys and sometimes to the sea, I emerged feeling not that I had spent time in a small area with little to do, but that the world, despite our ability to traverse it and conquer it so easily, is actually still a vast and wild place.

High up in the hills somewhere

Baunei, population 3500, was our base camp due to its proximity to many hiking trails and some of the best beaches in Sardinia. It isn’t a touristy place, which is why we had the dual benefits of finding a large but really cheap apartment to stay in and being forced to mostly interact in Italian. We could have done more by staying in more than one town but the thing I hate most about travelling is travelling. I loved entering the apartment, hanging my four shirts in the closet, and stashing my bag where I wouldn’t have to look at it for the next several days.

Looking down on Baunei

Baunei has one restaurant which opens at 19:30 every day, a pizzeria that opens at 19:00 Fri-Sun, and two tiny “supermarkets” which close between 12:00 and 17:00 every day for siesta. There’s one lovely church that boasts a painting of Christ’s circumcision, three bars (in Italy more a place for coffee rather than booze), no clothing shops, and only a few steep and narrow streets. The architecture isn’t particularly pretty, nor is there a city wall or castle. It seems to be a town of farmers that caters a bit to the loads of German tourists, who roam between towns on motorcycles on the terrifying mountain highway and stop in Baunei for a short refreshment. The older generation of Sardinians are pocket-sized and wear mostly dark colours and stand around outside the church or one another’s houses gossiping the day away. They probably thought it strange when they repeatedly saw us walking up the hill morning after morning decked out in our trekking gear.

the one and only restaurant and church of Baunei

In total we did about 10 of the “50 walks of Sardinia” (written by a guy who assumes I know much more about nature than I actually do. “Turn left at the outcrop of leaning mimosas”—1) what’s an outcrop? And 2) how can a cocktail lean without spilling?). Each day we chose a different walk or combination of walks and repeated a couple of stretches but going the opposite way. On a couple of occasions, we used the excellent public transport to get to walks further afield. The parts of the trails that were on dirt tracks were quite easy and felt like cheating, but other times, we had to scramble up or down barely noticeable paths, made slippy and treacherous by the bits of limestone rock. We lost the trail a few times and once went around in circles around a shepherd’s hut that because of the overcast day, made us feel like we stumbled into Game of Thrones territory. I discovered that although going up a mountain is much easier than going down, doing 30 minutes on a Cross Trainer is no preparation for a relentless ascent.

scary cliff

I have to be honest--there were times I wanted to cry because my feet hurt and I was spending way too much time in my own head and its unending selection of bad thoughts. But mostly I was in a blissful meditative state that I can only ever achieve when running. There’s no way I can choose what I loved most about being outdoors for 5-7 hours a day on this trip. Was it the constant sunshine and 23/75 degree temps? The forests that changed from pine to oak to trees I’ve never seen? The lazing goats and their Mona Lisa smiles? The gorgeous turquoise of the Mediterranean miles below? Swimming in the sea and looking up at the hills from whence I walked? The valleys at sunset as seen from my balcony? The other-worldly like rock formations? The ancient burial ground in the middle of nowhere? The lack of people? All I know is that for eight days, I was as far from grammar, drug addicts, cement, and pigeon poo as one can possibly get and still be in Europe.

Photos from the trip in no particular order: