6 In 6: Gozo

So begins some stories.

I'm starting with the most recent, working backwards.

This particular event happened 2 days ago.

At this moment in time, I am on the small island of Gozo just off the coast of Malta.  It's a nice place.  Nice and hot.  And humid.  But still nice.

One morning, I woke up, had some delicious granola for breakfast and decided to go on a walk to explore.  I tend to do that often and it's something I rather enjoy.

Gozo has hills.  A lot of them.  And roads that are no where near wide enough or even paved enough to be a proper road but they are indeed roads which people drive on like crazy.  The walk began and myself and a friend whom I'm staying with started our walk with going up a very large hill.  But to my surprise, we were at the top and it stayed relatively flat for a quite a while with the occasional rise and fall of a road just following the rocky surface.  At one point, we parted ways and I continued on my journey.

I found a 'bike path' which started to go down the hill.  I was at a point of needing to make a decision as to whether or not to go down said hill due to the fact that I would eventually have to walk back up.  (All the while, the sun beating down on me).  But I just kept walking down and down and down and finally just decided to go all the way down to the water.

When I got there, I'm glad I did because I waded in the refreshing water, climbing along the rocks for a while.  After enjoying myself immensely there, it was time to start heading back.  But I didn't want to go back the way I came.  I prefer to do very large loops when I go walking.  There's more fun and adventure that way.

I found a path that went along the rocks and such, as there are many of those around here, predicting that it would go all around and lead me back to a 'beach' (in quotes due to one's definition of beach) where I knew the way back to the house I'm living in.

Prediction was incorrect.

The path kind of ended at this very large quarry where they were tearing up the earth and turning it into very large stones and gravel.  Not the safest place to be on foot.  I walked up a hill, hoping it would lead me to another main road.

It didn't.

There are not very many main roads here.

Again, the road I was on just kind of ended.  As I was standing up there wondering what to do next, a very large front loader tractor came driving up the hill towards me.  Awesome.  The man driving the tractor asked me something in Maltese that I didn't understand to which I answered - Do you speak English?  I am lost.

Obviously not my own picture but this was

the size of the tractor.

Luckily, pretty much everyone here speaks some English so I told him where I needed to go.  He then led me up the steps of his tractor and he was going to give me a ride to the other side of the quarry to a road that would lead me to another road.  So I climbed up and stood on a small platform just outside the door of his air conditioned area.

His name was Simon.

Nice guy.

So he took me to another road and told me just to follow it.  I thanked him and went on my way.

Yet again - the road just ended and there were no other pathways in sight.  Awesome.  Then with my excellent sense of direction, I knew which way I had to go - up and to the left.  So I walked through bushes and thorns and weeds for a good half an hour, all the while asking myself,

Where is the flipping road?

I finally found a 'path' of sorts and just stayed on it, not caring where it would lead because I was tired of scraping up my legs and walking through bushes.  And to my amazement - A ROAD!  An actual road.  I took a guess and went right and that was a very good guess as it led me back to where I needed to go and I arrived safe and sound.

Then in the afternoon, we went swimming in a cove just a short drive and walk away from the house.

An all around good day.