Vulcano: it's not Disney, it's the real deal

Island of Vulcano, Sicily---(Vull-con-oh)  It was dark when we anchored after finding the anchorage near town was full. The island loomed above us looking like something out of Lord of the Rings. In the morning we moved to boat to town. A small resort area under a smoking Volcano Crater famous for the healing powers of its mud pit.

Things on the boat are better, nothing has been discussed but she is back to the cool friend I always knew. I am shell shocked and still trying to decide what the right thing to do is. Meanwhile, I'm in this AMAZING PLACE.  I got a ride to the dock around 4pm and spent the rest of the day exploring, then met up with the family for dinner in the evening...another story as Shirish's cell died without giving me the location to meet them. That all worked out and we returned to a wildly rolling boat from the large swell that rocked us back and forth all night. I love this hammock-like motion and am like a kid in a car seat whose parents drive them round and round the block to get them to sleep. Marybeth however didn't sleep all night.

Eariler, exploring the Island I found a sweet little town with well kept houses built with cool Architectural designs, exotic yards with plants and flowers filling the yards and patios. I thought; "I could live here," until I discovered two things.

1. The prices.
2. The smell.

We have now been to enough ports for me to compare the goods in shops and see identical items. It took me no time to see this is a very expensive Island.  It appears to be an island mostly visited by Italians.

And then there is the Sulfur Mud Pit.

A huge rocks jets up above the pit and is a vent to the Volcano, spewing sulfur gases into the air. The ocean near the pit bubbles with a heat vent "Too hot to put your feet". The ocean bubbles with tiny vents that can be seen on a dinghy ride to the beach. Depending on which way the wind is blowing is where the smell goes. At first take I could not believe what I was smelling! "Good lord, it's the worst rotten egg smell I have ever...." I thought...and raising chickens as a kid, I do know rotten eggs. At times, only a slight whiff would smell like fireworks that just went off. Regardless, I was covering my nose and mouth, ready to gag and no one else was! Everyone else was milling about like nothing was different at least 20 people were wallowing in the mud like hippo's. Along the sides were people covered with mud that had dried and turned them a bright gray-white color. It costs about 2 euro for this experience.

"You get used to it. It is good. Medicinal," said the street vendor Syros from Casa Blanca who had just bought me a beer.  "Every day I sit, I watch people. They come to sit in mud. Business good, not like last year. August our biggest month," he said in broken english.

"People do not LOVE Vulcano, but they are drawn to it and keep returning," said Tony, a Bulgarian who grew up in Chicago but after 911, was asked to leave even with a business and married sister there. For one year he has been waiting for a green card and permission to return, leaving his business in Chicago to fail. After waiting in Bulgaria, he decided to come here, to Vulcano, to work and wait it out.

"There is something that pulls people here, but it's not America. America is the best. All my friends are there, it's home, I want to go home," he said with a faraway look.

The Gecko is the Islands Symbol. It is EVERYWHERE, on everything,  making me miss my friend Jen who's Adventure Racing team is named TEAM GECKO.  I buy a sea bag and a wrap with the symbol colorfully displayed.

Due to the rolling swell, Marybeth, (exhausted from no sleep) and the family decide to get a hotel for her last night. We meet for dinner and Shirish drops me off at the boat.

My first night alone on the boat. I set up my Ogg (a color changing egg-shaped light that my friends from Australia gave me before I left) and the cabin lit up in purple then blue, green then yellow, red then orange and back to purple. A gentle roll rocked me to sleep and in the morning, as I slept, Marybeth caught the early morning Ferry to Naples.  I woke up feeling sad.

But, it's a new day, I'm in Vulcano.  I plan to try the mud pit in the next few days, maybe it's healing powers will fix it all.