Raging Titan
Raging Titan
We arrived at Piazza Garibaldi at nine forty-five in themorning. Tourists were buzzing around holding mobile phones, maps, bottles ofwater and an assortment of sunhats. They were chattering in strict German, musicalSpanish, and discreet Mandarin, and tongues I could not name, looking for theright meeting point in a sea of buses and asking the unwilling rival tourguides for directions in a panic of tourists, traffic chaos and rising summerheat.
“Excuse me,” I asked a smartly dressed man with straightparted hair, “is this the Napoli Giornata to Vesuvius?” His smile deflated, “No,”he said.
“Do you happen to know where their meeting point is?” I triedagain.
His nostrils flickered, “I don’t know,” he interjected in a melodic,deep accent.
“Ok, thanks anyway…” I said, disappointed.
“Any luck?” teased my partner, the corners of his mouth turnedup slightly.
I sighed, “I can’t get how you can be this calm about this.We are already late. We paid two hundred pounds for the trip, and that it’s non-refundable,”I stressed the last two words, “not to mention we won’t have time to book a newtour to Vesuvius if we miss this one.”
“Don’t freak out, they’re not going to leave without us.Let’s keep looking.”
“Ugh, your calmness is very stressful, you know that?” I said,but he only laughed and urged me to keep looking.
It wasn’t easy navigating through excited passengers and scoresof vehicles.
“I just don’t get why they can’t have a sign of the agency onthe side of the windshield so people know which one to board?”
By this time, some of the tour buses were packed and began todepart, decluttering the Piazza, filling the air with the smell of exhaust and mewith the dread of being stranded behind.
A man and a woman in their twenties, who appeared to be acouple, approached us. They moved modestly, through passersby giving way andnodding respectfully, bright-eyed and fair-skinned, with thin blond hair thatquivered in the wind.
“Excuse me,” the young man began, “ we are looking for theNapoli Giornata to Vesuvius, do you know where it is?”
“We’re also looking for it,” I explained. “We have no idea,and those tour guides are not very helpful, are they?”
They smiled, agreed politely, and joined us in our quest. Seeingthat we were not the only ones having difficulty finding the meeting point wasa revelation. I took a deep breath and composed myself. Islets of people werenow gathered around the remaining buses, which eased our path among them andfinally brought us to the Napoli Giornata to Vesuvius meeting point. The signat the bottom left of the windscreen was a welcome sight to my eyes.
“Hello, sorry we are late,” I explained, “it wasn’t easyfinding the meeting point.”
“Not to worry,” said a lean, heavily tanned woman in herthirties, with waist-long jet-black hair. “Names?”
We gave our names and saw her draw large, angular tick signs ona piece of paper with a blue BIC pen. She signalled us in by waving her fingers,giving us the chance to admire her long manicured fingernails. The couple preferredseats near the back of the bus, and we got the ones by the front door. Theother seats were already taken, and the passengers were chatting quietly andexcitedly, checking the itinerary, and adjusting their seats. I noticed the airconditioning was working, but it made a low, grunting, throaty noise like adying asthmatic giant. I hoped it wouldn’t give up on us.
“Ok, ok, your attention please,” she pronounced please as “pleasah”.I stole a glance at my partner, and we exchanged a quick grin.
“Now that we are all here, we can finally begin the ascent toMount Vesuvius. My name is Alessia, and this is our amazing driver, Bito. Sayhello, Bito,” he gave us a wave. “Put your hands together for Bito people,” shewaited until we did. “Bito is the best driver in Napoli,” she assured us. Shewas pleasant and bubbly with a balanced combination of charm and exasperationin her tone. “Anything you need, you come to me. If you need to stop for a toilet,if you feel dizzy, anything-anything, you come to me and I take care of it, OK?Let’s go then.”
Escaping the pandemonium of Naples traffic was challenging,but soon enough, we began ascending the winding, narrow road up to the infamousvolcano. Alessia drew our attention to the bay of Naples while strategicallydumping interesting facts and anecdotes here and there to keep her audiencecaptivated. She seemed particularly excited about the lava flows and the floraof the mountain that draped its slopes in yellow and pinkish bouquets. Morethan halfway up the mountain, a sweaty cyclist seemed to climb slowly andlaboriously up the road. Alessia was not one to keep her opinion to herself.
“You see him?” she asked, pointing. “He is crazy.”
About twenty minutes later, we were at the entrance of thenational park. Before allowing us to get off the bus, Alessia gave us somelast-minute pointers and made abundantly clear, half-jokingly,half-dead-serious, that she would not hesitate to abandon us in the wildernessif we didn’t meet her right on that very spot by noon. “It is very difficult towalk down to Napoli,” she reminded us in her thick accent. We got off the bus,and at once, the heat attacked our cheeks, exposed legs, and gradually everyinch of our bodies, like a wave drenching us in our own sweat. The entrance wasdivided into queues where two young men checked the tickets. One of them showedsome rudimentary effort in validating the tickets, while the other was toopreoccupied with his mobile phone to bother and just gestured us inindifferently. A gravel path snaked all the way up to the caldera, litteredwith volcanic residue of jagged, spongy-looking, pink, porous rocks speckled,here and there, with black, shiny mineral dots. They felt dry and chalky to thetouch, and weighed too little for their size, as if they were filled with air.
“Oh, my,” exclaimed a mother from Ohio, looking up at all theclimbing we were about to undertake, and I had to admit I agreed with her.Alessia smiled, “What? You paid for this…,” she added, grinning, and left it atthat.
One by one, we began to ascend. Wooden poles and thick ropeswere installed along the path, limiting the more adventurous and assisting thosewho needed a bit more help completing the feat. Partners and families huddledtogether for support, sometimes with a word of encouragement, others with akick in the shin from one little sibling to the other for a race to the top.The gravel crunched under our feet, and the rising dust stuck on my blacksneakers like an annoying advertisement jingle you can’t stop singing. The Ohiomum needed a break. She took a blue handkerchief out of her backpack andstarted dabbing her forehead, but she wasn’t the only one.
All around, people were breathing heavily, fanning themselveswith maps, ticket receipts and straw hats. Water bottles and thermoses madetheir appearance in an attempt to fight off the heat and exhaustion of theclimb. Large wet circles formed under armpits, around neck lines, bellies, and lowerbacks on our conquest of Vesuvius. Soon we reached the first “official” stopalong the way: a small shop with a variety of souvenirs. The cold drinkssection was instantly invaded and severely compromised by our attack. Otherslingered over an assortment of fridge magnets with the VESUVIUS logo, flimsy keychains,and even locally sourced wine. I took my time scrutinising a collection ofvolcanic minerals that drew my attention. Chunks of bright yellow sulphur, redquartz, glossy black obsidian, and striking indigo-blue covellite weredisplayed in a well-crafted cardboard box for fifteen euros.
Next to us, a new queue began to form organically, wherepeople were trying to capture Naples spreading along the coast of the gulf,most likely so they could share it on their social media, rub it in otherpeople’s faces and get back something in return for shedding such copiousamounts of sweat.
“Should we get going?” my partner asked, bringing me out ofmy reverie.
“Huh? Yes, yes, let’s do this.”
We had almost reached the top. The trail remained rough andcalled for carefully calculated stepping, but on the other hand, it was nolonger so steep to strain our breath. The rim of the caldera took a moredefined form. With some deliberate observation, you could detect the mostghostly traces of steam lazily evaporating and vanishing in the gentle mountainbreeze.
Here it stood, a chasm expanding like a hungry gaping mouth,still, deceptively serene, and beautiful, but underneath this façade hid araging titan with the power to wipe an entire town off the map. I looked aroundat the faces of my exhausted companions, and I saw their eyes gleaming as they stareddown at the volcano floor, relieved and with a hint of pride in their smilingfaces for having completed the quest.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” my partner asked.
“Hmm, very beautiful,” I agreed.
“It makes you wonder, though, would we even visit if it hadn’tkilled thousands of people?”
“Probably not, we’d never even hear of it.”
“Yeah. Let’s take a selfie.”
Thank you for reading the story. If you enjoyed it, I would be grateful to hear your thoughts or questions in the comments below.
