Pot-Smoking Ants

Part 2 (Part 1 here)

Dan and I approach vacations the way pot-smoking ants on a budget might. We pack smart, arrange for the cheapest accommodations that will let us sleep without fear, and then get busy chilling the hell out. We’ve been perfecting our technique for the last six years, and we have a pretty good ratio of relaxation to insanity by now. It works wonders, too; nary a trip goes by without granting us a story to tell.

Take this last Good Friday, for instance. Not that we remembered it was Good Friday—those first magical kilometers of the Amalfi Coast had driven everything but beauty out of our minds—but we could not have planned a more unique overnight stay had we tried. As we drove through the quaint town of Minori looking for directions to the campground, shopkeepers and homeowners busied themselves nailing red cups to their outside walls. “Any idea what that’s all about?” I asked Dan. “Not remotely. Any idea what turn we’re supposed to take?”

We soon figured out why not even the omniscient Google Maps could provide us with directions to the campground: It was smack-dab in the middle of a mountainside lemon grove. No roads. Just steps… and steps… and steps. “I think this is more than 80 steps,” I panted down to Dan as we lugged our children and camping gear up the uneven stone staircase. “The website said 80!” he answered dubiously while I took my sixteenth break. We counted some time later, and here’s a question for you mathematically-inclined readers: Are 80 and 254 the same number? My aching muscles are not as sure on that point as the website writer apparently was.

False advertising aside, the campground was worth every one of those 254 steps. Not only were we setting up tent in a fairyland of ripe lemons and glossy leaves, but the children’s playground featured two gentle, snuffling ponies. And from our site, we could look down across the treetops to the town nestling like an old friend up against the sea.

Once the sun set, we tromped down the hill and drove toward town for supper, only to be stopped by a policeman in the throes of excitement. “Park there! Turn your lights off! Now!” he whisper-shouted, pointing to a 10-foot-high burning cross. We obeyed, wondering what in the world we had gotten ourselves into. Every light in the town had been turned off with the exception of thousands upon thousands of red candles. Oh, and the burning cross of course.

“KKK?” Dan and I asked at the same time. Two minutes later, as if eager to corroborate our frightening first impression, the flame-lit streets filled with white pointed hoods and gowns. I have never seen anything outside of movies with which to compare that ghostly parade. Hundreds of white hooded figures marched quietly up the street, brandishing candles and lanterns, then a brass band somewhere in the darkness began to play a dirge. Men in their funeral best walked by shouldering a coffin atop which lay a horrifying, emaciated figure of Jesus, while others followed closely behind carrying the gaudiest statue of Mary I had ever seen. I felt at once anxious for people to know we weren’t Holy Week participants but also amazed that we ended up in just the right place and time to see something new. Eerie, yes. Skull-itchingly creepy, yes. But worth seeing all the same.

We eventually escaped from the clutches of the Good Friday parade and tracked down some pizza, limoncello, and a complimentary Jehovah’s Witness for supper before hiking back up to our campsite. The girls giggled themselves silly in the tent while Dan and I soaked up the starlight. Civilization, with all its hustle and bustle and joy-starved intensity, felt worlds away; we could breathe again. The four of us fell asleep together like accidental woodland creatures in our tent, the scents of lemons and the sea mingling on the April breeze. And as simple as that, our one night’s stay turned into two.

 Part 3 to come.