ITALIA sardinia part quattro (dying at the silent hill hotel)
jonah had read about this chill hippie commune in santa teresa, so we headed that way to check it out. because it is unmarked and there are no buses that run there, we had to walk for about an hour from town and then ask the locals once we were in the area. we finally found the path, and after walking about 20 minutes through a narrow trail and then through some boulders to the water, we were there. this valle de la luna is incredible! people live in caves that are on the water or in between the rocks and just chill. some people are there indefinitely, and some lead normal lives and just show up for weeks at a time. we spent the day there since it was so peaceful. . .it is like the commune from ‘the beach,’ minus the crazies. i spent time writing as jonah and alex hung with some hippies in their cave, and i swear that one of them had sars all over his body.
having no itinerary is absolutely wonderful as we don’t have to stress about being anywhere. . .but not always. since we spent the day at valle de la luna, we left santa teresa late and missed the last bus at the transfer point in sassari. big mistake. another was when we followed the bus driver’s recommendation for cheap lodging. as jonah and i went into the recommended place, the first thing we noticed was the old ass man in his eighties passed out on the lobby couch. there were three other people in the lobby, and all were fixated on some val kilmer film. so the place was kinda weird, but at 50 euro a room, it was gonna be the cheapest place. we go out to let alex know when he tells us that some nigerian guy told him not to stay there. well shit, what were we to do? one night could not be that bad. WRONG. we are walking up the stairs when we notice that it reeks of bleach, and when we get to our hall it just reeks like rotting bodies. and when we turn the corner to our room, there is an old lady in her night gown who shrieks something at us in italian. AY DIOS MIO. it was uncomfortably funny until we set our bags down and then smelled the sewer-smelling bathroom. . .and then heard the loud groaning sound. it seriously sounded like someone was being slowly tortured to death.
our solution was to get drunk and pass out, so we left the horror hotel looking for a bar. NOTHING was open. eventually, we found a food trailer that had hair in the food case and about 7 homeless dogs and drunk locals hanging around it. ugh. we drank on the picnic benches with the dogs and walked back, only to hear the moaning as we entered our hotel. of course alex goes to sleep right away as always, while jonah and i could not sleep at all. this loud moaning, along with other creepy noises went all night at about five second intervals. and then there is the next morning. the scene that greeted us outside our room on ourway to check out was unreal. bags of depends were in the hall, along with old people just mean mugging us and the staff rushing about starting to clean. i have no idea where they were during the night of random sounds. weren’t they supposed to be caring for the people in the home?
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