Today was our last full day in Sardinia. After breakfast we packed up the car and went on our way to visit one last site near Cala Gonone, the Grotta di Ispinigoli. This is one of the two caves out of 200 in the area that is open to the public (the other is one of the caves we saw in the cliffs that meet the sea - its only accessible by boat). This cave is famous because it has the world's second tallest stalagmite, at 38 meters (over 100 feet tall). The world's tallest, for those who want to know, is in Mexico, and is only two meters taller.
We arrived 30 minutes before it opened, so we hiked the short staircase to the cave entrace and waited for the guides to arrive. Just as they opened up the ticket booth a group of about 30 Italians arrived, and all of a sudden the noise level skyrocketed. They were all talking at the same time, so obviously they just had to talk louder than one another to be heard. On top of that, their outfits were crazy - some wearing heels, others with lots of glitzy shoes and jackets, and some with pearls. I mean, come on. We're going into a cave!
Inside the cave was pretty amazing, although very different from the other cave we saw in Sardinia (unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures in the cave. If you're curious what it looked like, you can click here). The section of the Grotta di Ispinigoli that we saw is a dead cave - there is no water in it, so its not "growing" any more stalagmites or stalactites. We decended down over 500 steps to a depth of 50 meters - and the 38 meter stalagmite really steals the show. The tour guide informed us that the grotta actually goes another 60 meters down, where the cave is alive - there are nine underground rivers flowing and the cave system is 15 km total. Additionally, the whole mountain used to be under the sea, and is therefore made of limestone. Several million years ago there was a lot of movement of the tectonic plates which created the mountain, and then the flow of the rivers helped create the cave.
After the tour we got back in the car and started our way back to Cagliari along the roads on the east coast. The intention was to take the scenic route rather than criss-cross the island on the main highway roads.
Things did not go according to plan.
First of all, we made it about 20 minutes when a thick fog set in. For about 50 to 60 km (30-40 miles), visibility was about 30 feet. We were driving 15 mph. We couldn't even see walls of tunnels as we were approaching them, and cars seemed to appear out of no where. Finally, we decended from the mountains and the fog cleared for about 20 km. We thought we were "in the clear", when an unbelievable downpour started. For about the last 80 km of the trip (about 50 miles), it poured thick sheets of rain. Sometimes it was so bad it was nearly impossible to see out the windshield. Luckily, there were several really long tunnels that gave us a break from the rain. That is, until the ground got so saturated that things started to flood. One of the last tunnels we drove through had some really bad flooding - the dirt from the side of the road and the from above the tunnel flooded one of the lanes in the tunnel. Once we got out of this particular tunnel, the car in front of us drove in the opposite lane to avoid a huge puddle in our lane, when his car stalled - not a good place for a traffic jam.
Here is a video of right before things started getting really bad:
At this point, we started to get nervous. We were seeing more and more flooding, and bigger and bigger rocks in the road. We even had to drive the opposite direction through a roundabout because one of the sections was totally impassible. It was hard to decide whether we should pull-over and wait it out, or just push forward as long as no one flagged us off the road. We were a little worried that if we waited things would only get worse so we kept on our way.
Finally we arrived in the city limits of Cagliari. The rain had pretty much stopped at this point and we made it to our hotel for the night. Mike was totally wiped out from driving so we relaxed for a bit and packed our bags for our flight tomorrow before heading out to the downtown for dinner. It was kind of interesting to be back where we started our Sardinia trip a week ago, and to think about what we've seen. Sardinia is an incredible place - a small island with so much to offer.
Tomorrow we're off to Cinque Terra!
Gelato Gusti per il Giorno:
Mike - MARS
Aviva - After Eight (Mint)
No comments:
Post a Comment