And so two years later we’re in the Ogliastra region of Sardegna, renting a small flat from some British ex-pats whom we’ve yet to meet. Sometimes life can become a stretch of the imagination even when you’re living it. Today drove that point home. We were climbing the Ìsola del Tesoro outside of Jerzu. The crags look almost as if they plopped down from Indian Creek—if Utah were so green. We started to the right with some 5b/c warm-ups (Stregatto and Topo Gigio) before Caroline redpointed and nice little 6a+ (Tempo Da Lupi). The sun was an hour from going down and we were trying to put in a few more routes before dark. A gaggle of teenagers came up through the bushes, their Italian sounding to my mono-lingual ears like little songs. They stopped just as I was grunting over a roofy move and said Buóna séra. 

They hung out for a while watching us and laughing. When I got down they asked in what little English they knew where we were from, where we were staying. They were kind and gentle, almost like one would imagine teenagers from the 50’s. Slightly dorky, but cool nonetheless, and without an ounce of pretense or angst. We hung out for a while and I tried to tell them how beautiful their country was to no avail. They just shrugged, and the girl in the group started singing the words to a pop song in English. 

In the guidebook to Sardegna (Pietra di Luna) by Maurizio Oviglia, he describes the Lìsola as “the best wall in the world.” As we climb more and more areas this week we have begun to see a pattern in the guidebook. Nearly every area that Oviglia describes in rich, enthusiastic detail, he most always concludes that each crag or climbing area is “the best in the world.” But who can complain. He’s probably right. But for Lìsola he does manage to qualify it with, “Best wall in the world especially when at sunset the rocks become golden…one never wants to leave it.” 

Indeed: the only way we could think of leaving was to remind ourselves of the prospect of a warm pizza and a bottle of Cannonau wine, (more wine and more on this later, but Cannonau is the mother of all wines), back at the apartment. That, and of course the assurance that we will be back.