Enough sardonic (you guessed it—along with sardines we get this word from Sardegna as well) generalizations for the day. We’re staying with a friendly Italian family. Or rather, we’re renting an apartment (www.homeresort2p.it) from them in what would normally be filled to the hilt during the high season (with Germans). Now, we’re the only ones here save for Nicola Pira and his family. His mama, whom we call the same for lack of knowing her name and because she baked us a cake, also lives downstairs. Nicola’s English often takes a turn for the better. We went down to their apartment to inquire if he knew any Italian climbers that might want to go climbing with us. He was deep in the midst of a computer crises, cussing in both Italian and English. “When you say ‘un-fuck’ it not so bad, right?” he asked, ignoring our inquiry.

“I suppose you could say that,” I said. “But to be honest it’s something you generally can’t un-do.”

Cala Gonone is a sleepy village during the winter months. In fact it’s difficult to find a place to stay when it’s busy and when it’s quiet. The slow months allow Nicola to travel. He recently returned from Seoul, Korea but found it a noisy, intense city coming from his town of 500 or so permanent residents. He left four days early. His dream now, while the American dollar is so weak against the Euro, is to rent a large 4X4 SUV and drive Route 66. “Beeg, beeg truck that use more gas than possible,” he says. “And I wave to blond girls and go into the dirt, into the desert.”

(So, if you see a handsome Italian in Nevada, driving a huge truck through the tumbleweeds with a blond on his arm, don’t say you weren’t warned.)

Nicola never did find us any Italian climbers. So Peter and Anne came over in their Fiat from the Ogliastra region to help with making some photographs and to drop off a pair of much-needed shoes for Caroline that my mother care-packaged over from the U.S. We of course wanted to show them the Margheddie crag, and in particular get some shots of Ninna Nanna per Martina.

Peter had told me earlier that he estimates only about 100 serious Italian climbers live on the island. Which partly explains Nicola’s problem of finding us some local climbers.

We spot their white Fiat far below on the one lane dirt track while we’re climbing Dodò (6a+). Peter, hobbling still from his injury on gritstone, comes up the talus. Anne wanders the road in a hunt for wild asparagus. “Luvi,” he yells down to her, once he gets to the base of the crag. “Up here.”

We climb all afternoon and have a blast. The mistral winds that have been blowing for the past three days finally start to abate. Later we have cappuccinos in town, hatching plans to meet in Joshua Tree next winter. We have become fast friends it seems, despite locking them out of their house last week.