Our flight isn’t until four p.m. and on the way to the airport we stop off at a crag near the town of Siniscola. We climb a few mad hours, a constant, irritating eye on the time. It would be easy to miss the flight, to fall into abandonment of whatever you thought was your previous life. It would be that easy to simply just stay until the money ran out. Caroline fires off an onsight of a climb not found in the guidebook, an overhanging arête that meets an exposed and run-out roof. I couldn’t be prouder of the missus, though I pass on following the route in favor of healing my gimpy shoulder. 

We reach the airport, repack and are soon lining up to go through the dreaded airport security. Dreaded because last time, Hitler’s Italian girlfriend forced me to throw away our rope in the trash when we tried to pass through the first time in Sardegna. It was a prized rope, one that Doug Robinson, famed father of clean climbing, had given us as a wedding present. Beside that, we’d grown attached to it in more ways than one. 

I don’t know why she thought it would be a flight hazard. I certainly hadn’t entertained thoughts of tying up all the passengers and crew so we could commandeer the jet and fly it into the Leaning Tower of Pisa. But for some reason, and against the more kindly wishes of her security cohorts, she thought it best to hassle us. Thankfully, my mulish wife refused to give up the rope and prevailed upon an Easy Jet employee to check the rope just as the plane was supposed to kick back onto the tarmac. It was close and I dutifully wrote the airline encouraging a raise for the woman who went out of her way. 

Second round: Because our bags weighed too much with all the trad gear we’d brought, we were forced to put it in our carry-on. Walking up to the security detail we met eyes with Hitler’s girlfriend and immediately knew we were in trouble. She took out the cams, the biners, anything to do with climbing and told us to check it. “Can’t take this danger,” she said. Then preceded to tell me I couldn’t take my computer for which all my Sard notes were on. Caroline went back and checked another bag, lost some money, and then had to go through the whole rigmarole again with gloves and bomb-squad immediacy. Once again, her cohorts were laughing at her paranoid thoroughness. Somehow she forgot about the computer that I had re-stowed while her back was turned. 

Which is all to say, don’t bring anything that even remotely resembles climbing gear into your carry on luggage. As a cautionary tale, you will be made to feel like you are nothing short of a terrorist. I suspect that this woman (who has a severe bob haircut and lousy makeup) has suffered some great injustice. Perhaps, like Hitler, she didn’t get into art school. Perhaps her only son died a horrible death while attempting to rock climb. Perhaps she is simply the embodiment of pure evil. But know this: she is the only Sard we met who doesn’t deserve the beauty of her country. May she rot in Dante’s Inferno. 

Ranting aside, we made the flight and rode to Berlin with many of the same snooty Germans (see Part III) we had seen overwhelming the crags of Cala Gonone. We lifted off the ground with leaden hearts, watching the Sardegna coast give way to the windswept sea. We vowed to be back at some point in our lives, vowed we would never forget the place, the Pietra di Luna, or the friends we’d met. And we knew these things to be true.

(If anyone would like more information on Sardegna, where to climb, where to stay, how to get there, etc…. please do not hesitate to email me at bruce.willey@gmail.com. I would be happy to help.)