We walk towards Corleone through a semi-mythological landscape of barren rocky mountains hemmed by rolling clayey hills. This is the rugged innards of Sicily, a silent expanse of wind-bent fields. No sounds, no houses, almost no people except a few hunched workers. The road itself looks unimproved from it’s medieval origin. We wouldn’t be surprised to cross paths with a pilgrim dressed in rags.
Not too far off in our imaginations, the sole human settlement in two days walking was a monastery run by three friars and two nuns.
In days like these we imagine an Earth inhabited by creatures other than humans. We see cyclops on the cliffs, castles on the hills.
It’s different from any landscape seen so far.
We stop for lunch under the shade of a tree, next to a creek. Listening to the gurgling of water, the yelling of a shepherd, we feel a harmony that is so much more than the mere feeling of wellbeing. Something good comes out of the earth.
We’re going to like this place.