Sicily tales: Backpacking with siblings

“Ma’am, you forgot your change. Here are your 70 Euros”. This was my first encounter in a foreign land on my first backpacking trip with my 20-year-old sister, who had just graduated from Delhi University. I mentally kicked myself for being so careless, but this small incident switched on all the alert buttons in my brain. And on this note, we embarked on our 17-day journey.
I am 25 and have lived in England for a year, so I had been out of my comfort zone earlier too, but it still felt like we were venturing out on a whole new experience. We decided to traverse horseshoe-shaped Italy, but not the touristy places like Florence and Venice. We’d picked the notorious, yet breathtaking Mediterranean island of Sicily. Friends and family warned us that the land of Cosa Nostra (Italian mafia) would be too adventurous for first-time backpackers, but stunning pictures made Sicily irresistible.

We booked B&Bs, Airbnb and youth hostels, just like typical backpackers and on  reaching any new city, we’d look for a tourist centre, get our hands on a local map and stand in the middle of the street—confusion writ large on our faces—as we tried to locate our hostel. The process became a drill. The trip really tested our map-reading skills.

By the fourth day, we realised that as much as we plan, surprises awaited us at every turn. For instance, to reach Sicily’s volcanic Aeolian Islands the next day, we’d planned to go from its capital Palermo to the sleepy town of Cefalù and catch a boat. But at Palermo, trains were on strike. In Italy, owners of tobacco shops are the best bearers of information. Two shops later, we were armed with  trip-saving information that took us to the bus operator’s office and finally a bus plying to Cefalù. Some food and a mountain trek later, when we went to the boat company’s office to check the next day’s hydrofoil schedule, we learnt their services start only in June, while we were still two days into May. So, we took a 1.5-hour train journey to the port and a 2-hour boat ride to our destination. That was some adventure! And it was worth every bit. Our two days in Aeolian were the most beautiful in the entire trip—from our Airbnb hosts to an isolated beach to swim in, and bar hopping to exploring sulphur springs.

But after two peaceful days at the Islands, we were let down by the town of Messina; it had practically nothing to boast. Our Messina bookings were for two days, but we couldn’t imagine spending a day more. So we extended bookings at the hostel in the next town, but not before trying to get our Messina host to refund us, albeit with an evil ploy. That evening when we met him, I began weeping, “My fiancé has met with an accident, I need to rush back to India”. He was so concerned, he refunded us in seconds.

Throughout the trip, we’d changed cities like models change clothes until we reached our last stop, Catania in Sicily, where we stayed for three days. We almost felt like locals: sipping coffee at the Piazza. We even had a favourite coffee shop by now. The way we explored places had dramatically changed too—from following the map religiously in our first city to random,  free-flowing wandering in the subsequent ones. And there the day’s detour to Rome for the Colosseum. For almost eight hours, we aimlessly roamed the streets of Rome, while also checking out luxury shops. We reached the wonder of the world only 30 seconds late, but the ticket counter had closed. Yet, we didn’t regret not seeing the Colosseum from inside; we ended up chatting for about 45 minutes with a Pakistani student about films, actors, terrorism, bombings, food and everything under the sun.

This trip was a great experience of being responsible for ourselves without any daddy or friends closeby to rescue us in case we goofed up. Even though we are now back to the grind, the travel bug that bit us has spread its virus to the family with younger cousins itching to do the same. We hope even before they manage to, we’ll already be packing for our next trip—there are many destinations to visit, many miles to walk. Italy is one off our checklist.