"Are you
heading to Amalfi?" I looked up from writing in my notebook to see a man
in a Toyota leaning across the passenger seat to shout out of the half rolled
down window.
"I'm waiting for my bus." I
replied back to him. He paused for a second to think of the English words to
make himself understood.
"I'm driving to Amalfi, do you want
a ride?" He gestured to the empty seat he was leaning across. I took a
moment to assess my situation. The night before, feed up with a rocky start in
Rome, I decided to take a train to Naples and figure out what to do when I got
there. I had the vague idea of going to Pompeii or to take a bus along the
Amalfi Coast, but where I ended up with up in the air. After a few more rocky
starts, I was on a bus soaring along the Amalfi Coast and enjoying my first
stop, Positano. From the moment I stepped out of the bus and took on the sights
of those famous coastal buildings growing out of the jagged coast line, I felt
like my heart was breaking from beauty. There are some places that I've
traveled to that have disappointed, but then there are others, like my first
glimpse of the Potala Palace, walking up to Angkor Wat while watching my
reflection melt together with the sacred buildings in the reflecting pool, and
the first, second, third, and fourth viewing of Emperor Qin's Terra Cotta
Warriors, that makes suffering through intense heat, uncomfortable plane rides
and nights of feeling alone turn into nothing more than a slight annoyance.
Every time my eyes fell on Positano I literally felt like I was living a dream,
suddenly every misery that I endured washed away to be less than a faded
memory.
Glancing away from Positano's hypnotic
sight, I sat myself down at the nearest bus stop knowing I had to continue on
to Amalfi as soon as possible if I had any hopes of making it back to Sorrento
to catch the Circumvesuviana back to Naples and catch the last train back to
Rome's Termini Station and into my hotel room so that I could wake up the next
morning to catch my flight to Cairo. As always, my need to do everything on a
whim gave no room to planning with better timing. So I waited for my bus and
while I waited I pulled out my notebook to write. As I wrote little drops of
rain started to fall and with it came a man and a car.
Knowing my time was limited I agreed to
ride with this stranger. The rain started to lash out from the heavens as
we pulled away and around the first of many curves.
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