The Wobbling Sprocket

Continued from the October Newsletter:

Undaunted, I stepped out of the office and headed over to one of the hotels on the side of the Port in Bonifacio. No rooms available here they said. “Any suggestions?” I asked. “No rooms are available anywhere in Bonifacio, but you might try the campground outside of town”. I didn’t have any camping gear, so that did not seem practical. I tried another hotel at the Port. No rooms available there either.

If you know anything about Bonifacio, you know there is a Port area and a Haute Ville, High Village…the old quarter with more hotels, shops etc. It’s a climb though. I was tired and thought it highly unlikely that I would find something if the Port hotels were all full.

I had noticed a large, somewhat dingy hotel on the descent into Bonifacio. I rode back there. The nice lady behind the desk spoke some English: “we are full”. Suggestions? “Let me make a call”. She did. “OK”, she said, “they have one room left, but it is very big…for 4 people, but you can have it for150 euros”. I didn’t commit to that as it seemed like overkill, but she drew me a map anyway and I headed out the door. “Take the road towards Ajaccio”

I stopped at a couple other smaller places that had signs, Chambres d’hote”, on the street…..no dice.

OK then, I started the climb back out and I’m completely beat. By the time I’m on the road for Ajaccio, it’s beginning to seem stupid to be out. Very shortly, it will be dark.

I see a sign for a “bungalow”. OK, what the heck I think as I turn off the main road. It’s a gravel road. I go 20 yards. There is a guy exiting through one of those electric sliding gates in his Mercedes. Hmmm, that property doesn’t seem like it would have a bungalow for rent. The gate closes and he departs. The only thing to do is to continue on the gravel road.

I do just that and, eventually, I come up to a house. The door is open and someone is inside apparently eating dinner. The house is, how shall I say?, rural Corsican. There is a rusting hulk of a van in the yard and the yard is clearly inhabited by goats. They aren’t there at the moment but you didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out.

None of that mattered to me. I was tired and just wanted a roof over my head. I went up to the door. There were two girls eating dinner in a sparse but comfortable setting. They were in there 30′s I’d guess. Attractive. As I stood in the doorway, I used my almost non-existent French, to inquire about a room. They looked at each other. It seemed like bad timing. “How long do you need a room for?” I think was their question. “Un nuit”. “Unh unh”, they both shook their heads “no”.

I turned around and headed out. In the yard, there appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, a short heavyset guy. He doesn’t speak English, but he makes it clear he wants to know what I want. He looks to me like a Corsican reincarnation of Buddy Hackett.

I’m not quite sure how communication can work so well when you don’t have a language in common, but he makes it clear that he has something for me. How long? One night. OK, that works.

Where? here. He’s standing in front of it. Price: 50 euros. I’m actually not sure what it is that he’s standing in front of though.

He gives me a tour. The accommodation reminded me of an old movie, “The Fly”, where the scientist morphs into half man, half fly due to an equipment malfunction. This was half trailer, half lean-to. It had a bed in the trailer part of it. The lean-to part had a kitchen and a bath and a vestibule. It was obvious the trailer hadn’t moved in maybe 40 years.

I soon learned that “Buddy’s” name was actually Freddy. That name seemed almost as unlikely as everything else I was looking at.

Freddy, moved into sales mode. It has a fridge, it comes with drinks in the fridge, he motions…as he opens the door to it… “look, here is some orange juice”. My guess is that it might well have been left by the prior inhabitants.

Anyway, I didn’t want to go anywhere. I said “ok”. Freddy rousted the girls, one of whom cleaned the place up.

Freddy and the girls wanted to know where I was from, where I was going and what I was doing. I explained it all. One of the girls actually spoke pretty good English.

Freddy wanted to know what I wanted to drink. A beer. He sent someone for one. I had a coke and then a beer.

There was no place around to go for food, but Freddy left and came back with a plate of peppers. Moroccan style, I was told. Really good. Then Freddy and the girls came back with a Pizza. Also really good.

Freddy, wanted to know what else I might want. “Nothing”. He said something I didn’t understand but the girls laughed. One of the girls explained that Freddy had joked that one of them could come with the room. I pointed at Freddy…….I’d like him. They all laughed. There were no more suggestive jokes though.

Freddy asked me when I might be departing the next morning. 8:30 am, I said. OK- In that case the room includes breakfast, I was told.

That night, there was precious little sleep for me. The window of the trailer near the bed looked like a porthole and was propped open with a stick. No problem there, no bugs. However, there were fitful, blustery winds outside. Both the trailer and it’s lean-to expansion had a corrugated metal roof. Guess what? They were built under something that rained down what sounded like rocks on the metal roof every time the wind blew!!!…I don’t know how often this was, it seemed like every 45 seconds or so…yikes! I got up in the morning to investigate and discovered a gigantic wallnut tree towering above the roof.

Freddy drove off that morning and returned with two great big croissants and a baguette for me and made some coffee. The night before one of the girls told me Freddy was a World Champion. World Champion of what? She pointed as if firing a rifle. Skeet shooting I pantomined. No, she flapped her arms…”bird shooting”.

I didn’t get much sleep that night, but I’m very, very glad that there were no rooms in Bonifacio. I poked around the yard a little after breakfast and snapped a few photos so I could try to remember the laughs. Freddy posed for me. Thanks Freddy. You were a port in the storm and a lot of fun. My nite at “Chez Freddy”, is not something that I will soon forget nor would I trade it for the nicest room in Bonifacio……

I was a happy camper at Chez Freddy….