We woke to rain, and the possibility of occasional showers throughout the day. Both of us still have sore throats and I have a stuffy nose. No fever or aches, so it doesn’t seem to be COVID. Both of us have recently had the new vax too, so hopefully it’s just a head cold. Given the dodgy weather forecast and our viruses, we decided to stay here another night.

Weird morning. And a sad one. We’re in a 4 story apartment building. I went down to to get something from my bike frame bag before I’d had my breakfast, and I encountered a young Finnish man (30-ish?) staying in one of the other apartments on a lower floor. He asked for help. He had lost his backpack, wallet, and phone on a drinking bender. Multi-day, it seems. He said he knows he’s an alcoholic and shouldn’t drink. He didn’t remember where he left his stuff. He didn’t even recall what city he was staying in before Bosa, and didn’t know how he got here. He thinks he was in the hospital at some point - his legs were all cut up. He used my phone to contact his mom in Finland using WhatsApp. He couldn’t do much else today because every website he wanted to use needed to verify his identity by texting his phone. His mom finally got back to him with good news. His last B&B hosts in a town about 30 km from here had been worried about him because he’d abandoned his belongings. They confirmed that he’d been hospitalized with alcohol poisoning but had checked himself out. The B&B folks found his cousin in Finland via Facebook. The cousin contacted his mom, who WhatsApp’d my phone. Then our landlady here in Bosa called the B&B, and pulled another tenant or friend off the street to translate everything into English for him. The B&B are shipping his phone, passport, and backpack here. No sign of the wallet, but we think his mom is wiring him some money through the post office. It took a village to help this guy out today. We bought him a few groceries, and our landlady had also given him things to eat. Let’s hope he gets home to Finland and stays away from the booze. He seemed sincerely troubled by what had happened. The kindness shown by our landlady is unsurprising given the terrific people we’ve encountered here in Sardinia. 

During a break in the weather, we walked down to the beach and saw the more resort-y side of town, albeit a bit more rundown than what we saw north of here. We were the only people on the beach. Then we returned to buy groceries. We’ll cook for ourselves again tonight since nobody else needs to get this cold. 

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It started raining again as we ate soup for lunch. That was a sign from the gods to have an afternoon nap. My cold worsened as the day went on - it can’t be all sunshine and lollipops, eh?  Before and during dinner we watched a movie. Then I crashed by 8 pm. 

Tomorrow’s weather is supposed to be nice, but there are more showers in the future, so I think I’ll head back to the mainland with Sue next week and then go south for my last couple of weeks. Then at least if the weather is bad I can easily hop onto a train. 

So, in answer to whether November is too late to come to Sardinia, I’d say yes. The temperatures have been absolutely perfect for biking, and it’s been easy to find reasonably priced accommodation. But I’d rather have fewer rain showers and a more lively street scene.  This is definitely the off-season. 

Sorry for the downer of a post.