The Valtellina Trail it's long, but not in the boring sense of the word. Long like those dreams where a thousand things happen, but you wake up before the end. We took it at a random point, because the human said "today we're going to breathe a bit of nature", and when he says that I understand that we're going on a mission.
I'm in the lead, he's behind on his bike. Not the racing one - which hurts his back - but the "hybrid" one, as he calls it, which is actually just comfortable and a little slow. Better this way. Otherwise all the scents pass under my nose and I don't have time to catalogue them.
On the trail the air smelled of cut grass, night humidity and something that sounded a lot like the scent of cats. The human, as usual, didn't notice anything. Every now and then he stopped to take a picture, he said to me "look how beautiful" and I pretended to be interested, even though the beauty - the real one - was all concentrated in a very fresh track behind a blackberry bush.
After a while we stopped near Morbegno. I had already given my best, smelling everything alive, dead or in between. He sat down on a bench, took out a sandwich and started talking to himself as if we were in a documentary: “this is the beautiful part of the walk, the connection with the earth”. In the meantime I found a fountain, drank, rolled in the shade and was about to declare it a perfect day — when he arrived him.
An elderly gentleman, with large hands, a wool jacket even though it was twenty-four degrees, and above all cheese. He had a piece wrapped in paper and offered it to me as if we had known each other forever. He said, “You’re a curious guy.” I took it as a compliment. The human laughed, said, “That’s right, you don’t miss anything.” And I, with my mouth full, thought that sometimes humans, without meaning to, tell pure truths.
We continued our journey at a slower pace. Maybe because of the cheese, maybe because the sun was going down and the shadow was getting longer. He was pedaling slowly, I was checking that the world was still in order. Everything was fine.
When we stopped for the last time, I realized that I would remember that stretch of the path. Not so much for the landscape, or for the water that flowed peacefully next to us. But for that brief interlude between a fountain and a piece of cheese. There was everything in there: respect, silence, crumbs of happiness.
And a smell, yes, that I have not yet found in books. But I would recognize it immediately if it came back.
