The temperature must have been, as it had been for the whole week, wilting somewhere in the low-30s, and yet the brisk sea breeze sluicing in over the cliffs did its best to camouflage the heat. On the penultimate day of my week-long trip to Malta I decided to take the bus over to the western coastline and hike south along the top of the Dingli cliffs.
Given Malta’s comparatively diminutive scale and reliable, if frustratingly sluggish bus network, my girlfriend and I had managed to see a large amount of the island – from southern Marsaxlokk, the quaint fishing village with traditional luzzu bobbing in the harbour; to the thriving nightlife hotspot Paceville on the east coast; Golden Bay on the north-west side, and the medieval fortified city of Mdina right in the heart of the island. In fact, I realised that in terms of percentage of ground covered, I had probably seen more of Malta than I had of any other country in the world.
Starting out on my walk along the top of the Dingli cliffs, the limestone face appeared to be melting away into the sea like a wax sculpture. The path wound around the conspicuous radar tower, a bloated golf ball evidently over-struck from North Yorkshire’s Menwith Hill base, and led up to Ta’Zuta, the highest point on the Maltese islands, marked by a solitary little Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene. I surveyed the view – empty farm land and sun-baked towns, the bump of the Mosta Dome in the distance. Out to sea, the uninhabited pancake islet of Filfa lay supine and bruised having been ignominiously used as target practice by the stationed British army for years.
What struck me about my hike was the refreshing sense of isolation. With a population of around 410,000 – considerably fewer than London’s 8-million-and-counting – it was possible to walk some distance along the clifftop without encountering anyone else. A local was selling fresh fruit from a stall outside the chapel; a young tourist couple progressed along the same track as I, albeit with more apparent urgency, as though they had set themselves the challenge of hiking the entire island’s perimeter and were only just realising the extent of their folly.
At this point I diverted inland away from the cliffs in search of the mysterious site of Clapham Junction. Named by British tourists, as you might expect, this is a busy intersection of strange prehistoric ‘cart ruts’ scored into the limestone rocks. Archaeologists are still puzzled as to the precise nature of these ruts, believed to have been made not by cart wheels but rather by a travois – a form of sled with two parallel poles that would have been hauled along the ground. Theories also abound as to what exactly they were transporting, whether stone, salt or topsoil. I stood to admire this cross-stitch of tracks scarring the stone, looking as they did like a cobweb of plane contrails spun across a clear blue sky.
Having retraced my steps back to the coastline, my hike gradually became diverted inland away from the cliffs and before long I found myself to be quite lost. I skirted round the edge of a large limestone quarry, which appeared to be fully functional despite the absence of any human operatives. Reluctantly, I had to concede defeat and head back on myself to catch a bus that would be able to place me again on the headland near the Hagar Qim temples.
Walking round these ancient megalithic temples, among the oldest free-standing stone structures in the world, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t suffering from a kind of ‘awe fatigue’. I had already in the week been transcended by the incredible Hal Salfieni Hypogeum, visited the prehistoric Tarxien temples, and been enraptured by the baroque splendour of St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta.
In terms of ‘Cathedral Top Trumps’, I think St. John’s might just cast all others I have visited into the shade. It beats St. Paul’s in London, trounces Paris’ Notre Dame, and makes St. Peter’s basilica in Rome look like a cavernous empty space. The concept of the ‘sublime’ was originated by the Romantics and was traditionally apportioned to natural wonders; and yet ‘sublime’ is truly the only term to adequately describe St. John’s. Every wall, pillar and rib is intricately decorated, with rippling marble, brocades and gilt; it is a supernova explosion of gold.
As impressive a sight as the Hagar Qim temple ruins undoubtedly were, I felt I had already spent my quota of reverential awe for the week; the difficulty in visiting such a place is that, whilst we may feel humbled and inspired, the scale of time encapsulated there so surpasses our comprehension, that there is also the risk of leaving with a sense of feeling alienated or oddly detached.
I had experienced a similarly odd mixture of emotions upon taking a boat from the Maltese mainland over to the island of Comino to see its famous ‘Blue Lagoon’. The water is so serene and, indeed, blue that it feels like you’ve stepped into a travel agent advert or a billboard hoarding displaying cheap flight deals.
Predictably, this is Malta’s tourism piece de resistance, a fact that gradually assumes more and more weight as you approach the landing dock and start to see the hordes of people perched on the rocky slope like birds, almost on top of one another desperately trying to cling to their patch, each umbrella a different marker post in the sand. Climbing up the slope from the boat, you are presented with trailers selling fish ‘n’ chips, burger ‘n’ fries, ice cold lager and god knows what other familiar comforts of the British tourist abroad.
What I found baffling is that by walking some five minutes away from the Blue Lagoon you come across several other far quieter bays of equal beauty. The sparks of my confusion were fanned further once we sat down overlooking a small cluster of people frolicking in the azure waters that flowed around and through a picturesque archway of rock. I suddenly began to notice the scattered items of litter that had been left here and there; an old water bottle stranded amidst some dry shrubs, a crisp packet wedged between some rocks as though it were a pub beer garden, and cigarette butts peppering the dusty ground. It was as though I’d walked up to a fantastic painting, close enough to see the cracks in the paint and the ageing of the canvas, and once I’d noticed it there was no ignoring it.
For all the marvellous achievements humans are capable of realising – the hypogeum and St. John’s being two great examples from the last week – I often recoil stunned at the ignorance, hypocrisy and inanity of humans that runs in conjunction. To come to Comino, a site of unarguable natural beauty, and wilfully pollute it, is a mind-boggling example of the inherent superiority complex of the human species.
As we boarded the boat back to Malta, I pondered the idea that a permanent official should be posted to Comino to spot anyone discarding rubbish and place a lifetime ban on them as punishment. I think such a draconian measure should stand, for the reason that if you can’t respect such an idyllic place then you simply don’t deserve to visit it ever again.
Continuing my walk away from the temples, the heat and exertion of the day was beginning to take its toll. The misleading sea breeze from the clifftops had allowed me to burn a little, and the mosquitoes seemed to sense my exhaustion and persist in their aerial assault. Earlier that week, a pharmacist had explained how these large mosquitoes had been brought over to the island in container ships from Asia 3 or 4 years ago, and she ruefully speculated that this may have been a ‘happy accident’ engineered by the companies who manufacture repellent and other anti-mosquito products. I thought it amusing that even on the apparently easy-going island of Malta there was still the willingness to indulge in sinister conspiracy theories.
The end of my walk was the tiny harbour of Wied iz-Zurrieq, a charming inlet into the cliffs known as the Blue Grotto, where local teenagers swam and played with that smug abandon of those who know the tourist hordes still haven’t quite discovered their turf yet. My victory beer, a can of ice cold Cisk lager, was almost as glorious as John Mills’ upon reaching Alexandria, and I felt a sense of joy that Malta had, over the last week, yielded so many of its wonders to me. It is a place I would thoroughly recommend visiting, only remember to stock up on the repellent spray.
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