Watercolor Art by Kate Rose Johnson

A pig slaughter? In Hungary? This is why you travel right? Without a second thought, I jumped onto the reservation system and pushed our flight back.  It is only a month later, with our bus rumbling from Budapest deep into the Hungarian countryside almost to Serbia, that I wonder why you would set a date for a pig slaughter, and more importantly, do I want to participate?  I can’t afford to get lost in my thoughts though, or I will end up in Serbia.  None of the bus stops have signs and I can’t understand the bus driver.  After peering nervously out at three previous stops, I think I see  the one she described in an email and get off.  Sure enough, Gabi pulls up a few minutes later in a cold war era contraption and we’re off to her farmhouse.

I have to say, this story should be about goats and not pigs.  I love goats.  It’s a dream of mine to herd goats through Provence like Manon.  I’d read books and eat picnics in the sun, while the goats pranced around.  Gabi’s mom Teri has goats and actually walks them through the Hungarian countryside, milks, and breeds them.  Somehow the French make this seem so romantic, in Hungary it’s really hard work!  Alas, I’m off track.  This story doesn’t end with our fabled walk in the woods bleating and catching up with Gabi and her kids, but with a pig.

The night before the pig’s last day came cold and crisp.  Gabi made sure to put extra wood in the cast iron stove of our bedroom so that we wouldn’t be cold.  Before going to bed she pokes her head in to say, “By the way, wear clothes tomorrow that you don’t mind getting sprayed in blood. Good night!”  I jumped under the thick covers exhausted from the travelling and excitement.  I had put off the decision of whether I’d actually be there or not.  I struggled, as I wanted to experience every bit of life while travelling, but honestly it wasn’t being there that bothered me but having the event recorded in my memory.

I’m a hardcore travel chick and I eat pork, right? Wrong, at 6:30 the alarm goes off.  The fire is out and it’s cooold outside the thick covers.  I start wondering if the pig and I could disguise ourselves and escape to the Serbian border in time.  The pig is wearing Jackie O sunglasses and a handkerchief.  G springs out of bed, hardwired for the “hunt” and sensing internal debate, sweetly tells me not to worry, I was hardcore enough, and to come over a little bit later to help out.

I wake up an hour later feeling fresh and ashamed.  I’m such a wimp!  Quickly throwing on old clothes and splashing water on my face, I step out into the sunlight and take the giant dahlia path to the other farmhouse.  I’m greeted in the garden by the Grandma who beckons me into the kitchen.  ”Oh, how nice!” I think, “I could really use a cup of hot tea.” She grabs a glass bottle and pours me what looks like a shot of clear liquid.  I’m confused for a moment and then remember Gabi telling me stories of her Grandma the bootlegger.  Her grandma distills her own pálinka, an alcohol made from fruit and fabled to be 70 proof.  My heart sinks a little and I feel like I’m a Freshman in college being given a handle to chug.  I tip my head back and the alcohol roars down the back of my throat like a blue flame and I think for a minute that I know what it takes for a rocket to blast off into space.  She smiles wordlessly at me and I smile back and say köszönöm (thank-you), waving off another shot.  We go out to the back of the barn where they’ve got a flame thrower with which they are lightly toasting the pig.  ”It was quick” my G whispers nicely in my ear after saying hello,  before jumping back into the fray  - lunging at the pig and vigorously scrubbing its behind with a brush.  They have finished torching it and are now washing it like a car.  It’s a huge pig, but I’m told it is smaller than usual.

Tavi, Gabi’s mom’s boyfriend is in change.  He’s affable and direct with wood-choppingly broad shoulders and a barrel of an upper-body.  He’s the kind of guy you want on your side, especially if an apocalypse happened and all the modern conventions of life disappeared.  He’d brought his jolly and hardworking adult kids with him and together with Gabi’s family there was quite a crew assembled of serious, blond pig workers.  G was in his element, working, joking and learning something new.

I was shy but the sausage making, ingredients, and cooking implements piqued my interest and drew me out of inaction.  I began to trot back and forth around Tavi taking note of the spices; especially the rich volcanic paprika he was throwing by the fistful into bowls here and there and looking into the various pots as things boiled and hissed.

Tavi is now lording over a large table with the pig medieval style.  He’s got the pig stretched out and is making powerfully deft cutting movements and tossing the pieces here and there.   ”No!” I hear a shriek and yelp and a little scraggly looking dog steals away with a giant pig ear. I giggle to myself, but see it isn’t that funny.  I’m reminded that although this is a fun harvesting event, every bit of that animal will be eaten (except one part I’m to find out).

I look back and see G and Gabi have moved from butchering to getting the intestines ready for sausage making.  They’re blowing from either side of the intestinal lining to check for holes.  Yes, this entails touching your lips to the raw intestines and inflating like a balloon, then again we eat this all the time…

Blood boils, sausages fly and more jet fuel – Pálinka – flows.  I can’t walk straight but I don’t feel drunk, I’ve simply lost my motor skills.  The Hungarians have a word for this called, kerítésszaggató, which means “fence-ripper”.  I could definitely wreck some fences.  It’s 4pm by the time we sit down around a table to eat.  The freezer is full of meat and there are sausages hanging everywhere.  I try the paprika and blood sausage as well as the pork thinking: this is the freshest and most “organic” meat that I’ll ever eat.  True to form, G’s jeans are no longer worn-blue but some awful cave-man color.  This day is why I travel.  To experience life wholly as someone else does, to be challenged, to acquire new skills and knowledge and to be with friends.

Ometepe Island Watercolor by Kate Rose Johnson

My fascination with the Panama Canal began sometime in 7th grade social studies with Mr. Farley.  Mr. Farley didn’t have his own teeth any longer, was hunched over and short of breath.  There was a slackness about his frame that immediately caused sympathy to see.  At least from me,  I suspect other 7th graders didn’t notice.  He was smart and got it, and got me, I suppose before I got myself.  He inspired me by giving me free reign to explore what projects I wanted.

A project in geography burst into an ambitious to-scale version of the Panama Canal.  Soon I was obsessed by history – the shear scale of the project, the human toll and the economics of it.  I had my dad help me to cut and then jigsaw a piece of plywood into shape, after hours and hours of paper maiche and paint, my 3D Panama canal was an exact replica of the real thing.

Everyone talks about the canal but so few people know of the history: the people who contributed to its construction and the battles over where to build.  Which leads me to Ometepe Island on Lake Nicaragua where the canal was originally going to be built.  I’m here on an adventurous honeymoon.  A few months ago, I’d dreamed of going to a beach and staying there on the sand for an entire week, just relaxing after the wedding.  But then suddenly, we changed our minds and decided that we wanted a bit of an adventure for our honeymoon.  We’ve taken an old ferry out to this twin peak volcano island where time seems to stand still.

The economy of the island is based on the farming of plantains and we see boatloads of them leaving the island.  As we settle into our hostel cabin, I laugh noticing that our door locks with a simple padlock.    I stare out into the driving afternoon rain and love that I’m far away from anywhere normal, especially anywhere expected for a honeymoon.  I’m also happy for that 7th grader inside me, who spent hours reading about the history of this area, of this lake and how it has the only fresh water sharks in the world, and how it was passed up for a canal because of the volcanoes and political instability.  There’s part of me that’s happy that this lake and land are unspoiled from a canal.

I’m glad I got to see part of the history behind the Panama Canal, but now I am really eager to see the Panama Canal itself!  If I do go, I think it must be by ship to see the entire length and for an anniversary.  Perhaps I’ll stay at the Veneto Panama hotel.

Watercolor by Kate Rose Johnson

Herschel takes us to the Royal Air Force Museum and brings the antique planes to life with facts and anecdotes about them and the daring missions that they went on during the war. Suddenly, I’m seven like him, watching as the planes take off for the continent and hoping they come back.  Proud and envious of the young British men.  I hear the sirens he describes and think of what it must have been like to go into an air raid shelter.  At the beginning of the war they would run to the shelters, until he came down with a severe chest cold, and then his stoic mother decided they would rather take their chances at home.  He tells me again about how glamorous Josephine or Fifi, as they called her then, looked, in her smart uniform and how gallant Grandpa Alan was.  Once Fifi was hospitalized, he gravely remarks, and Alan hitched a ride on a bomber from his station in Belgium to visit her under the pretext of getting more medical supplies.  It’s amazing to realize how easily England’s fate and my own could have been (and was) changed by the terrible war.  In a museum full of dusty planes on the outskirts of London, my family’s history, love and destiny are brought to life by Great Uncle Herschel’s illuminating memories.

Watercolor by Kate Rose Johnson

Watercolor by Kate Rose Johnson

Other than the fact that I scrunch my nose at the thought of consuming rodents, my best friend in second grade had a guinea pig.  Peruvians think that it’s funny that we keep them as pets and I quite agree with them.  I always thought it gross, but Abby loved her little pet.  Then one day after school, it bit another friend who was holding it.  Her involuntary and surprised clench turned my friend into a guinea pig killer.  Any time I think of guinea pigs I see three little girls staring blankly at a dead pet and can’t bring myself to think of eating Gus.   In addition, when Peruvians cook these little beasts they generally splay them out as if they had died cart wheeling, and roast them over a fire.

Have I mentioned that the guinea pigs live in castles here?  In one town I saw a three tiered mud castle built into a corner with little clay tile roofs, balconies and fresh green grass.  They live a regal and healthier life than all of our livestock combined in the U.S.

There I am, every meal is like Russian roulette where I look at the menu to see if I am presented with the opportunity.  Finally, one night, it’s on the menu.  I take a deep breath and order it, thinking of the glory that will await me.  Surprisingly, the waiter persuades me to get the fish.  I should, he says, order the cuy from a local place on Sundays.  He tells me the name and address and I get the fish.  The days fly by and we’re in Machu Picchu one Sunday and deep in the Amazon on the other.  Suddenly it’s my last night in Peru and I haven’t tried the cuy. However, after a harrowing journey into the Amazon, where I ate termites, battled rodents, monkeys and bugs, prayed that the minivan wouldn’t slide off the edge of the canyon and that our guide would find us, lost in the middle of the rainforest, I sink deep into the booth of the restaurant and satisfactorily chomp into a slice of pizza.

Watercolor by Kate Rose Johnson

I won’t cannibalize my royal cousins on this trip nor feel like my travel creds took a hit.  There’s more to Peru than eating a guinea pig.

Soon the city highways gave way to country roads and towns which transitioned into the endless green horizons that I’d been hoping to see.  The stately estancia house was beautiful with mature hundred year old trees.   Oscar, our guide, was there to meet us.  To my delight, he had that rugged, handsome brown face and bright red cheeks typical to gaucho stereotypes.  His quiet mouth was framed by a drooping mustache and his eyes were overshadowed by brambly brows.   As he slid off his horse he went from upright to 90 degrees, now facing the lawn as he walked, as if inspecting it closely, hunchbacked and bowlegged from years on horseback.  He sang us a song while we lunched and I didn’t think it could get better.  Once I was full of lomo and mate, I saddled up on one of the most beautiful and elegant yet powerful horses I’d seen, a cross between an Arabian and native Argentinian criollo, and trotted into the fields.

Riding horseback in the Pampas wasn’t like your typical nose-to-tail trailride.  We were free to do whatever we wanted, including getting hurled headfirst off our mounts.  I stroked my horse’s mane  and watched as another group of gauchos chased and herded calves for vaccinations.  As the herd switched directions and stampeded towards me, I realized Oscar wasn’t going to help, so my trusty steed and I jumped into a ditch and let the cattle pass.  Up on the other side, I decided to take him out for a gallop to see if his legs could run as magnificently as they suggested.  We were soon flying, the green below a blur, and the smile growing wider and wider on my face.  I slowed down and waited for Oscar to come around.  It was wonderful to have no restraints and wide open fields and skies.

Painting by Kate Rose Johnson

As we trotted, he showed me some unique owls that lived in the earth and taught me more of the horses, their heritage and the special bond a gaucho has with his horse. I’d never ridden such a beautiful horse in such an expansive horizon.   I galloped until I could no longer hold on, and, the next day hardly able to walk, I hopped on again and rode and rode.  If I stayed in the Pampas, I too, would be a hunchbacked princess, which would be ok, as I’d have a hunchback prince of a gaucho!

Watercolor by Kate Rose Johnson

then, upon some researching to find that anyone could enroll at the University of Buenos Aires.  Without wasting any time, I hopped on the subway and wandered around downtown until I found the Philosophy and Literature Building.

Although they make no use of the internet, computers or credit cards, with paper, pencil and cash I was soon tested and admitted at a fraction of cost of the private classes.  What caught me by surprise was the elegance of my surroundings.  The building that I studied in each afternoon was beautiful.  It had a huge carved double wooden door entrance that opened onto a grand hallway leading to a spiraling marble staircase outlined in a brass and gold railings and adorned with busts of Argentinean greats.  UBA (ooh-bah) was without a doubt the most prestigious university in the country, over 10 of their past presidents were alumni and Che Guevara, a national hero, as well.

The large and airy classrooms had high ceilings, leaded glass windows and wooden floors.  The hallway floors were hand-tiled in detailed mosaics.  It was hard for me to imagine why they had put so much money into the buildings of a university.   Many of UBA’s buildings were constructed during Argentina’s glory years.  When the US and Europe were embroiled in world wars and needed food, there was Argentina with the refrigerated ships and delicious meat, profiting at their expense.

My college in the US had been beautiful and even older, but there is always something conservative and disciplined about the buildings and learning on the east coast.  Not this east coast.  Learning here was Romantic.  You were to read poetry and invent radical new political theories to change the world.  Here anything was possible.  I floated up and down the ballroom-like stairs and arrived 20 minutes early to wander in and out of the empty classrooms.   I felt as if wearing a ball gown to class would not be out of place.  Old chalkboards, hardwood creaky floors and wonderful signs from the turn of the century added to the allure.  Argentina hadn’t had the money to restore these beautiful buildings in at least 60 years.  If you ignored the decadent decay you could travel back in time.

One day I decided to photograph the building so I could later remember it.  I was surprised to see in my photos dingy yellow fluorescent lighting, patches of cement in the middle of those mosaic floors, awful new heating units cheaply installed and the paint on the walls peeling in neglect.  The lovely UBA was deteriorating.  Where the country had once channeled money to education it was now either too poor or corrupt or both.  It saddened me to see such elegance being destroyed.  I hope UBA can one day return to its full glory.  Until then, I’ll remember my alma mater with my imagination rather than those photos.

“Frick!” I exclaimed in my head as we got closer, “Viking Frickin’ Princesses!” They were almost 10 feet tall, statuesque and brave looking standing by their Swedish boyfriends. I felt like a toy poodle with my Newfoundland puppy G next to them.  We threw our gear on top of the van and piled in for eight hours of harrowing, cliff hugging, one lane roads as we descended from the mountains of Peru into the Amazon below. The princesses peacefully slumbered for most of the journey. My eyes were wide open and terrified and one look at G told me that I wasn’t alone. He was sitting above the back wheel of the van with a window looking directly down 4,000 or so feet to the valley below. I was grateful to be on the inside without a view. All I could do was imitate the Vikings and stoically close my eyes and doze on my prince’s shoulder.

Once we arrived in the jungle I was suddenly not afraid of it. I figured the worst that could happen there was nowhere near as bad as tumbling thousands of feet off a cliff in a Toyota minivan. I pranced behind our native macheted guide and gleefully ate the termites he offered us once the princesses had turned up their noses in disgust. HA! I felt tougher than their cool veneer showed.  But they maintained their cool when the guide lost us and the trail for a half hour and didn’t complain about the bug bites on their marble skin. They democratically alternated the lead while on our wildlife tours. They slept outside on platforms without tents hours from our cabins, awake throughout the nights watching for tapirs. I was in awe of their genetic disposition for bravery and lack of fear. I didn’t want to have any fear standing in the way of my adventure, but there it was. I wondered if, as they went for their midnight bathroom break in the foliage below the platform, they thought a jaguar was waiting to pounce on them as well.

I expected them to start painting their faces and slaying wild boar, but it never happened. Instead there was G, shirtless and up to his waist in a river catching some dogfish with little more than a hook and string and there I was eating bugs and bathing in the same river. On the last day, signs of fatigue crept in and as we were packing up they sighed and admitted to me how difficult the trip had been. They had been nervous and scared to come, and were terrified about the trip back on the road we’d come to know was considered the “second” most dangerous road in the world.

I was elated, ecstatic to learn the inner fears of these stone cold princesses. They were afraid but brave, too, like me. Curious and adventurous, maybe our genetic makeup wasn’t that different after all. As we hit the first mile of cliff hugging adrenaline with the green of the Amazon fading in the rearview mirror, I put on my headphones and smiled, relaxing as they gripped their seats in front of me.

Travel Rule#1 – Buy a leather item and use it to carry things in place of your backpack which glows like a beacon for thieves.  Travel Rule #2 – Never walk and talk on your cell phone at the same time.  Travel Rule #3 – Do not yell loudly in English while breaking rule #2.  Travel Rule #4 – If you must wear a North Face jacket, do not stop to look at a giant subway map.

I was feeling cavalier about my near-porteño status after having lived in the city for three months but had unfortunately shipped my chic Argentinean clothing and bags home as I was about to take off for more travelling.  And so, the scene is set with one American tourist alone and lost in Buenos Aires.  I wasn’t, in fact, lost, I was looking desperately for one of the last restaurants that I hadn’t been to, frantic that I was running out of time to devour my way through the city.  While searching a map for a street that had inexplicably ended, a rush of mushy, cold liquid splashed on top of my head, covering my face.  Shocked and smelling apples, I turned my head expecting to see someone who had tripped and to be apologizing.  Instead I saw a guy pointing up at the building and saying something about a bird.  It was then that Travel Rule #5 saved me: Always research on Lonely Planet Thorn Tree for safety information on a new city.  The infamous mustard scam flashed across my brain as I protectively swung my backpack to my hip and darted down the sidewalk taking the first right onto a side street mumbling something like “those f*ckers”.  I managed to wipe away all of the applesauce with my scarf and see out of my glasses again.

I was getting robbed. I’d read in disbelief about one tourist after another who wrote warnings about this scam happening to them.  It goes like this: thief identifies target – local or tourist, has companion thief squirt innocent victim with mustard and tells the victim that a bird has pooped on them or that something has fallen from a building.  Conveniently, the thief is a good Samaritan and offers you napkins to clean up.  While you are distracted cleaning up, the companion thief helps himself to your belongings and usually you walk away thanking them.

Just as I had finished checking my bag to see that everything was intact (it was) I saw the “friendly thief” round the corner looking for me with his “assistant shady thief” in tow.  They thought perhaps I hadn’t figured it out and they could try again to “help” me.  I thought of my options as they walked towards me, recognizing me.  Luckily, I was surrounded by tall porteño bankers out on the streets for lunch.  I felt safe but angry and began to yell, “Tu eres una mierda.  Sabes?  Una mierrrrrrrrrrda”,  (“You are a shit. Do you know that? A shit”). rolling my r’s for all I’m worth even though mierda isn’t an r rolling word, and even though I’m using the “tu” (Spain) form and not the “vos” (Argentina) form.  I pointed at them and yelled, “MIERDA!!!” at the top of my lungs.  The bankers stopped to see if I was alright as the confused applesauce neé mustard thieves took off in a sprint.

Although the air is thin, the green is so alluring that we want to be outside. It’s a beautiful morning and some local kids have told us where there is a nice babbling stream to walk by if we squeeze past this one fence.  As I pull the chain link to the side and squeeze by I remember the owner of our lodge mentioning something about the ‘toros bravos’.  Our driver Omar had also pointed out a practice bullring down the road where they test bulls for the market.  “Wait.” I freeze, hardly making it ten steps, “This isn’t a field for those bulls they raise for fighting, is it?”  “No,” says my intrepid husband.  “They’re only on the other side of that river and they can’t cross.”  ”Ok,” I think, “I’ll stay on this side of the river, but then what is the fence for?”

Muck, muck through the verdant fields we go in our wellys.  Blue sky and fresh green grass with volcano all around.  I try to be lighthearted and enjoy the sunshine, hey, after all I’m in Ecuador!  Then I step in some undeniably fresh cow patties.  “No, no,” he says again to this new accusation, “they’re not on this side.”  Suddenly I remember I’ve forgotten my sunglasses and desperately need to go to the bathroom.  But we’d set out on a nice country walk with two friendly dalmatian companions and G is determined to finish it.  He hands me some sunglasses and points to a rock which, I gather, means bathroom.  My eyes dart around and a dalmatian jumps out of some bushes ahead and almost gives me a heart attack.  Any minute I know I’ll be staring into the beady angry eyes of a 2,000 pound bull just dying to try out his pointy horns, steam will boil out of his nostrils and he’ll charge.

I decide my imagination is getting the best of me and vehemently yank down my pants and squat.  To my great dismay I’m wearing bright red spankers with some sort of gold metallic stars that the designers at Victoria’s Secret thought were hip.  They seemed cute at the time.  There I am a giant moon target with red muleta underwear leading the way.  I panic, close my eyes and pee for all I’m worth picturing the bull pitching me into the air at any moment.  Of course, it never happens, and off we continue.

I climb to the top of the nearest hill to see the view and look down to see 50 pairs of serene and wary eyes looking back at me, a mixture of bulls and cows.  The closest bull notices me but seems too lazy to climb as his nostrils begin to quiver.  Down the hill I scurry and into a ravine filled with water, splashing through the water and scrambling up the other side.  We’re back on the road, which makes me feel safe, and as we pass by the bulls I know my imagination wasn’t far off, as they stamp their hooves and lower their horns.

Four syllables could hardly strike more fear into my heart than those.  Nothing could console me.  Why would they name a river Anaconda River if there were no anaconda?  Logic was on my side.  My present self did certainly congratulate my past self from restraining from you tubing sucuri as I know I never would have deplaned if I had seen the monsters in action.

As it turned out, Mato Grosso Del Sur was having historic flooding and the pristine rivers were opaque.  This news both tamed and terrorized me.  No snorkeling tomorrow, but it only prolonged the misery that the day after a giant anaconda would hunt me down, chose me as the smallest and weakest snorkeler, wrap me up and swallow me with only the monkeys swinging above in the rainforest as witnesses.

On the third day of death row I broke down and cried, “I just want to do something fun and not scary like horseback riding.”  My bemused G knowing when to calm the crazies and when to push me booked up a trip through the countryside and, to his great edification, I was soon trotting along with three other twelve year girls completely happy and unchallenged.

On the fourth day the rivers had subsided and we were told the news I’d dreaded and G had eagerly awaited: our guide was on the way and to pack our things.  At this point I’d dayed and nightmared all of the ways an anaconda would get me and had even branched out into fearing the caiman.  “They’re not like your alligators,” the manager of our hostel told me.  “They’re docile unless you get between them and a baby.”  Oh, great, now all of the scenarios involved me unwittingly floating in between the mommies and the babies.  I saw eyes hovering about the waterlines everywhere.

But it was go time.  ‘Let’s get it together,’ I thought, ‘and not make a scene.’  G obliged me with the pre-teen horse and toucan ride, I won’t spoil his river float.  I couldn’t think of a logical reason only fantastical ones.

On goes bikini and snorkel mask; calm, calm I tell myself.  I also mention to the guide, “Would you kindly not point out the caiman to me as I’m not sure how I would react.  He laughed, his white perfect teeth flashing against his tan skin, and when I didn’t, he agreed.

I then needed a little more prodding to actually get in the river and begin floating, luckily competition and AC/DC were on my side.  In our little tour group a couple of Brazilian women began freaking out and hyperventilating –not even from the wildlife but simply the snorkeling concept.  “Damn women!” I thought, “Why can’t they just listen to the instructor and calm down.  I’ll be brave, I’ll show them…” and then I put my head down and began humming through my snorkel, “BACK IN BLACK!!!!”  My pump-up-anthem. It worked and the adrenaline started flowing.  It actually works because if keeps the part of my brain that worries, imagines or cautions me busy with the lyrics so that the other half of my brain can be normal.  “Dun Dun dun da da da BACK IN BLACK!!!!”  I said to the meter long Pacu fish on my right, “duh duh duh dun dun dun baaaack in blllllack” I screamed at the dorado on my left.  And I was on my way.