Most people are talking about culture and people if they want to experience a new country. Many also add nature and sure, animals are part of nature, but most just want to see stunning views. There is nothing wrong with that. Still, animals are part of it and can’t be avoided, no matter where you are.
Last year, as Rob and I started to our tour around the world we had to explore Europe in the first month (look back to our blog entries from last year). Europe in general is beautiful and I don’t regret touring it that freely. However, it showed us many differences. We came across several packs of stray dogs, some very quiet or just interesting in us, others being dangerous for us and themselves. More than one pack came barking at our car Littlefoot and we had to slow down in order to not run them over. Even, if they still tried to scare us away, we didn’t want to hurt them. I still remember one little puppy who attacked me, he was too small to hurt me, still I hurried back into the car to not overwhelm the little one with stress. In Barcelona, we enjoyed the parrots living in the trees, in the middle of the city. Most of the time they weren’t visible, because their green feathers matched perfectly with the trees.
In Egypt we had quit a lot of animals and most of them in a poor condition. Horses, camels and donkeys were worked to the bare bones. Stray dogs and cats running through the streets. And that was just Cairo. Further in the south, in Aswan, we saw a crocodile caged into a small basin. The cattle egrets were free to go where ever they wanted, but the conditions were so poor they were dirty. If you have ever seen egrets in the best conditions you might now how elegant they are.
In Thailand the circumstances for the animals were much better, except for the stray dogs. And there, we had more than just one little gecko sitting at our wall and eating away flies and mosquito. Some of you won’t like those little fellas, but I love them. They are not hurting me and their barks at night are cute. I even enjoyed to see a monitor lizard in his natural habitat. Those are moments that are precious to me. Equally precious was the visit of the elephant sanctuary. The big ones eating wood, caring for the small one, even though they were just mixed together. They are more social and caring for each other than some families. And the little one was always hungry, I still remember her very fondly as she tried to steal the mango from me, pushing her trunk all over my body. You can’t be angry at animals. I am not even angry at the small ant the landed on my body after a shower and stung me out of surprise. It hurt, yes, but it wasn’t her fault.
In Mexico we had a little lizard in our room, we called him Gary. Gary wandered through our room and we kept an eye on him, so we wouldn’t hurt him unintentionally. As he was getting nervous, Rob tried to catch him and failed, because he feared to crash the delicate Gary. In my childhood I had to catch several budgies, therefore I knew how to do it. Take a cloth and fold it maybe once, enough that you feel the small animal moving underneath. Throw it over the animal to blind it. Than, carefully pick it up and wrap the cloth around it and carry it to the place where you want it. Don’t squeeze the animal, just make sure you feel its movements. It took me two tries to catch Gary, but afterwards he was outside of our room and could hunt for food. In the same hotel the owners had a Chihuahua. Usually, this breed is aggressive, but this little one was well trained and we gave it some pets, enough to let her show up at our table at a restaurant and begging for food.
After our “grand tour” we came back to Germany and made two more trips around the country, one including a week in Denmark. The week there started with a gull, reaching for food on the street and being run over by a car. The gull and the driver only suffered from shock afterwards. More sea gulls were around the bridge, connecting the mainland of Denmark with the islands. Some were sitting on the railing of the bridge, withstanding the fierce wind, but most of them used the winds to stay afloat in the air.
In Denmark we met two dogs, both very friendly and crazy for pettings. The first dog was a small Shiba Inu and she didn’t want to leave us. The second dog was a black Labrador. We arrived quite late at the AirBnB and Rob was staring out his window after parking, confused what was moving there. Well, Echo, so the name, was already waiting for his pets. Of those he received a lot, enough to lay on his back the last day of our stay and demanding belly rubs. He got them. Very shy were the rabbits and the cat of this AirBnB.
In Trelleborg, where we visited the Viking museum, we met two small kittens, looking for food. One was bold enough to climb into our car. In the end I had to lure them away, so Rob wouldn’t crush them by leaving the parking lot.
Another animal, that made us laugh several times was the pheasant. I never have seen a pheasant in nature, but I was surprised, by how dumb and naïve they were behaving. Usually, animals are fleeing from humans and/or cars, this one was just taking a break on the way, looking at Littlefoot in a peculiar way and even raising one leg in comfort. Later on, we saw two other pheasants crossing highly frequented streets, both almost got run over by cars, one lost some of his tail feathers and the other almost. And each of them gave every driver a good shock.
For Rob and me, animals are part of our travels as much as people, history or the culture. Sometimes it surprises me how trusting animals are or how curious, even if they had a horrible past under care of humans. However, we always try to be careful with them.
Do you include animals in your travels? Do you even take your own pets with you? Let me know!
-Toni
TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF 