Dame más Javelina!!

Kurzer deutscher Einschub am Anfang: Bei den Fotos ist wieder ein Quiz versteckt. Viel Glück den Cineasten unter Euch!

It’s time for another blog post in English, we haven’t kept up to our promise to put some every once in a while. Sorry about that first of all.

So this one deals with animals. Not that we have seen many, which is why this entry might be the most boring one to read for everybody, but I still wanted to write sth about the smaller and the bigger creatures that we’ve encountered or at least could have done so.

Now, start with the little ones I guess. Maiken was a little terrified that spiders might cross our ways. When we went to Patagonia (Patagonia in Arizona, NOT in Chile/Argentina) there was a lot of information about the tarantulas that live there right at the lake we stayed at. Well, to disappoint you right away, we didn’t see one. A little later we found out why. Being in Arizona people told us that those huge spiders (who are not any more harmful to humans than honey bees, by the way) wouldn’t come out before June. What we saw though were coyotes along the way. At the campground in Arizona we’ve mentioned before on this blog (Twin Buttes) they would actually come right onto the site at night. We heard a bunch of them howling at different times during the night which made it a little more adventurous using the bathroom for which we had to walk about 100 meters. During the night, though, we never encountered a single one of them. They are supposed to stay away from humans as much as they can. They must have learned the same lessons about Americans as we did: They carry weapons and are not hesitative in using them. The greatest fear we had to face concerning animals was in Big Bend National Park in western Texas, though. When we arrived on our campsite there was a large group of javelinas. In case the internet connection allows (it goes on and off, so probably not) you will see a picture of these animals who look similar to wild pigs, very thin ones, though. They do have teeth that scare away the mountain lions that live in the area. They are not aggressive at all. Living in a National Park, though, they totally lost their fear of humans, so they would come very close looking for food and eating the grass just in front of our bus. The two animals we were afraid of in the first place were mountain lions and bears. There are no grizzly bears in Big Bend but black bears. People do see them quite often walking the trails. In the beginning we were super nervous about bears. Every campsite had a food storage box to prevent bears from coming to the sites. There were signs everywhere telling you what to do if you encounter a bear. Those were quite the opposite of the response we had imagined to be the best. That would have been: Dig down, don’t let that monster see you, be quiet, back up, run as fast as you can. Well, here’s what the advice said: Make yourself as big as possible, make as much noise as you can, attack the beast by throwing stones and other stuff you find (small animals, a shoe, Maiken…), never run and… fight them if they attack! I don’t know if any of the readers has experience in fighting bears, but without any further knowledge I would see myself as the underdog. We wiped every last proof of what had been food off the tables, we even put our tooth paste into the food storage box because it might be an odor bears find interesting. I accompanied Maiken on her way to the bathroom at night (yes, I know, like I would fight the bear!) We felt like literally being thrown into the bear cage in a zoo.

Mountain lions on the other hand are rarely spotted since they match the color of the golden brown grass and are very secretive. Every trail you walk in the park is within the area of one mountain lion, they have clear cut borders. Well, for people who are used to those animals, even Americans living in the cities in these regions, it is normal living with these predators. For me the most dangerous cat I had met before was Max, a pet that lived with my parents and me and was a little too enthusiastic about playing the rope game. It was quite a task relying on the fact that we’re not really on the menu since both of us, which is Maiken and I, look fairly different to a deer or a baby javelina (this is even truer for Maiken). We did take a tour in which a ranger gave some information and experience about both, bears and mountain lions. So after this tour we were finally able to enjoy the landscape knowing that the animals are strong enough to kill us, but they are just not in the mood.

Oh, the other dangerous animals we met on our way were dogs, as some of those might have guessed who have known us for a while. While Los Angeles might be the runner-up in quite a few disciplines (runner-up to Ciudad de Mexico as biggest Mexican City, runner-up to Bombay in movies produced per year, runner-up to New York as being the biggest city in the US…) I am almost positive that L.A. is the number one city in the world in the ratio Human Being – Staffordshire Terrier/American Pitbull Terrier. I have never seen so many unleashed killing machines at a time as we encountered on a half-hour walking tour up a hill in L.A. What should have been a loop tour found an abrupt ending right before reaching the top as some of the most beautiful pets had started staring us down, so we followed their views and returned to the safe haven of Santa Monica Blvd. The wild traffic with its massive air pollution scares away the dogs, and so we went, coughing but safe.

Some pictures of Big Bend National Park in the eastern part of Texas follow, it's definitely worth a visit for everybody coming towards this area of the US, even though it's a little off track (no matter what the track is, it will be off :-)

Greta encounters her first Javelina

The grass around our bus tastes better

Oh, yes, I would have fought, I was ready to chase them down if they had made the mistakes of crouching, making themselves small and running away from us. There's no escape...

Food storage box, gives safety to foods like Greta

Booooring, by now we know what to do

Yeah, whatever

Our new adventure is bird watching

Swamp near the Rio Grande

Mexican plateau

From front to back: Maiken, Canyon, Mexico

Advertising for TWIN BUTTES RV Park

Our shower, sorry for the hairy picture

And here is the next chance to win a postcard from a country you want: Question: A look alike mountain is part of which movie? If more than one person knows it, it will not be the fastest to win, but the one who knows the name of this particular mountain in the film. If no one knows it will be the first to answer that wins. Und noch einmal auf Deutsch, um Chancengleichheit herzustellen: Hier versteckt sich das heutige Quiz: Aus welchem Film kommt Euch der Berg/Hügel bekannt vor? Wenn es mehrere wissen sollten, gewinnt nicht der Schnellste, sondern derjenige, der auch noch den Berg benennen kann. Sollte das keiner können, gewinnt natürlich doch der Schnellste. Es geht mal wieder um eine Postkarte aus einem Land Eurer Wahl (falls jemandem kreativere Einfälle kommen, was unsere Gewinne angeht (Kosten dürfen nicht höher als Postkarte sein;-), bitte auch schreiben).

Rio Grande in the Canyon, left hand United States of Mexico, right hand United States of America

Same same, but different

same same

couldn't get enough of it

In support of Ireland, they have such a bad reputation these days

Now this is a very special picture: It shows the Rio Grande in a canyon, on the left side is Mexico, on the right side is the USA. I think we only have one picture of this peculiar site ;-)

Blossom in the desert

In search of animals to hunt down

Sunset on a rock

The Window

Same Window, a little later

High Technology

Bambi

Rio Grande again

And some more of it

Another cactus

Guess which river, the winner gets ... nothing at all