by FERENC IVANICS
Night or day, day or night. I’m wondering about which one to start with... Heads: I’m going to tell you about our encounters during the days.
We have met kind and helpful people in America but in Europe and Africa as well. They are the people who can definitely make your day. A week ago we were walking through Morgan City when, totally unexpectedly, a car pulled off the road and stopped in front of us. The driver—a man in his thirties—got out of the car and started to ask us questions with real interest. When we gave him every information he was interested in he invited us for a meal then offered his flat for us to stay there for the night. He left that night to New Orleans, leaving his flat to us: to eat, drink, watch a DVD, anything like that. We took a shower, watched a movie and slept through the night. Thank you, Pete!
A few days ago we were heading to Lafayette. We were practically broke; we still haven’t been able to reach our last hundred bucks on our bank account due to an unknown reason. We were walking in silence, didn’t really feel like chatting around... In a crossing a white pickup stopped by and the usual process started: questions and answers. And a moment later Mike Sutton said that he really would like to help our cause, then handed over a hundred dollar bill to my brother, István. Just what the doctor ordered. :) Thank you!
A couple of days later we didn’t manage to find a place to camp on. There was a small spot but it was quite muddy. An older lady stepped to us, she was on her way home from shopping. She offered her spacious, grassy yard laced with old oak trees. And next morning she invited us to have a breakfast with her in the house. Eleanor Guidroz, thank you!
There were others who invited us, let us a dry spot to put up our tents on, gave us money, food or drinks. These are the real days for us. Open, warm-hearted people willing to help.
But we have nights as well. It happened a week or two ago. We were walking above the Louisiana swamps on the road number 90, it was dusk already, we were walking fast to reach the next truck shop before night falls. We got there: and we saw a gas station, a parking lot, sugar canes and swamp. There was a small grassy spot at one corner of the parking. We went into the shop and asked the chief to call the boss for permission for us to stay and camp there. He didn’t allow to camp there but to stay in the drivers restroom. We found there two armchairs large enough to sleep on and a TV-set. All right, more than enough. Tired, we were just getting ready to turn in when they changed shifts in the gas station. The new security guard asked us who we were then called the owner of the station who told him to throw us out. So, 1AM we went on to search for another spot in the wild.
The day before yesterday a powerful storm was closing on us. In the very last moment we spotted a semi-open garage-like building. We knocked on the door and a friendly African American woman opened, with her husband in the background. They let us stay there with the roof above our heads. But the rain poured and poured, so we had to asked them to let us put up our tents. They gave permission without hesitation. Yay! We didn’t have to spend an hour in pouring rain finding another spot. The tent of my brother was already up when an older woman appeared stating that she is the owner of the property and: get out! No explanations accepted, no newspaper articles resulted to be convincing enough, she didn’t listen to us but called the cops. They weren’t hostile but didn’t really try to help either, told us to find a church nearby.
So, we marched on to find the church in a rainy, dark night. It was a huge one with a great green yard around it, and with a numerous herd present at that late hour. When the old ladies saw us approaching they took shelter behind the large glass gates of the church and stared at us from inside. Finally a man who looked like a janitor approached us, and a few minutes later the ladies dared to open the gates. We told them our story but they rejected our request. We asked them to call the preacher, but they refused to call him, apparently scared almost to death. Poor souls... And poor us...
We’ve been rejected many times before, it’s common that people do not want to listen to us asking for help. The real nights are like that. People who are scared, aloof or just plain selfish. Day and night, this is the reality of this world. It’s unavoidable. We try to survive the nights and hope to see the next sunrise.
by FERENC IVANICS
After leaving New Orleans we definitely arrived to the largest swampland we have ever seen. We are talking about highly “uncultivated”, living swamps. There live gators, nutrias, armadillos, snakes, birds and mosquitoes in there. Mostly mosquitoes.
So there’s plenty of wetland, with a few dry spots. We try to get organized and usually ask for information about the next service area or the closest dry land by the road. Of course, to be able to put up our tents. During the last days we had to decide various times to stay on a safe spot and lose 4 or 5 hours of the day or to go on to the next bridge and see what we would find.
Usually we go on and usually that means a walk a few hours longer than planned. Spending the night on a motorway-like elevated road above the swamp/jungle is not a good idea. So far we have had luck, we managed to reach the safe spots before sundown. Except the night before yesterday, when we had to walk late into the night.
These forests rooting in the water practically seem endless. But these forests are interrupted by many rivers. Quite often the surface of these rivers is covered by thick vegetation. You wouldn’t guess that there’s a river there. The grass tufts make the illusion even more perfect. It looks like you can walk on it (I bet there was others who tried by mistake) but you can’t.
These are uninhabited territories and unwalked paths. Sometimes we see dry forests as well, but we cannot trust them. And even if we trusted them, I guess we would need tons of pesticides and dead sharp machetes and/or flamethrowers to be able to move on. But anyways, they are nice and please the eye.
After leaving New Orleans we definitely arrived to the largest swampland we have ever seen. We are talking about highly “uncultivated”, living swamps. There live gators, nutrias, armadillos, snakes, birds and mosquitoes in there. Mostly mosquitoes.
So there’s plenty of wetland, with a few dry spots. We try to get organized and usually ask for information about the next service area or the closest dry land by the road. Of course, to be able to put up our tents. During the last days we had to decide various times to stay on a safe spot and lose 4 or 5 hours of the day or to go on to the next bridge and see what we would find.
Usually we go on and usually that means a walk a few hours longer than planned. Spending the night on a motorway-like elevated road above the swamp/jungle is not a good idea. So far we have had luck, we managed to reach the safe spots before sundown. Except the night before yesterday, when we had to walk late into the night.
These forests rooting in the water practically seem endless. But these forests are interrupted by many rivers. Quite often the surface of these rivers is covered by thick vegetation. You wouldn’t guess that there’s a river there. The grass tufts make the illusion even more perfect. It looks like you can walk on it (I bet there was others who tried by mistake) but you can’t.
These are uninhabited territories and unwalked paths. Sometimes we see dry forests as well, but we cannot trust them. And even if we trusted them, I guess we would need tons of pesticides and dead sharp machetes and/or flamethrowers to be able to move on. But anyways, they are nice and please the eye.
by FERENC IVANICS
I know, I know, our mission is about friendship and brotherhood... about people, but we spend definitely more time with nature than with other people; so we can’t ignore it, that’s why I’m going to write about nature of Southern USA this time.
When I try to recall the dangers we faced when going on excursion in Vojvodina or in Hungary I cannot think of something nastier than ticks. Stray dogs, rabid foxes, hogs or lightnings maybe. But apart from the tick-threat the chance to meet these threats is fairly low. To use these instruments to commit a suicide would probably require years of trying it deliberately. And if you take the tick problem seriously you can always use a chemical spray to keep them—ant the diseases they spread—away. We’re used to all these threats. I can go out to the forests near Palić and sleep under the stars anytime.
Well, it’s quite different here. The most frightful is the weather: electric storms, tornadoes, hurricanes... Electric storms are the most common phenomena, we see them various times a week. We have developed quite a sense of predicting their path. And when contact is unavoidable we try to hide from them. It’s quite annoying to get soaked in minutes when a storm arrives. But what’s really scary is the amount of lightnings an electric storm produces in the southern part of the USA. It’s a risk you have to take seriously. We haven’t seen tornadoes yet, but wild, surging storm clouds, the cradle of real tornadoes. This wild and highly unpredictable weather always makes it more difficult to keep up with our road map.
Hurricane season lasts here from June to November. The highest chance to meet a hurricane is in August and September. I think most of you have heard about the hurricane Katrina and how hard it hit Mississippi and South-Louisiana. Walking along the Gulf Coast in Mississippi you see new houses everywhere. The ruins are cleared away but the foundations of the wrecked houses are still there. And nature suffered as well, not only because of the fierce winds, but the floods brought saltwater to the area and most plants are struggling to stay alive.
Robert, our host in NOLA took us on an exhausting trip in the surroundings and explained that it wasn’t the wind but the floods that took most lives in the city. We saw ruined and deserted neighborhoods, houses with X marks on them—telling details about the rescue crews’ findings. We hope not to experience anything like that on our trip.
Entering Louisiana we found ourselves in a huge swampland. One bridge follows another and it’s perfectly common to see a bridge that’s four miles long, and near New Orleans there’s a twenty-mile long bridge. Rain, humid and warm climate, and dense tropical forests provide ideal habitat for many animals. Some of them highly venomous. It’s not uncommon to see snakes run over by cars on the roadsides. Usually they are non-venomous but sometimes we see dangerous ones as well: mostly moccasin snakes, coral snakes, and rattlesnakes. Some spiders, like the brown recluse spider, have potent venom as well, they are not able to kill a man but definitely can inflict serious wounds.
So, we have to be alert, not taking our eyes off wild animals like snakes, insects and spiders. When we get home we’ll just lay down in a forest clearing and not think about fire ants and scorpions again for a while...
I know, I know, our mission is about friendship and brotherhood... about people, but we spend definitely more time with nature than with other people; so we can’t ignore it, that’s why I’m going to write about nature of Southern USA this time.
When I try to recall the dangers we faced when going on excursion in Vojvodina or in Hungary I cannot think of something nastier than ticks. Stray dogs, rabid foxes, hogs or lightnings maybe. But apart from the tick-threat the chance to meet these threats is fairly low. To use these instruments to commit a suicide would probably require years of trying it deliberately. And if you take the tick problem seriously you can always use a chemical spray to keep them—ant the diseases they spread—away. We’re used to all these threats. I can go out to the forests near Palić and sleep under the stars anytime.
Well, it’s quite different here. The most frightful is the weather: electric storms, tornadoes, hurricanes... Electric storms are the most common phenomena, we see them various times a week. We have developed quite a sense of predicting their path. And when contact is unavoidable we try to hide from them. It’s quite annoying to get soaked in minutes when a storm arrives. But what’s really scary is the amount of lightnings an electric storm produces in the southern part of the USA. It’s a risk you have to take seriously. We haven’t seen tornadoes yet, but wild, surging storm clouds, the cradle of real tornadoes. This wild and highly unpredictable weather always makes it more difficult to keep up with our road map.
Hurricane season lasts here from June to November. The highest chance to meet a hurricane is in August and September. I think most of you have heard about the hurricane Katrina and how hard it hit Mississippi and South-Louisiana. Walking along the Gulf Coast in Mississippi you see new houses everywhere. The ruins are cleared away but the foundations of the wrecked houses are still there. And nature suffered as well, not only because of the fierce winds, but the floods brought saltwater to the area and most plants are struggling to stay alive.
Robert, our host in NOLA took us on an exhausting trip in the surroundings and explained that it wasn’t the wind but the floods that took most lives in the city. We saw ruined and deserted neighborhoods, houses with X marks on them—telling details about the rescue crews’ findings. We hope not to experience anything like that on our trip.
Entering Louisiana we found ourselves in a huge swampland. One bridge follows another and it’s perfectly common to see a bridge that’s four miles long, and near New Orleans there’s a twenty-mile long bridge. Rain, humid and warm climate, and dense tropical forests provide ideal habitat for many animals. Some of them highly venomous. It’s not uncommon to see snakes run over by cars on the roadsides. Usually they are non-venomous but sometimes we see dangerous ones as well: mostly moccasin snakes, coral snakes, and rattlesnakes. Some spiders, like the brown recluse spider, have potent venom as well, they are not able to kill a man but definitely can inflict serious wounds.
So, we have to be alert, not taking our eyes off wild animals like snakes, insects and spiders. When we get home we’ll just lay down in a forest clearing and not think about fire ants and scorpions again for a while...
A fragment from a letter of Ferenc:
This mail is scary. Scary because it considers about abandoning the tour. Scary because it meditates about hunger. Scary because it’s about 400-500 dollars a month.
Let’s try to help them together. We started a new sponsorship plan. The Burger Plan.
Burger is one of the simplest forms of meal. It’s uniform, it can be purchased in gas stations, diners, canteens. It’s unexpensive: 1-1.5 bucks a piece. Let’s calculate with one for each of the brothers. Make it 2.5 dollars a day for them. It’s one meal, a skimpy one. We’d like to ask for one skimpy meal for WorldWalk a week. That’s 10 bucks a month. It’s not much. Doesn’t seem like much. But it would secure their survival. It would help them survive if that sum was there to plan with. Half a year, six months, six times 10 bucks. This is what we ask for. Please, participate in the Burger Plan.
The Burger Plan is a PayPal subscription. 10 dollars a month for six months (cancelable). There are seven days in a week, so we need seven burger sponsors. Seven sponsors a month. Not much. Doesn’t seem like much. But will there be seven sponsors among us? You can find the current status of the Burger Plan at the top-right corner of the blog, just below the miles counter. Seven burgers. The saturated ones are covered, the dimmed are to go. Click on a dimmed icon and you can invite the guys six burgers in six months.
Ouch! I have to write... I don’t feel like it at all. After our daily twenty-something miles I hardly have the strength to put up the tent. And after that I just hit the tent’s floor like a sack of potatoes. Nights are hot and suffocating, I bath in my own sweat. The scratches, the insect bites burn and ache like hell. I’m sleepy and I’m tired, I’d have to rest but I cannot get to sleep. The questions in my head don’t let me. Who will wake us in the middle of the night this time: the ranger or the sheriff? Today no one let us a private spot to stay for the night. So we sleep in a public park. The people around here are timid. There are still good folks who want to help, but more and more are and look scared. And even more when we ask them after sundown. They often say no. They don’t feel safe with us in their backyards.
But anyways, our major concern right now is different: what will we eat tomorrow? Our money is almost gone. We’re not allowed to work here, but even if we would be, there’s no time for that. We have to leave the States in about 45 days. Some 850 miles to go. We’ll walk tomorrow, that’s for sure, but our strength is almost used up.
Yesterday I sat down with my brother to talk about the future of the project. We chatted without tension. We remembered the most difficult stages of our walk. The starvation in the Africa... The last five months of hobo life in Spain. We don’t want to give up, but we have to decide soon. We would need a regular sponsorship. At least something that covers the food. 400-500 dollars a month. Without this kind of support it’s impossible.
This mail is scary. Scary because it considers about abandoning the tour. Scary because it meditates about hunger. Scary because it’s about 400-500 dollars a month.
Let’s try to help them together. We started a new sponsorship plan. The Burger Plan.
Burger is one of the simplest forms of meal. It’s uniform, it can be purchased in gas stations, diners, canteens. It’s unexpensive: 1-1.5 bucks a piece. Let’s calculate with one for each of the brothers. Make it 2.5 dollars a day for them. It’s one meal, a skimpy one. We’d like to ask for one skimpy meal for WorldWalk a week. That’s 10 bucks a month. It’s not much. Doesn’t seem like much. But it would secure their survival. It would help them survive if that sum was there to plan with. Half a year, six months, six times 10 bucks. This is what we ask for. Please, participate in the Burger Plan.
The Burger Plan is a PayPal subscription. 10 dollars a month for six months (cancelable). There are seven days in a week, so we need seven burger sponsors. Seven sponsors a month. Not much. Doesn’t seem like much. But will there be seven sponsors among us? You can find the current status of the Burger Plan at the top-right corner of the blog, just below the miles counter. Seven burgers. The saturated ones are covered, the dimmed are to go. Click on a dimmed icon and you can invite the guys six burgers in six months.
by FERENC IVANICS
Probably all of you know that we’re in a hurry. We follow a strict schedule. Our next major stop is New Orleans, we have to get there before the 9th of July. The U.S.A. stage has been converted into a big, unpleasing race against time. It has become most unbearable recently, we couldn’t help it, had to make a stop in Marianna. The small lake was right beside the road we were walking on. We spent half a day there but it was definitely worth it.
The water is surrounded by amazing jungles, where water meets forest there are dozens of cypress trees with their typical “knees”, which are air roots. Around these roots you see small turtles and colorful fish, it’s like a huge fish-bowl.
The water of the springs is collected in a lake, even though the spring-water is cold, it grows warmer in these shallow ponds. There’s a small dam that controls water flow, and the water of the lake is drained into a shooting stream. You have to be careful no to be dragged on by the stream, it can be dangerous.
So, half-a-day of pleasure. We become children again. I’ve seen our wrinkles growing and growing deeper, the pouches under our eyes getting heavier during these last days. Our morale has been on the slope as well due to the strained march and the cruel weather. I’ve been thinking about that it’s too much, that maybe our background supporters who help us get the message to you, well, maybe even they could not imagine that we are giving all that we can, that we’re living on the edge of insanity.
We needed that afternoon, needed it to wash away the burden and tension of the last few days, to prepare ourselves to the next days, which are not going to be any better than the previous ones. Probably not.
Probably all of you know that we’re in a hurry. We follow a strict schedule. Our next major stop is New Orleans, we have to get there before the 9th of July. The U.S.A. stage has been converted into a big, unpleasing race against time. It has become most unbearable recently, we couldn’t help it, had to make a stop in Marianna. The small lake was right beside the road we were walking on. We spent half a day there but it was definitely worth it.
The water is surrounded by amazing jungles, where water meets forest there are dozens of cypress trees with their typical “knees”, which are air roots. Around these roots you see small turtles and colorful fish, it’s like a huge fish-bowl.
The water of the springs is collected in a lake, even though the spring-water is cold, it grows warmer in these shallow ponds. There’s a small dam that controls water flow, and the water of the lake is drained into a shooting stream. You have to be careful no to be dragged on by the stream, it can be dangerous.
So, half-a-day of pleasure. We become children again. I’ve seen our wrinkles growing and growing deeper, the pouches under our eyes getting heavier during these last days. Our morale has been on the slope as well due to the strained march and the cruel weather. I’ve been thinking about that it’s too much, that maybe our background supporters who help us get the message to you, well, maybe even they could not imagine that we are giving all that we can, that we’re living on the edge of insanity.
We needed that afternoon, needed it to wash away the burden and tension of the last few days, to prepare ourselves to the next days, which are not going to be any better than the previous ones. Probably not.
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