First, you should realize that I'm not easily offended by odor. In fact, I'm quite used to slovenly shared accomodation. However, these guys have a absurd pungency about them that is not to be believed. I'm not exagerating when I tell you that I've been awakened from deep sleep just by the smell these guys entering the dorm! Nasty as this emanation is, it is also most curiously distinctive, much in the way that homeless people have a certain similar stench about them. I would describe it as a melange of sharp, stinky cheese, bad foot odor, and polyester material that harbors a cornucopia of bacteria. I've seen these guys shower but the stink appears completely undaunted. My theory is that it is a combination of a diet too high in beer, sausage and cheese; modern cycling fabrics with more color than breathability which are never properly washed; and a general lack of sensitivity to personal hygiene.

So, after a particularly odoriferous night in the hostel, I was enjoying the clean fresh air of the Swiss mountains along one of their fine hiking trails. Then I catch a whiff of the farm and hear the familiar clanging of bells, warning me that I'm about to come across some cows.

Anyone who rambles about the Swiss mountainside soon becomes well acquainted with the Swiss cows. The vast majority of the time they are no problem whatsoever. You simply need to watch out for their piles and try to tune out their noisy bells as you circle around the herd. However, every once in awhile I came across a situation where the topography of the trail forced me to meander through the middle of the herd. This was the situation I now faced and I'd had a few problems with this recently.

These cows are huge and most have large, nasty looking horns, and every once in awhile some wiseguy cow would try to give me a little shove. Nothing like a charge mind you, but even a little push from those horns is not a happy thought. Earlier in the day I am describing, I had a sitution where I was wading through a herd while trying to decypher a crude map. I wasn't paying attention and one of these wiseguy cows came up behind me and almost caught me with a horn!

So, now that I'm coming down off a mountain and faced with a new herd I'm feeling a bit spooked and quickly determine to circumvent them. It was a foolish idea from the start. In retrospect I should have realized that this was the type of area where if it was possible to run a trail down the mountain, people would have done it centuries ago! I was thinking like a New Worlder who is too used to bushwacking.

Of course, the way get more and more difficult, and the brush gets higher and increasingly impenetrable. It's also impossibly steep. I fall several times, sliding down the slope on my butt. While wading through waist high grass I have a sudden flashback to that time in Turkey when I jumped into the snake pit. "Don't be ridiculous!" I tell myself. "This is Switzerland, not Turkey, and they don't have snakes here."

And then, as only fate can manage, I almost fall directly atop a snake. Fortunately, I didn't find out until much later that it was definitely poisonous. My expectations as to what kind of trouble I could get myself into around here were dramatically shifted though. I would have turned around and gone back up the mountain at this point, despite the great effort that would have taken, had I thought this was at all possible. However, I didn't think I could manage it after all that sliding!

So, on and on I went, through the thickest brush, crossing streams and small canyons. Finally, I come across a farm house and eventually a road. At this point I'm thinking I'd escaped with a minor escapade. Later on though, some scratches on my hand swell up two of my fingers to twice their normal size. And it itches like hell!! Honestly, I believe I would have had these fingers removed to stop the itching had the option been available to me. At first I'm thinking the itching was caused by some plant, but two local experts tell me that nothing that grows in the area could have done this. One local guy is convinced that snake partially got me.

I wasn't done with the cows yet on this hike though! I had to cut through one more valley and once again found myself faced with a cow gauntlet. After that crazy bushwack there was no way I was going around them either. So, I actually made an announcement to the herd: "Don't even think of messing with me cows, because I've had more than enough from you guys already today!" And this time -- no shoving, not even a warning moo; just cows eating the grass, chewing the cud, doing the cow thing.