Happy Birthday Morgan — Love, Panther
I’ll go back, I promise. I’ll talk about the mortgage, and the car lease, and all the stuff. I’ll talk about my dog, my friends, and my family. Right now, though, I want to talk about my birthday.
We originally decided to leave the US on October 1 (my birthday). I wanted to start this year of existence as a new life altogether. Dave, though, asked a question I hadn’t considered: “Do you really want to be flying for 16 hours of your birthday, or do you want to already be there with a cocktail in your hand?”
Fair enough. We booked a flight for September 27th, a Wednesday, instead.
“What do you want to do for your birthday?” he inquired a couple days after our arrival.
“Why don’t we go to Spain?” I joked. Really, though, what else could I ask for?
I did want to see a cave. I love caves. Probably related to my childhood dream of being a paleontologist, now that I reflect on it.
We hop on the bus to Rincon de la Victoria. It’s the next town over, and the bus runs only about $7 for the both of us. I’d learned on my disastrous trip to the Bahamas to inform the bus driver of my destination for assistance in recognizing a stop I’ve never been to, so as we enter I tell her in Spanish that we’re going to the Cueva del Tesoro (“Treasure Cave”). She nods her understanding, then proceeds to drive right by the stop.
We hop off the bus and walk for a bit, but I’m feeling irritated. Dave flags down a cab, and we pay an exorbitant amount for a short ride up the hill (ok, it was more of a mountainy thing we wouldn’t have wanted to walk anyway).
The cave is more touristy than I’d expected, but cool nonetheless. I read all the signage on the way in as Dave forges ahead, bored with the signs that consist mostly of long paragraphs about cave art and the geologic history of the area. The cave’s significant because it’s one of only a handful carved by the ocean, and the only one in Europe.
We descend the stone stairs and arrive in a breathtaking cavern that anachronistically has both the original stairs cut into the side of the rock as well as a glass elevator. The path throughout the cave reveals otherworldly stone formations; some feel like we’re inside a dinosaur skeleton. One area of the cave opens to an eerie underground lake, the natural “floor” slick and wet with stalagtites-to-be. It’s amazing they allow people to just walk around in there — seems like such a liability, says my American mind.
After absorbing the beauty of the cave, we re-emerge into shocking daylight. We stroll toward the property’s exit, but I notice a mountainside park in the other direction that promises a lovely view.
“Let’s check it out,” I suggest, hoping for a nice picture.
As we enter the park, the dirt path forks. We face each other, and as I’m about to ask which way we should explore, I notice an animal on the hillside behind Dave’s shoulder.
“Oh look!” I exclaim, “There’s a bobcat, or a mountain lion or something. What is that?” My knowledge of big cats is lacking. Dave turns.
“That,” he says, slowly and evenly. “Is a panther. We should go. Something is wrong if it’s out in the daytime.”
The panther prowls slowly down the hillside, then disappears into the bushes a few hundred feet from us.
“I want a better look,” I press. “Let’s go up this path and see where it went.” This makes Dave extremely uncomfortable, and he picks up two large rocks, presumably to throw at the panther if it attacks. He thinks this is unwise. Very, very unwise.
We don’t see the panther again, but I note that the bushes it disappeared into lie only a few feet from a park where some little kids are having a birthday party. Entering the kids’ park, we search for the panther in the bushes again, this time with a fence between us and the panther.
“Oh no, there’s another one,” I whisper as I jump back from the fence. It turns out to be a regular household tabby. Still, I feel unnerved enough to suggest we leave.
“We have to tell the lady in the cave. We have to let someone know,” I assert, searching Google for the translation for “panther”. It’s pantera. Who knew?
In basic Spanish, I tell the woman we saw a panther in the park.
“En serio?” she asks, with a slight smile on her face. They must be joking, she’s thinking.
“Si, en serio,” the reply that we’re serious taking the smile off her face.
“Un lobo?” she questions. No, not a wolf. “Un perro?” Nope, not a dog. “Un zorro?” NO, lady, it wasn’t a fox.
“Un gato negro, muy grande!” insists Dave, arms wide to emphasize its size. I show her a picture of a panther on my phone, just to clarify. I regret not having taken a picture of the panther immediately upon seeing it.
“Should I call the police?” she inquires in Spanish. We shrug. “I don’t know what you should do, but there are kids playing in the park very close to it,” is our unsure answer.
A police car passes us on our walk down the mountain. Dave googles panthers in southern Spain, and it seems like only one had been spotted, in 2013. When I initially saw the cat, I’d just assumed that was a normal animal in the area, but apparently not at all.
We relay the encounter our cab driver (again in Spanish) on the way back home. He asks all the same questions: was it a dog, a wolf, a whatever, and we assure him, exasperated, that it was in fact a panther. He says something to the effect of, “I’d normally say it escaped from the circus, except there isn’t a circus around here right now.”
It starts to sink in for me how strange this sighting was.
Our friend here in Spain, Brenda, told us later that many people here keep exotic pets. When the pets become too large, the people just release them into the wild. This, according to Dave, makes sense. The panther’s size indicated its age as probably adolescent, and its prowling during the day could indicate that it hadn’t learned to hunt properly.
Oh, and we’ve checked the news since — nobody has reported the panther. It seems to exist only in this post, and in our memories.
Now, how do I beat this for next year’s birthday?
