The first thing we noticed when Alanis Cornucopia emerged out of the Dubrovnik Ruđer Bošković Airport was her limp. She had taken a flight to Croatia after attending an oncology convention in Madrid, and waiting for her at the arrival gate were me, Jaimz, and Oxali. The three of us flew from Manila to Croatia because we decided to skip any learning activity and go straight to having fun.

                  Earlier, while we were on our layover in Dubai, Alanis sent us a Viber message announcing that she had just injured her knee and that she would explain everything in person. This cliffhanger only served to pique our interest, forcing us to come up with theories, which ranged from she tripped on the pavement while chasing pigeons in Plaza Mayor, to she twisted her ankle while dancing the flamenco in Puerta del Sol. One of my theories was that she must have fallen into a manhole while running after a deluxe creature on Pokemon Go. Oxali explained that something similar had, in fact, already happened to Alanis Cornucopia months ago when they were hunting for rugs in the street markets of Cappadocia and Alanis suddenly vanished into thin air. Only when Oxali heard muffled whimpering did she realize that Alanis had fallen into a store’s trapdoor. A flustered Alanis had to be assisted by locals in climbing up the ladder, but no serious injuries were reported. They were able to complete the Cappadocia trip without further incident.    

                  “Everything happened so fast,” Alanis Cornucopia gushed as we dragged our luggage on the limestone floor of Old Town Dubrovnik. She narrated that she was just taking a shower in her hotel room in Madrid, and before she knew it she was sitting on the wet floor with a very sore right knee. She couldn’t recall if she slipped, or if she lost her balance as she contorted herself to reach for a towel. I asked if she grabbed the shower curtain and ripped off the curtain hooks one by one as she fell, but she said that no such reenactment of Psycho happened. The whole thing seemed fuzzy in her brain, which made her think that she had also bumped her head.

The walk to our Airbnb was about a kilometer from the entrance of Old Town Dubrovnik, but Alanis Cornucopia was able to catch up with all the walking. We suspected, though, that she was surveying every store on the street in search of a pharmacy, a clinic, or an MRI Center. Our room was located on the third floor of a quaint stone apartment. There was no elevator or luggage ramp, so we dragged our suitcases up three flights of stairs. This task initially seemed impossible for Alanis and we were ready to lift her on a make-shift stretcher. That  wouldn’t be necessary, she said, because she had made a discovery: that if she walks in reverse, with her back turned towards the direction of her walk, the pain becomes more tolerable. It took her some time, but she made it to the third floor eventually.

“Easy peasy,” she said, even as she was rummaging her bag for a Salonpas.

Soon enough Alanis Cornucopia became used to walking in reverse, and we had to explain this to the tour guide who was watching her with confusion during the Game of Thrones walking tour. Even as Alanis Cornucopia was reenacting Cersei’s Walk of Shame on the Jesuit Staircase she was walking like she was in a video on rewind. Beside her I happily took on the role of the cold nun Septa Unella, rhythmically chanting to Alanis Cornucopia’s ear: “Shame. Shame. Shame!”

The disadvantage of walking this way, obviously, was that she couldn’t fully see where she was going unless she could twist her neck a full 180 degrees like a possessed Linda Blair. The setting for injury was endless. She could step on a rusty nail or worse, fall backwards from a medieval watchtower and plummet straight into the Adriatic Sea. I told her that things would be easier if she had a second face at the back of her head, like the main character in GMA 7’s soap opera, Kara Mia. In Kara Mia, Barbie Forteza (Kara) and Mika dela Cruz (Mia) are siblings who are stuck in one body. They are configured such that one head faces the front and one faces the back. All the other body parts are shared.

Kara and Mia frequently fight as siblings do. In one iconic scene they get into full on sampalan action while they are crossing an overpass, purportedly because Mia wants to meet up with their tikbalang father whom Kara abhors. Kara slaps Mia, essentially by slapping the back of her own head, Mia slaps Kara, by slapping the back of her own head, and so on, the hands taking turns slapping the front and back faces. This slapping contest is so intense that they stumble over the barrier of the overpass. They cry as they dangle from the edge of the bridge, their grip on the barrier loosening, while the people below take photos of them. Finally they can no longer hold on and they fall on the busy hi-way, until mystical vines and tendrils suddenly appear to grab and lift them back to safety. On the bridge is their shirtless father, who has been commanding these prehensile mystical vines. I was laughing my head off as I was telling this to Jaimz, Alanis, and Oxali, but they just stared at me blankly, not having seen or heard about the fabulous Kara Mia.

Injured or not, the endless walking in these leisurely tours reminded us of our advancing age. Jaimz organizes an international trip annually, and each passing year we feel more lethargic and more arthritic. And the transition to elderliness was quick: one moment we were enjoying hiking and temple runs, the following year all we wanted was an aircon and chairs. Still, we couldn’t let this opportunity to explore the Balkans pass. The plan was, from Dubrovnik we would go on a day trip in Bosnia, then move to the city of Split, go on another day trip to Slovenia, then ride the train back to Zagreb before heading back home. A lot of walking, a lot of joint pains, and we dealt with this through the heavy use of drugs.

Bonamine, ibuprofen, and paracetamol were particularly handy halfway through the tour when we took a speedboat from the Croatian coast in Split into a tiny fishing village that looked like something out of Mama Mia. As we straddled the narrow, vertical seat, one in front of another, I asked the tour guide how long the speedboat ride would be. It wasn’t a very comfortable position, and if the ride was 15 minutes or longer our groins would start to burn.

“Three hours!” the Slavic tour guide said cheerily as the boat started to speed up. “Don’t let go of those handles!”

Surprisingly, once the boat had accelerated to its maximum allowable speed and we could feel the salty wind slapping us on the face my dizziness turned to boredom and eventually, to sleepiness. The only thing that stopped me from sleeping was the idea of accidentally letting go of the handles, getting propelled into the air, and falling one kilometer away in the middle of the Mediterranean. For Alanis Cornucopia, the wind on her face felt therapeutic. It was a moment of gratitude, a moment of triumph. She had survived a traumatic event, and she was able to prove to herself that she could divest herself of all self-doubt and fear.

***

For the final leg of the tour we took a train from Split back to Zagreb, the capital city of Croatia. The dark sky looked pregnant when we arrived, like a heavy rainfall was waiting for us. On our way to the Airbnb the cab driver rattled off some mumbo-jumbo, trying to confuse us with Croatian Kuna and Euros conversion in an attempt to charge us ten times the fare. We made sumbong him to our Airbnb landlord, a huge imposing man who looked like he could break someone’s leg like a toothpick. He nagged the cab driver severely.

The following morning we went out at 6 am to join a tour group to visit Plitvice National Park. There were no people on the streets yet, and the sky still looked like it would drop an ocean at us at any given time. We walked for about a kilometer looking for the bus, missed a couple of turns, and got in late by two minutes.

“And finally, Team Philippines!” the tour guide, Gospodin Vlad, announced on the microphone as we looked for vacant seats. Everyone applauded. A couple rolled their eyes. They must be delighted to confirm the legend of the Filipino Time. Alanis Cornucopia found a vacant seat beside a chatty 7-footer guy, Stanislav. Half of her butt was able to sit down.

  I dozed off while in transit, and when we alighted from the bus I was still quite sleepy. I was hoping the park visit would involve sitting on a bench and tossing peanuts at squirrels, with zero walking.

“It will be a 7-kilometer hike!” Gospodin Vlad announced as he waved his tour guide flag. “So I highly encourage everyone to use the wash closets now.”

Whenever somebody uses the word “park” the image that  pops in my head is a small town plaza or Luneta. The Plitvice National Park is more like Mordor. The terrain is rugged, with a smattering of waterfalls, giant lakes, and Blair Witch forests here and there. Gospodin Vlad led around forty of us up the forested hillside through a rocky trail winding closely at the edge of a cliff. Before we knew it we were high enough that we could see the people below, those that had just entered the park, looking very small as they moved along the paths that we had already completed. Gospodin Vlad turned around and flashed a huge smile. He announced to us weary, thirsty followers that we had just made the 1.5 kilometer mark. Then the group resumed walking, like Israelites being led by Moses out of Egypt.

“Many nights, we pray,” I started to sing with hesitation. “With no proof anyone can hear…”

For some reason I expected somebody, anybody to continue the song, but nobody even recognized it so I shelved it in shame. Maybe I would try this Prince of Egypt gag again on the next group tour until somebody catches it.

“The trail’s a bit muddy!” Gospodin Vlad yelled. “Eyes on the trail everyone!”

I should be whining deep inside my heart, but the higher we climbed the more I started to shed off my sluggishness, the more adventure I craved, as if something had jumpstarted my general enthusiasm for things. Or maybe it was just fear of dying. I stopped using my phone lest I crash into a giant tree, step on an errant wolf’s tail, or walk off the cliff. Jaimz, who never seemed to run out of energy, was walking ahead of me answering referrals on his cellular phone. Behind me were Oxali and Alanis. As we trekked further upwards I was surprised at how much I was enjoying the feeling of getting exhausted, of my heart racing, of my hunger for food and air. I was rummaging through my bag for something to munch on when I suddenly heard Oxali’s bloodcurdling scream. “Dyusko Alanis!”

                  Jaimz and I turned around, my eyes almost popping out of their sockets when we saw Alanis dangling from the edge of a cliff. She was gripping a rock formation with one hand, her body swaying, her feet trying to latch on to something. Jaimz leaned over and grabbed her other hand, while I grabbed Jaimz by the waist. Alanis pressed her right foot against the mossy, rock wall, trying to get a stable foothold, and yelped in pain–her shoe had dropped on the ground and the sharp rocks dug into her foot. Below her people were screaming in panic. It would be a 15-foot drop on a bed of jagged rocks, high enough to cause a concussion, fractures, or internal bleeding depending on the area of maximum impact.

                  Stanislav, Alanis’ tall seatmate on the bus, ran to the spot where she might drop and raised his muscular arms, ready to catch her in case she could no longer hold on. Gospodin Vlad grabbed Alanis’ other hand. He instructed Alanis to push up with her right foot. Alanis was able to find a smoother ledge on the cliff face, allowing her aching foot to get better traction. Then, with a pull-up motion, Alanis lifted her body up over the ledge as she was yanked up by Jaimz and Gospodin Vlad. She crawled forward on her belly, groaning. Finally she was able to sit down on the ground and started sobbing.

                  Alanis grimaced in pain when she tried to stand up. She felt like her right ankle was broken. Stanislav brought her the Skechers she had dropped, and we would have found it extremely romantic if only we weren’t in terrible shock. A group of emergency medical personnel, led by a tall blonde woman, Anatollya Mae, arrived. The first thing she said when she saw us huddled together on the ground was a snooty, “Why are you even there? You’re not supposed to be there!”

                  Alanis rolled on a military stretcher and was lifted by four burly men. We started our walk back to where we entered the park, with Alanis blurting a “sorry!” every time the men had to lower the stretcher to rest. Alanis was then brought to the medical van, where Anatollya Mae asked her a series of questions that sounded like: “You can move it, right? I know it’s sore, but you can move it? Right?”

                  “Do you have something that I can take for the pain?” Alanis asked her.

                  Anatollya looked at me, Jaimz, and Oxali. “Do you have something she can take? Like a pain reliever.”

                  I rummaged through my portable drugstore and of course I had an assortment of paracetamol, ibuprofen, etoricoxib, tramadol, and prednisone. And one piece of morphine that I always reserve for a patient with severe cancer pain.

                  “I’ll have an etoricoxib, please,” Alanis said.

                  Anatollya Mae wrapped her ankle in bandage and explained that she would email us the accomplished insurance forms. Alanis swiped her credit card on Anatollya’s payment terminal. I took a mental note to never forget getting a travel insurance.

                  Back at our Airbnb, when we had all regained composure and could evaluate the traumatic event with calmness, we asked the primary witness, Oxali, what led to Alanis Cornucopia going all King Mufasa minus the stampeding wildebeest. We sat around the dinner table, munching on all types of stress snacks, regaining all the calories we had lost from walking in the past two weeks. Oxali recounted the facts: Alanis was walking in reverse as we were climbing up the trail. She saw that one section along the cliff had a wooden safety railing and held on to it to guide her walk. She continued to walk in reverse holding on to this railing, but she lost her balance when the railing abruptly ended and she had nothing to grab. This led to her stumbling backwards and skidding straight into the edge of the cliff. Alanis nodded that yes, that was it, as she stashed her mouth with Jack N’ Jill potato chips.

                  Jaimz and I couldn’t imagine it in our heads, so we stood up and asked if we got it right.

                  “Okay, so I’m Alanis Cornucopia,” I said as I slowly walked backwards, grabbing an imaginary wooden barrier with my left hand. “So walk, walk, walk…”

                  After a few attempts of this reverse-demonstration Oxali said that I finally got it right, leaving her trembling from PTSD.

*** 

                  Oxali, Jaimz, and I took turns pushing Alanis Cornucopia’s wheelchair at the Franjo Tudman Airport. The departure area was particularly busy, and then we realized that we could skip some of the lines because we were with someone in a wheelchair.

                  Now that Alanis Cornucopia was nursing two injuries we became particularly paranoid and overcautious. I, for one, was concerned that the wheelchair would bump against an even surface, lurch forward, topple Alanis Cornucopia on the ground, and cause a wrist fracture as she falls with an outstretched hand. None of that happened, but Alanis got tinnitus from our constant inquiry if she was okay, if she was comfortable, does she want to visit the souvenir shops, does she want to pee before boarding, etc.

                  While waiting for our gates to open we stopped talking to each other and focused all our attention on our electronic devices. Oxali gave chemotherapy instructions via Viber to her staff in Iligan City. Jaimz logged in on the meeting of the research organization where he works as a clinical trial coordinator. I replied to some of my patients’ queries. Alanis Cornucopia resumed doing her lecture on targeted therapy. We never really stopped doing these throughout the trip, but as in all our previous trips the lull at the airport had become the official transitory period back to real life.

                  In the midst of doing her lecture Alanis Cornucopia searched online for a mobility scooter, and we could already imagine her driving it as she went from room to room during hospital rounds. We advised her, rather severely, to not rush back to work. She had survived two traumatic events in one trip, but we knew that the real challenge was waiting for her back home–the diagnostic tests, the doctors’ consults, the potential surgery, the work of handing over all her patients to another doctor. The rehabilitation. And most importantly, the emotional recovery.

                  The ground staff announced that it was our turn to board. As Oxali pushed Alanis Cornucopia she asked if I could write about this in the future.

                  “Don’t mind if I do,” I said, shuddering as images of her holding on to the edge of the cliff flashed back in my mind. I told them that I needed to correct my earlier statement that having a face at the back of her head would have prevented accidents, because even Kara and Mia fell off the bridge, although it can be argued that they had brought it upon themselves. Their real advantage was not the two faces, but the magical vines commandeered by the shirtless otherworldly creature.

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