We parked the van in the middle of the campground amongst the middle-aged trees and we spread our accoutrements of hippy travel on the unkept grass and weeds. We ate communally whatever we had, which was not much, and we did not require much, and mostly cooked pasta with butter, and had bread with jam or bits of cheese. We soon discovered we were parked adjacent to a locally famous spot of oddball spas and, through the woods, a beerhall unlike anything in American experience. We walked slightly to the northwest -- I could just feel the direction -- and we came within view of the mighty Blue Danube. It did not look blue to me. It looked like mud and the landscape was very flat and in the river we saw scores of people standing in bathing trunks, men and women, with few to no children.

The people were spread out along the riverbank and in the water like people in a painting by Seurat, but much less colorful, more in black and white, and with the same subdued detachment of interaction between the subjects as often exhibited by the painter. Here, the river mud was the main attractant and the mud was seen as a bountiful exhilarant, a treatment for whatever ailed you. The Romanians, and whoever else was allowed to vacation here from across the land behind the Iron Curtain, spread the river mud -- mined from the banks and the river bottom by their own hands -- spread the goopy mud across their arms and legs, torsos, and faces. They looked like hell, like something I would see rolling in the barnyard, and it stank to hell, like who knew what hell-hold runoff was contained within the sediments, but we were a culturally affluent group and accepted what we witnessed as a way of life, as a truth. So, of course, we mudded up too. I felt the drying mud pull the lines out of my face, and I took a cold shower in the small shower stall along the river where the drain led right back to the source.

Cleaned and refreshed, but not having made any contact with the reserved, quiet people, we returned to the van to dress for the evening. As darkness fell, we could see some lights down along the river and heard a light din of activity. As a group, we walked through the woods on a well-established dirt path and came upon the beerhall. The beerhall was like a high-ceilinged pole barn but all closed in and with a concrete floor and high, hanging lights. Lines of heavy picnic tables ran in rows across the floor except the center square which was open for dancing. A couple dancing couples were mauling each other in a staggering shuffle of relief and dissipation. Drinking was in full swing when we entered and maybe some people had food like sausages but mostly it was large tankards of lager-like beer and cigarette smoke. As we walked across the floor and our presence registered with the attendees, the noise of the hall abated steadily, and people turned to stare at us and whispered to each other. We found an open spot at a big table and the waitress brought us beer and we attempted to engage our closest neighbors, but interest in us was, at this point, limited to just looking at us, not in talking to us.

By the third beer, things had loosened up just enough and we were trading cigarettes. The smoke in the hall was as thick and white as steam from a locomotive. No wonder the ceilings were so high. A girl approached us but was pulled away by her arms by a man trying to stop her. She got away and he turned back to his friends as she asked a cigarette from Robert, the Canadian. She was blithe and attractive and dark-haired, but her teeth held just enough decay to be disqualifying, and I perceived a fierceness and wildness that would come back to haunt anyone attempting to tame her. I sensed danger and fatalism and I quietly talked our group into leaving the hall and it seemed late.

We were walking back to the campground along the dark, sandy footpath which led through the trees and heavy bushes when suddenly she was behind us, calling out to us to wait for her. We turned to see her, silhouetted by the dim lights of the beerhall in the background, running towards us followed by a group of locals -- her friends, lovers, seekers, or controllers, we did not know. They pulled her back and she fell to the ground and she was appealing to us for help and she was half drunk and half high, and so were we, so we stepped her way and shouted at them in two or three languages and the men dropped back and let her up and she ran to be with us. Who knows what images they held in their heads about us? For certain, we did not think of ourselves as particularly aggressive, or fearsome, having spent the last month on an isolated Greek beach eating omelets in the village and embargoed peaches on the beach, the peaches so cheap because of the European embargo against Greek products punishing the Juanta in control in Athens. We may have benefited from the common myths about America; that we were survivors from a land inhabited by gunslingers, and mafia types, and killers of all stripes and colors, and so maybe they should not attack. But no. They were coming for us.

As if by a trickery of light, the man from the car, the spy, our unrequested government escort, whom we had not seen since we pulled into the campground, stepped from behind a bush and interceded between the girl and our northern most flank and the rest of the trailing crowd. He held his hand up like a traffic cop and the girl stopped in her tracks and the drinking guys fell silent and the spy said a few words and there was no doubt the authority he had over them was absolute and permanent and quieting.

Then he turned to us and said in a halting, broken English, to continue on to our camp and don’t come back here as he would not be able to protect us if we did.

The rest of the night, the beerhall raged, and we slept under the stars and in one or two tents, and in a hammock, and in the morning the sun was pink over the Danube.

Next week: drinking cognac with the mayor and our dissolution.