Varanasi is half Hindu, half Muslim. There's rarely meat on any restaurant menus and, if there is, there's definitely no beef or pork. Cows are sacred for Hindus, and the Muslims think pigs are just plain icky or evil, or something.



Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.

Vincent: But porkchops taste good. Bacon tastes good.



While walking home from a late vegetarian dinner last night, we passed a cute milk cow resting in a narrow alley -- a very common sight in a city pretending to be a farm -- and Krista exclaims, "What I wouldn't give for a nice juicy steak!"

She immediately followed her statement with, "Oh crap. I just know I'm going to pay for that!"

I thought the same thing: here we're in one of the holiest Hindu cities and she's blaspheming cattle.

Not more than twenty seconds later, we see a herd of them at the bottom of a small stone staircase we are descending. I hear a heavy clop, clop-clop coming ahead of us out of the darkness. I jump safely to a ledge at the top of the staircase, but Krista is still in the middle of the stairs.



A few months back, while she was stalking Lance Armstrong in rural France, I would come home around 7:30 AM from my nightshift, pour myself a bowl of Cocoaroos with skim milk, and tune in to the Outdoor Life Network. I was interested in the Tour, but I really wanted to catch a glimpse of Krista going crazy as her idol passed by. Sadly,I never saw her and the broadcast would always end with the winner donning the prized yellow jersey.

My prize, rather, my consolation, was a bowl half full of chocolate milk and the next program: Outdoor Life Network Presents -- The Running of the Bulls. Cheering with glee, I'd drink my chocolate milk sans spoon and later pour myself another bowl of hard, corn puffed, cocoa infused, sweetened cereal.

"Ooooooo, that's another drunken Dutchman gored and trampled by overgrown pit bulls with horns!" announces, Rodrigo Cuervo, OLN's guest host.

Near the end of the show, Dana Sparrow, the 1982 Olympic Biathlon Bronze Medallist and OLN's newest host of Let's Skeet Shoot! would visit the victim in the hospital. The camera would show a man all wrapped up in gauze with fresh blood seeping through.

"Would you run with the bulls again?" Ms. Sparrow would inevitably ask.

"Yes, yes," the mangled mummy would respond in a speech slurred by narcotic painkillers, "I plan on coming back next year."

Then, I'd get up from the couch and go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and inspect my shredded upper palate -- the war wounds of a Cap'n Crunch, or in today's case, a Cocoaroos meal.



With Krista now midway on the staircase, I am suddenly transported back to Pamplona, Spain. I've always wanted to be here. My brain presents a rapid slideshow of lacerations and head wounds, surreal interviews with Dana Sparrow.

The bull charges up the stairs. I close my eyes. Krista spins the karmic wheel.

"Whoa -- Geezus!" Krista yells.

The bull clops heavily on by and I open my eyes to see Krista pinning herself sideways against a cement wall. She's smiling.

Her pants are smeared with dung and mud, but I don't see any blood, no shredded clothes either. She is conscious...and smiling...like a victorious matador on the streets of...

Varanasi, India.