Mr. Jenner. Tell us without too much elaboration particularly about your trip down through Mexico and Central America.
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt. Well, I tell you, it is a trip I will never forget, as long as we live. And I don't think we ever had a more exciting, wonderful time, in spite that we almost died a few times, and in spite that some days it was so difficult that we were walking almost like in a daze, because we didn't know what will happen to us.
Of course, we could endure a trip like that because we had a tragedy with George's little boy. So we didn't care what will happen to us—we get killed or not killed—the only thing we worry about Nero being an orphan if something happen to us.
But it was absolutely fantastic, because we walked through little trails, old Camino Reales, old Spanish trails. And they planned it so well, at the end of each day we always found water. We never carried water, because the poor mule was already overloaded. We always took water supply in the afternoon. And we also tried to buy his corn in the afternoon, his dinner.
Mr. Jenner. The mule?
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt. Yes; it is just for him like gasoline, the corn. Like high octane gas. And it took us about 5½ months through Mexico. Then it was Guatemala, Salvador. It really was very interesting.
Mr. Jenner. Costa Rica?
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt. Not yet. After Salvador, we were trying to cross by boat directly to Nicaragua, because we didn't want to make that horrible big corner in Honduras, but we couldn't. So we had to go through Honduras and then Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama. And then we were planning to spend another year and go all the way to Chile. And we would. We were so tough by then, nothing could hurt us. We were thin like rails. And George has never been that thin in his life. He was in good physical shape. But the torrential rains—we were almost swept out a couple of times. And we would have to wait 6 months in Panama in order to proceed. We couldn't take that much time from our life, from our work. So I talked him into going to Haiti. He was going to return to Dallas. And I didn't want to.
Mr. Jenner. Before you get to Haiti—was that purely a business trip—I mean a pleasure trip?
Mrs. De Mohrenschildt. It was pleasure trip plus he collected a lot of minerals on the way. And he sent them—he had been sending them to be safe. And they were all lost. A tremendous amount of minerals. We found mercury, such perfection of samples that you never could see such perfect crystallization. And they are all gone, all lost.