21.7.2012 – 21.7.2012  30 °C

Our day today took us from the Vermont forests to the seashore at Salem, Massachusetts. It actually took us half a day today to get to Salem. It’s not that far from Brattelborro to Salem (probably normally about an hour and a half) but traffic was terrible so we ditched the freeways and headed for side streets… Normally, this would be a good strategy (and is one we’ve deployed many times) however, we’ve worked out on the East Coast that side streets can be just as slow (if not more so) than the freeways!! This is because there is heaps of traffic, coupled with traffic lights! So our quick drive to Salem took us ages! We finally arrived just on lunch time and headed straight to the tourist bureau.

Salem has an awesome setup for tourists. They provide you with a map of the town and tell you to just follow the red path thru the streets. The red path takes you to all of the witchy sites as well as some historical ones and thru the shopping district. Our first stop on our “witchy tour” was down to the pier where the tourist officer had recommended we try for lunch. The options at the pier were really not what we were looking for (more Maine lobster) so we decided to follow our witch path and see what we could find on the way.

We found ourselves a Lobster shack not far down the road and hopped in to grab ourselves another taste at the deliciousness of the Atlantic. M chose to have fish and chips, D had another whole lobster and I went for a lobster risotto style thing. Mine was awful.. no flavour at all.. it tasted like I was eating plain gluey rice with bits of lobster… how hard is it to taste the food before you send it out to the customer?? I tried adding parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and even lemon juice but could not give it flavour… I’m sure it is a novel idea but some garlic, cheese, herbs, chili do add flavour to food! Anyway, it was that bad that I ate about a quarter of my meal.. it’s the first time in a long time I’ve complained about my food! M’s wasn’t too much better!! The fries were great.. hell we would have had a BIG problem if they stuffed up fries.. but the fish was these huge pieces of fish steak battered in this oily beer style batter (quite different to ours).. D was happy with his lobster and managed to de-bug his lobster in record time! I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that they didn’t charge me for my lunch! So, although the food was terrible, at least I didn’t have to pay for it!

We continued along our red line until we reached the Witch House. The witch house is the only remaining house in Salem from the late 1600s and the only house still standing that has some relationship to the witch trials. The historians know that the house dates to the 1670s (just before the witch trials) but they think that this house could have been built as early as 1640! That’s pretty amazing when you stop to think that the Mayflower arrived in 1620!!

Ok so witch trials…. The trials occurred in 1692 and lasted for over a year. It all started when two  little girls from Salem started having “fits and screaming uncontrollably” they also complained of being “pinched and pricked”. Before long, more children in the town started displaying similar traits. Three women were initially charged with “witchcraft”- Sarah Goode (a homeless lady), Sarah Osbourne (she was accused by another family—probably some sort of family feud) and Tituba (a lady of ethnic background—I’m guessing she was a negro or something). From here the accusations flew until in May 1693 the governor’s wife was accused of witchcraft at this point the trials were immediately suspended! All told at least 200 people were accused and 20 were killed. I was surprised to learn that men as well as women were charged for witchcraft, two were even killed! The most shocking death was of a man who was accused and refused to confess to practicing witchcraft. He was squashed to death under heavy rocks.. It took two days for him to die, the whole time he refused to confess… Awful huh?

The witch house itself, was the home of the chief magistrate involved in the trials. Some of the trials were probably even held in the house! Today, the house is setup in late 1600s style giving us a glimpse of how people would have lived in the times. Sadly, much of the “witch” stuff that I was so desperate to see is not in this museum—you have to go to one of the cheesy tourist attractions in town to get more of the goss on the trials themselves.. Based on everything I read today I really think that the popular myth of witches riding broom sticks began at Salem. I say this for a couple of reasons: 1. In the transcripts of the trials, Tituba actually confesses to riding around on broomsticks

2. The witch house has been a major tourist attraction since days of the Civil War (1860s)— I know.. this house has been a tourist mecca for 150 years!! I’m guessing it was also the belief of the time that witches road on broom sticks, as Tituba was deliberately asked “did you ride around on brooms?”

The burning question I had, was have modern day scientists any idea what would have caused the girls to originally suffer from the fits and pinched feelings etc? Of course, no-one really knows, but the best guess is that the children consumed one of the basic ingredients from LSD (apparently it is an organic compound that grows in the area… don’t ask me what it is, cause I didn’t think to ask!) It’s sad that religious hysteria (likely brought on by hallucinating on LSD) culminated in the death of 20 people.. It just goes to show the how powerful fear can be!!

We left Salem late in the afternoon and made the call to bypass Boston and head straight down towards Cape Cod. Once we hit the free way it was actually quite a quick drive down past Boston. My plan was to stay south of Boston somewhere near Plymouth (our first stop for tomorrow). Amazingly, we had quite a bit of trouble finding somewhere to stay tonight! The first few places we tried were 170+ dollars for the night (and a basic old hotel too!!) I had a couple of vouchers for places but because the hotels were busy they were not letting us use our vouchers. D decided to try one of the hotels and somehow managed to hypnotise the lady behind the counter because we got a really nice hotel for 100 dollars a night!! Not only was it relatively cheap (compared to the competition) but the washing machine facilities were right next to the room! Bliss!! D and M cooked us up a tasty dinner before we hit the sack! It’s been a long driving day today but tomorrow should be a bit more relaxed as we head further down towards Cape Cod.

Song of the Day– Santana, Black Magic Woman