the cat with a passport that traveled through many countries until arriving in Calamuchita

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He says that the first time he heard it, it was in the middle of a stormy night. His high-pitched and powerful meows seemed to come from beneath the earth, buried in some corner of the garden of the house where he lived, in Milazzo, Sicily (Italy).

That night he went out to look for her, but couldn’t see her. The next day, he was still there and saw her: a little black cat with piercing green eyes and standing hairs. She was rebellious, surly and malnourished, she barely appeared among some rubble and hid again. She wouldn’t have been more than a month old.

He began to leave her food and get a little closer each day, until, during one of those stealthy visits, the kitten let her guard down and allowed herself to be adopted.

Sofía Aimetta (29) is from Santa Rosa de Calamuchita and was in Europe, on an itinerant life experience for more than a year.

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Despite her status as a traveler, she did not hesitate to adopt it. He named her Petra, which means black in Portuguese. “Her original name is Gea Petra, which means black earth, because I found her in the earth, in the depths of the foundations, and black means death; that duality of life and death, I am sure that she was very on the edge of it, and that her mother abandoned her that stormy night,” describes Sofía, with her mystical gaze.

The story began in that Italian town, bathed by the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea, but had several chapters in different parts of the world. A few months later, Sofía returned to Calamuchita in Cordoba for a few weeks to visit her family and Petra stayed in Sicily, in the care of her cousin.

When the young woman crossed from Argentina to Europe again, she moved to Aragón, in Spain. She took a flight to Sicily to reunite with Petra and together they flew to her new home.

Sofia and Petra, a story. Now in Córdoba. (Gentleness)

They lived in Fayón for three months, Petra was in “wild” mode and enjoyed her freedom in nature. From there they went up to Catalonia, to the Pyrenees area, on the border with France, to a new destination.

Sofía continued to visit different places, working in activities related to tourism and studying astrology. And Petra with her, from the sea to the snow, from the plain to the mountains.

Two days after arriving at the new home, when they were adapting, the feline disappeared. “It was a difficult moment, I didn’t stop looking for her until I finally donated her things and let her go,” she remembers. It was three months without news from Petra.

Chance or causality

At that stage, the young woman worked in a bar in Montferrer and one night she struck up a dialogue with David and Marta, who were regular customers. The couple was with a Chihuahua dog, who for the first time triggered a chat beyond conventional boundaries.

The man owned an animal shelter and had gone for a walk with the small dog. In that context, Sofía told about Petra and her disappearance. And David told him that months ago they had brought a kitten to the shelter and that she had a chip, placed in a different place than usual in Spain.

Three days later, he received confirmation. By identification it was Petra, and she was waiting for her. No one had adopted her yet.

Petra, the globe-trotting cat.

The next day, Sofía visited the shelter, which was located in a small town 15 kilometers away. On a trip with a “movie” landscape, with the Pyrenees and their autumnal greens and yellows, she arrived at the animal shelter. And there was the cat sharing a cage with another cat. The connection was immediate. It was Petra, without a doubt and beyond the chip.

“I approach the cage and I already hear a meow, as soon as she saw me or smelled my smell, she came running and attached herself to the fence, I put my fingers on her and she caressed me with her head and she didn’t stop meowing,” describes Sofía. that reunion full of emotion. “There was another kitten that also approached and, with a sound, she clarified that I was her human,” she smiles.

Then, he completed the paperwork with the help of David who made the process easier for him. He paid 20 euros, with the kitten “on sale”, and adopted her again.

“We both knew that we had met again and that we were not going to separate, whatever I did with my life, Petra would come with me, she had also suffered,” says Sofía.

Then she learned that it was a neighbor from the neighborhood where they had just moved, in Catalonia, who found her and took her to the shelter.

Homecoming

It was her last stage in Europe and when she got Petra back, Sofía already had a return ticket. Adjusted with the times, she had to carry out several procedures and complex logistics to be able to get her out of the country. In Spain, there are many controls on pets.

In those last few days, he had already assumed a work commitment in Paris and had a trip scheduled to Cúneo, the land of his ancestors, before returning to Argentina. Petra was left in the care of a friend of hers, who then took her more than 700 kilometers by car to the Barajas airport in Madrid to take the flight to Argentina.

Its owner never distanced herself from her pet’s responsibilities. She spent more than 150 euros on vet checks, tickets and the bag to transport her, which she had to buy again after giving away the one she had when she was lost.

At an airport, Sofía takes Petra, loaded in a bag for traveling cats (Courtesy)

The last flight of the traveling kitten

Petra has a passport within the European Union with several stamps. The controls to leave the country from Madrid were exhaustive. A veterinarian on duty at the airport examined her before traveling, on the same day of the flight. Until that moment, the young woman was not sure if she could fly with her kitten.

Sofía managed to complete the procedures and paid a differential ticket for Petra (50% of her flight).

The last stretch was missing: 12 hours in the air. They entered the plane with priority boarding. Petra was inside a pet carrier bag, under her seat and sedated with homeopathic relaxants.

At one point, after several hours of travel, Sofi tried to open the bag so that Petra could show her head, but in her eagerness to get out, she hurt her hand. So she had to be assisted to have her wound healed. At that moment, one of the pilots walked around the plane, to the rear end of the plane, where she was being treated, and asked her if she was the owner of the cat. Petra had managed to escape from the carrier and was very comfortable in the arms of another passenger. It was a moment of high stress that was transformed into an anecdote.

“I feel a strong invisible hand, which makes her be with me today, crossing borders, refuges and even the edge of life. I know that she will accompany me wherever she goes, and I have the firmness that she will be with me until the end”, for Sofi, both are “predestined”.

Today Petra is already adapted to another new home, in Santa Rosa de Calamuchita, living with three dogs and a cat and surrounded by greenery, mountains and rivers. She now displays her restless spirit in the mountains of Córdoba.