Where is Kekec? 

We first learned of Kekec in a restaurant along the Ljubljanica River in Ljubljana.

It was a rainy night but, like us, everyone was still sitting outside under large awnings enjoying drinks and meals while the rain gushed off the walls and roofs. Our Slovenian server spoke excellent English (including some choice asides to us about the nearby table of six cheap Brit men who were quibbling over the division of their tiny bill).

I no longer remember the exact name of the restaurant, but it included the word ‘Kekec’.  As well, the WiFi password was Srecno, Kekec.

“What does Kekec mean?” I asked, the next time she made us laugh as she rolled her eyes and swore about the still-bickering table.

“Oh, Kekec,” she said, with a face that was transformed into what can only be described as wistfully nostalgic, “Kekec…every child, every adult, every one grew up with a love of Kekec. He is the hero from a book written in 1918 and then the book was made into a film in the 1950s…everyone knows and admires Kekec…and the WiFi password? That means, Goodluck Kekec.”

After looking up Kekec on YouTube, I discovered a young earnest lad who does good while hiking and singing in the Julian Alps. Kekec seems to be a kind of boy-version of Heidi crossed with Alice in Wonderland thrown in with a little bit of Batman’s Robin. Given that 56% of Slovenia is covered in forest and that the Slovenes seem very identified with nature, it seemed to us that Kekec embodied the Slovene ideal.

 

https://youtu.be/0XViah7DJrM 

From then on, we asked every Slovene we encountered about Kekec. No matter the age of the citizen in question, each time we were met with surprise at our knowledge of their childhood hero, and then, faces that lit up with their own Kekec memories.

I know for sure that if I had grown up in Slovenia, I too, would have had a serious crush on that hiker-boy. In fact, I think my inner child is ready to toss over my love of Heidi for a full-blown Kekec crush.

From then on, I looked for Kekec. Whether we were walking up the trail to Slap Savica, a waterfall that bursts out of the middle of a steep limestone cliff or as my heart moved into my throat when the Vogel tram went up up up to the top of the mountain.

 

 

 

I looked for him as we walked around the six-kilometre trail around Lake Bled.

 

 

I swore I caught a glimpse of a hiking boy as we twisted and hairpinned turn down the dramatic Julian Alps, or maybe it was Kekec that disappeared behind the endless stacks of firewood beside the Austrian-like wooden houses that dot the extreme hillsides.

 

 

 

Alas, there was no Kekec to be found among the cows with huge brass bells around their necks.

 

 

And though I looked around every corner of the almost-two kilometre boardwalk in Vintgar Gorge, all that dazzled me there was the river’s water. Water that wasn’t so much clear as simply liquid light that spilled through a crazy chasm.

 

 

We’re in Croatia now. We have said goodbye to the Slovenian food of gibanica and Lake Bled cream cakes, the delicious bowls of jota soup and the plates of Kransjka klobasa sausages.

We will be on the hunt for a new story.

But like any good, albeit honourary, Slovene, I promise to always have a place in my heart for Kekec.