Wayoutback–Day Two–The Journey Continues

Our second day in the outback we were to wake up, drive to chase the sunrise down and kill it, kill it good, then go to Kata Tjutta (the Olgas in English) and have a bit of a hike around. Then we would drive to our campsite on a cattle station, far from where any tourists go.

Our guide seemed to have failed to realize that we were all in fact tourists, so getting away from tourists would be a neat trick. He made this comment a fair amount–where no tourists go, we’ll get away from other tourists, i hope that tourists aren’t there, etc etc etc. Because I think I’m funny, I kept trying to make jokes about there being no tourists around, etc etc. No one else thought this was as amusing as I did. They may have been taking him seriously.

We woke up at half-past I need some more sleep to go see the sunrise. I’d made a bet with Hazel the night before about this little adventure. We’d all seen the sunset over Uluru and I’d made a comment about how, considering how early we were getting up, the sunRISE had best be VASTLY different from the sunSET or else I may become a bit irate. She was quite convinced it would not be incredibly different at all. Somehow, the bet ended up being that if the sunRISE was not vastly different, I would owe her an ice cream, but if it were vastly different she would owe me one. I’m not sure how I came to be on the side that was the exact opposite of what I thought would happen. Tricky Brits.

We all folded up our non-tourist swag and lumbered into the tank. We’d have breakfast after viewing the sunrise, to be sure not to miss it. According to our guide, we were going somewhere that tourists never go to but we had to race to get there. So as we’re driving, there appears to be a mass exodus of coaches and buses out of the park, in the general direction that we are headed. I’m imagining a scene extremely close to if not exactly like what we found the night before and am trying to decide what kind of ice cream to buy Hazel when we pull off onto a different road from where other vehicles are heading.  Driving up a ways, we pull off into a car park and pile out. Jason gives us a little information and points out a wooden pathway at the top of which we can see the sun rise over Uluru in the distance looking one direction and over the top of Kata Tjutta in the distance in another direction.  While we’re looking at the timeless beauty of nature unfold, he’ll rustle up breakfast. As that breakfast includes actual brewed coffee, I’m pretty excited.

We troop up to the top of the pathway where a platform is and wait. The sky had already started to thin and lighten and shift from dark to light gray. It wasn’t rays of sun, but subtle shifting in colors of the sky over the rocks that turned from darker patches of black to deep red to their faded clay color.

Kata Tjutta

Sunrise over Uluru

It was beautiful.

More than the lovely sunrise though, I’ll remember all of the people (other tourists had clearly stalked us and hunted us down as they had recognized our superiority in finding these out of the way places that were marked with little more than a sign that read “Lookout Point”) standing there, waiting for the sun to rise so that they could capture it in their cameras. No one really saying anything, everyone just waiting.

Sunrise hunters

I got bored with all of this relatively soon (some people were up there forever. Yes, sunrises are pretty. Do you not have them in your country? Come on, coffee’s waiting!) and walked down to the car park to take some photos of the trees and get something to eat.

Image from the car park

Jason had laid out quite the spread of bread products, juice, cereal, milk, spreads and jams, and coffee. I almost passed out with excitement when I saw actual peanut butter (okay, so it was Kraft peanut butter with tons of added sugar and whatnot, but still!), so I grabbed some raisin bread and spread it thickly with peanut butter and jam as Jason and Michaela (who’d also realized that the sun rises in her home country as well) looked on with something akin to disgust. From the ensuing conversation, I gathered that to them it was like I’d grabbed some lard mixed with sugar and equal and slathered it on my bread. And while I agreed that this particular type wasn’t very healthy, I argued that if you get organic peanut butter without all the added crap, it is quite good.

Michaela, who was trying out my delicious breakfast treat and agreed it tasted quite nice, looked at me in disbelieving horror and said, in Europe, we say there is nothing healthy about peanut butter.

Oh, in that case.

After our breakfast, we packed up all the crap and headed out to hike Kata Tjutta. Jason was going to do the first part with us then turn back and we could either turn back with him or continue the hike to complete the circuit. I looked at the map of the hikes and saw that the first part was considered easy and the second part challenging, so I decided that I was going to be lazy and turn around.

We start walking and as we’re going, have to climb up a few slick rocks and try to maintain purchase with our (ok, my) nearly tractionless shoes. During one of our breaks on the way up (and as we’re going up I’m thinking, and this is the easy route? What do Australians consider moderate???), a fair group becomes involved in a photo session.

Enjoying the fresh clear water

freedom in the river

We continue heading up and stopping occasionally to hear about history of the area, nature, etc and then come to the viewpoint where our guide will leave us. At this point, we can either continue or head back with him. It would appear that my map reading skills are still in fine form as it turns out I’ve read the map completely backwards and we’ve actually been walking on the challenging part the entire time and are now being given the option to continue on the easy part of the trail, or to head back over the challenging part. I and everyone else decide to continue on the easy loop.

After completing the hike and piling into the car, we head to the cultural center at Uluru. It was small but interesting and had displays on traditional foods (with stuffed versions of things as well!) and then a few stores where  you could buy goods. There was a rug that had been designed by an artist (I then found this design mass-produced on tea towels and bracelets among other things in shops in Sydney) then the design was sent to Kashmir to be created by an artist there, then it was shipped back to Uluru to be sold for approximately a kajillion dollars. It was very beautiful and I contemplated it for a few minutes before realizing that there was really no way I could get this massive rug on the bus without leaving someone behind. So I left the rug behind.

We head out to the tank to get settled in for our long drive out to the cattle station. By this time, everyone has settled into their chosen seats. The Swiss girls are content to sit next to each other, the German dyad are joined at the head, hip, and heart and so it is physically impossible to separate them. One might die while the stronger survives and always feels a shadow around their heart. The Brazilian girls are sitting in the last seat and so this is where the Belgian has planted himself as well.

I’m still floating a bit between seats and seat partners and so end up sitting next to the French guy for a few legs of the trip in different seating configurations. I’d not really talked to him before (the trip, even though three days, because of how it was broken up, seemed much longer than it really was. Or rather, it seemed like we’d all been together for much longer than we had been) and so was able to talk to him a fair bit about music, school in France, etc. My favorite conversation was the one about stereotypes that were typically held about each other’s country, then about other countries. I found him hilarious. And I have to say, on this trip of many cultures and many of these people being the sole representatives for their country in my little universe, the French came out on top, with the Germans a close second. This could set me up for failure, however, as I have decided to go to France partially because I’m now convinced the entire country will be full of funny charming people who like, or at least don’t mind, Americans and can speak English. This may not be accurate. So to do my part, I’m going to learn French before I go. However, if even after I learn French the representation is still not accurate because they are not universally charming, I’m going to be annoyed.

On the way to the cattle station, we stopped to pick up firewood and witchety grubs. Witchety grubs are a traditional food of the aborigines and Jason told us that they taste kind of like egg. So you have to dig down under this certain tree that I can’t remember and look for a bulging part of the root. Then you bust that part and in the hollow of the bulge is a delicious witchety grub. They can be eaten raw or cooked. Jason was going to cook some for us but warned us that if any of them ‘broke’, we’d have to eat it raw because it wouldn’t stay good.

We handled those things as though they were made of thin glass.

Witchety grubs

After harvesting the witchety grubs and wood, we finally made it to camp. There was a bush shower there so after the chopping and preparing for dinner was finished, the majority of the ladies trooped off into the outback to bathe. Five women took showers in less than twenty minutes. It was awe-inspiring. We came back to food that was all done, including some bread crafted from random ingredients. Jason cooked up the grubs and I ate a piece. Unfortunately, when I tried to pop one in my mouth, previously unseen stringy bits kept a few sections together and I wasn’t entirely sad when the extra section fell to the earth. One piece of grub I can do, but multiple? It wasn’t that tasty. (Similar to egg, but nothing to get excited about)

Keely had bought a cake for her dad’s birthday so we lit candles and sang to him as well. Then everyone was drinking and chatting and Sheila had an idea for a game. She put a bit of cake, a bit of witchety grub, and a bit of bread under three different glasses. Then Clive the birthday guy had to select someone to pick a glass and eat whatever was under there. If they didn’t want to eat it, Sheila was going to make them do something. The first person got the cake. The second person, Camilla one of the Brazilian girls, got the bread. But she had convinced herself it was a section of grub and so refused to eat it, even with everyone shouting that it was the bread. So then Sheila made her kiss Clive. Lastly Julian got the grub and ate it up.

I had bought some marshmallows for toasting because I am an American and that is what we do when faced with a campfire. Unfortunately, Australia does stupid things to marshmallows and only sold them in packets of mixed flavor. The least noxious ones I could find was a bag where about half were pink raspberry flavored and the other half white vanilla flavored. And they were extremely small. So as we’re all sitting around the fire, I pick up a few sticks for toasting the marshmallows and get them ready, whittling them down to sharp points then burning the points in the fire. I can’t imagine what the Europeans were thinking. Here I’d eaten the death food of the fat Americans (peanut butter) for breakfast and now I was whittling wood like a troglodyte out of Deliverance in order to toast puffy chemically sugar over a fire.

Michaela wanted to learn how to do it and against my gentle advice, decided to toast a raspberry marshmallow. Oddly enough, she found it foul and then refused to try another vanilla one, which was much nicer. The Swiss girls toasted a few and Hazel as well. The Belgian did but his face twisted into a grimace as he ate it. The Germans were off from the campsite doing German things and the French guy politely said ‘non’.

Jason had in the morning intimated that we were going to play games. Games like spin the bottle and ‘I never’. Thankfully, everyone was too tired and too grown to play. So we laid out our swags and sleeping bags in a circle around the fire and drifted off to sleep with a million stars crowding out the sky over our heads.

Photos from the trip, here and there

Experiencing the beautiful nature of the outback

Getting to know the locals

Sampling some of the local brew

working holiday--photo won't turn over!

Well-deserved rest after all that hard work!

Why won't the paparazzi leave me alone?????

Wayoutback–Day One, abbreviated

Arriving in Alice Springs, I picked up my soaking wet backpack (I assumed this was due to some massive quarantine spraying. Later, after asking Aussie friends, found out that the baggage handlers were probably just not very good. Which makes me wonder what my bag was soaked with.) and headed to the shuttle. Upon finding it, I found out that unbeknownst to me, I was being driven to one hostel and then getting a lift from there to my hostel. I had initially tried to make a reservation at Annie’s Backpackers but ended up going with a different place. Your first instinct is always right, kids.

The hostel was fine, nothing exciting. Dropped off my stuff and went for a little walk around Alice. Picked up sunscreen, bug spray (that I never used. ever.), and motion sickness medication so that I wouldn’t throw up on my fellow outback journeyers. It was so hot and DRY. My home is very humid so it felt nice to be really dry for a little bit. I ordered coffee without knowing what it was (flat white. ) and ate at subway. not so adventurous perhaps, but there aren’t subways easily accessible to me and I just felt like a substandard sandwich.

Alice has many many galleries full of Aboriginal art. I really wanted to like it and find it beautiful and amazing, but it pretty much escaped me. I liked the symbolism in the paintings and finding out what all of the shapes mean, but to look at it every day on my walls? I couldn’t get behind paying $400 for a painting. Especially anything where I think, if I had a couple hours and a canvas, I could approximate that pretty well. It must be harder than it looks, but still.

I did walk through an excellent museum that showed Aboriginal art and discussed the daily life of the people. It was fantastic. The museum was located above a gallery and sadly, not very many people paid the $5 to go upstairs to see it. They had videos showing the art dealers going out to the towns to meet the artists and buy their work and then showing the artists painting and such. I’ve heard that the artists get paid very little for these paintings that end up selling for thousands of dollars. I do wonder about that, and then of course, how much other artists get for their works as well.

I ended up going to bed fairly early because I had to be up at 6am to get the VEHICLE TO ADVENTURE! Three days with fourteen other people, hiking through wilderness! seeking beds under the stars! eating what the earth provides!

I tend to be rather shy and awkward around people I don’t know. What do you say to them? Where are you from? What do you do? How long have you been here? Those generally don’t start interesting conversations. I always feel like my hands are too big and my arms dangling and like I’m dancing around like a big dork. I also tend to hate guided tours, as I’ve had poor experience with them in the past (see: time in Nepal for further explanation). But with limited time, dreadful fear of driving, and not wanting to be alone on an isolated highway in the dead center of nowhere and experience my very own lifetime television for women movie about the dangers of the outback, I booked a tour. Wayoutback tours.

The sherman tank came to get me at 6am from my hostel. This thing was enormous and looked like we were going into battle. I had to sit up front because I was one of the last to be picked up. Up front meant you had to get purchase with one foot, put a hand up on the cab, and hoist yourself in. Graceful! (Happily though, by the end of the three days, I was quite good at flinging myself into the cab)

The tank

The first person I met on the trip was of course the guide, Jason. He was from Hunter Valley and rather elven. Chunky elven. We next picked up Pieter. He was all geared out in khaki shorts, shirt, boots, and a hat. I looked down at my gold walk-around sneakers and started to become a little worried that I hadn’t dressed appropriately. Pieter had a very sensible haircut and is from Belgium. We started out with the typical traveler conversation until the guide mentioned that if you wanted to hide a body, you could dump it in the outback and no one would find it. This prompted me to ask if there are many serial kilers in Australia and the conversation continued from there.

Our first destination was Uluru (Ayers Rock). On the way there, we stopped every hour or so to rest briefly, possibly buy trinkets, and change location in the van to sit with new people. I moved to the back of the truck and sat next to Hazel, a fascinating Welsh woman who lives in the Middle East. She and her friend Sheila were traveling together to cover parts of Australia that they’d not seen on a previous trip. They were fantastic women–older (50’s/60’s) and full of energy and piss and vinegar. Sheila especially had a naughty sense of humor.

Keely and her dad, Clive were from England. Her dad had been to Australia three years before and bought an outback hat that he brought along on this trip. Keely was on working holiday for a year in Australia and had already seen loads of stuff. Her dad had come out to visit for Christmas, and her mom was going to come out for the New Year. I thought Keely was on gap year, but turns out she was about my age, just looked ridiculously young and was incredibly sweet. She didn’t seem to have a cynical bone in her body, which just threw me off.

Michaela was a German woman living in Brussels. She was about my age and definitely challenging. We got on rather well. She was decidedly opinionated and not at all shy about sharing her thoughts. Rather sharp-tongued at times, she definitely exuded an aura of bravado. She also cracked me up. The drinking age in Australia is 18. After our trip, we all met up at a local bar for dinner/drinks. She came in with Jerome, a 23 year old French guy who looks very new. So of course they both got id’d. She was all, oh they think I look 18. Hm. Maybe.

The other old people on the trip were Julian and Denise. They were both German, had met the day before the trip, and were a total dyad the entire time. I maybe said ten sentences to Denise and five to Julian. They seemd quite nice but had obviously made a very strong connection and were loathe to share that with anyone else. When we were introducing ourselves later, I had to repeat my name about ten times to Denise. “Kristin” “Kirstin?” “No, KRistin” “Oh! KIrstin!”. This went on for a good five minutes before Julian came up to her and said, like Christine, but Kristin. By that time I was laughing too hard to correct her anymore. She replied to him, “Oh, Kristin! How strange”. Hysterical.

Then there were the younger ones. There was Jerome, 23, French, ridiculously cute. I’ve not heard a French accent in person before, never having been to Europe (to the broadly expressed horror of all of the Europeans on the trip. It was like I said, oh I have babies for snacks sometimes. Such tender skin) and like all stereotypical Americans, I found it absurdly charming. Unfortunately, he was rather quiet at first so he didn’t speak nearly enough for my liking. Later on he started speaking more so that was better. And at least in English he was smart so it wasn’t one of those things where, oh they sound so nice when they talk if only they didn’t say such things.

There were two girls from Brazil, Lucilla and Camilla. They were both 18 and wore tube tops, hot pants, and lycra shorts for hiking. They also had made certain to bring hairdryers and make up with them for the trip. Camilla had the guide carry her water during one of the hikes. Which was kind of amazing. It was incredible to see how much power they had. Pieter was quite enamored of the Brazlian girls and kept trying to subtly hook up with them.

The final two were Nina and Tania from Switzerland. They were nice enough and hiked in Keds, which made me feel better about hiking in my Golas. I didn’t really talk to them very much so they didn’t make much of an impression on me beyond that they smoked and when we were all in line to take a shower outside at one of our camps, one of them was a bit shy and clearly didn’t come from a naked family. Unfortunately for her, I’ve come to believe that all Germans and Brits come from naked families and maybe even naked towns so they were a bit impatient with her shyness. I didn’t grow up in a naked family either so I can relate. But having lived in Japan and Korea and being invited to bathe with people five minutes after meeting them, you just suck it up.

The younger ones on the trip just looked so… new. No wrinkles even winking about at the corners of their eyes or their mouths. Their cheeks were still full and round. I wanted to poke their baby cheeks.

We get to Uluru after a million years of driving. First we go to our campsite. Jason’s theme for the trip was, we avoid tourists and go our own way. So when he was describing where we’d stay overnight, he was all, oh we camp away from the others and see the stars. Our campsite was a five minute walk from the other campsites where they had tents and grills and things. We had swags (bedrolls) and a fire. Ooooh, the outback! We dropped off our stuff at the campsite, went to the toilet, then drove out to the Rock.

It is just massive. Impressive. Impassively sitting there, the only verticle point in a land of flat. From far away the stone looks relatively smooth and solid and whole. Up close, there are nooks and crannies and worn parts and trees and other plantlife growing on it. The path around the Rock, which from far away looks straight and simple, swerves and curves and indents into the landscape. I took some photos and would have taken more, but there were many signs asking you not to, as there are parts that are sacred to the local people.

Enjoying the feeling of being at Uluru

Michaela and I walked around the Rock together, pausing to look at the beauty but mainly enjoying the walk and the conversation. We got back to the tank before anyone else and the guide looked mildly annoyed with us that we took such a short time and that we’d missed the turn off for some caves he wanted us to walk past. It was too hot to bother to go back. Eventually everyone else ambled up and sat down to rest.

Now, something I’ve observed about Europeans, this being the first time I’ve spent any considerable amount of time with them. As a collective, they are very law-abiding and oh let’s hug some trees and oh don’t start this war and blah blah blah. (They also refer to themselves as a collective of Europeans instead of their own countries, which I found interesting as well. Though Jerome told me some fabulous things that the French think about other people, which just slayed me. I’m totally going to France next.) But as individuals, they are just as crap as everyone else. All trying to pee in the wild pretty nature, walking off of paths, tossing cigarette butts and wrappers about. I found it rather fascinating, this difference between the collective and the individual.

We went to a vantage point to see the sunset over Uluru. Jason was all, we’ll get away from the other tourists and have a view and drink some sparkling wine. So we drive to the very secluded “Coach viewing point” and park our tank amongst about twenty other coaches, buses, and tanks. We then hike up in the soft red earth past tables spread with cutlery and crystal, lugging our cooler (eskie they call them there) with snacks and wine. We walk up past where the majority of the people are gathered and open up the cooler. Hummus, salsa and crackers for snack and sparkling wine. To my shock and horror, a fair amount of people there had never eaten nor heard of hummus! What is going on, Europe? This is a fantastic food! Basically it was me and the Brazilians going to town on the hummus while everyone else ate their crackers with salsa, which disturbed me to no end. It was Tostino’s salsa on crackers. No, Europeans! No! That is not how you eat salsa! With chips or with vegetables, not with CRACKERS!

Crazy people.

There were about five bottles of sparkling wine but unfortunately, due to the heat of the day and not having drank enough during the walk, I was reluctant to drink more than one glass. Luckily, the Germans, Belgian, and French represented quite well.

We ended our day with heading back to camp, showering in the big shower centre of the campsite, and making dinner. We had big bowls of pasta with kangaroo meat and then garlic bread. We set out our sleeping bags and swag and settled in for a good night’s sleep. The stars crowded out the blue of the sky and everything was quiet. For about an hour until the cacophony of snoring began. I couldn’t make out exactly who, but I know it was going on. I snore as well so I wasn’t so bothered, but it detracted a little from the peaceful scene.

Where’s My Yaya?

Recently I went on holiday to Australia. Whilst there, I’d booked a three-day tour of Uluru, Kata Tjutta, and King’s Canyon. The website said that tour members would be expected to pitch in–clean up, set up and take down camp, push the car out of ditches if need be, etc.

I hadn’t read that part very carefully and did not become needlessly alarmed until I watched the video on the site. Of people cooking, cleaning, and pushing a car out of the sand. 

Then I thought, hunh, I’ve paid a fair amount of money to work while on vacation. This was stupid. I could have paid less money and not exerted myself on vacation. Also, I’ve become lazy and soft of late. Well, laziER. I have a helper who comes twice a week and does the laundry, weekly shopping, cooking, etc. I can do all of these things and have in the not so distant past. However, I’ve become accustomed to having someone else take care of the chores that I dislike and so didn’t really cotton to the idea of doing these things I don’t do in the course of my daily life while on vacation. ( I thoroughly enjoy cooking, just not the rest of it).

No matter. I was sure that I could completely shirk my duties and have the other members of the tour do everything. After all, it was just three days. What did I care if they liked me or not? I can be a stereotype.

Naked Christmas Joy

 

Naked Ken trying to decide where to go next

Naked Ken is inspired by the season

Naked Ken went to the bookstore and ended up making friends

 

Naked Ken gets hungry whilst shopping

Naked Ken almost bought this light display

Who doesn't love legos?

What are your wishes, Naked Ken?

Malls are confusing, so Naked Ken asked for directions

Naked Ken found some clothed joy

Naked Ken wishes each of you a merry christmas

Christmas is a scoundrel

We recently had our work christmas party.

It was amazing.

Skits are highly regarded here. I have no discernible talent for singing (I have actually, literally made a baby cry with my singing), my dancing is… and my acting talent has been dormant since I was in Mr. Crouse’s high school drama class and he told me that my hair was such a beautiful, mousy shade.

I was in two productions, because that’s the kind of joiner I am. In one I portrayed a nun who was anti-contraceptives and then had a magical change of heart due to a fabulous dance done in my general direction and so became a nun in favor of family planning.

this was all done through the power of mime.

then i participated in a group choreographed dance done to a black eyed peas rendition of some salsa number. we were all ladies with one man. the ladies were kitted out in black with scarves tied jauntily about our hips, the better to showcase the arrhythmic beats. the man had on all black as well, but his scarf was nonchalantly draped about his neck and he had a matching straw hat. when the peas broke it down rap style, he vaulted to the middle of the circle and approximated a robot going ape-shit. it was the best thing i’ve seen in my entire life. i had to stop dancing because i was experiencing such spasms of joy at the sight.

after his inspired performance, it is kind of no wonder that we all forgot our steps and kept repeating the same two instead of mixing it up a bit as we had exhaustively practiced before.

the performances after ours were no less sparkly. there were skits i could barely comprehend, dances of choreographed majesty, and a talent competition in which i learned something about one of my co-workers that i would never have guessed. ever. he’s super smart, savvy, amazing at his job. he also appears fairly straight-laced and practical.

the man can dance

his

ass

off.

it was ridiculous. he was swooping and swerving and leading his partner to places she wouldn’t have been able to even look at without him guiding her. he was fucking patrick swayze hauling baby’s ass out of the corner. no spaghetti arms there. they were firmly in their own dance spaces. the expression on his face was joy like you rarely see in people, really. joy and comfort and a sense of this THIS IS WHAT I WAS MEANT TO DO.

it was truly magnificent.

and it made me want to learn how to salsa in a way i cannot express.

one of the last numbers was a relatively new fellow who was singing. he likes to sing the old time power ballads. he had on a suit and a collared shirt with the buttons undone just enough to put the lounge into lounge singer. he sang a tom jones song that i keep wanting to write was called sex bomb, but i know for absolute certain that he didn’t sing sex bomb. i may have just been hoping that he would because that would have been the most amazing. but he DID say, when he slunk onto stage, “where my ladies at?” which is almost ALMOST as good. a few coworkers flung flowers at him while he was singing, and he had a few women on stage with him sliding around. at the end, loads of confetti popped and floated on stage.

there was also a belly dancing number, a dancing/runway show number, numerous bad santas, and a few naughty looking mrs. clauses.  

i’ve got one more year of the magical christmas party. definitely have to brush up on the salsa.

i may, in fact, need to become a triple threat and brush up on my spanish, sing a spanish song, and slink around salsa-style.

all in the name of christmas.

the sea is wide

 

i went full on snorkeling for the first time in years on sangat. the clear glass of the ocean at early(ish) morning made it almost impossible not to.

you could see straight to the corals

i don’t regret not going for my diving certification there, but it is something i’m going to have to do. snorkeling is enough for now, however.

while there on the island, the resort was full but it all still felt rather.. isolated. partially that was due to gazing out and seeing ocean and islands and a few scattered boats. and partially because the only time we really saw other people was during meal times.

meals at the resort reminded me of being in training for peace corps. during the days when the entire training class would be staying at a hotel, our meals were communal affairs that never had enough food. this was because some people kept imagining it was like country kitchen where everything would get filled back up. infinite food is not a concept at peace corps training sites, nor apparently at island resorts. if you were more than ten minutes late at either place, you could count on the main dish of the most pleasant meat being long down the gullets of the other trainees/vacationers. there would be sad salad left (or, in pc training, tongue jello. yum)

at the resort, we got in the habit of arriving a few minutes early for meals. at night it wasn’t so bad because you could get a beer or several in the bar area and watch people play pool whilst trying not to stare in the general direction of the buffet table. i would carefully monitor my intake and not have more than one beer or one glass of wine, as we hadn’t eaten since lunch and i’m kind of snacky.

and during the morning, waiting for breakfast was all right as well as most people didnt’ get up super early and there was always ‘coffee’ and tea to keep you occupied.

but lunch. the wait for lunch was torture. not due to hunger, but just trying to gauge getting there early enough to get food but not so early as to have to wait around with nothing to do. you could swing on a hammock or stare out at the water, but you couldn’t go swimming nor for a stroll down the beach lest you miss the unveiling of the food. and it was lunch, so while you COULD drink, you didn’t because really, you couldn’t.

luckily the food was overall excellent and so the wait was worth it. all the ladies kept talking about how they were eating so much and oh! they couldnt’ believe they’d had so much to eat and blah de blah de blah. maybe it is because they are thin and i’m a fatty, but i was thinking to myself, ummm this isn’t an inordinate amount of food here. i’d compare our plates and think, how the hell much do they eat at home? i pictured cracker-sized slices of bread with thin scrapings of hummus on top and an olive and them patting their stomachs and saying, dear lord! i’m stuffed! while i’m all waiting anxiously for lunch and halfway through thinking, as i lick my spoon, what are we going to have for snack???

the time between meals was spent, as mentioned above, snorkeling or sea kayaking or swinging from a hammock reading trashy novels. the sea kayaking was good but it made me realize how ultimately weak my actual physical body is. holding my self up without a backrest made my lower back ache. and my arms hurt. so i tried to paddle my kayak while laying down on it. which worked for a while, but then my neck would ache with trying to hold my head up to see where i was going. so then i tried to paddle while laying on my back without actually watching where i was going. so i kept heading out to sea and then i’d have to paddle back toward the island so that 1) i didn’t die from the sharks that so obviously lived more than 100 meters from the island and were waiting patiently to pounce and 2) i could see the pretty corals and 3)i wouldn’t have to paddle quite so much to finally get home.

we paddled a fair amount around the island and probably could have gone further if we’d brought water and if i wanted my arms to fall off. either that, or i was going to have to live somewhere on the island, likely the next place we stopped for a break. my friend that i was paddling with is a total girl scout. she loves the outdoors and hiking and can stare at fascination at moss for hours. she’s a little touched in the head. i’m not sure how i keep ending up doing outdoor adventure things with her (sea kayaking, snorkeling, death-defying wet flip-flop rock climbing, paintball). i think we go together because she needs someone to go with and i need to get off my ass now and then.

then of course there were the other people at the resort that we talked to between, during, and after meals. some of them flitted in and out with almost no impact. others i only heard about, such as the lady traveler who decided that everyone should become acquainted with the talents of her waxer, while at the bar. or the gentlemen who were big big fans of the gentler sex before they actually completed puberty. there was a british gentleman there whom i shall never forgive for teaching a friend and a small child how to make a honk honk sound. for days i heard “where’s the honk-y guy?” during any/every lull in conversation. there was the man from an unknown eastern european country who had somehow attained a pair of tailored daisy dukes at some point in his life and was loathe to give them up, under any circumstance. we chatted a fair bit with two doctors from the states who were on holiday from stressful doctor lives. normally i enjoy doctors, having lived with several while getting my degree, though i think they are too serious about their jobs. not that they shouldn’t be, but sometimes it gets a little old having to be impressed. oooh you pumped a guy’s heart with your hand and brought him back to life! oooh. blah blah blah. but one of this doctor pair made a very favorable impression on me when he was talking about something to a friend. they were in some conversation i wasn’t paying attention to when i heard a ‘wwwwhhhoooooooossssssssshhhhhhhh” sound being made. i looked over and was all, um, what are you talking about? he explained that he was making the sound that this machine makes that cleans out the bronchial tubes. i asked if that was really the sound it made and he said yes and made it again! i’m not sure if it was the beer, the delight on his face in making the sound, or the unexpectedness of some pulmonologist/internal medicine type making a lung suction sound like a 5 year old, but i found the whole thing completely charming. hysterical. that’s the kind of doctor i like. what do you like about your job? this machine that makes a cool sound like this: wwwwwwhhhhhhhhoooooooooossssssssssshhhhhh” Awesome.

the whole trip was rather magical. sure, there was some bickering. sure, i was mildly afraid of the sea life and that i was going to be macheted. but over all, amazing. i feel the need to go back very soon. maybe tomorrow.

enter joke about finding a prince here:

We were sitting in the bar area, hanging out and waiting for dinner to be served. Everyone is relaxed and chatting when we hear the little three year old kind of squeal and see a small dark splotch fly through the air. A small tree frog had jumped onto her dad. As we are all exclaiming over the frog, he jumps and lands on my knee. Apparently, he was feeling amorous because he then jumps again and lands smack dab on my mouth. This flips him out so he heads for my wine to take a restorative sip. 

Sadly, that was the best kiss I’ve received in a long time. If only I had been thinking more clearly, that could have been the best vacation romance. He likes the water and nature, active, energetic, and won’t contact me afterwards, leaving only memories and a faint bitter taste behind.

I am a bad word

The worst word for most Americans in the English language refers to a part of every woman’s body. 

And this doesn’t seem to make most women angry.

Think on it. The WORST word for most Americans. They can’t even bring themselves to use it unless enraged. The C-word. Use it in polite conversation, any conversation and immediately things stop and everyone looks uncomfortable and starts to use words like offended. and mortally offended. And looks at you as though you’ve just killed a baby for its tender flesh.

A really cute baby. Not some ugly baby.

Why is this such a hateful term? Why is it so terrible? I’ve read books on it and still really, there is no good answer for me.

People say it sounds ugly. Well, hunt is almost the same word and you don’t see folks cringing at that one.

Why aren’t more women angry that a word to describe their genitalia is considered one of the worst words in American English? Why aren’t they screaming about the fact that their bodies are portioned out and used as a filthy expletive?

Yes, cock isn’t considered a ‘nice’ word, but you certainly never hear anyone refer to that as the c-word. People are able to say it.

Try saying the ‘c-word’ in all its sounded-out glory the next time you’re hanging out with, oh, anyone. Not in a rude way, not as an insult, just as a normal everyday word.

And watch the world stand still for sixty seconds.

Then feel the hostility roll toward you.

Especially if you are a woman and say it.

come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me

Due to a cosmic convergence of multiply international holidays, I was blessed with a five-day weekend. Not having experienced nearly enough of the famed beaches here, I booked into an island resort. Soon after, a group of my colleagues did the same, as they couldn’t think of anywhere better to go.

We arrived on a gorgeous Thursday morning after a 45 minute jeep ride and a 45 minute boat ride through scattered islands past fishing boats. By the time we got there, we were starving, but had an hour to kill before lunch (meals were served at specific times–8am for breakfast, 1pm for lunch, 430pm for snack, and 730pm for dinner. if you were hungry at other times, you were out of luck unless you’d brought your own.) so my friend and I were shown to our villa. 

Initially when I’d booked my cottage, I’d opted for a beachside cottage. Basic, on the beach. She’d opted for a hillside cottage that was about $11 less a night. Based on the description on the website, I’d anticipated that the hillside cottages were actually on a hill and my sheer laziness and horror at the thought of having to climb up and down hills to reach my meals was what prompted me to spring the extra bucks for the beachside. On arrival, I discovered that the beachside cottages were about 20 yards at most, sometimes 10 feet, from the hillside cottages. And it was all on the flat. You could see the beach from the hillside cottages. The only difference was your cottage on the hillside wasn’t in any danger of being swept into the ocean as the beachside cottages were.

Anyway, the day before we flew out, the owner of the resort contacted me and my friend and offered us the villa for the same prices we were paying. The villa could sleep at least six people, had a fridge, a private beach, its own kayak and could only be reached over a rickety bridge stuck magically to the side of the rocks around a point on the island, or via kayak. We chose the villa. 

It was amazing. It had been built around the natural features of the hillside and was tucked in amongst some rocks. You could see the beach from the villa, but you couldn’t see the villa from the ocean. It was three stories, the first being an open area with four hammocks hanging from the rafters, a picnic table, and a low slung bamboo couch. Going up a few steps, there was a rock landing with a cave entrance. In the cave were steps leading down to the shower area, where three shower heads at foot, shoulder, and above-head level were cleverly hidden in the rock formations. Up a few stairs from the entrance to the cave was the entrance to the second floor of the villa. Immediately off to the entrance was a flat rock perfect for sunning or doing yoga. Inside the villa on the first floor were two spacious bathrooms with running water, a fridge, a twin bed and a double bed. Going up a precarious third flight of stairs found you on the top floor with a bed that was so enormous it can only be called an orgy bed plus a hammock and a tv with a dvd player. The entire villa was constructed of bamboo, rock, and nipa leaves and was thoroughly gorgeous. We ran around chattering like magpies over our good fortune.

The private beach for the villa was a bit rockier than the beach at the main resort, but if you swam out and around the point, you saw the most beautiful corals. I became rather addicted to snorkeling while there and would paddle about for a while, staring at the pretty electric blue fish and flailing madly from the moray eels that were snuggled into coral caves with only their beady eyes sticking out (hey, they look mean and i wasn’t entirely convinced that they wouldn’t try to eat me). After a while i would get out, go rinse off in the shower and fully intend to read my book or go eat a snack when, walking past the water I’d think, oh I’ll just see what else is down there now. Once I just wrapped my sarong around me and tied it up over the bathing suit, slapped on my snorkeling gear, and snorkeled all the way to the other beach, figuring that I’d kill two birds with one stone. Except I did this when the tide was moving away from the beach with a bit of strength so about halfway through I imagined myself in a somewhat less dramatic version of the movie “Open Water” and less romantic as well, as it was just me and not me and my lover/husband. 

The resort also advertised a nature trail. I like nature trails as it gives me a confined space to work with in nature. The nature knows where I’m going, I know where I’m going, it all works out. So I convinced two other ladies in my part to go on the trail and while they were getting their sunscreen, I went to find out where the trail began. The girl behind the counter said she’d get the guide. This perhaps should have been my first clue, but I assumed he’d just show us the start of the trail. A sturdy guy came out with a machete and said, OK! Let’s go! The machete also disturbed me a little and as we were walking to the mouth of the trail I whispered to my friend that this was like the beginning of a horror movie. 

I’m kind of psychic.

We walk to where Nonnie (guide) said the trail started. I didn’t exactly see a trail nor a marker nor anything that would suggest a trail. What I DID see was a steep hill covered by rocks that we had to climb. Keep in mind that we were all kitted out with flip flops, swimsuit tops, thai fisherman pants (in my case) and sarongs (my friends). I kind of asked Nonnie if this was just the beginning, that it would get flat after we went up. He laughed and said yes of course. It will get flat. Then we go back up! And down! and then flat again.

We start clambering up the rocks. I like to give running commentary when unhappy or scared for my life, so while I don’t remember exactly what I said, I know I was able to keep everyone amused. The first set of rocks were smooth and relatively easy, but as we went further into the jungle, the rocks became more and more jagged and the clambering a bit more difficult. My commentary became more pronounced and one of my friends, who also doesn’t enjoy impromptu rock climbing expeditions in flip flops also joined in. When we finally climbed down from the cliffs of despair, we entered into a mangrove swamp. We start slogging through the muck and begin musing on if there are snakes on the island, if they would be poisonous and then notice that when we yank our feet out of the mud, our flip flops don’t always come along for the ride. Our progress through the mangrove swamp is halted when we look around and actually SEE the beauty of the tall plants and how the sunlight filters through, giving a whole Lost World effect. We continue on and discover that with our wet and slippery flip flops we are now to climb another series of jagged rocks. This time, for added benefit, we will have to reach across crevasses and angle ourselves over tree limbs. Not being blessed with stretchy joints nor length of legs, at one point I have to do a Mission Impossible pose under a fallen branch and over a rock with pretty much no flat or reasonably smoothed portion. We make it through the labyrinth and come to a ladder to go up some more jagged rocks.

Except.

The ladder is of course broken. Nonnie giggles and says, this ladder is no good. We’ll have to go up this. This is two rocks that are close enough together that one can kind of shimmy up, while stablizing oneself on a few sticky out pieces. Looking up from this first level of hell, I see the second level of hell above is much the same. At this point, I decide I’ve done enough and that the cave of swiftlets (where the nature ‘trail’ is supposed to lead) is not worth my losing a limb or having to be stretchered out or anything of that nature. They leave me where I’m sitting with strong admonishments not to head back without them.

Knowing that they are going to the cave and then to the beach beyond, I settle myself in for a long wait. 

Five minutes after they leave me, I hear machete hacking and momentarily wonder if Nonnie has gone insane and is going to come back for me. Then I realize that I didn’t hear any screaming so it was probably okay. 

Thirty minutes later I hear movement and coughing and see Nonnie’s grinning head above me. They make their way down to my landing. They reached the cave, but never saw any birds or the beach. The hacking sound had been Nonnie cutting down a tree to lay across a crevasse because the bridge that was there had rotted away. The first tree was too big for him to carry, so he left it there and cut down another tree. Then he laid the smaller tree across the crevasse, put one foot and one hand on either side of the rock walls, and spidermanned his way across, occasionally resting a big toe on the good tree. At this point, my companions kind of looked at each other then asked if they were going to see the birds soon.

Birds? What birds?

The birds in the cave.

There are no birds. Only big mosquitoes.

Hearing this, one of my friends decided to stay put and let the other one carry on. Who then decided that with two of her friends pooping out on the trail, she wasn’t going to continue by herself. So they all trooped back.

We made our way back through the jungle, the mangrove swamp, up and down the treacherous rocks, planning how to fully describe our nature trail experience. We decided that the cave had been awesome, the trail easy once you got past the initial ascent, and truly worthwhile.

You know, we described oppositeland.

Next time, in another installment of our exciting saga: kissing frogs, kayaking in an aquarium, fascinating strangers