July 22
Saturday
Uluru“The Naked Days, or Night of Lattea”
Today is an Uluru day. We all piled into the wagon and drove the few miles to Uluru National Park. We bought three-day park passes and entered an area that looked just as dry and scrubby as that we’d just come from. The only access was by a two-lane highway rimmed with red dirt. The earth here is made of an iron oxide that practically glows, and the wetter-than-usual weather has kept greenery alive against the red backdrop. There are a surprising number of trees here for a desert, and the low shrubs are showing off a variety of colored flowers.
Pulling into the Cultural Center’s parking lot I saw that Frank Lloyd Wright’s got nothing on aboriginal architects. The Center was so integrated into the landscape that it was hard to even see. Red sand paths through low bushes showed us the way to a collection of low buildings with fluid walls and no visibly straight lines. The roofs were thatched grass held in rounded shape by discrete applications of chicken wire.
Smooth red brick blended into the landscape and framed native murals, which depicted the myths played out on the Rock. The great snake goddess who came here to avenge her nephew. The monster sent to kill a whole tribe. The waterhole guarded by a spirit with the power of life or death. All these things have left their mark on the Rock’s surface, and are recorded so that the natives remember Proper Way, or Tjukuru tribal law (I think that’s how it’s spelled). Do what the law says and all will be well. Step out of line and there’s no telling what might happen. Nothing good.
The afternoon perked up with the arrival of an aboriginal tour guide named Millie and her Anglo mouthpiece Megan. We joined the 3:15 tour starting at the Cultural Center and heard tell of the legends surrounding Uluru and how the locals lived before White Fella came to town. Megan, a white Aussie in her 30s, translated what Millie had to tell us about the lives of the spirits and the natives who remember them. Everything Megan said began with “Millie says that.” For a good while I thought that Millie was just for show and that I was witnessing a classic example of cultural appropriation. By the end of the tour, though, it seemed clear that Megan, while knowing her stories pretty well, was often prompted and corrected by Millie. Millie didn’t say much, but she was definitely listening.
The tour left from the Cultural Center and moved on to the Water Hole just next to Uluru. We were shown cave paintings that Millie explained as parts of The Law’s stories. The drawings, like those we saw in Kakadu, were the 10,000 year-old equivalent of a school blackboard. Elders would paint the walls and tell stories to educate children in the Proper Way. That was the way tribal custom and behavior was passed on, Millie said, in the “naked days” before the white man came.
Megan also produced a number of film canisters containing edible or medicinal plants used by aborigines. We all sat in a circle and everyone but Maureen tasted the offerings, at least until Dad found a chunk of glass in his bush plum. Where the hell did that come from? I kept looking and smelling, but didn’t taste after that. At the end of the tour Millie decided she liked our group and let us pose with her for photos.
We left the Center near sunset and had the perfect opportunity to stop at the Sunset Viewing Site just off the road. Of course, everyone else had the same idea. The sunset wasn’t much more spectacular than the one last night from the hill behind the hotel, but we were a lot closer. The Rock didn’t care if we could see purple and red highlights on its flanks, it knew there’d be other times, other sunsets.
Half an hour later, convinced by a quick visit to the other fancy restaurant that our first choice was the best, we sat down to a nice dinner. Bryan had oven-fired pizza, Maureen linguini with shrimp, Dad the creamy duck and gnocchi, and I had salmon with risotto and a huge Mediterranean salad. Two days of chicken nuggets and fries had pushed me to the edge and I wanted greenery bad. The cool green cucumber in my salad went beautifully with the Kalamata olives. We also tried the Clancy wine, a red blend of cabernet, merlot, shiraz and who knows what else. It was a big hit.
For dessert I invented the “lattea,” a cup of tea with hot foamed milk. (Ok, it’s a tea latte, but tell me lattea isn’t a better name:) It took some explaining but the waitress managed to translate my request into a steaming hot cup of delightfully restorative beverage. The perfect end to a fascinating day.
Red paint on sandstone
Through heat
and rain, through gods
and dreams
Waiting.
Posts Tagged ‘Motivation’
Night of Lattea
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #aroundtheworld, Australia, green building, lattea, Motivation, nonfiction, poetry, Thoughts, travel, Uluru on July 22, 2015| 2 Comments »
Left Toward Humpty Doo
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #aroundtheworld, #keepleftlookright, Australia, Bill Bryson, Darwin, Kakadu, Motivation, nonfiction, Thoughts, travel, Uluru on July 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »
I received a request for more travel writing (thanks for the positive feedback, folks!) and I’m happy to oblige. Fifteen years ago today I was still on my around-the-world-on-a-shoestring adventure and lucky enough to be in beautiful and fascinating Australia. (For more, and often hilarious, writing on this fine land, I recommend Bill Bryson‘s excellent In a Sunburned Country.)
July 19
Wednesday
Darwin-KakaduToday was my first real day in Australia. I woke early and showered, then walked to a car rental place down the street and picked up a car. It’s a Camry with the steering wheel on the right (meaning wrong!) side. Weird, but fine once I got used to it.
I rescued my incredibly resilient brother from the jaws of the commercial aviation system, checked out of the hotel and started driving east. I took a left toward Humpty Doo and cruised down the Arnhem Highway. There aren’t that many roads up here so getting lost wasn’t as much of a problem as finding places to refuel. In these isolated parts the petrol stations are like souped-up 7-11s back home. They’ve got everything from gas to snacks to a lunch counter complete with short order cook. My brother bought an amazingly large and leaky hamburger with everything on it (we’re talking usual condiments like cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, mustard, ketchup, but also Thousand Island dressing, ham, pickled beets and a whole fried egg!). I had toast with peanut butter and everyone was happy.
It’s about three hours from Darwin to the Kakadu Park hotel where we were staying and I drove, pleased that being on the wrong side of the road was really no big deal. Keep left, look right, that’s my motto. I didn’t sweat it at all, except for that one time when I may have clipped a highway reflector post with the passenger-side mirror. Fortunately, both objects involved were spring-mounted. No harm done!
We pulled into the hotel mid-afternoon and found Dad and Step-Mo out by the pool. After halloos and stories, Dad joined us on a two-hour billabong boat tour where I saw two crocodiles, a ton of birds, and a sunset. I took many pictures. I was not eaten.
The road back to the hotel ran through scrubby trees and dense undergrowth, all of which exuded more elegance than during the day. The magnificent headdress of stars certainly helped.
We had dinner at the hotel restaurant (kangaroo isn’t so bad, really), drinks at the bar, then called it a night. I couldn’t stand to be behind in my writing anymore though, so I’m up and pleased to be back on track.
Spotted today: white parrots, a long lizard, three big monitor-type lizards with purple tongues (by the pool), a kangaroo (dead), big snake (dead), a wallaby (alive), biting insects galore, and the Southern Cross – beautiful!
Egypt, From 30,000 Feet
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #aroundtheworld, around the world, Egypt, Motivation, museums, Nile, non-fiction, nonfiction, pyramids, Red Sea, sick, Thoughts, travel, writing on July 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Dipping back into my old journal, I find a reminder that world travel isn’t all hot air balloons and fairy chimneys. Fifteen years ago today I was somewhere over Europe, the sand and beauty of Egypt at my back, catching up on my writing after an unexpected interruption…
July 8
Saturday
Over EuropeEgypt was a hot, hazy abyss for words and a huge gap on these pages. Where have I been? Where haven’t I? Luxor, the Nile, within pharaoh’s tombs feeling the weight of centuries above me, Aswan, the Red Sea, and back to Cairo. Right now I’m on British Air flight 155 from Egypt to Heathrow on a bright Saturday morning, trying to make sense of the past week. I thought it was exciting, historic, odiferous, and best when just itself.
Things I liked best about Egypt: the Pyramids, even though I couldn’t go inside; the Cairo souk (best yet, used by actual locals!); cruising up the Nile at sunrise; sitting on the beach at the Red Sea watching dozens of crabs scurry past my feet; and Karnak by night.
Things I didn’t like as much about Egypt: long cab rides to places unknown at noon while sweating like a faucet; not knowing as much as I wanted to about what I was seeing; not understanding the voices of those who mistook me for Egyptian; the constant stream of misinformation from person after person after Sheraton person until that was the only thing I could count on; and finally, getting sick.
Call it Nile Fever, the Mummy’s Curse, whatever, being sick was bad. The worst. The only thing I was thankful for was that it happened on the cruise ship MS World (trés apropos, I thought in my more lucid moments) on a two-night jaunt between Luxor and Aswan. I don’t think I left the boat once. I did go topside several times (I may have even lasted half an hour up there once), to watch the Nile slide beneath me. The river’s green banks sheltered children and shacks and goats, then withered abruptly into the face of the desert beyond. Even that much water has to bow to the power of the Sahara.
Fishermen, boys really, prowled the marshy shallows two to a boat. One boy stood at the prow with a stick over his head, waiting. The other may have had a net, and in my mind I see them both poised, waiting. Their felucca holds steady beneath them as they wait for dinner to come to them. When it does, they explode into motion, beating the water with the stick. I can picture too, the shock wave that stuns the fish just long enough for the second boy to do his work.
The water glowed green in those places, matted with lily-like stems floating over shaded fishing grounds. The room had a raised platform just past the bed where a queasy woman could sit and watch the river from sliding glass doors.
Being sick was bad bad bad, but only for a day. Two, really. I couldn’t eat anything in that time and in three days managed to lose almost ten pounds. Cutting back to one bite of bread and a handful of Pepto-Bismol did what spas all over the world are trying to accomplish, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Illness shaped my last week in Egypt and along with the ruins and the heat, that’s what I’ll remember.
This week’s greatest accomplishment? It’s a tie between seeing the Valley of the Kings in 50-plus degree heat (centigrade!), and making the bus trip from Aswan to El Gouna while ill. Did I mention that the second trip took ten hours in faux-A/C, no WC buses and involved more Pepto-Bismol than the previous two days combined? Now that I think about it, the bus trip definitely gets my vote for toughest challenge overcome in a foreign country to date.
El Gouna is a small resort town built on the shores of the Red Sea. There is no local market, history or culture because everything’s been imported to create a place just for tourists. I didn’t care. I spent the time in a beautiful arched room with real A/C, room service, and a view. From the window I could see the water and watch the tide go out in the early afternoon. The sea floor was shallow there, leaving broad swaths of sea floor exposed for hundreds of feet.
The hotel complex was built on a manufactured island in what used to be a swamp. First they dredged it, then built a pretty little system of buildings connected by bridges and lagoons. The walls are painted pink and yellow and blue, and the grounds are full of green. Every sunset and sunrise the lagoons are fogged to keep the mosquitoes at bay.
More than a swim I wanted to walk on the floor of that Sea as the waters receded, see what Moses and those seven Chinese brothers would have seen as the water vanished before them. So I did. I’d have liked to see the local pod of dolphins, too, but didn’t even have the strength to pretend to dive.
Moses must have worn waders because the muck was impressive. So were the creatures who called it home. I was pleased to find a whole spiral shell just under an inch long, then shocked when it up and walked away from me. Almost all the shells were inhabited and the ground pocked with air holes. I strolled through the slime looking back every so often at the colorful, improbable hotel.
The next day I walked to a neighboring island’s pier and hiked the long boardwalk to the edge of the tidal zone. At the end of this huge pier the Sea changed color, shifting from clear to green as the bottom dove down. Farther out the water wasn’t red at all, but a dark electric blue. The Red Sea Mountains’ jagged edges rose smoky blue in the desert. One last toe into the lapping waters. So ended my journey through Egypt.
Damn Lucky
Posted in Other, tagged home, Motivation, Thoughts, yay on July 6, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Right now I’m experiencing one of those moments where something goes wrong and I realize how incredibly fortunate I am in general.
The power went out about an hour ago. I’m writing this on my laptop, wishing its battery lasted longer than two hours on a full charge. I won’t have enough juice to get any real work done even if my connection to the internet weren’t down and most of my files on my desktop computer. A hassle, to be sure, and a real problem from a work perspective, but you know what?
I’m damn lucky.
Outages like this are rare here. When I wake up in the morning I do so to an (annoying) alarm clock, flip on the lights, and go about my day. I power up my computer, defrost frozen fruit in the microwave, blend up a smoothie, hit a button to close the garage door. If I need to go to the basement I don’t have to find a flashlight. My telephone, wireless router, clocks and refrigerator, all reliable contributors and as such, usually taken for granted.
Not so today.
I’d include a number of telling statistics on the number of people living without reliable (or any) electricity today but I can’t, because right now there is no Google for me.
I’ll take a pause, give myself a moment to let that sink in: there is no Google. No immediate access to facts and figures, and also no access to files or appointments or phone numbers or email. More critically, no refrigeration for medications or perishables, no air conditioning for the elderly, and for some, no way to call for help if they need it.
As usually happens when the power goes out I am making a list of things to do for next time. I have an analog phone that works without electricity, the number for the utility company written down on an actual piece of paper, and a battery-powered lamp, but as soon as the power comes back on I will also print out more phone numbers, save my files to yet another location, and charge up my devices.
Ah, the room I’m in is suddenly filled with a cacophony of sound, appliances beeping, water pump bubbling, compressors humming. I’ll reset the clocks, boot up the computer, post this missive. And then, when that is done and power is once again unremarkable, I will go back to what I was doing before. Working, warming up lunch in the microwave, checking Google.
And being damn lucky.
This Day In (My) History
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #aroundtheworld, #feistywomen, Alexander the Great, Cappadocia, fairies, Istanbul, Motivation, museums, nonfiction, Thoughts, travel, Turkey on June 25, 2015| Leave a Comment »
According to an old journal, fifteen years ago today I was in Turkey…
June 25
Sunday
Istanbul-CappadocciaI’m in seat 34 and already seven minutes late. I’m on the night bus to Cappadocia and I’m settling in for a ten-hour ride into the heart of Turkey. The old woman ahead of me is getting feisty, pounding on the window and demanding to leave, loudly. This little drama is all in Turkish, of course, but it’s hard to misunderstand this kind of impatience. Most of the country seems to travel by bus and this is the largest terminal I’ve ever seen. The station is huge, complete with hotel and shopping complex, mosque, 200,000 lira WCs, and plenty of air guns to keep the kids occupied.
Today was busy. I decided to see Cappadocia’s fairy chimneys, and an underground city carved from solid rock.
Then it was off to make reservations, pay more than expected, and recover from sticker shock with a quick lunch at the Backpacker’s Bar. Greek salad again, a bargain with bread at 750,000 lira ($1.20), plus tea and cake.
After checking out of the hotel at noon I sought cool haven at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. The Museum had a number of interesting exhibits, including the so-called Alexander Sarcophagus. Actually the resting place of a king from Sinon, I think, the stone has finely detailed carvings of Alexander the Great in battle.
The museum’s dim lighting preserved the displays, while making the charging horses, valiant men, and straining muscles seem one step short of alive.
*Crappy Day Alert*
Posted in Entertainment, Funny, Other, Writing, tagged #justaddkittens, #madeupstatistics, #somedaysarejustlikethat, KittenTV, Mondays, Motivation, persistence, Thoughts, work, writing on June 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Hey, folks, it’s a crappy day here, rain and wind and grey skies. What’s that? It’s crappy inside too? It’s hard to get your work done and you can’t seem to focus? That’s ok, it’s just…
A Crappy Day.
Don’t fret if you can’t stand the thought of another to-do list, if every single thing you should be doing is annoying the crap out of you. Because it’s (say it with me) a crappy day!
So, what to do? I say go with it! Revel in the mediocrity of the day. Remember that today is Monday and it is a scientifically proven fact that 96% of all Mondays have a better-than-average likelihood of being crappy.* And then break out the big guns.
That’s right, take yourself over to KittenTown and remember, tomorrow will probably be better:)
* Not really, but tell me it doesn’t feel true.
Failing Your Way to Success
Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged Abraham Wald, Applied Mathematics Panel, damn lies, David McRaney, failure, history, luck, Motivation, persistence, statistics, survivorship bias, The Department of War Math, Thoughts, Tobias Buckell, women in history, Writers, writing, Writing Excuses, WWII on April 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »
I came across a fascinating article by David McRaney on survivorship bias. The overall point, that accounting for failure is critical to success, is well made, and the author uses a series of pointed examples. Not incidentally, the post also lays out a new-to-me part of World War Two history that includes a cabal of geniuses, women mathematicians, and the Department of War Math (ok, that last bit wasn’t its real name, but it should have been).
In World War Two, for example, the U.S. military tracked damage to returning bombers and wanted to beef up the most frequently-hit areas. A statistician named Abraham Wald pointed out that the surviving planes made it back despite that damage. The spots where they were unscathed, the ones no one had thought to record, were in fact the most vulnerable; as McRaney sums up, “that’s where the planes that didn’t make it back were hit.”
I found the history interesting in its own right, and if you have ever been tempted by the (admittedly seductive) trap of thinking, “Well, my grandfather breakfasted on salt pork and hot gin for ninety years, so I can eat whatever I want and still live forever,” I recommend a read.
“You develop a completely inaccurate assessment of reality thanks to a prejudice that grants the tiny number of survivors the privilege of representing the much larger group to which they originally belonged.“
That same logic applies to evaluating advice from diet gurus, celebrity CEOs and millionaire app designers. Skill plays a part, of course, but it turns out that overall, what a lot of successful people have in common could be termed luck. That may be a bit discouraging, but the good news is that such luck can be courted if you’re willing to take a longer-term view.
“The lucky try more things, and fail more often, but when they fail they shrug it off and try something else. Occasionally, things work out.”
Instead of looking for that one big break, think of the world as a series of possibilities; the more options you try, the greater your chance of success. Resist tunnel vision, “wade into the sea of random chance,” and stay open to new ideas and situations. That sounds pretty good, actually.
If you’re interested in how survivorship bias applies to writers and writing careers, check out this post by Tobias Buckell and the related Writing Excuses podcast in glorious audio or text.
Magic
Posted in Likes, tagged awesome, Canada, Cape Breton, inspiration, lighthouses, Motivation, Nova Scotia, smile!, space, Thoughts, yay on March 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Truer Words…
Posted in Funny, Likes, Writing, tagged artists, creativity, criticism, Fiction, Iain S. Thomas, learning, Motivation, persistence, quotes, rejection, Thoughts, work, Writers, writing on February 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »
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