November 23, 2020

More things I like

I made a list of things I like in an old blog from 2011. Then I wrote another list of my favourite things in 2012, but since then I’ve grown to like many more things. I’ve also realised that some things I don’t like make me irrationally uncomfortable, like pitch black dark, or when people swim too close to me in water where I cant reach the ground, and letting anyone take my passport out of sight. I also dislike being stuck in traffic, over-consumption, extravagance, and wastefulness. But anyway, here’s a list of things I do like, staying focused on the positive:

When I´m in Asia, like tropical rain, sticky humidity, and chaotic markets. I like super spicy hot sauces that they sprinkle on everything, and warm teas to drink with it.

When I´m in South America, I like hearing salsa, bachata and reggaeton music coming from every house, car, and bus that I pass. I like that you can always find beans and rice for next-to-free, and corn in all forms and gigantic avocados that are always ripe.

When I´m in Iceland, I love that everyone call spell my full name (and pronounce it), the brevity of my postal address, and how cheap and easy it is to buy the best hot dog in the world. I love the temperature and taste (or non-taste) of the cold water from the tap, and how it tastes exactly the same from a river in the highlands. I also love that hitchhiking is safe, and that the residence of the president is a farm near Reykjavik without any armed guards or barbed wire.

When I´m in Africa, I like the warmth, in the air, the people and the food. West African and French African music always soothes, even the polyrhythmic percussions. I’m always impressed how many people they can fit in a vehicle, and how some of these old, beat-up western reject cars still manage to stay alive. The second-hand markets of Red Cross rejects and food markets where everything is available for individual sale, from eggs to shampoo, never ceases to amaze me.

In Australia and New Zealand, I love the way people speak with accents make English sound friendlier. I’m in love with they way theres an endless supply of meat pies, ginger beer, and sweet chilli sauce for everything. I like their new-world wine and vineyards, and talk about baby blue ocean water.

Antarctica was love at first sight, all of it. The wildlife, the snow-capped mountains and floating icebergs felt so exotic yet so close to home. If I could spend the rest of my life surrounded by thousands of penguins (by far my favourite animal!), I’m sure I could even learn to like the smell of penguin poop.

hammocking in Antarctica

When I’m anywhere, I love cosy time, cuddling and cat naps. Sitting in a hanging chair, hammock or window sill with a view – I must have been a cat in my previous life – there’s something so natural about purring in your own corner watching the world go by.

December 2, 2014

A Glimpse of normal in Brisbane

I lived in Brisbane for 5 months in 2007, and I’ve literally been homesick ever since. I had’t been back yet til now, and only one of my Australian friends ever came to visit in Iceland, Brooke. Seven and a half years is a long time, and things have changed, but only slightly, and all for the better. All my barefooted student friends are now flip-flop wearing doctors. Brooke lived in Dubai and worked for Emirates, and now returned to Brisbane to become a teacher. I used to work at Mazda and most of those friends still work as car salesmen, but now for Mercedes-Benz. Then there was me, the unemployed traveler who’s barely changed at all, crashing back into their lives and making them party like we were all still 19. And so we did.

James mischievously pouring some champagne at the Regatta

I took a few walks down memory lane, visiting all my old favourite spots. The University of Queensland campus was a lot greener, since I had been a student there on the 6^th year of drought. There was a new swimming pool I splashed around in, and the food court was nearly the same, so I had my usual – a Thai chicken curry meat pie and Bundaberg ginger beer. And once again I could eat uncut sushi rolls…. A genius invention that should have gone worldwide by now.

I went to the races, all pretty in a flowery dress with a fluffy purple fascinator in my hair. Brooke came with me, and together we managed to win money on every race except one. We picked the 1^st place winner on one race, and that basically paid for our whole day.

me and Brooke at the races

We went to our old watering holes, the unclassy Royal Exchange and the much prettier Regatta (it was rebuilt after the 2011 floods). We had a “Sunday sesh” at the Regatta and drank cheap bottles of Moet & Chandon, but mostly stuck to our daytime house party mixes of Bundaberg or Cracken rum with gingerbeer. My host James was always on night shifts, so daytime cocktails were excusable.

look at that hail!

Southbank has totally changed, although I never actually made it there, since a hail storm hit the day we wanted to go lie on the man-made beach. And it wasn’t a small hail storm, it was like the end of the world kinda winds, breaking trees, torrential downpours, flash floods, and hail the size of whiskey ice cubes falling from the sky. Bunches of the city just shut down, with roads underwater and electricity out in entire neighbourhoods for more than 2 days. Broken tree branches were slowly collected and piled up on the side of the roads, and eventually the weather was just fine again. But then it was time to fix the roofs that blew away, the windows that had been smashed into a million pieces, and all the cars whose hoods and windshields had been dented or cracked.

I only spent one day on the beach, at the Gold Coast. Its like an Australian Miami, with dozens of skyscrapers growing up into the sky from a sandy yellow beach, while beautiful half-naked people dip into the turquoise blue Pacific. The water wasn’t as warm, and the feeling of being on an isolated island was long gone, but this visit to Australia made me feel slightly normal again, with normal functioning cities and people to call friends.

the Gold Coast behind us

When it was time to go back to some far away Pacific island, I tried to get the help of some travel agencies. The company Student Flights has this price beat guarantee, which I managed to book since I found an airfare $100 cheaper than what they found. So a couple days later I got a pretty cheap one-way ticket to Tahiti, only to realize it was still expensive to be there, and a lot more expensive to leave.

October 22, 2014

Kakadu National Park

Kakadu is one of, if not the most famous national park in Australia, and even worldwide, boasting caves filled with Aboriginal stone art from 20,000 years ago all the way up to the 20^th century. It’s a living nature reserve and aboriginal culture museum, burned and flooded every year throughout its six indigenous seasons. It’s massive in size, taking nearly the same amount of time to drive through as it takes one to drive clear across Iceland. Half of it isn’t even accessible in the wet season, but the whole of it can hardly be called ‘accessible’ in the dry season since it was a scorching 42`C high every day and hiking around to all the art sights, billabongs and look-out points were nearly suicide missions (I swear I almost melted).

a dwindling billabong, crowded with birds

It’s nearly the end of the dry season, and the only water left was a few muddy puddles, covered in lilies and hundreds of birds, plus three major rivers, affectionately named West Alligator River, South Alligator River, and East Alligator river (aren’t their only crocodiles in Australia? and the South one was really the middle one, since they were all parallel in a row… unimportant technicalities I guess). It was scorching hot, even at night, and I don’t think I’ve ever drank so much water or sweated it out so quickly.

gunbim at Nourlangie rock

Luckily we had a car with air conditioning to provide temporary relief between the walk-abouts, and the hikes always proved worthwhile once you stood under a shady cave covered in cartoony but intricate images of fish and kangaroos painted by someone in red-ochre thousands of years ago.

We saw dozens of kangaroos and hundreds of birds – geese, storks, and colourful parrots to boot. Yellow-crusted cockatoos flew overhead as often as lizards crossed our paths, and we even saw one crocodile make a lunch out of one unlucky bird (or fish, it’s hard to say… just glad it wasn’t one of us). Our luck continued as we drove out of the park, where we sighted a dingo cross the road, and 3 wild horses, aka brumbies, grazing right beside the road!

the park is purposely burned every year, causing huge smoke plumes

We found the perfect Kakadu decompression site on our way home, the Douglas Daly hotspring national park, where we bathed in hot water, but at maybe 36`C, the water mas still cooler than the air and we managed to enjoy it under the shade of cockatoo-perched trees. It’s hard to imagine places like this exist, naturally, and total in the wild, and all it took was a weekend roadtrip from Darwin to find them.

October 21, 2014

South-east Asia to the South Pacific, via Australia

There are only 2 direct flights out of Dili, the one from Bali that I took to get in, and the one to Darwin I took to get out. Landing in Australia was only a 90 minute flight, but years and worlds away from Timor. The last time I was down under was 2007, when I lived in Brisbane, and the North Territory is totally different to the east coast. It’s gotten a lot more expensive, according to my memory of the average price of a meat pie and gingerbeer, and the Australian dollar is also stronger, so I was happily couchsurfing to avoid the $30/night hostels filled with German teenagers.

Maguk Pool at Kakadu

I wanted to go from Timor to Papua, since they’re sort of geographically contingent, but of course that doesn’t matter to airlines. If I wanted to do that, I’d have to go to the Indonesian side of West Timor, fly to the Indonesian Paupa, and cross overland to Papua New Guinea and take a handful of days to travel overland to Port Moresby. Or, I could fly to Bali and pay another $35 visa on arrival and $20 international departure tax just to use Denpasar. But, the easiest and probably most enjoyable way to cross from South-East Asia to the South Pacific is through Australia.

I didn’t spend much time in Darwin, but landed on a Friday and spent one roaring night out with my host Nick. In our brief introduction chat, he suggested Kakadu national park as a place to spend the weekend, since he had never been there either but had a jeep and the weekend off. So I spent Friday afternoon rushing around Darwin trying to take in some of the shops and sights, and made it as far as the post office to send some post cards and birthday gifts. I saw the man-made beach, but didn’t make it down the 80 steps to the crocodile-free lagoon.

My couchsurfing accomodation

To get to Port Moresby, I coulnd’t fly from Darwin, so I took a 2.5 hr internal flight to Cairns. I once drove there from Brisbane, and remembered the low-lying square blocks around the CBD which reminded me of an old Western town – just replace the cowboys with European backpackers and swinging-door saloons with tourist booking offices.

I couchsurfed with Willy Chu, whose name made me want to break out into singing Beyonce, at an apartment that slightly resembled a resort in Bali. I ate some pies and actually made it to the crocodile-free lagoon there, and Willy took me hiking to a freezing cold water hole where we could swim under waterfalls without worrying about crocodiles.