I am a Rock

I have returned to the land of Internet! Rather, I have succumbed to the ridiculous prices of Yulara, the name of the resort town I'm staying in. Because Uluru and Kata Tjuta are such tourist attractions but are in the middle of nowhere, this resort town was built to accommodate tourists looking to check out the rocks. It only has an official city name for municipal reasons and to handle the staff that lives on the edge of the town. Also, because we are in the most middle of nowhere I have ever been in my entire life, the prices at Yulara are about thirty times higher than anywhere else I have been. I shared a room with nineteen other people and paid a little less than twice what I paid to stay in a room with two other people. Plus, one of the nineteen others was this crazy lady from Seattle that chatted with me about salmon of all things for about ten minutes and then announced, "Well, you probably want my email address...do you have paper so I can write it down for you?" Perhaps she was lonely, but what was she expecting? Weekly updates? Me to pass on those email chain letters? She was hilarious. Today, check-out time is 10:00 even though nobody's flight leaves before 12:30, so I have time to kill and I figured I'd suck it up and pay $5 an hour for wireless Internet access.

Despite the raging prices (and raging heat--it's been upwards of 100 degrees!), I'm absolutely thankful I made it out here. While I loved the east coast of Australia, this feels truly Australian--these are such iconic pieces of rock out here, and it really does feel different than the rest of the country. There's two major rocks to explore: Uluru or Ayer's Rock, depending on whether you insist on using the white man's name for it or the traditional Aboriginal one, and Kata Tjuta or the Olgas, a series of thirty-six domes which create a mini-mountain range. The first day I was out here, I hiked through a chasm between two of the thirty-six domes (each one has a name and a special significance) and watched the sunset at Uluru, where it is supposed to light up when the sun hits the ground. Sadly, it was cloudy outside and the $104 I paid for the tour in its entirety seemed a bit wasteful. The next day, I decided to book just transportation to Uluru to watch the sunrise and hike around it, since I was disillusioned by the expensive tour. This time, the tour desk staff gave me the wrong time to meet the bus, and I ended up being taken on a bus that went back to Kata Tjuta to see the sunrise over there. The woman also informed me that I owed her $15 extra because this trip cost more. I told her no way was I paying for the tour desk's mistake, so she made a phone call and very nicely said that they would work it out for me. From Kata Tjuta, we could see the sunrise over Uluru and the way the sun changed the color of each of the domes, so it turned out to be a total winner. We also did the biggest hike you can do out here (without climbing Uluru, which they ask you not to do) and it was excellent. It's called the Valley of the Winds, and you are basically climbing through rocks, climbing up cliffs, and since it had just rained, there were gorgeous white flowers dotting the valley. It was absolutely incredible. It's hard to describe just how cool it is to be next to these giant monoliths and how small you feel in comparison. Everything seems a bit more vivid out there: the sky is bright blue, the clouds are solid white and stretched out perfectly, the rocks are gigantic and bright rusty red, the plants are this very clear olive green, the air is arid and hot, and when the sun rose, it was the brightest orange I've ever seen. I buddied up with this delightful gay couple from London and hiked through with them, though often I had to go first since one of them was deathly scared of spiders and the other of snakes. We saw lots of jumping insects and tons of cool birds, but no spiders or snakes.

After that hike, I came back and crashed for about an hour and then went off to Uluru to make sure I got to see everything. Unfortunately, by this time it was sweatingly hot and it made me uncomfortable to be hiking by myself in that heat without a full water bottle. It was weird, nobody else was out there hiking: I hiked for over three hours and didn't see a single other person. Still, I hiked out to two of the Aboriginal sacred water holes, both of which were very peaceful and serene. One had a batch of small birds flying in and out of the water and it was incredibly cool. I hiked halfway around the rock, and then decided to go to the Cultural Center which explains more of the history and culture of the area. The hike was much longer than I thought it would be, and by the time I got there I was exhausted and about ready to pass out from the heat. I even made the executive decision that it was worth paying $4 for a cold Diet Coke, which I have never done in my life because I don't normally drink soda. Still, the center was quite cool and informative, but by that point in the day I was a gross mess of sweat, red dirt, and peeling skin which all combined to make this gross clay kind of substance coating my body. When I cooled off with the air-con of the room (they don't say AC here, they say air-con with their Aussie accents), I just looked like a dirty mess with dried dirt everywhere. I would have been slightly more bothered if I knew anybody within a decent radius, but because I'm in the middle of nowhere, there's literally nobody I know so I didn't care. I stayed at the cultural center waiting for the shuttle to take me to see the sunset at Uluru, but it was about half an hour late. During this time, these really cute Aboriginal kids were playing around the center. All the displays about the significance of the area makes it seem as if the Aboriginals are constantly learning from their elders, doing cultural rites, etc. but these kids were just chasing each other, making footprints in the dirt, stealing each other's food, and yelling like kids in the States. They were quite cute, and were fascinated by the fact that I live in Los Angeles. While waiting eons for the shuttle, I was busy thinking of ways to survive the outback during the night (this included scenarios such as eating leaves, spearing a snake with a stick, and eating my sunscreen). Thankfully, as soon as I reached desperation and started daydreaming about finding a dingo and cooking it over my nonexistant fire for its meat, the shuttle arrived and we made it to the sunset in time.

The sunset was everything it was hyped up to be: as the sun hits the horizon, Uluru literally lights up and turns this magnificent rusty bright red, a huge change from the ordinary red/brown color it is. It was an awe-inspiring sight, and single-handedly made up for the expense of the trip out here. I was chatting with a nice British couple and bemoaning the price of food (I haven't bought a real meal in three days: I can't handle paying $25 for an appetizer-sized bowl of spaghetti, so I've been living off of granola bars and fruit since I got here), and when they left, they said that they had a son who backpacked around Australia counting pennies, and they would have loved it if someone helped him out and bought him a real meal. They refused to take no for an answer and shoved some cash on me, telling me to go out and get a real meal, to tell my parents to do the same thing, and that when I'm old and retired I have to pass on the favor. I hadn't realized how hungry I was till I ate my pizza, which tasted so amazingly delicious it's not even funny. It was a much-needed act of kindness, and it made my night for sure. Also, in Cairns, there was no nearby place to buy a cheap breakfast, so I had been living off of peanut butter and bread for about the previous five days, and would buy a real meal maybe once a day. It was so delightful to have real food.

One last interesting thing about the outback is the flies. They coat EVERYTHING. I consumed three of them yesterday alone: I ate one accidentally when it landed on my apple, I inhaled one through my right nostril, and I sucked in another one when I was taking a breath of air. If it wasn't so disgusting how many flies were out here, I'd think it was almost humorous, but when you're constantly swatting flies out of your face, it gets less than ideal. The resort sells these fly nets that go around your hat, but I still have a shred of dignity left and therefore will not sink to that level, and plus they're about $20 for a piece of mesh. I can't do it.

Now I'm off to Sydney for a night, but I have no place to stay, since in the time since I last checked my email, my hostel emailed me to say they are booked to capacity. Perhaps I'll stay in the airport? Sleep under the Harbour Bridge? Make friends with someone on the street and see if they'll invite me in? Kidding, of course. I'll get there and walk around, there's backpacker places everywhere and I'm sure one of them has space. I hang around in Sydney for about half a day, and then I head off to Auckland where I get ready for orientation! It's crazy how fast it's gone. After traveling on my own, I have very little desire to go to classes. Hopefully I'll have a change of heart once I see the university. My next task is to do some serious exfoliation, because my skin has turned dark brown with patches of lighter brown since I'm peeling like none other, making me have this patchy, kind of scaly look. What a lovely combination. I put on loads of sunscreen today and it created a peely, slightly dry/slightly greasy complexion. Oh, the trials of my Aussie life.

Sorry for the long update--I've been typing this out for the past few days I've been here. Love love love to everybody at home...