Brazil may be the wildest place I've ever been.  That's counting Cambodia, Croatia, Bosnia and Thailand.   For our three weeks in the country, we went to quite a few cities, and it felt the same in each place.  The entire country (or at least the parts of it we saw) feels as though it might be reclaimed by the rainforest at any moment.   Palm trees sprouting straight out of concrete, the rainforest swallowing walking paths and every kind of insect poised to attack the moment a little skin is shown.  Camping was interesting.  After Iguazu Falls we we had planned on going to Florianopolis, a small beach town south of Sao Paulo.  However, when we went to buy our tickets, as would become the rule rather than the exception, we found that we had to change our plans.  Tickets to Florianopolis were sold out, so we decided to head to Curitiba instead.  

Four hours later we boarded our very fancy overnight sleeper bus.  Very fancy except that the seats didn't actually lay flat like the ticket seller claimed, and as soon as we were on our way, we found that the overhead compartment was so loose that with every small bump it emitted a very loud squeaking noise.  Not exactly the makings of a good night's sleep.  Now, as a kid growing up watching MacGyver, I'd always dreamed of being able to thwart bad guys with a rubber band and a pencil, build an internal combustion engine with things found on the beach or fix a squeaky overhead compartment with the contents of my backpack.  So I set to work on it.  First, I added as much weight as I could to my reusable shopping bag (luckily I had just bought a bunch of Spanish baby books for some friends of mine) then tied it to the railing closest to the noise (also luckily the seat below was empty).  This helped quite a bit, so I settled in to get a little shut-eye.  About one minute later, I quickly realized a flaw in the plan.  Every time the bus took a turn the shopping bag would swing wildly on on its handles, and I was easily able to picture my knot coming loose, and the books knocking either Steph or me (or an unsuspecting sleeping passenger) unconscious.  No good.  So I got back up, zipped my jacket around the bag and attached one of the sleeves to the window of the still empty seat.  Problem solved.  New problem created…on my way back to my seat I stepped on a full juice box that was sitting on the floor.  Juice everywhere, all over my legs, on the floor, and slowly making its way to the passengers in the back.  I quickly grabbed the blanket from the empty chair, threw it on the juice and headed back to bed.  Problem solved (except for the sticky legs).  All good until at the next stop (at 2:30am) when a new passenger got on.  Guess where he was sitting.  Of course.  In the chair that now had a swinging bag full of books dangling over it, with my jacket tied across it, and a juice covered blanket.  Though here's where I got really lucky.  Steph explained the situation (thank goodness for her portuguese) about the noisy bin and the juicy blanket, and the guy said it was no big deal, squeezed under the jacket and went to sleep without a blanket.  I think he probably slept better than I did, as I spent the rest of the night worried that he would either be smashed by my books or cold.   It was a fun start to Brazil.

We worked our way up the coast from the South, and most of Southern Brazil was spent on a beach with a caipirinha in one hand and a pastel (brazilian form of an empanada) in the other.  It was a nice vacation within a vacation.  Between the sugar, alcohol and fried dough, I probably gained about 5 pounds over that week.  Then I rolled my way onto another bus, and off we headed for Sao Paulo.  

Sao Paulo is where Steph was born and where much of her family still lives, which meant that this city was a little less about sightseeing and a little more about family time.  We stayed with her Grandmother, were taken sightseeing by her aunt Thelma, and out to dinner with her uncle Fabio.  It was fun being included in another family, listening to another Grandmother's stories.  It was interesting how similar the stories were, which was yet another reminder of how small the world is, and how we really are living together on one small planet instead of being as insulated as we think we are in our own countries.  Steph's grandmother had many memories of WWII, and made money by creating replicas of fabric patterns created in Paris.  My own grandmother still has my grandfather's WWII uniform, and worked for a time as a seamstress.   It's so far away, and yet strangely familiar.  Steph's grandma also tried to feed us way too much food.  Classic example of Grandmotherly behavior.

Making our way up the coast of Brazil, our next stop was the small colonial village of Paraty.  Paraty (pronounced pah-dah-chi), was once the biggest port in Brazil, with the surrounding land supplying the portuguese with gold, diamonds and iron.  Thinking that these resources would last forever, the Portuguese poured money into this city, building up a large and very charming village.  Then, of course, the resources ran out, and the town shrunk as most of the citizens headed for the cities with more possibilities, leaving behind empty beautiful buildings.  The town only had a resurgence recently when people figured out that the city was ripe for the picking as a tourist destination.  We spent two nights there, one night in a hostel, one night camping.  Camping in Paraty may have been the worst camping that we had on the entire trip.  It was thirty dollars per person person per night, the ground was muddy and the bathrooms were dirty.  Not so bad, those things we're used to.  What we weren't necessarily used to was camping next to a discotech.  Tents don't keep out much noise, so we listened to dance and techno music until about 4am.  It was so loud we might as well have been camping on the dance floor.  Needless to say I woke up at 7:15 when the sun came up (which meant the temperature went up to about 85 degrees), after having had three hours of sleep, pretty grumpy and happy to board a bus for Rio de Janiero.

Rio is one of those cities.  One of those cities like London or New York or Paris that we see so many times in movies (I can't even tell you how many times I've seen the Christ the Redeemer flyover) that we feel like we know it.  And when I first arrived, it was strangely familiar.  Before we went to Copacabana beach (where we spent our first two days) I almost knew what the boardwalk would look like.  Beautiful tiled sidewalks, beach huts selling fresh coconuts and sun bathers in very small swimsuits as far as the eye could see.  I, myself, was not in a very small swimsuit because the reason that we spent two full days at the beach was for a rugby tournament that Steph was helping referee.  From my comfortable seat under an umbrella next to a cooler full of water, everyone looked like they were having a great time, though I had a hard time seeing why.  It was hard to get past the fact that the sand was so hot everyone had to wear socks (not fun on the beach).  And on top of that, watching people get tackled and having their faces shoved into the hot sand.  Not my idea of a good time.  I'll let Steph tell you more later.  

After the tournament, we pretty much touristed our way around the city, trying to hit all the big sights, Ipanema, Lapa, Santa Teresa and Downtown.  We even climbed up to the Christ the Redeemer statue.  Yes, you read that right.  Climbed.  It seemed like a good, "fun way to get exercise and save a little money" way to get to the top.  Information that I read about the climb said it would take about 2.5 hours.  Now, usually when a hike guidebook says that, it means that the climbing part of the hike will take about an hour.  Not true with this one.  The climbing part took 2.5 hours.  2.5 hours of climbing so steep that at parts we needed to hold onto a chain provided to keep from falling backwards.  It was a really hard hike.  And at the end of it, when we finally got our very sweaty selves to the top, we found out that the ticket to get in was the EXACT same price than if we would have taken the very expensive bus to the top.  Sigh.  Brazil 1, Us 0.

Our last town to visit in Brazil was much farther north and so different that it might as well have been in another county.  It was far enough away that we had to take a plane to get there, and it seemed that many Brazilians consider it the 'true Brazil' or the soul of the country.  When we landed in Salvador, we had five days to spend in the city.  I read quite a bit about Salvador before we left, and was looking forward to seeing another side of Brazil.  This is the part of the country where most of the African influence still lies - a little like the deep south in the states.  Of course the part the interested me the most was the food - having never been to Africa (save for Morocco) I was looking forward to experiencing a new cuisine.  And new it was.  Salted cod fritters, dende oil, spicy fish and coconut stews, and more fruits I had never seen before.  Heavenly.  The only real drawback was the fact that Salvador has the reputation of being one of the most dangerous cities in Brazil.  Like, so dangerous that we were told to take a taxi even if we were only going three blocks.  We got very good at carrying nothing but a small amount of cash on us at any point.  I read in a guidebook that, "muggings can happen at anytime, sometimes in broad daylight.  Recently muggers have taken a more violent turn, with the perpetrator pushing the victim to the ground and emptying their pockets.  But don't worry, this has happened to me, and it's not all that bad."  Not all that bad??  Luckily we didn't experience anything of the sort, and were able to make our way out of Salvador (and Brazil) with all of our belongings.

Actually, almost all.  When we arrived in Mexico City and picked up our bags I quickly noticed that someone had gone through most of the pockets.  Good news:  I only lost one thing.  Bad news: it was my really nice multi-use leatherman pocket knife that my sister got me before I moved to Istanbul last year.  We used that thing for EVERYTHING, including giving each other haircuts along the way.  Luckily, we'll be home soon enough that I won't need another haircut before we get back.  But still very sad.

Now we're in Mexico, and I'm having a blast.  Looking forward to writing about it.  Last country before I'm home!


-EC

Waterfalls and cooking.   Those are the two things I want to write about in this post, and I've been trying in vain to come up with a clever way to link them together.  You don't necessarily cook while looking at waterfalls, and the water doesn't need food to keep it falling.  I thought about switching the two topics for things that matched a little better, but Iguazu comes next in the itinerary, and I've been looking forward to writing about food for weeks.  So I just have to settle on having two slightly unrelated topics to try to work in a clunky transition between.  So here goes.

For those of you who haven't heard of Iguazu Falls, it's a series of waterfalls right on the border of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.  It was one of the places that we had hoped to get to, but as our pocketbooks and time remaining got thinner and shorter, respectively, we talked of cutting it out of the trip.  It'll always be there, it's right in-between Buenos Aires and Brazil (and all of Steph's family) so it wasn't like the opportunity to see it wouldn't come up again.  In fact, we had all but made that decision, when fate took control and sent a rather irresponsible camper to Patagonia to start a forest fire.  The next thing you know, trails are closed, backpackers are evacuated, and we're on our way north instead of south.  As sad as I was to miss out on Patagonia (and the friends who were going to meet us there), I think in the end it probably worked out for the best.  We got to see the waterfalls AND have an extra 9 days in Brazil.  Not such a bad alternative.  

As I was saying, Iguazu Falls is an incredible series of waterfalls on the borders of three countries.  And when I say incredible, I mean it.  Niagara eat your heart out.  I don't even know how it's possible for the Iguazu River to sustain the intensity of the falls 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week.  It was so much water, it seemed like it would have to run out sometime.  But no, on and on it goes.  At the main falls, the water fell with such intensity that standing 100-meters away the spray was so strong I could probably have taken a shower and shampooed my hair.  It was really incredible.  Unfortunately, this also meant that the town of Puerto Iguazu, where we decided to stay, was damp all the time.  We stayed at an inn, that was really just a room in someone's house, and it was probably one of the worst places we've stayed so far.  It was so damp everything was a little moldy and breathing was not easy.  This was something that might (emphasis on 'might') have been acceptable before we stayed with Steph's mom in Buenos Aires, but after the luxury it was like a slap in the face.  Back to reality.  

Due to the state of our accommodations, and how aware we were becoming of the limited amount of time we had left before returning home (as of this writing we return in exactly one month), we cut our time in Iguazu short by one day, jumped on an overnight sleeper bus to Curitiba (more on that in the next post), and felt satisfied that while we had not hiked Patagonia (one of the things I was looking forward to the most), we had at least seen one of the world's most amazing waterfalls and successfully crossed the border into Brazil nine days early.

As this epic trip is winding down, I've been starting to take stock of the places I've been, the things I've seen and experienced, and if it was all worth it/I accomplished anything besides seeing some really amazing places.  The biggest reason I decided to take this leap and travel the world this year was not to see things like Iguazu or Petra or Patagonia, though each of those places would be worth traveling the world to visit independently.  It biggest reason was to experience the food.  Having worked in restaurants since I was 15 (some better than others, I do count my years at Taco Bell and Olive Garden in there, since I certainly learned a lot about mass production), I have come to better understand how cooks learn.  Going to culinary school is one thing, and I would never discount what I learned there, because it provided me with an amazing knowledge base from which to build on, but it's not where I really learned to cook.  Cooks first learn to cook from other cooks, then second by experiencing new things and deconstructing how they were made.  For the most part, up until this point in my career my learning has been entirely the former.  Everyone in a professional kitchen has something to teach you, even the guy who clearly should have chosen another profession.  Which means I've spent 16 years collecting as many techniques, recipes and cooking theories as I could, in an attempt to become the best cook possible.  Because I love what I do.  I love the process, I love the exactness and inexactness, and I love the satisfaction that comes from mastering a new skill - each new skill adding a new level of understanding to the process.

The problem was, finally being at the point in my career where I felt comfortable enough in my understanding of that process, it was time to run a kitchen.  But when that opportunity unexpectedly presented itself, I realized that I wouldn't feel fully confident in that role until I had a larger base of the second kind of knowledge on which to draw from.  So I needed to get out, go to Morocco and Prague and Brazil, experience some new kinds of foods, flavor combinations and techniques and bring those back to help make any kitchen I run a slightly stronger and more interesting place to eat (and cook).  So this, in a nutshell, is why I came on this trip.  To be better at what I do.  

I know that when we first designed this blog, Steph and I both set aside a section of the site under the title 'wandering education,' and it was my intent to write about the things I was learning about food.  I have to say, it's hard enough to find time to write one blog post, let alone an entirely separate post just about food, so I'm sorry for anyone that was interested that I had to abandon that page so quickly.  But rest assured, I have been keeping notes in a journal along the way, and with Steph's help, I've been keeping track of some of my favorites along the way.  It's been fun.  Often during the course of a meal I'll say something like, "do you think this is something that could work at Heirloom (the restaurant I used to work at in San Francisco)? What if we changed this around, added a little of that, made this component into a salad instead, and then made a little sauce out of this? Yeah, that would work, and it would be really good.  I wonder what Matt would think about pairing with it?"  Like I said, it's been fun, exciting and educational.  Isn't that what all students hope their classes will be?

Some places that we've been were a little more educational than others, much like that guy in the kitchen that you're certain isn't going to last more than a few months before he heads off to get a job at a record store.  But I've taken as much information as I could, and I wanted to write a tiny bit on some of the highlights along the way (when have I ever been accused of writing a 'tiny' bit).

Morocco was one of the more disappointing places that we visited, and maybe because I had such high hopes for the food.  I expected highly spiced couscous with braised lamb and harissa paste.  I was looking forward to seeing the tagines (a traditional Moroccan clay pot), and tasting the difference that these pots can make (having never actually used one).  Aside from one meal which was pretty amazing, the rest of the food we had in Morocco was generally bland.  Though, the one meal we had (which I've already written about), will be one that I will try to adapt to Californian tastes at home.  Chicken, onions, potatoes, oranges, peas and spices all cooked together in a tagine, and served alongside couscous and chicken broth.  It doesn't sound all that exciting, but it was so perfectly done it was fantastic.  

Somewhere that I hadn't expected to fall in love with the food but did was Prague.  Prague is all about the charcuterie - roasted pork, smoked ham, sausages, dried and cured meats, homemade cheeses and surprisingly, pickled sausages and cheeses.  I had never even heard of pickled cheese before.  Surprising as it was, it paired perfectly with the light Czech-style pilsner that the city is known for.  I have long admired the restaurants that create their own charcuterie (not terribly common in San Francisco, extremely common in Prague), and thought it could be great to try making some house-smoked meats, and hand-pulled cheeses (maybe even pickled) with fresh condiments like pickled mustard seeds and fresh grated horseradish.  

A country that I did expect to have amazing food and it lived up to all expectations was Israel.  I have always loved Israeli food - hummus, eggplant, tabouli salad, falafel and shawarma - and it was even better in the homeland.  Everything in Israel is served with pickles and a salad, either a cucumber-tomato salad or a very lemony tabouli salad (basically bulgar and parsley), which makes the act of eating all of the small plates extra enjoyable.  All of the flavors are distinct, separate and mix perfectly well together.  It made me think, what if you made a salad out of perfectly fried falafel, fresh heirloom tomatoes, summer cucumbers, parsley and lemon, served it alongside a bed of smooth lemony hummus, added some grilled eggplant or chicken, then topped it with fried chickpeas?  Wouldn't that be almost everything I loved about Israeli food on one plate? Maybe a drizzle of tahini and a sprinkle of chili pepper?  My mouth waters just thinking about it.

South America has a food culture that I was/am most excited to explore.  In Argentina there are empanadas and chimichurri, in Brazil there are pasteis, fruits I've never seen before and a strong African influence that I'm hoping to see more of as we work our way north.  Empanadas and pasteis got me thinking about how much the world likes stuffed pockets.  It seems like you can take almost anything and wrap it in a crispy dough, and people will be happy.  In Argentina the pockets are baked, in Brazil they are deep-fried, elsewhere in the world they are boiled, pan-seared, served cold, hot or somewhere in-between, but the idea is always the same.  The problem with serving something like that in a nice restaurant is that pockets are a bit…well…plebean.  They're street food.  Can those be translated to an upscale restaurant, or are they best left for the street venders?  I'm interested in giving it a shot.  Afterall, the French have done pretty well with wrapping things in a crust, calling it 'en croute,' and selling it to high society.  Why not in California?

I've obviously skipped a lot.  There were small things - the impossibly crisp fish and chips in Australia, the grilled ground meat served with fresh sheep's cheese and onions in Bosnia, braised lamb and potatoes cooked underground in New Zealand and everything else in-between.  But this is what this trip has been about for me so far.  Broadening my horizons, thinking of ways to twist those new ideas into usable prototypes for the type of restaurant I love in California, and planning ways to become better at my job.  So far so good.  One month left and I'm still learning.  Next up?  Northern Brazil and Mexico.  My mouth is watering already.

-EC

Imagine trying to see an entire country in two weeks.  Granted, it's not a huge country, but still.  It's a country.  It has two large islands and one small one.  It has lush rain forests, snowcapped mountains, active glaciers, crystal clear blue lakes, enormous water-filled fjords, steaming prehistoric sulfur ponds and dazzling beaches.  And no, I did not just read that on a brochure.  If we spent two days trying to take in each of these marvels, the trip would be over.  Then that doesn't take into account the cities, Christchurch (wow, earthquake damage), Queenstown (adventure capital of the world), Wellington (cultural capital) and Auckland (largest city in NZ with nearly 1/4 of its citizens).

How do you even begin to get through all that that in two weeks?  I have to say, I think we did as well as we could, but we missed a lot.  For the first time since starting the trip, we decided to rent a motorcycle and give that mode of transportation a try.  After all, we had spent plenty of time in trains, buses, airplanes, cars and on foot - why not try a motorcycle?  Steph loves motorcycles, and when I read on the New Zealand information website that the country was one of the best places to tour by moto, I was game to give it a try.   So we reserved a bike in Christchurch, shoved as much of our things into the tiny suitcases as possible, put on the incredibly unflattering motorcycle clothing, and took off in the rain bound for adventure.  That adventure didn't take us too far before we had to stop for some hot coffee and an extra layer of socks.  Summer in New Zealand is not as warm as you might expect.  

We managed to make it 400 kilometers (at some point the clouds broke up and the sun came out,  which made it much nicer) to Mount Cook.  We found a great place to camp at the base of the mountain, thawed ourselves out, and enjoyed our first night on the New Zealand countryside.  Mount Cook is a gorgeous snowcapped mountain - the kind you see in postcards.  When we woke up in the morning, there was no time to waste.  We speed-hiked our way to the Mt. Cook glacier, then hopped on the bike and headed south to Queenstown.  

Queenstown, as I said above, is the adventure capital of New Zealand.  Here you can try your hand at skydiving, paragliding, kitesurfing, speedboating, bungy jumping, mountain biking…you get the idea.  With all of that adventure just dripping off the nearby trees, what did we decide to do?  Golf.  Frisbee golf to be exact.  Partly because I wanted to try it, and mostly because it was free - and all of those other activities most certainly were not.  We also did a bit of mountain luging to spice it up a bit.  Not quite the adventure of extreme mountain biking, but it worked.  And I won in 4 out of 6 races.  Bonus.  Queenstown is also the jumping off point for excursions into the Fjordlands National Park - a place where there are not only beautiful mountains, the mountains are covered in cascading waterfalls, all pouring into glacier dug fjords that lead out into the Tasman Sea.  It seems like all of New Zealand belongs on a postcard.  After the Fjordlands, we did a quick swing up the west coast, stopping to see the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers - both of which are currently growing (though the photos seem to indicate otherwise).  We did a pass through the middle of the south island, where we nearly ran out of gas.  Luckily, we chose wisely when we stopped at a farm to ask where the closest gas station was - because when the farmer told us that there were still several kilometers to go before we found a station AND that station was probably closed - we must of given him the saddest look we could, because he decided to give us a half a gas tank worth of gas for free.  "As a Christmas present," he said.  And, Merry Christmas to you too, friendly farmer.

That was our first six days.  We were not sad when we dropped off the motorcycle (named Jiminy Cricket, after its fairly high pitched roar), and picked up a car that we had scored on a relocation deal.  Free car, free ferry crossing, just have to pay for gas, and get it to Auckland in five days.  Sweet.  A mad-dash north followed, with a stop in the Marlborough wine region for some Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir tasting, and a dinner of green-lipped mussels made six ways - we found some great stuff.  Ferry crossing to the north island (not fun, three hours of rough seas.  I had to be escorted into the rear of the vessel because I was sick), and an overnight stay in Wellington.  We had a few drinks with friends, spent a couple hours in a New Zealand history museum, then headed north to Rotorua, home of Maori culture and the prehistoric sulfur ponds I mentioned above.  

As you get closer to Rotorua, you start smelling the sulfur.  The town is home to hundreds of natural springs and vents that spout gas and water from deep within the earth year round.  This area is sacred to the Maori people, and probably because of this, Rotorua is a center of learning about their ancient culture.  And learn about them we did.  The first thing we did when we got into town was make reservations to have a traditional dinner at one of the Maori villages on the outskirts of the city.  These dinners aren't particularly cheap, but the come with all the fixin's.  First when we arrived, we were greeted with a traditional 'welcome' dance, then shown how to participate in some of the games used by the Maori's to increase agility and speed.  After that, we were treated to dancing and storytelling - followed up by Hangi - which is a traditional style of cooking done underground.  Lamb, chicken, fish, mussels, veggies, sweet potatoes…all cooked with hot stones underground.  Awesome.  The meal was delicious, the entertainment was interesting, and the learning was fun.  I wish all meals could be that way.  Though, I guess if they were my job might be really hard (and I would have to learn how to dance).

With barely three days left in New Zealand (time goes so quickly!) we were trying to pack in as much as we could.  We had heard from some friends that we should try 'blackwater rafting'.  Having no idea what that was, but figuring it must be fun, we made reservations.  Blackwater rafting is basically spelunking along an underwater river with an inner tube.  And not just a little trickling stream - a river.  Complete with waterfalls, submerged passageways and rushing water.  We had to don thick and very unflattering wetsuits due to the freezing waters, and helmets because we had to jump off a few waterfalls backwards (and without being able to see where we would land).  We also were able to see what tour companies refer to as 'glow worms'.  These aren't worms at all, but flies that hatch out of their eggs, eat all their brothers and sisters, poop out phosphorescent poop to attract more food, eat until they have enough energy to hatch out of their maggot stage, have sex for three days without stopping, then die of exhaustion.  Not such a bad life as a fly.  And they are really really beautiful to look at - liking being underground looking at a starry night sky.  For anyone who goes to New Zealand - blackwater rafting is rad.  Try it.

All that's left to cover in New Zealand now is our last two days in Auckland - and Steph's 30th birthday (wow she's old now) - but I think I might leave that to her.  Let's just say we had a nice place to stay, we did a little horseback riding (my horse tried to kill me and I've haven't been as sore as I was afterwards since I played soccer in college), had a nice dinner and checked out a little of the cocktail scene in Auckland.  Then in the end, we got on a redeye flight bound for Buenos Aires.  

South America, our last continent.  Delicious food, different culture, more family, and new adventures.  Can't wait.

-EC

With a mere week left, we drove towards the east coast like we were being chased by a pack of wild kangaroos.  It's actually a bit hard to speed in Australia, as every kilometer or two (literally) they have road signs with cute sayings like, "the higher the speed….the bigger the mess."  It makes you feel a little guilty about speeding.  

We arrived at the coast a bit after dark, found a caravan park to set up our tent, get a load of laundry through the machine, hung it up and got back to our tent just in time to watch the sky open up and start raining harder than I have experienced in a while.  So hard, in fact, that we didn't dare leave our tent to get the laundry.  It took us two days and much rotating in the car to get everything dry after that.

The biggest reason in my mind to spend time on the East Coast of Australia is the Great Barrier Reef.  It's kind of a big deal.  But where to start?  The thing is HUGE.  The kind of huge you can see from outer space.  The city of Cairns is where most people go to first to book tours - and by most people I mean backpackers.  Exactly the people I try to avoid.  Maybe that seems unfair, since I am, by definition, a backpacker.  I'm willing to accept this title merely due to the fact that almost everyday I pick up a very large backpack and walk around with it.  But that is where the similarities stop.  At the end of the day I'm pretty worn out, so I try to get to bed by 9:30pm (feel a little like my mom here),  I don't like loud noises (I have been known to say things like, "why do those kids have to make all that racket?!"), and I have a very hard time sharing a kitchen with young men who generally only cook ramen noodles, and when they do, they find a way to sprinkle dry noodles all over the counter tops and stove.  Almost as if they were expecting their mother to come along after them with a washcloth, smile and muss up their hair, prodding them to be a little cleaner next time. 

Needless to say, we avoided Cairns, and instead headed south to the Whitsunday Islands.  The Whitsundays are inside of the Great Barrier Reef National Park, but don't actually make up the reef itself.  The actual reef is really far out to sea and even more expensive to get to.  By this point we were pinching pennies everywhere we could, having spent quite a lot of money already in Australia with Kangaroo Island, Uluru park and ridiculously expensive gas.  After walking around Airlie Beach (the jumping off point for the islands) for half a day sizing up all the deals, we settled on a snorkeling cruise that let us visit two different islands and snorkel in two places.  Sweet.  Another thing of note about me, is that I have a mildly irrational fear of sharks.  Part of this fear is contrived, due to the fact that I get such a good reaction out of Steph everytime I mention it, but truly, part of it is real.  I don't know why, but when I get any distance out into the ocean I find that I'm looking around for a dorsal fin.  But I agreed, upon making this reservation, that my fear was in fact, irrational, and I shouldn't let that keep me from plunging into the great wide ocean with the rest of the shark bait (fellow snorkelers).  

The first place we stopped on the cruise was Whitehaven Beach, home of the 'white swirly sands' that will most certainly be the first thing you see if you do a quick google search of Whitsunday Islands.  There we donned 'stinger suits', aka giant black leotards that protected us against jellyfish, and headed out for the water.  It was beautiful, and from an observation deck you could pick out several stingrays in the water (we were told to do the 'stingray shuffle' to avoid being stung).  So as Steph and I walked towards the water, I prepared myself to push the thoughts of sharks out of my head, shuffle my feet, and enjoy the wonderful weather.  At ten feet away from the water, I was almost in the right mindset, until I noticed a bit of splashing.  Clearly, as it just so happened, a small shark washed up onto the beach just in front of us, and was splashing around trying to get back into the water.  Of course.  After he swam away, I walked along the beach in shin deep water, keeping an eye out.  The shark followed us.  In fact, it followed us at least 25 feet along the coast, until it found a crab it the water that it attacked with gusto, then swam away.  Sigh.  Though I did go the rest of the day without a shark sighting, my fear remains intact.  

After the Whitsundays we hopscotched our way down to Brisbane, where I have an aunt, Rena, and two cousins, Robert and Elise.  Unfortunately Robert was out of town, but I got to spend time with Rena and Elise, and soak up a little bit of family time.  There's nothing like sitting around having dinner with family to take away some of the homesickness.

After three luxurious (happy coincidence ended in us having a two bedroom luxury apartment all to ourselves) days outside of Brisbane, we were on our way to New Zealand.  Funny, I'm finishing up this post while on our flight to Argentina.  Hard to keep up sometimes.  


-EC


ps. I should mention, when we turned in our car, aka Bare-bones Sally, we had put about 11,500 km on her.  Nice work.

As we took the ferry back from Kangaroo Island, I was a bit worried.  I had had such an amazing time in those few days, I was worried it would all be downhill after that.  I carried this fear with me as we drove off the ferry and headed north to Adelaide.  Adelaide is one of the most interestingly designed cities that I've ever come across.  The entire commercial area is surrounded by a several-blocks-wide park.  Imagine Central Park being in a loop around Manhattan instead of down the middle.  And, of course, the city being a fraction of the size.  The downtown is still set up in a 'gold rush' style, with wooden walkways and overhangs advertising for blacksmiths.  Though, all the blacksmiths have been replaced by bars and coffee shops, which gives a pretty cool vibe to the town.  So cool we only stayed one day.

Adelaide was about the point that we realized that we needed to get a move on.  We only had three weeks left, and with the wine valleys, the red center, the great barrier reef and the gold coast left, we were pushing it as it was.  So with cute Adelaide in our rear-view mirror, we headed out to the Barossa and Clare Valleys.  These are the two valleys in Australia that are the most well known for their wines, and I was excited to give a few a try.  We started in the Barossa Valley, tasted our way through several wineries, sampling shiraz and cabernet and some surprisingly good malbecs (not what I think of when I think of Aussie wine).  Then, at Steph's request we hit up a brewery just to balance it out (oddly, they made one of the best American-style pale ales that I've ever had) .  The next day we headed over to the Clare Valley to sample our way through some rieslings.  Riesling is probably my favorite wine (grape), so I was stoked about this one.  The thing I like most about riesling is that it's balanced - slightly sweet, slightly acidic - and generally satisfying in a way that I don't find myself over-thinking them.  I just want to enjoy them.  Of the seven wineries and twelve or so reislings that we tried, none matched the description I just gave.  Australian rieslings are much more acidic with almost no sweetness, which made them a more similar in my mind to a pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc.  Good in their own right, to be sure, but not quite what I was expecting.  So the wine valleys were fun, but not quite a Kangaroo Island.

After finishing our sampling, we headed further north towards the center. Australia is big.  I hadn't realized how big it was until we set out to drive straight through the center of it.  Anyone who we would come across and tell them of our plans would tell us to fill our car with water and fuel.  And not just in the fuel tank, we were told to carry plenty of extra.  So few people drive the roads that we were planning on driving, if we were to break down it could be hours before anyone drove by to help.  And if that wasn't scary enough, as soon as we got farther north than the valleys we started reading signs in parking lots warning drivers of the multitude of break-ins that happen and to NEVER leave anything in your car.  Oh, and don't even think about going out at night.  'What am I getting myself into?', I thought to myself.  Maybe this wasn't the best idea after all.  But regardless, a grocery store visit later, we were on our way - car chocked full of boxes of water, granola bars, and the canned 'chunky-man' soups I thought I would never buy.  

After spending a night camping in Port Augusta, a miserable little desert town where we paid $25 to camp on a rock-hard sandy and slanted plot that was covered in ants, we packed up just as the sun was starting to warm our tent.  To get to our destination, we had about 1300 kilometers to drive, and we had to get started early.  We rolled into Coober Pedy, Another desert town, though this time much less miserable, due to the fact that most of the town is built underground, to avoid the heat.  We stayed in an underground hotel and visited a couple of underground churches before we headed onward toward the middle.  Next stop, Uluru.

Aside from the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru is probably the most famous natural site in Australia.  It's a huge rock that sits like a bright red turtle on top of an ocean of flatness right in the center of the country.  It is an incredibly sacred site to the indigenous people of the area, and has only become a major tourist attraction over the last ten years or so (in fact, most indigenous people from the middle had never seen a white person until the mid-1970's).   The Uluru area, which includes another similar formation about 45km away called Kata Tjuta, should be on anyone's bucket list for Australia.  One of the things that the rock is known for is changing colors with the different angles of sunlight during the day.  At some points it's a brilliant shade of red, at others it's orange or brown.  I had my heart set on seeing all of the different shades, but Mother Nature had different ideas.  When we pulled into Curtain Springs, our campsite just outside of the National Park, it was raining.  It can sometimes go six years without raining in this region, and we happened to hit it just right.  This not only meant our campsite was a pond, it also took away the possibility of seeing the sunset.  Cross bright red off the list.  Luckily, the sky had cleared by 4:30 the next morning when we woke up to see the sunrise.  Packing up camp and driving through the darkness, I was filled with excitement as the first rays of sunlight began to lighten the sky, showing the profile of the rock as we approached the sunrise viewing area sandwiched between two tour buses.  We all got out and sprinted (I wish I was exaggerating) to get the best spot to view the rock at sunrise.  So there I was, squeezed between other tourists, elbowing people out of the way for a better viewing position to look at….a rock.  Steph immediately decided that this was ridiculous and backed away slowly.  I was determined to hold my ground so I wouldn't miss a single hue in the color change.  I probably stood there for 45 minutes, back to the sunrise, watching the rock - all with an ever-increasing awareness that this activity was incredibly silly.  But hey, I now have about 100 photos of the many different shades of color takes on between 6:15 and 7am.  I'm thinking of framing them all and putting them in progression in my apartment at home.  6:15am when you walk in the door, 7am by the time you reach the bathroom.  Perfect.

We spent many hours hiking around Uluru and Kata Tjuta for the rest of the day and then King's Canyon the next (and stayed in the most expensive campground of the trip, $40 for cold showers and dingos running through the area at night.  What a deal).  Then it was off to Alice Springs, for our first couchsurfing house since Melbourne.  Alice Springs is a pretty interesting place.  It has one of the highest concentrations of aborigines in a 'white city' in Australia and many problems related to this.  The question of aboriginal culture in Australia is a very complicated one.  It seems like the two cultures are about the least compatible possible.  We had heard many things about the dangerousness of Alice Springs, and questioned our hosts about the validity of those warnings.  Trying to make it seem like no big deal, they said it really wasn't all that bad.  They talked it down, saying, "Oh it's no worries, really, but things do happen in Alice Springs every….night."  Every night?  Yes, apparently, the night before, a 15-year-old boy was stabbed to death by a 13-year-old girl.  Part of aboriginal culture revolves around a cultural justice system based on the idea of 'tit for tat'.  I can see how this (among other things) might be incompatible with white culture.  So who is right?  The people that are the oldest culture in the world who have lived here for thousands and thousands of years, or the new culture that settled the new land that was 'uninhabited and uncivilized' when they arrived?  It's a pretty tricky question, and one that doesn't seem to have a good solution.   I could probably write an entire post on my thoughts about this, but they are still quite conflicted, but for now, I just have to say that I was not sad to leave the obvious cultural clash of Alice Springs, and start the long 1800km drive toward the East Coast and the Great Barrier Reef.  

We were told the drive would take us four days.  Unwilling to part with that much of our remaining 10 days in the country, we made few stops, slept by the side of the road (one time in a rest stop where I had to kick small rat-like rodents off the outside of the tent in the middle of the night while Steph slept soundly), and once in a National Park called The Devil's Marbles, where the aboriginal legend was such that witches inhabited your dreams at night to kidnap small children.  Small sacrifices to make to save a lot of money and a little time.  Two days and 1800km later, we pulled into Townsville, our kick-off point for the East Coast. 

For our last week, we're going to spend time exploring the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef.  I'm looking forward to it - and even though I'm a little terrified of them, Steph assures


EC

Kangaroo Island is expensive to get to - and going there would take our meager daily budget through the roof.  KI (as locals call it) is a small island off the Southern Coast, and you need to take a ferry to get there.  Not only for yourself, but due to the lack of any public transportation, you also need to bring your car.  In total when we added it up, it would cost us $348 round trip with the car.  Basically blowing our daily budget for the next four days before we even got on the boat.  It's one of those tricky travel choices.  On one hand, you want to save your money and make wise choices, and on the other, you don't want to be so budget conscious that you miss out on things that you might never have a chance to do again.

At the price of $348, we had basically decided not to go, thinking that we would concentrate a little more of our time in the wine regions that I was so looking forward to.  On a whim, we pulled over and checked in with one of the very friendly Australian tourist information centers.  Let me tell you, these centers have more information that you could ever get through in a lifetime of trips, and are usually staffed by friendly retirees that tackle you the second you walk in, throwing information at you about any and everything you could need.  At this particular info center, when we walked by the display on Kangaroo Island, a pamphlet caught Steph's eye.  It was an offer for two people and their vehicle round trip to KI, with two night's accommodation (in a real bed!) for just $200 per person.  Yes, that's more that $348.  But just by a little bit AND we could sleep in real beds for two whole nights!!  Budget out the window.

Arriving on Kangaroo Island, we visited yet another information center, made plans to visit a few different places around the island, I made notes about where to see more koalas, sea lions and penguins, and we were off.  Our first stop, of course, was to get some fresh oysters on the beach.  It's almost impossible to go wrong with any sort of seafood that has been out of the water for less than 24 hours.  After the oysters we stopped by a local sheep farm and tasted all the different types of cheeses and yogurts they had to offer.  Bellies full and plenty of daylight left, we headed for the wildlife reserve park.  

This is one of those parks billed as a place to come and interact with the animals - a 'feeding the kangaroos and wallabies' sort of place.  I have some mixed feelings on this sort of thing.  While it's nice to be able to see these animals up close and personal, it's hard to get behind having them in cages, relying on humans with tiny bags of pellets to walk by and throw food at them.  Luckily, the fields where the animals were kept were quite large, which did make me feel a bit better about them being caged in.  After looking at tropical birds of all colors, wombats, water buffalo and crocodiles, we came to the fenced in kangaroo area, where guests were allowed to enter and hand-feed the 'roos.  I was thinking that they would be a bit skiddish, and I might have to chase them around a bit.  Wrong, of course, these kangaroos see you coming from 100 meters away, and are lined up waiting for you when you get there.  It was almost a little scary, kangaroos hopping in from ever direction, pushing each other out of the way, almost nibbling a little too much of your skin while trying to get to the food.  And kangaroos weren't the only animals in the pin.  There was also a very aggressive turkey, who didn't leave my side from the moment we stepped into the pin - but instead of grabbing at my hand, he would just dance around in an almost bizarre mating ritual until I would throw a few pellets at his feet.  Animals are so weird.  

All in all, we had several animal interactions, with two standing out as more memorable than the rest.  First, on KI, it seems like the animals want to run out in front of your car without the slightest provocation.  We were quite proud of the fact that we managed to avoid hitting all fifteen or so koalas, kangaroos, giant lizards, and wallabies that tried to commit suicide in front of us.  One night, on the way home after watching an especially amazing sunset, a koala walked out in front of the car, and after I swerved into the oncoming lane to avoid him, he sat right down in the middle of the road and stared at me.  Steph had to jump out of the car and chase him back into the woods like a crazy person.  The very next day, while driving in the same spot (taking it a little more slowly this time), a koala walked out into the middle of the road in front of us and collapsed.  Steph swerved around him (we alternate days driving), while I yelled out to stop the car.  I was out of the car before it stopped moving, running back along the road to check on the injured koala.  When I got to him I found him breathing laboriously, with a small pool of blood forming on the road under his mouth.  Clearly he was in pretty rough shape.  We moved his little body off the road and into the shade of some bush, and then steph drove like a mad woman to the closest town for help, while I stayed with Kenny (I had named him by this point) and rubbed his back, hoping that this provided comfort, not further alarm.  When Steph finally returned alone twenty minutes later, she explained that help was on the way.  Apparently the woman who was on her way was acting with the sense of urgency of a grocery store clerk when she learns the stock of sour cream has dwindled, instead of the EMT hopped up on cocaine that we were hoping for.  When she finally arrived she rolled still alive Kenny in a blanket, put him in a cardboard box and took him away.  I never did find out if he made it, but we talk about him often.

The second memorable animal encounter on KI happened on our last night on the Island.  We were camping on the farthest Western tip, making dinner under the stars.  It's a little less glamourous than it sounds…we don't have a table or chairs, so we sit on whatever we can find, and on this night we couldn't find anything except the cooler.  So I crouched on the ground, while steph sat, cooking with headlamps on trying to keep from kicking dirt into the food.  But hey, we're cooking under the stars, right?  What could be better?  Well, better probably starts when in the middle of eating dinner a possum walks up and demands his portion of the food.  He is, in fact, so certain that food is owed to him that even after Steph brandished a wine bottle and chased him around the camp (seems like she's doing quite a bit of animal chasing these days) he still managed to grab our bag of bread and try to run off with it.  We wrestled it away.  Then I looked up with my headlamp and realized that we were basically surrounded by at least four possums.  We threw all the rest of the food in the car, locked it up and went to bed.  But not before I asked Steph to walk me to the outhouse for fear of being attacked by hungry possums.  Oh, Kangaroo Island.  How interesting you were.  

Right now we are in Airlie Beach directly off the coast of the Whitsunday Islands.  After KI we travelled north through the famous OZ wine regions, through the Red Center, and then 2000 kilometers east to the Great Barrier Reef, where we are now.  I'll fill you all in on the rest as soon as I can.  As always, internet is a little hard to come by, and we are spending WAY too much time in McDonald's (free wifi) because of that.  Hopefully soon that'll change.

-EC  

I consider myself something of a lover of road trips, so when I read that the Great Ocean Road was one of the world's best road trips I was pretty excited.  The GOR is a winding road similar to the Hwy 1 on the California Coast, tracing a path from Melbourne to Adelaide on the southern most coast of Australia.  The guidebooks tout that it weaves past unparalleled natural beauty, friendly wildlife and delicious seafood.  I cannot imagine a better combination.  I love natural beauty (how can you not), friendly wildlife means potentially cuddly koala bears, and delicious seafood….can't complain about that either.  Yay for the Great Ocean Road!

Months before, when planning how we were going to do this drive from my comfortable couch in California, it was a little tricky to figure out the little details - like when we would be leaving and how far we would want to drive each day.  The first day we unfortunately got started a bit late, got stuck in traffic, stopped for lunch, and generally dawdled, which meant not starting the drive until after 5pm.  This meant that we were rushing by some of the famous lookout points trying to get to our pre-chosen place of rest for the evening.  Passing up all of those spots was upsetting, since I had been looking forward to them for months.  I tried to not get too upset about it, thinking, "oh, I'm sure that waterfall isn't that beautiful.  Hmmm….bet you couldn't see all that much from that lookout point anyway…"  But by the time we reached the campsite I was nearly in tears thinking of all that we'd missed.  

After making dinner at our campsite that night, Steph and I discussed.  We decided that it might be worth it to turn around and start over.  Steph pointed out that when people had asked me what I was looking forward to seeing most in Australia, I would often list the Great Ocean Road before the Great Barrier Reef, Sydney, and The Red Center.  So we decided that even though we would be backtracking (which we both hate), we would turn around.  It was similar to making it all the way to Big Sur from San Francisco, and deciding to turn around, drive back to the city and start over.  

Totally worth it.  We saw waterfalls, stopped and had delicious (and really expensive) fish an chips.  We stopped at all the lookouts, I took about a hundred photos, we saw our first koalas (more on that later), and we were able to get to the Twelve Apostles for sunset.  Perfect.  The Twelve Apostles are probably the most famous sight on the Great Ocean Road.  They are a series of rock chimneys that stick out of the ocean near the coast.  They were formed by the ocean crashing into the shore over millions of years, breaking away large sections of rock, ultimately leaving these 'Twelve Apostles' behind to fend for themselves against the rough ocean waters.  They're doing okay so far.  Every thirty years or so, large sections collapse or crumble, and new ones are created.  One plaque that we read explained about how in 1990 a couple had crossed a land bridge to one of the apostles, and after getting there, the bridge unexpectedly collapsed leaving the two stranded on top of the apostle for several hours.  Yikes.  We were able to see these both at sunset and at midday, and I have to say, they are pretty awe-inspiring at any time of day.  When driving by the rock formations, there are lookout points along the road about every 300 meters or so, and I stopped at every single one.  By the fifth or sixth one, Steph would just stay in the car, unless I would drag her out claiming to have seen penguins or something else spectacular.  We did not see penguins. 

We spent a total of two nights on the GOR, camping in the same place both nights.  It was a campsite at the tip of Cape Otway (about halfway between the beginning and end), and the campsite brochure had made the promise that campers would be 'sleeping under koalas'.  I tried not to get my hopes up too much about that, as it seemed like one of those promises that is easily made and then when the koalas aren't there the friendly campsite manager claims that you showed up in the wrong season, or that you're not looking hard enough.  So as we pulled into the campground and peered into the trees hoping to catch our first glimpse of a koala, I was secretly skeptical.  Tree after tree was koala-free.  I began to feel a little disheartened.  Then we saw him.  Sleeping directly above the road on the most impossibly skinny branch was my first koala.  We screeched to a stop in the middle of the road (as much screeching as you can do when driving 5 mph), both of us squealing and greeting the little guy in the voice that I generally reserve for my two cats.  If my sister would have been with us she would have been in full-tilt eye roll in the back seat.  After that first sighting we saw one koala after another, mostly sleeping, sometimes eating, and once we even saw a small fight break out.  Luckily they just tussled for a minute, stared each other down, then retreated to opposite trees.  We went on a couple of walks through the campground and ran into more koalas than I can count - including one mother protectively cradling her baby.  I think they actually designed teddy bears directly after koalas.  They are THAT cute.  The only time that they are potentially not cute is when they are making their very distinctive mating/territorial calls at 4am.  It sounds like a cross between a dog barking and a bullfrog croaking, and is VERY loud in a campground when  all the koalas are trying to claim their territory in the middle of the night.

All in all, the Great Ocean Road is worth the hype.  It's hard to go wrong when surrounded by so much beauty.  After the GOR, we made our way towards Kangaroo Island - another place that I had read about during my research period, but unfortunately knew much less about.  And it seemed like it was going to be expensive to get over there.  So the last 100 kilometers of the Great Ocean Road, we spent plowing through informational pamphlets deciding on whether it was worth the time and expense of getting over to this little island off the coast of Southern Australia.  I'll let you know all about that in my next post.

-EC     

Ongoing writing about this trip has been a little challenging.  Between the lack of time, lack of space (writing on the computer in the passenger seat of a car is recipe for motion-sickness), lack of internet, and at times, lack of anything interesting to say.  You'd think that with seeing so many amazing places, that I would always be full of interesting things to write about, but unfortunately, due to one factor or another, some posts are better than others.  Some places that we go strike me more than others, and the ones that don't, I write about more as a form of communication with my loved ones than anything else.  It's a great way to feel like I'm talking to my mom or my sister or my roommates. It's comforting when I'm feeling a bit homesick, and I either don't have internet or it's a totally inappropriate time to call back home, like 2am.  Or in my mom's case, 10pm.  Take Bali, for example.  Bali was great, beautiful and a virtual tropical paradise.  But it was also dirty and touristy and over-crowded, and I have to say, I wasn't particularly sad to be leaving.  But then there are places like Prague or right now, Australia.  And when I have a lot to say about somewhere, I can go on and on - as any of you who have been reading this blog consistently have seen.  

With Australia I feel like I could wax on and on about one natural wonder after another.  It's just my type of place.  With each new bend in the road I feel inclined to stop the car (to Steph's dismay, at times) to check out something new and beautiful.  It's a truly awe-inspiring country.  We flew into Sydney on November 1st, which was exactly the halfway point of the trip (!).  I had a few things I wanted to get done in Sydney - seeing the opera house, the harbor bridge, hitting a museum or two, having dinner with some cousins and buying a car.  Yes, that's right.  Purchasing a vehicle.  In doing research about the country, I read many blogs about the best and cheapest ways to do things down here, and buying a car was on the top of most peoples' lists.  Pick up a crappy car that runs well enough to get you a few thousand kilometers, then sell it back when you're done.  Easy peasy.  We were thinking we would spend about $1000, then sell it back for about $600 - paying a third of what we could rent a car for.  It's amazing to me now, a week later, how easy I thought that would be.  

We started by going to a used car lot that specialized in backpacker rentals.  He didn't have a car for less than $5,000.  We went home and went online.  We found many cars for about $1000, though often the advertisement would read something like, "1997 Toyota Camry, LOOKS GREAT, needs engine".  We also found many cars that seemed to be in great shape, but the registration had run out.  No big deal, we thought, we'll just go get it registered and we'll be on our way.  So we looked into registration.  Australia has made it as non-user friendly as possible, with each car needing some combination of a pink slip, a blue slip and a green slip, depending on the age, make, model, location, and current legality of the car.  And even if we managed to get all that figured out, the entire thing looked to be close to $800 to complete.  Sigh.  After wasting nearly an entire day of sitting around the house doing research, we opted for a rental.  So now we have Sally (my name choice, Steph is still deciding if she likes it), a brand new Hundai Elantra.  I was sad for a day, renting a fancy new car is not nearly as adventurous, but it sure is easier.  

Other than that, Sydney was quite a success.  We got everything done that we needed to, including having the best fancy meal of the trip with my three cousins, Danielle, MIchelle and Josh.  It was one of those epic, 6-course, 'so many good things that you aren't sure what to eat next' sort of meals.  It was also a great opportunity to catch up with some family that I haven't really talked to in nearly 20 years.  We also paid a visit to the Sydney Fish Market, where I saw fish that I have never seen before, and had the best sashimi of my life.  I'm still thinking about how good that was.  The opera house and the bridge were great, but after seeing so many amazing thousand-year-old buildings in Europe, it's a little hard for anything modern to compete. 

After Sydney we headed to the Blue Mountains, an area about an hour outside of the city where the city-dwellers come to see nature.  We met up with a good friend of mine from my couchsurfing days, and spent two days hiking, talking and admiring the blue hue to the mountains that apparently comes from the evaporation of the sap in the trees.  I don't know any more than that - you'll have to look it up if you're interested.  Then we headed south through the Snowy Mountains (and I tried to recount the movie, 'The Man from Snowy River' to Steph, but since i haven't seen it since I was about 7, I had a hard time), stopping at small towns and lookouts along the way.  Australia has an amazing system of roadside rest areas that make road trips exponentially easier and cheaper than they are in the US.  Not only are there free and clean restrooms nearly every 75 kilometers, there are also roadside picnic areas complete with gas BBQs that are free to use.  So anytime you are feeling hungry, instead of stopping for fast food or eating a cold sandwich, you can cook a little meal, rinse of the dishes in the handy faucet provided, then head on your way.  Delightful.  And if that weren't enough, many of these picnic areas have a small amount of space for people to camp for the night.  Camping in these places is "not allowed", but if you keep it to one night, no one seems to bother you.


Through the Snowy Mountains we took a roundabout scenic route to Melbourne.  Melbourne was another town that we both thought we would like to live in - lots of cute cafes, bars and Bohemian culture.  The one downside for us, was that we didn't plan well enough to organize a couch, and when we went to a hostel, we found out the price for one night was a minimum of $60 - for a 12-bed dorm.  Which is well above our budget.  So we sent off a few emergency last minute couch requests, but in the end, found ourselves without a place to sleep for the night at 11pm.  No big deal, I thought.  Sally will take care of us.  So we drove to a secluded spot, backed into the spot, wrapped ourselves in sleeping bags, put the chairs back as far as they would go, and tried to get a little sleep.  Not the best sleep I've ever had in my life.  Not only did it happen to be a horrible thunderstorm outside, but I was also worried about security or police knocking on the window, and by day-break, I had probably slept total of three hours. Steph faired a little better, since she can sleep soundly on an airport tarmac with 747's roaring overhead.  Luckily, in the emergency requests we sent, we were able to secure a place to stay for the next night, so I was able to catch up.  

After Melbourne we headed out to the Great Ocean Road, which is something I had been looking forward to since we started planning the trip.  I wasn't the slightest bit disappointed.  But I think I'll have to wait until the next post to write about that, seeing as how this one has already gotten longer than I thought it would.  But rest assured, I'm looking forward to writing about it.  Koalas, kangaroos, a beautiful coastline and an epic road trip.  Hard not to be excited.

Until next time.

-EC

We probably couldn't have chosen a more drastic change of scenery.  We took a long taxi drive to the airport in Amman through a desert filled with brown boxy buildings.  It was so dry we could hardly sweat even though it was over 90 degrees.  Then we landed in Bali.  A part of Indonesia that is basically a jungle island, with lush green trees peaking out from everywhere you can see.  The buildings are incredibly ornate and anything but boxy.  The second we stepped off the plane we were both dripping with sweat.  Dry brown boxy to lush green ornate.  It felt a little bit like Dorothy stepping out of her Kansas house into munchkin land.  

When we were choosing our route around the world, we decided to add Bali onto the trip at the last minute.  We had pretty well decided to cut it when we looked at the flight path from Amman to Sydney and realized that we would fly directly over Indonesia.  It seemed silly not to stop.  And I figured we would need a few days of rest in a tropical paradise to get over the jet lag.  

The tricky thing about going to Bali was that I didn't do any research before we went.  I did research on almost everywhere except for Bali, actually.  In fact, I did so little, that up until two days before we got on our plane headed to our tropical paradise I (embarrassingly) still thought that Bali was a city.  It's not, it's an Island with a ton of different cities.  Obviously I haven't read 'Eat, Pray, Love'.  Though, in the end, I think it was better to be a little under-researched.  It helped us (me) to relax and feel content just laying on a beach staring at the ocean sipping fresh watermelon juice.  It's amazing (and sad) I feel guilty doing that sometimes, right?  I believe I have an extreme case of 'FOMS'* that makes it hard for me to relax sometimes.   

Our first two days in Bali were spent in Sanur, a somewhat quiet beach town on the Southern Coast of the island.  When we bought our RTW plane tickets as one big package our travel company threw in three nights of fancy hotels as a thank you - and we chose to spend two of those nights in Sanur.  This meant we had a hotel with a private beach, a pool, bocce court, two-course breakfast and a heavenly shower.  Honestly, it was hard to leave.  All those luxury amenities were nice, but it was the shower that got me.  I have gotten so used to camping showers or showers in peoples homes that I had forgotten how luxurious a fancy shower can feel.  I think I took three in two days.  I wish I could tell more stories about Sanur, but really, we went on a couple of walks around the town, went out to dinner twice, and other than that, we stayed pretty close to home.

After Sanur we decided to head up to Ubud, which is supposed to be the 'arts and crafts' capital of Bali.  And, as we found out after we arrived, where she 'prays' in the book.  Ubud seems to be the center of tourism in Bali (unless you count Kuta, which is mostly an Australian surfing town that we avoided), and not only are there hundreds of shops bursting with Balianese art, the food scene is supposedly the best on the island(!), and if that wasn't enough, there is a monkey forest filled with hundreds of mostly friendly tame monkeys that you can play with for about two dollars.  

The monkey forest was the first stop on our itinerary.  I miss cuddling with my cats in San Francisco so much I take almost any opportunity to interact with cute potentially cuddly animals.  I went into the monkey forest with high hopes.  Unfortunately, the monkeys are a little more scheming and a little less cuddly - their social graces were not their strongest suit.  As we walked around we ooh'd and ahh'd about the little baby monkeys (not actually as cute as you would think) and then winced as adults would get into fights over the babies, which usually involved one adult grabbing one baby ear and one grabbing the other and both pulling - all while the baby shrieked in pain.  Not so cuddly.  The monkeys are trained to know that visitors with cameras often bring food, so the moment you sit down anywhere they come to inspect.  But if you don't have anything for them, they lose interest quickly.  Unless of course, you have a water bottle.  Who knows why these interest them so much, but they can't keep their little monkey hands off of them - which is why there is a huge sign at the entrance of the park asking for people NOT to bring in their water bottles.  

I think you can see where this is going.  Steph had a water bottle, and decided that since it wasn't plastic, then it was no big deal and the monkeys wouldn't be interested.  Wrong.  A couple tried to sneak it out of her backpack, but we thwarted their plans.  Steph was quick to shoo them away, which seemed to work - until they tried a different tactic.  They waited until we were sitting down, then they double teamed her.  One came up from one side, pretending to be cuddly, and as soon as she was distracted (and I was distracted by taking a picture of said cuddly monkey), another came from the other side and grabbed the bottle and ran.  Sneaky little things.  She tried to get it back, but he stared her down and showed her his teeth.  She approached, but he reared back and threatened to attack.  Then he taunted her by pulling off the duct tape that she keeps wrapped around the water bottle for emergency use.  Finally we had to get assistance from a park attendant, who, after a very exaggerated eye roll threw a few bananas at the monkey who grudgingly traded the bottle for food.  Like I said, these guys are smart.

Apart from the monkey forest we rented a scooter and buzzed around the island a bit.  Steph has a motorcycle that she misses dearly in SF, so was excited to be on two wheels again.  Though, I have to say, being on the back of a 125cc scooter for six hours is not exactly comfortable.  We rode through the rice patties and villages, attempting to get a sense for what life on Bali is actually like.  Not an easy thing to do in one or two days, but I can say, Bali is an absolutely beautiful place, and deserves more than the total of six days we spent there.  The food is also good, and we went pretty far out of our way at times to get the 'best' or this or the 'best' of that.  We tried loads of fried rice dishes with vegetables and egg.  We tried roasted pig with spicy salsa and rice.  Noodles.  Fruit juices.  Fried duck.  I made a 24-hour ahead reservation at one restaurant that specialized in 12-hour smoked duck for two.  The food was good, but not mind-blowingly delicious like Thailand was when I was there several years ago.  Can't have everything I suppose.  

We've now been in Australia for a week, and we're in Melbourne now, getting ready to head out onto the Great Ocean Road, rated one of the best road-trips in the world.  We've been doing quite a lot of camping, and so far Australia is pretty amazing.  Even more beautiful than I ever could have hoped for.  Can't wait to tell you about it.

-EC

*  'Fear Of Missing Something'

Contrary to my occasionally (and admittedly) slightly prejudiced beliefs about the Middle East, Jordan is probably the friendliest place I have ever had the pleasure of visiting.  At first I was thrown off by it, assuming that all of this outright friendliness was a ploy to get something from me.  Some money, maybe, or perhaps something more sinister.  Each time I encountered a taxi driver or a waiter or a hotel owner who went out of their way to be friendly to me I reacted with a measure of distrust.  Surely this one will ask for something.  Each time I was surprised when it didn't happen.  Was there a larger, complicated and organized plan put in place by the Jordanians to grind down the tourists and then strike when we least expected it?  I have to say, I left Jordan seven hours ago, and never once did I surrender my bank account details.  

Walking down the street (any street, any city, Jordan) men would casually tell us, "You're welcome."  If there was time for a bit of conversation, it would be something similar to, "where are you from?" (typical saying all over the world when getting ready to offer services for hire or just outright ask for money), I could cautiously reply, "The United States." Often the only further reply would be, "I love America.  You're welcome."  For the first few days I would then grimace and wait for the hard sell to begin.  Towards the end, I would just say thank you and smile.  That's actually all they wanted to do.  Welcome me to their country.  How delightfully unexpected.  

After crossing into the Jordan on the banks of the Red Sea, in a city called Aqaba, Steph and I decided to stay close to home for the evening.  We went on a quick walk around the old city, saw the beach, and made a beeline back to the hotel.  After being on a bus for several hours, negotiating with taxi drivers, walking across the border, talking with the tourism police, dealing with visas and exit fees and passport stamps (or a lack-there-of) I was exhausted.  We walked back into the hotel at close to 6pm, and asked the unreasonably friendly hotel manager where we should get dinner.  His response? "I go every night to the place around the corner, I would love to invite you to go with me and my sister."  Feeling a bit strange about that, but not wanting to offend him, we accepted.  At dinner, he told us about his family, how he loved is job, that he wasn't married, and just to put us at ease, as single women traveling without a male escort, informed us that he was in fact, a virgin.  After dinner, we all smoked hookah together (he had his own that was kept at the restaurant), and before Steph or I could argue, he paid the bill.  When's the last time a hotel manager did that for you?

Sad to leave our lovely hotel, but excited for our next stop we got up early and jumped on a public bus to Petra.  Petra is one of those places that I've always wanted to go (well, always since Indiana Jones) but wondered if I would ever actually make it to.  It's in the middle of nowhere (hard), the Middle East (scary), and expensive (grrr).  Nonetheless, five hours after leaving Aqaba I found myself on the rooftop terrace of the Petra Gate Hotel, talking to the owner about our stay at Petra over a pot of tea.  Since we arrived in the afternoon he suggested we head to Little Petra for the an hour, then offered to call a taxi for us (when we were done relaxing over tea, of course).  When the taxi arrived, the driver couldn't have been over 18, and also couldn't have been happier to find that his customers were two American women.  He tried to make conversation, though he probably only knew 10 words in English, and stopped at a scenic overlook so we could have some nice pictures - including the two he had us take with him.  He dropped us off at Little Petra with the promise of coming back in an hour to collect us.  When he came back, he brought one of his friends with him - an English teacher - in an effort to communicate better with us.  Little Petra itself was very cool, but I'm glad we did it first, because done at the end it might have been a bit underwhelming.

The next day was Petra.  What we had been waiting for.  Steph woke up humming the Indiana Jones theme in her head, and it didn't stop all day.  Petra was a huge trading city back in its day, and people from all around the Middle East would visit on their way to other locations to rest and exchange their goods.  Accordingly, Petra is set up to instill awe and amazement by all who visited there.  The designers of the city were very successful in this mission.  When you first walk into the area you walk down a gravel road that naturally funnels into a canyon.  The walls of the canyon, which is only about 10-15 feet across is lined with carvings of idols and camels and traveling caravans telling the story of all the people that had once passed by here on business.  Then, as if this weren't amazing enough, after thirty minutes of walking deeper and deeper into the canyon, you come around a corner and there is it.  The Treasury.  The building that put Petra on the map (and in Steven Spielberg's film).  A building so beautiful to look at it almost hurts your feelings.  We stopped and stared for a while.  A long while.  In total we stayed at Petra for two days, hiking around, exploring caves, marveling at how magnificent the carvings were.  I had a few moments while standing and staring out at all the beauty from one of the high places of worship on top of the mountains that I understood why this land could so contested and sought after.  Yes, it's desert, and dusty and windy and hard.  But it's also beautiful, and inherently has an awesome spirituality within its physicality.  Steph and I both fell in love with it, and grudgingly left it for Amman after two days.

Our onward flight left from Queen Abdullah II Airport in Amman.  A bit of an odd city, it has a long history, but up until recently (about a hundred years ago) it was a small town of only about two thousand residents.  Now a sprawling metropolis of several million people, the city seems crowded, modern and a bit overwhelming after the calm of Petra.  To get to Amman from Petra we chose to take the cheaper "public" bus instead of the slightly more expensive "tourist" bus.  Interesting choice.  When we got on the bus, we were the only white people and the only women.  The men found us fascinating, and since Jordanian culture doesn't seem to frown on staring, we found ourselves the focus of about 14 pairs of eyes for the first thirty minutes.  After that, I think we got pretty boring.  Amman itself was pretty interesting, but mostly enjoyable because of our host - a woman not on couchsurfing, but referred to us through a couchsurfing host we had had in Germany.  She showed us around the city a bit, helped us find some nice places to hang out at, and gave us some tips for things to do during the day while she was at work.  She also took us out for drinks and hookah in the expat area of the city, and then for delicious falafel afterwards.  After 36 hours in Amman, we headed or the airport for our last few hours in the Northern Hemisphere.  Our flight left at 4:25pm on October 23rd, and after connecting through the monster transportation hub of Doha, Qatar, arrived in Bali at 7:15pm on October 25th.  Talk about Jetlag.  Luckily, our first two nights in Bali were covered by the company we bought all of our airline tickets through (as a thanks for spending so much money), and we are in the lap of luxury.  The hotel has a private beach as well as a pool, a bocce ball court, air-conditioning and fresh fruit juices.  Right now, I'm sitting on a chaise lounge chair about 25 feet from the Indian Ocean,  using the wifi that extends from the restaurant while Steph is working on her white stomach and legs.  I mean, white for her very blessed Brazilian skin.  In my eyes she looks quite tan.  

But I'll tell you all about that next time, when I'll probably be writing from Australia.  In the words of my sister, "[my] life is so weird."

-EC