Judgey McJudgerson and the early morning adventure

Previously: the bestest girls' night of EVER. You should be jealous you weren't there. Seriously. It was THAT good.

The following morning, Gina and I were up at stupid o'clock. Actually, I think it was WORSE than stupid o'clock. It was stupid o'clock's older brother, Oh God Why Did We Think This Was A Good Idea O'Clock.  Seeing as how it's now the better part of five months later, I can't remember exactly what time we had to get up. But it started with a 5. *shudder*

At OGWDWTTWAGI O'Clock plus 20 minutes, we not only had ourselves up, dressed and in the car, but also all three of Gina's kids who were insanely confused about what was going on. Some time after that, we dropped the kids off with Gina's sister, and continued on our way to our early morning adventure. Five minutes before we were supposed to be there, we got a phone call asking if we were still coming. Uh, yes? Five minutes after that, we got another phone call asking if we were still coming. Yes, we were late. There was traffic. We told you that we were like seven minutes away, and you STILL phoned a third time to make sure we were actually coming. Seriously, people? Seriously??

ANYWAY. Eventually we arrived at our destination, and were promptly hustled into a van where we discovered that we were the youngest people there by a good thirty years. And that everyone was staring at us with an expression of disapproval.

Something like this. Also, source.

Of course, once we were safely in the very back of the van, we proceeded to pull out our phones and have the following conversation via text message:

Gina: I feel like everyone is judging us.
Me: Obviously. They're all a hundred.
Gina: Seriously. Why is that????
Me: Bucket lists left to the last minute?
Gina: Truth.
Me: We're bad people.
Gina: Also truth.

And then we started giggling, and had to stop texting before the Judgmental Old People picked up on it.

After driving for a millionty years like half an hour, we finally arrived at our destination. And then had to stand around in the early morning Phoenix chill while everything was unloaded and set up. Oh, you'd like to know what we were doing? Sure!

HOT AIR BALLOONING.

The actual hot air ballooning part wasn't nearly as exhilarating as we thought it would be - it barely felt like you were moving. But it WAS seriously cool and very pretty and more or less worth getting up at the crack of dawn. Warning: things are about to get photo heavy. Sorry I'm not sorry.

Incidentally, #36 on my 101 in 1001 list was "Ride in a hot air balloon". CHECK.

Oh, and because you haven't already had enough photos, here's me and Gina shortly before take off:

Complete with old lady who didn't know whose camera
was being used at that particular time... 

After picking the kids up and having a delicious lunch of Chipotle, we headed back to the house for a spontaneous Dessert Day - tres leches cake. We whipped it up pretty quickly, but then found ourselves confronted with a line in the recipe that said "Refrigerate overnight". Womp womp.

It was pretty delicious the next day though

That night, we headed out to something we'd been planning for months - Mexipalooza. In short, we went out and ate a crapton of Mexican food for dinner because when in Phoenix and all that. Sadly, Eileen had to do work nonsense and was unable to join us. But M. was there, and between all of us, I think we probably ate about half the Mexican food in the whole of Arizona. And it was delicious. So delicious that I neglected to take pictures of any of it.

And then we headed home to nurse our food babies.

Up next, we FINALLY come to the end of my trip! I leave Phoenix for Los Angeles, and hang out with Sweeney for a couple of hours, because OBVIOUSLY.

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XVIII

If you missed the last installment, Mrs. Watermelon got publicly humiliated, and I saw the world's most epic rock.

Day 4 of the Inca Trail started with a 4am wake up. Yup. FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING. Don't these people know that nothing good ever happens after 2am?? (Name that sitcom!)

Anyway. We were dressed, packed and in the lodge by 4.30am, where the porters had very kindly made us pancakes for breakfast to lessen the "OH GOD, WHAT TIME IS IT???" feelings of doom. Then, after a visit to the moth-ridden bathroom (and if you think THAT didn't cause me to have a minor nervous breakdown, you'd be wrong), we set off towards Machu Picchu. IN THE RAIN.

We reached the final checkpoint at about 5.15am, which was something of an issue because they didn't open the gate until 5.30am. Nothing quite like standing around in the rain going "Dammit, I could have had another 15 minutes of sleep..."! *sigh*

Anyway, the gate was eventually unlocked, and we had a delightful hour and a half's stroll to the Sun Gate. I say 'stroll', because there were 200 people walking in a line in the dark, so it was pretty slow going. On the plus side, after the first half hour, it was getting light enough that we didn't need to use our stupid headtorches any more. Such things are always a plus.

The only tricky bit of the walk was the climb up to the Sun Gate, because you have to go up a flight of 'monkey stairs' - really steep and narrow, and basically you had to use your hands to keep yourself moving. That was followed by a couple of steep flights of stairs up reasonably big hills. We finally got to the Sun Gate at about 7.10am.

Now. The idea of getting you up at stupid o'clock and making you hike in the dark is that you get to see the sun rise over Machu Picchu and go "Oooooooh". Instead, we saw this:

Not actually from the Sun Gate. But you get the point.

Yup. More rain. We stopped at the Sun Gate for all of ten minutes before the head guide announced that he didn't think it was going to clear up for aaaages and so we may as well head down to Machu Picchu. That took about 45 minutes, because it was downhill on rocks that were extra slippery thanks to the rain. I MAY have had a couple of little "Oh crap, I'm sliding and am going to fall off a cliff and die" moments. (Obviously, I didn't fall off a cliff and die. Although being the world's first zombie blogger would be quite an achievement..........)

By the time we reached Machu Picchu, it was PROPERLY raining. So we headed for the cafeteria, and spent an hour or so hanging out under patio umbrellas, eating overpriced second breakfast, and waiting for a break in the weather. Our tour leader clearly didn't have high hopes for it clearing up - he took our passports and $20 each, and set off into Aguas Calientes to try and change our train tickets so that we could go back the next day if it didn't clear. But thankfully, by 9am, it had eased to drizzle and we were able to set off on the tour.

And because I don't really remember much of the detail from the tour (BAD ARCHAEOLOGIST), have a bunch of pictures. WHEEEEEEEEEEE:

The tour took about an hour and a half, and then we had two hours free before we had to be on the bus down to Aguas Calientes. So a bunch of us decided that we'd climb the smaller of the two peaks that rise behind the site (the one that's going off the left side of the frame in that last photo). It was only about a 15 minute walk to the top, but the trail was pretty narrow and winding, and there were occasional scrambles over tree branches and rocks and stuff. But the view from the top? Totally worth it.

When we'd finished marvelling at the view, we meandered through the site on our way to the bus.

See that little V in the mountains? That's where the Sun Gate is.

The bus ride to Aguas Calientes was a LITTLE hair raising, due to a millionty hairpin bends. And I'm sure the day visitors really appreciated how delightful we all smelled after four days with no showers. After a lunch of pizza and beer (hey, we deserved it!), it was time to head to the train station.

Oh. AND. The culmination of the Watermelons saga: after she was stretchered to camp on the third day, she declared that she would walk on the fourth day. She made it to the Sun Gate, and basically gave up. The two guides that were with them had to stretcher her down to the medical station at Machu Picchu to get her checked out. Then one of the guides had to go back UP to the Sun Gate to get Mr Watermelon. Because he'd been so worried about his wife over the past three days, that he'd forgotten to drink enough water. And so he'd basically dehydrated himself to the verge of a heart attack. So the guide had to PIGGY BACK HIM DOWN THE MOUNTAIN. And THEN? The SAME guide had to walk back up there AGAIN to get their bags. And the Watermelons spent the whole day at the medical station, and didn't get to see Machu Picchu at all. So yeah. That happened.

(Incidentally? I'm pretty sure that "So yeah. That happened" is going to be the title of my hilariously witty and completely hypothetical autobiography...)

The train ride back to Ollantaytambo ended up being kind of hilarious. Because there were lots of tunnels. And Ness and I were listening to her iPod, which decided to play "Scotty Doesn't Know". So whenever we went through a tunnel, all we could think of was "Mi scusi!" (name that movie), and we'd fall about in fits of hysterics. I'm not so sure it was particularly funny to anyone ELSE on the tour. But WE sure as hell had a good time!

That night, after quite possibly the most welcome shower I've ever had, we all headed out to Inka Grill for dinner. If you're ever in Cusco, GO TO INKA GRILL. Seriously. The food is fantastic, and if you order guinea pig, it comes to the table with a little crown made of red capsicum/bell pepper on its teeny tiny creepy-looking head (We didn't order guinea pig, hence the lack of photos. Someone at a nearby table did though). Oh. And order the warm chocolate tart. You won't regret it.

After dinner, we went out for a few well earned drinks. And several people tried to complete the Machu Picchu challenge - staying up for the full 24 hours and drinking. After one (free poured, and therefore disgusting) vodka raspberry, I caved and headed for bed. At least I got a good night's sleep before the unexpected drama (HI NESSA!!) that was to come the following day... Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun: to be continued.

K xx

Oh for the love of God, I just want to sleep...

I've been having trouble sleeping the past week or so. Usually, I take after my dad and I'm dead to the world within five minutes of my head hitting the pillow. But recently? I seem to spend hours laying in bed because my brain just won't SHUT THE FUCK UP. I swear, I'm going to start stabbing it with a Q-tip if it doesn't stop singing Lady Gaga on a loop at midnight. Yes, I said Lady Gaga. Shut up. We all have our guilty pleasures...

Last night, I woke up at about 5am. And I couldn't help but fight the feeling that I'd just been dozing for the past six hours. And then I was wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide awake, thanks to the stupid family of evil chirping birds sat outside my bedroom window. As I've mentioned before, I hate birds. A lot. This morning just made that worse... Finally, the stupid birds shut up. But about that time, I discovered that however I curled up in bed, I kept ending up with pins and needles in one or both arms just as I was about to drift off. Which resulted in me having to turn over, waking myself up again. *sigh*

Then today, I discovered that a pair of baby albino kookaburras have been found in Queensland. They sound cute and all, but no. I'm hardly unbiased when it comes to birds, but this has to be the scariest freaking photo I've seen in a long time:

(Source)

Thanks, world. As if I wasn't having ENOUGH trouble sleeping, now you have to add birds that rival velociraptors for terror factor to the equation. Awesome...

Wondering if I can justify taking night time cold and flu tablets for a headache,

K xx

Central Australia Part 2 - Uluru

So like I said at the end of my epic Kings Canyon post, we got to stop on the side of the road, run up a massive sand dune, and see the sun set over Uluru and Kata Tjuta. That's Kata Tjuta on the right, incidentally!

It was pretty damned impressive, I have to say.

Sara managed to get a couple of silhouette shots. I wasn't brave enough to mess around with my shutter speed without having a tripod to rely on!

From there, it was another 45 minutes in the bus to the campsite (permanent tents with actual beds in them - my kind of camping!). After a dinner of steak, roo steak, and camel sausages and a quick shower (nothing like showering with a massive grasshopper to make you rush...), it was off to bed after what seemed like the longest day ever. To be honest, the next day wasn't a whole lot shorter. We were woken up at 3.45, and breakfast was on the table until 4.30. Nothing like a nice bowl of Coco Pops in the middle of the night! :S

I will say one thing for getting up at stupid o'clock: the stars were TOTALLY worth it. I've not seen stars like that since the Inca Trail! Aaaanyway, we left camp at 4.45. It was a 45-odd minute drive from camp to the other side of Uluru where you can see the sun rise hitting the rock. On the plus side, it wasn't raining, which made a nice improvement on the previous day!

Anyway, sunrise was at around 5.45. We staked out a good spot, tried not to freeze to death, and stood around waiting...

Gradually, the sun began to come up, and the rock started to change colour from a grey colour to brown:

To red:

And then finally, FINALLY, the sun crested the hill:

And once that happened, the rock turned orange:

Once sunrise was over, we piled back into the bus, and headed around to the start of the base walk. I was slightly horrified when I realised that it was only 6.30 in the morning, that we'd been up for nearly 3 hours, and that we were about to walk 9.4km in two hours... :S

The walk around the base is incredibly worth the effort. At 6.30 in the morning, it was still relatively cool - you'd be nuts to try and do it in the middle of the day! - which meant it was fairly easy going for the most part. It's only when walking around the base that you can see Uluru for what it really is - enormous and ridiculously varied.

Does this look like an alien skull to anyone else???

The edges of the rock are so defined against the sky that a lot of the time, it looks like it's been photoshopped into the landscape.

The lines on the rock are actually stratigraphic layers - Uluru is actually a slab of sandstone bedrock that was pushed up during a mountain building period in the Palaeozoic era millions of years ago. That's pretty freaking cool, especially when you realise that there's another 2km of Uluru below the surface...

The black lines on the rock are a type of algae, and indicate where water's flowed during rain. Apparently Uluru is pretty bloody incredible in the rain, but frankly, I'm glad we didn't have to experience it!

It really is the most amazingly changeable scenery...

This bit, for instance, looked like a whale:

While this bit was just bizarre and amazing:

This is one of my favourite photos from the walk:

This is the waterhole inside Uluru - it's sheltered from the outside, and we got to see it when the water level was really high from all the rain in recent months!

Just around the corner from the waterhole was this rock art. It's amazing how different Central Australian rock art is from the rock art further north in Kakadu... Although apparently it serves a completely different purpose, so I suppose it's not all *that* surprising.

This bit was just cool. I really wanted to know if there was a little waterhole up over that lip:

And this ridge? This is where the climb is. God knows why the hell you'd think climbing it was a good idea...

Especially when you see this. This is the chain. Or, more accurately, the first THIRD of the chain, which is all you can see from the ground.

You still have to get up several more ridges to reach the top. Not only is it incredibly disrespectful to the local Aboriginal people to climb, but something like half of all people who climb the rock use the top as a bathroom. That's just wrong. Not to mention the fact that the strong winds at the top can actually knock you right off the side of the rock! Thank God the climb looks like it's going to be closed permanently sometime in the next twelve months...

We finished the walk at around 8.30 (which, frighteningly, was deemed morning tea time!), and drove to a lookout to get some photos of the whole of Uluru:

From there, it was a 45 minute drive out to Kata Tjuta. But that's a story for another time. A painful, painful story, filled with the cheesiest, worst Australian music imaginable... Isn't that something to look forward to?? ;)

K xx