Sea Turtles and School Teachers: Bundaberg, part 2

I spent my unexpected extra day in Bundaberg wandering the town and waiting for the train, which was not without its charms. I had breakfast at a cute little cafe (my favorite kind) called Fresh On Earls recommended to me by some people on the street, then in my shortsless panic bought two pairs, one overpriced and one very cheap, because I couldn't decide between them. I Skyped with my parents; I looked in a craft shop. In the afternoon I went to a teeny zoo near the down-at-the-heels hostel. There were wallabies there, which are essentially mini kangaroos, many varieties of exotic birds, plus baby emus (cute!) and an ostrich named Olly. Olly was very, very large.

Wallaby!

As I looked at the bird display, an affable older Aussie who was also wandering about introduced himself and told me he knew one of the parrots from before it was taken away from its owners by the authorities. He claimed that if you asked the bird to walk with you it would follow you along the confines of its cage, speaking to the parrot in a very silly high voice--but, sure enough, it responded. Later he was shat on by a pigeon as we watched the wallabies. I was amused then, but little did I know that I, too, was destined to be shat on by a pigeon, albeit a month later and several hundred miles away.

After he cleaned himself up, Gus invited me to his house to see his birds. I didn't have anything better to do, so I agreed. When we reached his house, in the outskirts of Bundaberg, he introduced me one at a time to all of the birds in his garden (in cages)--there were 10 of them at least--and let me hold them. All of their wings were clipped , and when they, half-lame, tried to fly away he laughed at them, which struck me as oddly barbaric.

It got weirder when we went inside. The house was basically carpeted with bird art. Murals, sketches, paintings (he was careful to point out the originals), and limited-edition prints, of probably 50 different bird species. He also showed me his collection of trophies from his shooting club, about which I said vague, appreciative things. As we admired the trophies, he told me that his wife is second-generation Dutch and doesn't tolerate the Queensland heat well. She spends much of her time during the summer in her air conditioned bedroom, watching movies. As she was that day, which was about 35 C and quite humid.

I asked why they didn't move if she became so ill in the heat and needed to be on so many medications. "Well, I grew up here, I have my shooting club and my work," he said, adding that his wife is thinking about going to live with relatives in Melbourne 4 months out of the year. Or, he added in an oddly detached tone, "perhaps we'll part company forever, after 16 years of marriage." He insisted that we barge into the bedroom to say hello, and I wondered why he brought me back to his house. Maybe they had had a bad argument that morning. Maybe he was thinking of leaving her.

Gus with one of his birds


He dropped me back at the backpackers and I checked my luggage, fighting anxiety about whether I should have opted for a sleeper car. Feeling decidedly scattered, worried about plans for Airlie Beach and Cairns, I boarded the train, and things immediately improved. I celebrated my single seat, a window and aisle in one, and was happy to find that the chair itself was quite roomy and comfortable.

I spent the dwindling evening exploring the saloon and diner cars. I had just sat down with an overpriced beer (to make up for the lack of horizontal sleeping surface) and opened my computer to do some writing when I heard gasps of "Cool!" and looked up to see two dark-skinned boys grinning at me.

"Is that little thing really a computer?" one wanted to know. Then he heard my accent and demanded to know where I was from.

"Well, America," I admitted. His eyes lit up, reflecting off his dark face. He punced his friend lightly."Hey, let's talk to the American!"

Their names were Masi and PJ; Masi was a Fiji Islander and PJ a Torres Straight Islander, which means he comes from the area between Australia's northernmost point (Cape York) and Papua New Guinea. They had met on the train earlier in the day coming up from Brisbane and were really, really excited to meet me-- again, I was surprised to encounter such fascination with America and American culture. They asked me if I brought anything from America with me, went through my outfit-- singlet? earrings? bag? shoes?-- Yes, I said, everything was from America.

They wanted to see American money, and I gave PJ a nickel, dime, and quarter to keep. "What's it like to have an American dollar?" he asked. I said that it's about like having an Australian dollar, but I think he meant a bill instead of a coin-- Australian money includes $1 and $2 coins and starts bills at $5. "We like your Obama," he told me solemnly, with little transition. "We want to be like him."

We filled the next half hour with me sipping my beer and them telling me scary stories, some from "Ghost Hunters," which they saw on TV, some of crime on the streets of Townsville (which is near Cairns) and elsewhere. PJ told me his cousin was raped and talked graphically of other crimes. He also claimed that in the Torres Strait Islands when people who are from outside come, his family and relatives paint themselves, dance around, give the visitors necklaces, and then when the visitors aren't looking a witch woman beats them over the head and then slices them up to eat. Well... maybe, I guess. I'm sure these stories are embellished the way 11 year old boys embellish the world over. It's a nice story and it probably has some basis in truth in a distant past. Or who knows? Maybe there are cannibals in Torres Strait.

The train had stopped for some unknown reason, and rain was running down the black windows. PJ offered to escort me back to my seat in car H.

When I had gotten comfortable and opened my computer again, I put in my earphones and toggled iTunes to random. "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" filled my ears and I almost laughed. Tell me where in the world, tell me where can she be...

Traveling up the coast of Australia at 75 kph to a new place with crystal clear waters, maybe?

As I typed Masi and PJ passed me, back to their train car. They tapped me on the shoulder and grinned as they passed.

Southern Crossing: Atlanta-Charleston

Atlanta marked the apex of our swing through the south, and so when we left John's house early in the morning we were driving north for the first time in more than a week. We set off northwest toward the South Carolina border, stopping mid-day in Athens, Georgia, a still-waking-from-winter tourist town that featured a lovely walking path along the river. We stripped off our sweatshirts, relishing the warm air, and enjoyed the flowers and trees along the walk-- two northeastern girls ecstatic to have driven into spring.

An old train bridge in Athens, Georgia

Spring flowers

Awesome

South Carolina is a big state, so although we crossed the border shortly after Athens it took us all of the afternoon and some of the evening to arrive in Charleston. I could tell that the sunset was going to be incredible, and we decided we wanted to go out to the tip of the city, an area called the Battery where the river and the ocean meet, to watch. But in my hurry to get us there, I got turned around with the map and we ended accidentally going in the opposite direction. We watched the orange ball flicker from behind buildings as we raced the sunset and lost, but it didn't matter. Even without the sun, that night's sunset was one of the best of my life. We jumped out of the car and ran across the manicured lawns of the Battery to the river. There was a light breeze, warm and moist as bath water, and we watched pelicans swoop over the water in the blue air as the horizon turned deep pink and orange.

As if all that weren't magical enough, as we watched the horizon transform we heard a strange squeaking. For a sudden period of ten minutes only a swarms of insect appeared, and a cloud of bats followed, making strange, gravity-defying turns in the air to feed. As quickly as they came, they were gone (and the insects with them.) We were left to marvel at the water, the sunset growing more vivid by the minute on one side, and a full, white moon hanging 180 degrees behind, over the rooftops of the city.

Stunning.

Possibly the best sunset of my life thus far: Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

We walked back to the car, enjoying the Charleston night, dropped our things at our (fantastic) hostel and went looking for dinner.

Light on a colonial house, on the walk back to the hostel

We found ourselves in one of Charleston's main arteries, choosing a casual restaurant where we could dine outside and enjoy our tank-topped-at-night freedom. Our server, Isaac, was very friendly and made small talk as we ate our meal and enjoyed the mix of spring air and margaritas. Originally from Mexico, he was now a geology student at the nearby College of Charleston, and he offered to be our guide to the city the next day. We gratefully accepted. The rest of the night was spent on our hostel's front porch, drinking Yuengling and talking about the world--just the way nights at hostels always seem to go.

The next day was especially full because we weren't sure when we would be leaving Charleston. We spent the morning exploring a few of the old neighborhoods, ending up in the tourist hub of the city on a carriage ride. Normally, we would not have entertained the possibility of this kind of activity. But because I was still recovering from my broken ankle it actually made a lot of sense, as we could cover a large area without exacerbating my injury. Besides, the carriages were quite charming.

Images from Charleston's Civil War-era neighborhoods:

(Note the intense fence, for guarding against slave revolts)

The triple porch is very typically Charleston



The tour was quite interesting. We learned a lot about Charleston history, about the high life now (for example: Many of the nicest houses use gas lamps instead of electricity because it's more expensive and thus shows their wealth. Also, many Charleston houses are very long and skinny because house owners were taxed based on their street-front property, rather than the overall area of their houses.) I think my favorite thing we learned was about the little old Charleston ladies who still refer to the Civil War as "The Recent Unpleasantness."

The tour ended back where it began, in the midst of an enormous, tourist-soaked craft market. We embraced the commercialism for a moment, getting lost in the sea of people and art. I took the lesson I learned in China about controlling your tourist experience and put it to good use: I ended up buying a woven basket from one of the many women dotting the market, who stood out because of their ebony skin and what seemed like acres of woven baskets surrounding them. These women were part of the Gullah culture, an ex-slave community that grew up in the barrier islands of the Carolinas during and after the Civil War. The baskets are traditional crafts of Gullah people, and I took it upon myself to talk to the women who made my basket, something I didn't see too many other people bothering to do. She told me about learning to weave from her mother; about how her whole family is part of the process; about how her elderly father still goes out every week on Sundays into the marshes to collect the reeds to dry and make baskets. Emma laughed and told me I was "such an anthropologist." Maybe it's true, but for me that made the experience, and the basket, all the richer. Why buy something if you don't know the story behind it? Really, for me, the story is the most valuable part. The basket is really only a reminder of that story.

Woven Gullah baskets at the market

That afternoon we explored the city further, walking through the lovely multi-colored neighborhoods to one of the oldest synagogues in the United States, Temple Kahal Kadosh, which dates back to the Civil War. I was not expecting to get in touch with my Jewish heritage during a trip to the American south, but this temple was beautiful and story of the Charleston Jews quite interesting. This was the place that the Reform movement took hold in the US, and there was some interesting lore about tensions between Reform and Orthodox before the split. The building was beautiful; we were given a short tour, and both of us bought "Shalom Y'all" t-shirts in the gift shop.

The fourth-oldest temple in the United States

The caption above the bimah (platform) says "Know Before Whom Thou Standest"

It was about this time that Emma and I called Isaac, our waiter from the night before. He met us in the Battery and led us around the city to some of his favorite neighborhoods. We had a delicious picnic from a restaurant called Five Loaves, heard a little about South Carolina's geological history, and walked along a promenade by the beautiful harbor, where the river meets the sea. The three of us plus Susan, one of Isaac's college friends, spent what became another spectacular sunset at Isaac's favorite rooftop bar, where I had a mint julep in honor of where we were.

Sunset at the rooftop bar

As dusk fell, we were faced with an important decision. Our hostel was full for the night, and we had originally planned on moving on to the north part of the state that evening. Having decided we were too in love with the city to leave quite yet, we had thought we might spend the night on the beach, but the weather was a bit chilly for that kind of adventure. Luckily, Isaac was kind enough to offer to let us stay in his apartment for the night. Without realizing it, we had discovered couchsurfing.

The evening that followed was wonderful, surreal, hilarious. Isaac took Emma and me back to his house, then invited over a friend of his, John, who was on furlough from the Army. John was a tall, lanky blond soldier with an aristocratic southern accent (a la Rhett Butler). As we later discovered, he also had a photographic memory, but that didn't become evident until he rattled off a list of the past 15 presidents and their vice presidents, in order and with dates of office, during a lightly alcoholic game of Trivial Pursuit.

The evening got continually weirder as we ventured to, of all things, a Red Sox bar in downtown Charleston, then home again after enjoying some pool and the rowdy atmosphere. John lost his social skills as he drank, but that made him more interesting to be around. In fits and starts, he told us the story of a nerdy, intensely smart boy in rural South Carolina who knew early on that something about how his brain worked was different. Frustrated that the teachers at his school could not give him the education his overactive mind needed and unable to come up with the funds to escape to college, he had finally joined the military, eschewing higher education. The violence and psychological stresses of his life and his sheer intellectual capability had come together to create a formidable, but slightly off-kilter, intellect.

John had a fabulous sense of humor but little concept of social mores. He told jokes and stories entertainingly but had no sense of physical boundaries. One minute he leaned in too close, telling us about his anti-piracy missions in India and boasting about the number of pirates he'd killed (19); the next he flopped across the couch, detailing an intricate, light-hearted system for rating women on the street and an in-depth theory about Woody Allen films. In short, he was the sort of character you only meet on a road trip and the kind that every road trip needs.

Needless to say, an evening with him and Isaac provided plenty of entertainment and food for thought. We went to bed at 3:30 and were up at 6 to drive to the Isle of Palms for sunrise on the beach.

Southern Crossing: Asheville-Knoxville

Asheville, North Carolina marks the beginning of the Great Smoky Mountains, which means that the terrain changes enormously in a small area, a landscape filled with the unexpected. Similarly unexpected: Asheville is a bastion of hippy liberalism in the Appalachians which (until this election!) tended to be thoroughly in the conservative camp. Asheville is a very walkable, pleasant city filled to the brim with art-deco architecture, touches of environmentalism, and lots of art and culture. And yet, right outside the city limits are the foothills of the Great Smokies and all of the Appalachian charm (and poverty) a person could ever want to see.

That Sunday Emma and I got up and left Bon Paul and Sharky's, heading to an adorable breakfast restaurant down the street, where they made their own granola and the coffee was strong and sweet. We then undertook a walking tour of downtown Asheville.

Art deco architecture in the heart of Appalachia

I was keeping count of Priuses (Priuii?) during the trip, and never did I see so many in one place as in Asheville. In the picture below, I didn't even mean to shoot the Prius. It just happened to be driving by.



You've got to be pretty liberal to fund a zero-emissions vehicle program for your city police force

We spent the morning and early afternoon exploring. There were art galleries to see, vintage shops to browse through. We were tempted by an upscale southern food restaurant (the first we'd seen) but saved our money. Instead, we opted to spend some time in a fantastic craft center where we learned about traditional Appalachian crafts like basket weaving. Then we made our way to Sandy Bottom, a tiny town about 20 minutes outside Asheville in the Great Smoky Foothills. We had seen a brochure for horseback rides and decided that this idea, while a bit out of our price range, was just too good to pass up.

The drive out to Sandy Bottom was almost worth the money we spent on the horseback ride. The road wound through green hills, cows grazing, ramshackle cottages and disintegrating barns picturesque against the blue sky. We were the only visitors on the 4 PM ride.

Horses graze in Sandy Bottom

We went out, just the two of us with a grizzled old farmhand who had lived in Sandy Bottom all his life-- in fact when we reached a particularly high ridge he pointed out the small white house in which he had grown up. Throughout our 45 minute ride we rode up and down steep cliffs and rolling hills with fantastic views of the Smokies, and he kept up a friendly patter in his fantastic West North Carlonian accent. He told us about the strangest rides he had guided, about growing up near Asheville and his love for horses. He explained the presence of old school buses on the farm's extensive property (the awesome answer: the owner buys them and puts them out so that the goats have somewhere to go when it rains.) He asked about our lives, teased me because my stirrups were too long and kept coming loose, teased Emma for not talking much. And yet when we left we realized we had never asked his name.

The beautiful view from a Sandy Bottom ridge



We arrived back at the barn sore and for some reason--the authentic, comfortable feel of the ride, the refreshing warm air, or the scenery-- wonderfully fulfilled. And so the next question presented itself: what to do for dinner? And, more importantly, what about St. Patricks' Day?

We had forgotten during the reide that the holiday had arrived. Some of the guests at Bon Paul and Sharky's had mentioned that an Irish Pub downtown called The Green Man would be hosting a party with live traditional Irish music, an event that sounded right up our alley. So after dinner at a tasty, reasonable restaurant with an amphibious name (I can't seem to remember it now... something like The Dancing Frog?) we moved the night to The Green Man. It was an ideal setting for St. Patrick's Day festivities (besides, say, Dublin). The crowd was raucous and excited, the beer (brewed in several varieties in the pub basement) flowed freely, and music was fantastic. A few enthusiastic souls got up to do some approximation of Irish step dance. Emma and I struck up a conversation with the group of twenty-somethings next to us: they were incredibly friendly and toward the end of the evening were laughing and joking with us as if we had known them a long time. And I tried my hand at a game of darts, stopping to show our new friends the route I took during my brief trip to Ireland in 2007.

Enjoying the music at the Green Man


We couldn't stay out too late, as the next day was to be a long and spectacular one. We hoped to get all the way from Asheville to Nashville (Tennessee) the next day, stopping along the way in Great Smokey Mountains National Park and Knoxville, TN. So we got up quite early to make the initial trek, planning to hit the park just as dawn broke. As we did, we drove through the only remaining Cherokee reservation in North Carolina after the trail of tears. Cherokee, NC is a little blip of a town. We stopped at Tribal Grounds coffee house (har har) for morning fuel, and I took the opportunity to pick up a set of promotional postcards for a local art show featuring portraits of local Cherokee people. I still have a few of them up in my room. Those are the kinds of interesting tidbits I like to serve as souvenirs.


We hit the Park just about exactly at sunrise, which made for stunning views as we wound through the thick woods, full of towering rhododendron bushes. For now they were prickly with green buds-- in a few weeks the woods would be in full, astonishing bloom.



The most lovely thing about driving through the Smokies at dawn was that we experienced sunrise several times over. We would crest a peak and see the sun coming mellow over the horizon, then dip down again and descend into twilight, and over and over, until we came to an overlook over the whole park. There, Emma set off to do a little hiking while I (with my lame ankle) enjoyed the view.

Smoky Mountain Scenery





After a few hours we drove out of the park, through several low-season tourist towns like Pigeon Forge and Sevierville, TN. Given enough time I would have loved to explore these towns: they are basically all road-side attractions, filled with wacky museums and off-kilter monuments. Unfortunately we only had time to stop at a delicious pancake house in Sevierville. We felt that if we didn't we would be missing out on some sort of essential cultural experience: we counted more than 15 pancake houses in one small downtown area!

Sated, we set off. Destination: Nashville.

One of the oddest monuments in the US: the Sunsphere, built for a world's fair in Knoxville. There's not much else to see in the city, although it was nice enough when we drove through.