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Meeting Uluru
Feb. 28th, 2011 09:57 pmThank the gods I got into my LJ account---for the last fifteen minutes, it's been hit or miss.
I made it to Uluru, threw my bag in the porter's shed and walked to the town center to book a tour into the site. Fortunately, they had one leaving in an hour and a half.
Uluru was not what I expected---I don't know what I expected. When I saw it rising up out of the strangely green bush (it's been raining a lot) I felt a sense of shock. It's huge, purple, and seemed almost fuschia in the hazy light. It looked like nothing I've ever seen before. It's a pushed up, buckled fossilized alluvial fan, and it's curled in on itself, almost feminine, in places.
It took me a good twenty minutes just to adjust to the sight of it, it's so...odd.
The tour took two of the shortest walks around the rock. The guide was new,older and not aboriginal. She was friendly enough, and she knew the standard aboriginal stories, but she wasn't local by a long shot. I could see her struggling to retell tales she had just learned. Still, I was glad to be there. The singing bugs and smell of...eucalyptus? seemed strangely familiar. I finally figured out that in some odd way, the scent and sound reminded me of Xunantinich and several other ancient Maya sites in Central America. The smell is different, the foliage is different and the bush is very different, but somehow there are echoes of a sameness that I can't really pinpoint. Maybe it's the rich scent of foliage and the singing of insects together. I don't know.
The smell is not the same, not at all---nothing else smells like a decomposing Mayan city, but still, there is something...
Maybe tomorrow I'll figure it out.
We saw two water holes, both breathtakingly beautiful. We stopped in several shallow caves, each covered in paintings and figures, images of animal tracks, spirals and shapes of all kinds.
When I flattened my hand against the rock it was warm and hard, and immediately I felt my pulse start throbbing at the heel of my palm. I don't know why.
One of the caves we saw was still in use. It was sacred to local aboriginal women in some capacity. The bell shape was associated with the pouch of a particular animal---a hare wallaby? I'm not sure. We were asked not take pictures of it. As we walked around the corner I saw a sign explaining this to tourists, and naming the cave...
...Spanish speakers, please put down your drink and swallow before looking under the cut...
( Read more... )
I could only blink in astonishment. What unfortunate chance could have created such a deeply unfortunate idiomatic coincidence?
What are the chances that a cave sacred to aboriginal women's rites of passage would be given a name of this significance?
I am just grateful that nobody else on the tour spoke Spanish.
When I quietly pointed this out to the tour guide later, she blushed furiously and said,"I know. But nobody else does and I'm not going to tell them".
After that, we continued our journey in the crazy heat and I decided that tomorrow, I'm going to catch a ride into the park and hike around the base of the rock. It should take me about four hours, and I need to get started by 8 am so I don't die in the heat (it was 95 today).
Not sure what it's about, but I want to hike around that rock.
We stopped and tried to watch the sunset over the rock on the way back, but cloud cover kept us from our goal. It was so still and quiet at the viewing point that I just wanted to slip into the grass and walk away, back towards the monument. It didn't seem like a bad idea in that moment, even though I know I would have changed my mind when it got full dark.
I met two people while we were watching and drinking sparkling wine: a young German woman on a long vacation and an older Jewish German woman writing a book. The young woman has a blog and promised to share pictures---she's staying in the dorm with me and leaving tomorrow. The older woman in here for a few more days. When she found out I was a writer, she asked me to join her for dinner tomorrow, so after my date with Uluru, I'll meet her to talk about writing and writer's block. Maybe I can help her out. I think she's stuck. We all know how that feels!
Hoping to see and understand more tomorrow. Blowing kisses to you all!
I made it to Uluru, threw my bag in the porter's shed and walked to the town center to book a tour into the site. Fortunately, they had one leaving in an hour and a half.
Uluru was not what I expected---I don't know what I expected. When I saw it rising up out of the strangely green bush (it's been raining a lot) I felt a sense of shock. It's huge, purple, and seemed almost fuschia in the hazy light. It looked like nothing I've ever seen before. It's a pushed up, buckled fossilized alluvial fan, and it's curled in on itself, almost feminine, in places.
It took me a good twenty minutes just to adjust to the sight of it, it's so...odd.
The tour took two of the shortest walks around the rock. The guide was new,older and not aboriginal. She was friendly enough, and she knew the standard aboriginal stories, but she wasn't local by a long shot. I could see her struggling to retell tales she had just learned. Still, I was glad to be there. The singing bugs and smell of...eucalyptus? seemed strangely familiar. I finally figured out that in some odd way, the scent and sound reminded me of Xunantinich and several other ancient Maya sites in Central America. The smell is different, the foliage is different and the bush is very different, but somehow there are echoes of a sameness that I can't really pinpoint. Maybe it's the rich scent of foliage and the singing of insects together. I don't know.
The smell is not the same, not at all---nothing else smells like a decomposing Mayan city, but still, there is something...
Maybe tomorrow I'll figure it out.
We saw two water holes, both breathtakingly beautiful. We stopped in several shallow caves, each covered in paintings and figures, images of animal tracks, spirals and shapes of all kinds.
When I flattened my hand against the rock it was warm and hard, and immediately I felt my pulse start throbbing at the heel of my palm. I don't know why.
One of the caves we saw was still in use. It was sacred to local aboriginal women in some capacity. The bell shape was associated with the pouch of a particular animal---a hare wallaby? I'm not sure. We were asked not take pictures of it. As we walked around the corner I saw a sign explaining this to tourists, and naming the cave...
...Spanish speakers, please put down your drink and swallow before looking under the cut...
( Read more... )
I could only blink in astonishment. What unfortunate chance could have created such a deeply unfortunate idiomatic coincidence?
What are the chances that a cave sacred to aboriginal women's rites of passage would be given a name of this significance?
I am just grateful that nobody else on the tour spoke Spanish.
When I quietly pointed this out to the tour guide later, she blushed furiously and said,"I know. But nobody else does and I'm not going to tell them".
After that, we continued our journey in the crazy heat and I decided that tomorrow, I'm going to catch a ride into the park and hike around the base of the rock. It should take me about four hours, and I need to get started by 8 am so I don't die in the heat (it was 95 today).
Not sure what it's about, but I want to hike around that rock.
We stopped and tried to watch the sunset over the rock on the way back, but cloud cover kept us from our goal. It was so still and quiet at the viewing point that I just wanted to slip into the grass and walk away, back towards the monument. It didn't seem like a bad idea in that moment, even though I know I would have changed my mind when it got full dark.
I met two people while we were watching and drinking sparkling wine: a young German woman on a long vacation and an older Jewish German woman writing a book. The young woman has a blog and promised to share pictures---she's staying in the dorm with me and leaving tomorrow. The older woman in here for a few more days. When she found out I was a writer, she asked me to join her for dinner tomorrow, so after my date with Uluru, I'll meet her to talk about writing and writer's block. Maybe I can help her out. I think she's stuck. We all know how that feels!
Hoping to see and understand more tomorrow. Blowing kisses to you all!
