After a 54-hour journey, I’m safely back in Australia.  And it’s, so, weird.  On the one hand, over the past year, everything’s changed for me; on the other, Sydney is more or less exactly as I left it.  It is amazing to have food I like again, though: hello, raisin toast, snack chocolate, nudie smoothies, Thai spices, and being able to buy whatever I want in supermarkets.  Yes!  I’ve been gorging myself.

It seems completely surreal that this time a week and a half ago (I’d say ‘a week’ but I’ve really lost track of time zones), I was in Colombia.  Which, as you’ll have gathered, was amazing.  I loved it, from meeting incredible people to David Attenborough-ing it up in the Amazon.  There are definitely things I’ll miss other than just the people I met and the experiences I’ve had though, things that were uniquely Colombian.  The air of magic, as I’ve mentioned before (in what turned out to be my most popular post thus far); the music, definitely (buying some Colombian dance music is going on my list); the amazing graffiti in Bogota; the swagger of guys on the bus as they jump off into traffic and usher you on; and of course, the unbelievable friendliness.  Colombians are by far the friendliest, most open people I’ve ever met, and I absolutely loved them for it.

My last evening in Bogota was spent with Laura and Angelica at a local Chia restaurant.  It was a groovy little place actually, with a good menu, cushions rather than chairs, mood lighting and board games.  Needless to say, all of this (barring, perhaps, the board games) meant that the place was otherwise occupied by couples, who were all passing the time by making out against the wall.  It was hilarious!

I was to leave Laura’s place at 2.15am (how awesome were she and her family, by the way—I met her for a couple of hours in Athens nearly two years ago, and they let me live in her house for a few weeks).  I had a 54-hour journey ahead of me back to Sydney, and it did not start well.  At around 4am when I got to the airport to check in, I discovered that my completely incompetent travel agent hadn’t told them I was vegetarian, so I lost my temper and poemed him:

I boarded the flight soon enough, and caught the first leg to San Salvador.  As the next leg was to the US, we then had to go through some fairly hectic security procedures.  I’m used to having all of my stuff scanned of course, and to having the magic wand passed over me, but this was a whole nother level: the agents pulled everything out of our bags in public and went through all of it.  It felt really invasive, and put me even further off actually travelling to the US.

I spent most of my time in LAX hanging out on the free internet, looking up Masters programs and job-searching.  I was getting pretty hysterical with exhaustion by this point of course, but narrowed down my choices significantly.  I should also mention how lovely everyone at the airport was; it’s always nice to be in a smiley, helpful country.  *Eye-roll* the TSA agent thought he was a right comedian, and was cracking jokes at high volumes about every person whose details he checked.  My weirdest moment at the airport though (other than paying an outrageous $20 for two sushi rolls—wtf?!) was when I was by the boarding gate on my laptop, and a guitar-playing unwashed guy came up to me and asked to charge his iPod via USB.  I obviously said yes, at which point he leaned down, hugged me and introduced himself as ‘Sam’.  You should have seen my face (it certainly felt affronted)—I’m definitely not a stranger-hugger.

My flights from LA were with Fiji Airways.  They’re not as good as my favourite airlines (Virgin, Etihad, Avianca), but weren’t awful, either.  I was sitting behind a bulk-head with a young Kiwi couple and their seriously adorable (and well-behaved) baby.  Granted, I was asleep for most of the flight, but I was glad to be sitting with such fun people.  They were also as confused as I was by the Fijian customs declaration form: why on earth did we need to declare whether we had holy water or not?!  Is there a big holy water smuggling trade through Fiji?!

Upon arrival in Nadi, I had little idea exactly what I was doing or how to get there.  I’d booked a spa package for 11am, and wanted to visit some gardens, but that was about it.  I was told to get a taxi, so jumped on in.  The driver, Rakesh, ended up being my driver for the morning (yes, it was expensive.  No, I wouldn’t do it again).  First he took me to town, Lautoka, which was a complete waste of time, and the most expensive leg.  Then we went to the Garden of the Sleeping Giant (completely worthwhile), before I headed to the spa.  Were I to do it all again, I’d save around $100AU on the taxi, and only go to the gardens and Novotel.  The hotel do day-stay rooms (around $80FJ for the full day), and there’s a really nice restaurant, a pool, and spa: an infinitely better use of the day.  It’s also only around 15 minutes’ walk (or $5 Fijian, ~$3AU) from the airport.

Lautoka

Part of the vast markets in the centre of Lautoka

How many ferris wheels can you see?

I doubt it.

Just casually getting a tattoo in public

The Garden of the Sleeping Giant

This made me think of jealousy.

I actually took a better photo of this one, but it looks absolutely obscene!

When I returned to the airport that afternoon (after my first-ever facial; incidentally, I had my first-ever manicure a few days before that: I am terrible at being a girl), I realised I had a slight problem.  Other than my lack of timeliness.  As I’d been walking through the markets earlier that day, lots of people were talking to me.  But, as it was in Fijian, I had no idea what they were saying: until one man said “sweetie, your bag’s open”.  I was so annoyed at my arrogance in instantly responding to the nomer ‘sweetie’ that I didn’t check that the contents of my bag were still there, other than my passport etc—so I didn’t realise that my padlock keys were missing.  My padlock, meanwhile, was on my suitcase at the airport.  My laptop was inside my suitcase, and I didn’t want to put it through the baggage compartment of the plane: but I only had five minutes until check-in closed, and no way to get the padlock off.  Happily, the airline let me check in sans bag, and I trotted off with security to try and break the padlock.  It took the attempts of about ten staff, some bolt cutters, a few sets of keys, a lock-picking set, and assorted pieces of metal before we finally got it open.  As I said on my facebook, it just wouldn’t be me at the airport without three big guys and a set of bolt-cutters:

In action

Heroes!

I’m now back in Sydney and have been applying for temp policy/project jobs.  So what’s happening with the blog?  Well, I’ve still got a Scotland photos post to do, and I’ll likely do posts for any travel I do within Australia/NZ this year, but I don’t anticipate doing anything other than that until I resume proper travels again.  My intention is still to relocate back to Europe in about a year’s time, either doing my Masters or working, and I’m sure I’ll resume writing then.  I think Australia’s too familiar (oddly enough) for me to be really able to write about it—and certainly to rant about it.  But I could be wrong.  I will also do a post once my book is available for purchase/download, and of course any new posts will as usual be posted to both the ‘explaurafying’ facebook page and my twitter feed.

In the meantime, thanks to the crazy number of people who’ve been reading, commenting and emailing me.  It’s been fun!

Until next time—до встречи, счастливо, à bientôt and ciao.