Greetings from Darwin!!
The last week has been crazy and awesome, full of randomness and excessive heat--temperature-wise, I mean.
After 6 days in the Outback, our group partied it up in Alice Springs, which is a pretty boring town. If it wasn't for Bojangles pub and the bottle of wine I'd treated myself to, I don't know how I would have gotten through it. Tuesday I was a hot ass mess, and I awoke to find myself being spooned by my Outback tour guide, a ruddy Aussie man who goes by the nickname 'Jesus.'
I guess you could say I woke up in Jesus's arms.
It was odd and random. Not only because Jesus had three beds in his room and there was no need for us to share a space, but because Jesus is betrothed. Nothing happened, and it was very PG--although his touch was surprisingly tender and he held me all night, which I don't know if I'd want my future husband doing with a nubian princess such as myself. There was no weirdness in the morning, thank god/his dad. This wouldn't be the first time I'd won the affections of a taken man.
I spent much of Tuesday nursing my hot mess of a hangover, hydrating and doing tons of writing. My flight out of town was Wednesday arvo, so I woke up bright and early, showered, de-sketchified, and headed off into the bright sun to see what Alice had to offer. It's quite a small city, and the main attractions are walkable enough.
So, you guys know how I'm really into reptiles, right? This means that the Alice Springs Reptile Centre was my first stop. As I walked through the exhibition, loving the cold-blooded creatures, I took note of all the venomous ones, should I come across them along my travels. As I walked through one section, I noticed this Olive Python was eye-fucking the shit out of me from inside its cage. It was really weird--totally one of those moments where I wish I could speak Parseltongue and figure out what the hell was going on.
In addition to its reptiles, I greatly appreciated the Centre's air conditioning, and just took my time reading placards and cooling off. While admiring a dinosaur fossil (yes, admiring), I was alerted to an animal presentation starting up. Suh-weet.
Maureen, our lovely presenter, showed us all sorts of creatures that we were then allowed to HOLD. I totally elbowed children out of the way and held a blue-tongued lizard, a horny devil (yes, a horny devil), and the Python who was staring at me. It was totally cool--I seem to have lost all fear since my journey into the outback. I was a bit wary of the massive snake, but he just slithered and it was all good....for a while.
As I went to hand it back to Maureen, it began to constrict around my hand.
My life flashed before my eyes. I totally knew there was a reason it was staring at me before--it was sizing me up for the kill. Being a constrictor, it's grip was deadly and I struggled to squeeze my hand out without making a scene that would scare the children. "Umm........" I said sorta loudly. Maureen told me to stay calm and or force the snake off, as it would feel threatened. I wriggled my hand out sloooooowwwwwllllly, and managed to break free--you can't put shackles on this blacktress, reptilian or otherwise!!!
Escaping death, I headed off to a couple other sights then went to the airport. There, I ran into this cool chick who I'd met in Sydney through a friend a couple months back. She's from Hotlanta and is totally a strong black woman in a white woman's body. We discovered we were seated in the same row--22A and C. We joked about talking over whoever was in between us.
When we got to our seats, we saw there were only seats A and C together. Talk about meant to be! We were obvi fated to be together, and spent three hours talking about dudes, travel, and fun times ahead. Her hostel was down the road from mine, and we met up and went out on the town last night. We landed at 7pm and it was still 90 degrees and humid out. Hot mess.
Darwin wasn't exactly popping on a Wednesday, and we went to the one hot spot, The Vic. The cover band was rocking ('Save Tonight,' by Eagle Eye Cherry, anyone?), and with $3 tequila shots, you know we'd basically gotten ourselves two tickets to the Shit Show. We ended up meeting some Canadian dudes, one of whom was 21 and tried to flirt with me. He was outgoing, had a full beard, and totally seemed older than me until he revealed that his age. I mean, wtf, Canadians--why must you always trick me?! He's from Sasketchawan, where I guess all the men are part Yeti and born rugged. I explained to him that, "I can't do anything with 21," and he got annoyed. Me and my new bff left The Vic at about 1am, chanting our new motto:
Darwin. My town. Love it.
