I am only a bit embarrasd that I don't know who it is as I was fast asleep when she called, she does not speak much English, the number was witheld and she never said who she was when I answered. I suppose some people could argue that I should be able to instantly recognise all my friends voices over the phone in the middle of the night, even the ones I have never met face to face, but to them I just want to blow a bit wet raspberry!
A raspberry also goes out to anyone that has a memory so perfect that it never needs to write down any times or dates as it stores them all up and can remember birthdays, anniversaries and telephone numbers ( both landline and mobiles ) of all their nearest and dearest.
My brain doesnt work that way, never has, never will and I feel that currently I have much better things to do with my time than spend it trying to improve my memory. It's why I use websites like birthdayalarm.com, it's why I always try to update my blog every night ( even if i can't find an internet signal to post I will at least draft the entry ), it's why I sometimes take hundreds of photos on a single day and it's why caller ID was invented.
So anyway, crazy side track done with, once I was awake I seem to have lit a fire under my room mates asses, as they all got up, showered and then checked out before even the sun was up. I am not sure if it was intentional but they left some coins and a medium size beach towel just lying around on their bunks, which after an hour of them not coming back I decided to put to good use, especially as I had been without my own towel now for over a month and been resorting to renting them on occasions when they were not given out freely where I was staying.
Being up so early I mananged to complete my linen washing so that everything I had with me had been rewashed since the flea feast incident of the overnight train to Brisbane, and so any fresh bites are more likely to be local introduced rather than leftovers from past locations. I did my best to also clean out my rucksack as best I could, but I guess there is always the small chance that they could have transfered over to the bag, but thats a chance I will have to take.
I was a bit foolish not to check how long the train took to reach the airport, but I sort of guessed that if I got on a train around 10am I would be there for 11 and the closing time for domestic flights was 11:30. Foolish only because it was a 20 minute train ride, the station was 5 to 10 minutes away on foot if you knew where it was, they only have 2 trains an hour and not to mention that is asuming that there was no problems with the trains running on time.
As it was signal problems kept us waiting midway on the journey for about 20 minutes and it was insane how the train conductor just said a quick "sorry for any inconvenience" message over the tanoy and left it at that, while some of the passengers inside were going crazy as they had left it to the last minute and were in jeopardy of missing their check-in times. Cries of "its ok, its ONLY the airport train after all" filled the air and one chinese guy even was asking around if anyone could help him find a taxi!
For me the timing was just about perfect as I hate waiting around for hours in airport lounges with nothing to do and this way I just had enough time to grab a super mini pizza and coke zero ( no sugar ) for AUD $10 as a breakfast before we boarded the plane.
The flight was a 2 1/2 hour flight or pain and torture as some woman a couple of seats back had brough on her two young children who did nothing but scream, cry, wail and ball their eyes out from before take off to after landing. During the flight I came up with the idea that perhaps the airlines, or the mum, should bring either cloraphorm or tranquilisers - maybe in the form of sweeties or milk, to give to small children to quieten them down and not spoil the flight for the entire rest of the plane.
Even with my ear plugs and use of my Hawaii floppy hat as a makeshift blind ( I lost my original eye cover a few weeks ago someplace ) I was still unable to get a moments peace. The only other dissapointing thing was that the airline was not offering any music, movie, inflight magazine or even any complimentary drinks or snacks and being stuck on an aisle seat I had absolutely nothing to take my mind off the screaming for even a moment, truly a cruel and unusual punishment that no innocent man should have to put up with.
Landing at the aiport I managed to phone the hostel to find out that the free shuttle service had been phased out weeks ago and normally they would send out emails on booking but as I had booked it sooo far in advance I had been missed off the list to be contacted. As I had not grabbed a normal shuttle ticket the second I touched down I had to wait for it to do the rounds and come back and trust me Cairns City Airport became a ghost town less than five minutes after the last piece of luggage was taken off the carosel.
Arriving at the hostel over an hour later I was suitably hot and bothered, made worse by the fact that the owner smugly tried to inform me that I would have been emailed at the time of booking with the changes, but I cut him short with a look, a shake of the head and just walking off in disgust up to my room. When I came back down he must have checked his records as he was much more polite and approachable and said that as I had booked such a long time ago I might not have received the email but what they did for the interim was to refund the shuttle fee, which was much better and would have been great if the reception had been open so that I could have received my refund there and then.
As it was, instead all I could do was to go up to my room and then wait for 4:30 when it was tie to check in, pick up my free meal vouchure for the restaurant and the internet code so that I could check my wifi.
The heat and humidity of Cairns was something else, like being back in Fiji on a clear day, and my clothes were sticking to me like glue, even in the shade. The hostel and the door rooms all had a more natural and rustic feel, being more like converted farmyard warehouses than a purpose built or multi story building, and was much more the kind of original / authentic Australia that I was hoping to experience while travelling through.
Less than half an hour later the power went down, which killed the aircon, my wifi session and also killed my chances of getting any trips booked for tonight or tomorrow for the moment at least. Thinking that it might be a passing glitch, I went and played a game of pool in the outdoor but covered pool lounge and would have enhanced the experience with a drink but the place had no bar and of course the kiosk machines are all electrical.
Seconds turned into minutes and soon I had played a few games of pool, located and chatted to my dorm room mates and was wondering what else to do when the heat overtook me and I had no choice but to join the small gathering in the outdoor mini pool to cool off. The insane thing was that everyone in the pool was either Canadian or English, all long term travellers and all had fun swapping stories of past exploits and journeys.
It was then that a stunning bronzed early twenties / late teens girl entered the pool and like the rest of us happily soaked herself right up to her neck and then splasher her face a few times to cool down, but before I could even strike up a conversation the clouds let out a few drops of rain and the second one hit her she exclaimed "on no, its raining" and immediately got out and walked off again! The rest of us, realising that we were already wet, sort of looked at each other in amazement before laughing it off and remained in the pool. As it turned out it wasn't even enough to be considered a passing shower and in next to no time it had stopped and yet the bronzed beauty didn't return.
I waited a little while longer, til my fingers looked like prunes before I chose to get out, and by then the brief rain had chilled the air enough to not be so muggy any more, but regretably the power was still out. After drying myself off I got dressed and went down to reception to ask if they had any info on the blackout to find a group of other guests all waiting for the pickup to the rsestaurant for the nightly grub, so instead just joined them. Arriving later than planned it had just got dark before the bus arrived and as we drove to the restaurant we could see that the blackout was pretty far reaching and ongoing and it threw me totally when the bus driver said we could all get out near the place only to find a paper note stuck to a window saying that due to power shortage the place was closed. Why on earth no one had thought to phone up and check bewildered me, but all of a sudden there I was, stranded in the middle of a new town with no power in the dark!
Too many things have happened to me for this to phase me for long, however, so with the dim glow of nearby lights I knew that something had to have power and pretty soon found my way to a cinema where the Italian restaurant below was just loving the power cut, being one of the few places to still have elecricity ( possibly on a different grid or linked into the cinemas backup generator ! ) and it had queues of guests lining up outside the door prepared to wait more than half an hour just to be seated.
Unsure of what else to do and knowing that the hostel was no fun place to be in the dark with most of the other guest here in town trying to find a bite to eat, so I just went for a short stroll and soon found a Thai restauarant with power and so settled my food dilemma. The food was not quite backpacker prices, and I knew that I cannot afford to keep eating in fine restaurants every day for 9 months, but with little or no choice and as I had skipped lunch, I knew that this wouldnt quite break the bank so stayed for a starters and main course.
After the meal I headed on back to the cinema, it still being only 8:30 and plumped to watch the movie "Australia" for a second time, and surprised myself by still getting a little choked up at times even though I know what was coming, having seen it back in Mexico only about a month ago.
Finding my way back to hostel was a tiny bit trickier than I imagined, mainly as the maps didnt have all the small roads on them, and the one fella that I met who I might have thought to ask for directions asked me first for a smoke and then when I said I didn't smoke he called me an arsehole and walked off! It was also interesting to see a graffiti artist work, both lit and guided by an over head projector, doing a huge portrait of a woman in black spraypaint, it looked pretty good half even half done and I just hope he doesnt later go insane with colours or tags which to my mind would ruin the piece.
Finally reaching my dorm room I found that the power was back on and this meant aircon all night long, which was a true blessing and I took it to be a sign of good things to come for the next few days. Although I wont be able to book my GBR ( great barrier reef ) adventure for tomorrow, I should still be able to book something and do the reef the following day instead.
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