Chueco RTW: November 2009

Sunday, 22 November 2009

BRAZOS ABIERTOS – NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA

Estaba yo allá por julio, a pocos días de empezado mi viaje, en el bus atravesando territorio Palestino desde Jerusalén a Jordania cuando en medio de la nada sube una chica. Era Sherryl y con ella hicimos juntos la complicada frontera Israelí-Jordana y luego compartimos taxi al aeropuerto de Ammán.

Sherryl es una australiana que trabaja para una ONG ayudando allá donde la necesiten los refugiados. Hablamos largo rato de oriente medio y lo que ocurre por allí –ella trabaja con refigiados palestinos- y antes de despedirnos intercambiamos emails.

No supe mas de Sherryl hasta que una semana antes de mi llegada a Australia me escribe “Fer, yo sigo en Palestina pero según recuerdo debes estar llegando a Australia...” y me pone en contacto con su novio Ross y su hermana Michele.

Sin dudarlo, Ross ya me estaba esperando en la terminal a mi llegada y me alojó en casa de su amigo Andrew, ya que él no vive mas en Sydney. Junto con Michele me pasearon por el Sydney turístico y no turístico.

Es lo que se respira por este lado del mundo: gente muy abierta sin complejos y con ganas de pasar buenos momentos en esta vida. Una amiga eslovaca de Londres una vez me dijo “la gente que vive en climas soleados son mas sonrientes y optimistas, abiertos” y le voy dando la razón.

Sydney es todo lo pintoresco que se imaginan. Con un aire cristalino, mucho verde y la Opera House como epicentro turístico esta ciudad es una de las más fotogénicas que he visitado. En el humor de la gente se nota la mezcla de ingredientes que se da en el hemisferio sur en esta época: ambiente pre-navideño, pre-verano, pre-vacaciones y sobre todo post-escolar...muchos teenagers en la calle divirtiéndose hasta altas horas.

Luego de unos días en Sydney con Ross fuimos a conocer la campiña de Nueva Gales del Sur y paramos en Berry, donde él y Sherryl se han comprado una casa en un pueblo pintado. Mucho verde y mar cristalino para disfrutar.

Fin de Australia, ahora sólo falta esperar que Sherryl, Ross, Michele y Andrew visiten Barcelona y les pueda devolver el favor.

Cheers mate!

opera house

desde el puente

la cáscara no es de hormigón...

es de cerámica

con ross

con michele

downtown

la navidad ya está aquí

darling harbor

desde un bar en el downtown

mas budas

bondi beach en sydney

sur de sydney

berry, casa de los chicos

arquitectura victoriana en NSW

la bahia de día

la bahia de noche

Tuesday, 17 November 2009

UPSIDE DOWN – QUEENSLAND, OZ

This is the fifth time I cross the Equator line in this trip, and this time I stay in the south hemisphere...where the summer is warming up hearts and barbecues.

My arrival to Australia was to Cainrs, in the north of Queensland state. This is the tropical area of this country, plenty of rainforest, wildlife and diving paradise. The Great Barrier is a 3000-kilometer of coral reef, diving into its colors and organic shapes is like peering some Beatles psychedelic dream.

Just by chance I met Paula -Brazil- and Marcel -Holland- who are also travelling around the world and we shared a couple of nights and beers two months ago in Jakarta, Indonesia. With no room for hesitation we rented a campervan that would become our home for the next 3 weeks in our way to Byron Bay - Sunshine Coast, surfers territory.

Australia...so expensive, no need to say that we picked the cheapest -and most rusted- vehicle available, just check the pictures. It was not possible to go beyond 80 km/h but still we had lot of fun on this van.

The key to make the trip enjoyable was to be driving half of the day and then stopping wherever we felt like a break. This is the best way to get to know this huge and desolate country. We visited islands, little villages, forests, waterfalls, beaches, caves and dunes.

As we were rolling down we realized that many other tourist are the same way: traveling cheap on a van, and when sunset comes everybody looking for a place to park, start a barbecue and spend a lovely night.
There is an spontaneous camaraderie to share a meal around a table and get to know a lot of cool people.
I´ve met more people on these 3 weeks than in my whole trip. Amazing.

Most of the beaches in Queensland state are just perfect...but only for taking pictures. Threats like sharks, crocodiles and poisonous jellyfish are all around and make it impossible to even touch the water. Each town that we arrived had a special "guest" (read threat), and at the end we just joked "what is coming next...velociraptors? " hehe. The solution: stinger net. It is like a massive playpen into water where you can swim in a relatively "tranquility" while feeling like a dumb being there.

Landscape is like being in a road movie: road motels, gas stations with typical restaurants in the middle of nowhere, long long roads with no one around and few trucks coming and going.
People is very rural and with a simple lifestyle in this part of Australia. Very very friendly and smiley.

Finally after three cool weeks we arrived to Byron Bay. This is a town where you can breath welfare, money and clear air. We had the nice surprise that beaches are free of hazardous creatures, just a line in the horizon of a very cool specie: surfers.