Was saddened by the passing of Mr. Warmth this past week. I grew up emulating his love of all races from the Dean Martin Roasts to CPO Sharkey. The kids didn't know who he was and were somewhat horrified when I did a short set of his material in the car to school....'who let these Chinks in here?'
Last we left off, our time in Sydney was almost over and on the way out of town, we all picked up a meat pie and sausage roll at the Sydney airport for the plane ride to Ayers Rock (AYQ). Genius move. The plan was to hook up with a tour group out of Alice Springs (4hr drive away), join them for a few hours around Uluru, camp out in the bush and do some morning hike around the monoliths before heading out the next afternoon.
Would guess that most everyone knows it, but Uluru is the huge rock that is the first or second image you see when you think of Australia. I went there in '83 and tried to talk Betty out of going, but she has this quest to see as many of the 250 on the 'things you must see before you die' list and really, if you're that far down there, it is worth going When I went in '83, the Rock was the same but opinion of it was very different. Then, it was called Ayers Rock and walking to the top was just a thing one did. In 1985, custody of it was returned to the Indigenous People's and the name was returned to the native Uluru (it is easy to change the name of a landmark but next to impossible to rename an airport code). The chain rope trail to the top is still there and you can climb it, but it is highly discouraged as it is sacred ground...even the Indigenous never do.. Our guide said that about 20% of the visitors to the area climb it and specified a big chunk of that percentage as Asian. The disdain of Asian tourists everywhere continues...
We arrived at the airport and were supposed to be picked up by the tour operator, but they didn't show on time. All the other people on the plane were carried away, but us and a German girl were left behind. We determined that we were on the same tour and she got an email saying there was car trouble and that it'd be an hour or so before they arrived. That's cool, the AYQ airport isn't busy...maybe 5 or 6 flights a day, so we settled in. I went outside to enjoy some of the fine dry desert air and there is another dude roaming about who seemed agitated. He had engaged an airport employee and he seemed like he was tweaking a bit, so I kept my distance. He got on the phone to some travel agent and was having a back and forth about how he booked the tour but no one was there. He had the speaker on (of course cause that is what tweakers do) and you could hear the lovely girl trying to talk him off the ledge. The dude was not Australian and while his accent wasn't bad, you could tell English wasn't his first language. So he's talking to the girl, trying to get a ride and he throws out this line..."I was talking to the travel agent in Alice Springs and she took my reservation. I'm half Jewish. Can I speak to your manager?" Huh?
Our bus arrives and the German girl and we all climb aboard...and then the Tweaker joins us. They must have figured out we were the last train to Clarksville and he hooks up with our group. He gets on and is introduced as Giuseppe. Our group was 21 people...we had a Lithuanian couple. a German couple to add to our German girl, a couple of Korean girls, a solo Japanese girl, a Brazilian girl and an Aussie dude with his Malaysian wife. The Aussie dude looked just like Crocodile Dundee and Giuseppe took an immediate shine to him. He seemed like a nice bloke but Giuseppe was toxic, so we kept our distance. We stopped at our campground for a burger lunch and were to head out to see Uluru, but Giuseppe claimed he would get heat stroke so asked to be left off at the camp ground office for the afternoon.
Uluru was just as I'd left it 34 years ago. For just a big rock, the way it rises out of the otherwise empty and flat landscape is breathtaking. We did the cultural center first and hearing what the indigenous people ate for 30,000 years to stay alive gives you an appreciation for their fortitude. Do you know what a Witchetty grub is? In between stops, they told us some Aborigine origin stories...giant snake eggs and emu eating lizard tales that were no more or less believable than stuff from the old testament...just older. No way were we going to be offered to climb it but I had to admit that I did so back in the day.
That '83 trip was a doozy...our exchange group, YFU (Youth For Understanding) offered it to our group of Americans (there were about 50 of us) and our host siblings. I went alone cause the host family I was with had an older daughter and younger son and it was not a trip for their ages, but our group filled three big buses. It was a two week trip and we went to wine country in South Australia, up through Coober Pedy and onto Ayers Rock and Alice Springs before the long ride back. While I am not totally proud of it, this trip was a booze fest...and it felt sanctioned as our first two stops were at wineries where we stocked up early and were drinking by early afternoon on the first day. I cannot remember any type of responsible adult holding us back in any way. I would say this was the peak of my alcohol consumption as I recall drinking an entire bottle of Ouzo every night for a week straight. I know...Ouzo? There was a group of us that were roaring drunks and a lot of inappropriate crazy shit went down...stuff that I would never put in writing.
The day we hit Ayers Rock, we all climbed it and while we weren't drunk at the time, we had to have been hung over. I climbed it in bare feet for some reason, and there is a picture somewhere of my bloody feet. Our guide this time was saying that there are no bathroom facilities on the Rock, so when people need to relieve themselves, they just do it. Not only is the Rock sacred to the Indigenous, but that waste had to go somewhere so when it rains, it all comes down and pollutes the watering holes...making them toxic. While I don't remember doing so, am sure I took a leak up there. Young drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son.
Dind't see any dingoes, but this is where the "Dingo ate my baby"
We picked up Giuseppe and hit the campground for dinner. For a bunch of meals in the bush, the tour company put on a nice show. Dinner was a chicken stir fry, which they hilariously put the Asian women in charge of cooking.
Was hard to sleep, not only cause you'd just lie there mesmerized by the light show above, and lying on the ground is just not conducive to my bad joints, but there were a couple of snorers in the group. Crocodile Dundee related how Giuseppe woke him up at 2AM asking where everyone was. The morning activity was to head over to the other rock formation, Kata Tjuta, for a hike on that outcropping. They were called The Olgas in '83 and while we didn't hike it then, remember that some of us flew over them in a prop plane. How we arranged that is lost to time. Once again, Giuseppe asked to be left behind...no one asked him why. I only made it half the way on this hike as it was very uneven and my knees couldn't do it. I was really slow for the first half and when I caught up to the group at the midpoint I declared, "It is I, Giuseppe!" Only the Boy thought it was funny. I turned back here and per the kiddies, I didn't miss much on the rest of the hike. And I did see this massive Huntsman spider who was making a home in the cigarette bin.
. We picked Giuseppe up for lunch. Apparently, he was going to fly out after we ate he somehow realized that his plane didn't leave until the next day. Oh Giuseppe... I took a small survey as to what people thought the funniest caricature name for an Italian would be and Luigi came in a sloid first, followed by Giuseppe and Angelo. And for a gay porn actor...Francesco.
Here he is with Crocodile Dundee...
Crocodile Dundee turned out to be a nice fella. He was a rancher who bred horses and racing camels and shipped them to the Middle East. We bonded a bit over our love of horse racing and our bemusement of Giuseppe. We had burritos (quite good) for lunch and the bus was going to drop our clan at the airport before they headed off for another night sleeping outside in some canyon. As we're loading the van, Giuseppe tells Crocodile that he can load his bag on board at the end. Croc gives him a classic eff you look and walks away. Before the airport, we drop Giuseppe off at the campground office again, cause that is what we do, and bid our final farewell. Where are you now Giuseppe? At this point, all of the people had figured out he was a freak and we are communally reflecting on what we just experienced, so I decide to share my interaction at the airport and how he non sequitered to the travel agent that he was a "half-jew". The German guy sitting next to me turns and with as stoic a straight face that a German can muster says..."Vhat vas de udder hauf"
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