Dear forgotten travel blog,
Please accept my apologies as I slowly bring you back to
life this month with what I’m up to and things I’ve found interesting.
It’s been more than a year since I was last in a non-English
speaking country, and I’d forgotten how much there is to learn and absorb as
well as how mentally tiring it can be.
This is my first time travelling solo in a place where I have
to push myself to be very independent and organised – the convenience of public
transport, regular business hours and information at my fingertips are
definitely things I’ve taken for granted. I find myself in the position of not
having a car (on the islands you have to be >25yo and have had your license
for >3y), reliable public transport, a mobile (SIM cards + phone rates are
through the roof, and most short term travellers find a telephone box every
time they need to call someone) or internet (pre-paid sims don’t really come
with internet plans like we have. You buy mobile internet by the hour or by the day. Gone
are the days of quick wiki searches at the hospital!). Furthermore, it seems
like every budget accommodation place (campsite, tribal lodgings etc) on the
islands that I want to travel to don’t have websites. Instead, you have to call for more information, get prices and book. Really testing my French
here.
Pushing my way through this new experience has been made so
so much easier by my good friend S. She is seriously one of a kind. Having lived
in NC for a year, she contacted many of her friends to ask them for favours for
me eg to host me when I travel and when I start my placement at the hospital. I’m
staying on a couch right near the hospital during my placement, and my new
housemates are the best! Really so generous.
L drives me around and cooked me dinner last night, and he doesn't even know me!
I had dinner (these seem to be preceded with ‘un apéro’/aperitif/predinner
drinks) with my future housemates (‘colocs’) on my first night. Lots of French as
expected, much of which goes over my head because it’s so quick (a lesson for me in
not speaking too much, haha). I’m realising more what a small world NC is –
this guy I was trying to contact to become travel buddies ended up being at the
house party that my friends took me to after dinner! Coincidence!
L, P et N. Engineer and engineers to be + fish they caught themselves!
Nouméa is an interesting place. A somewhat run-down capital - many buildings are from the ~60-70s and have graffiti, shops that sell clothes with an islander twist (in fabric or design) are common and the sidewalks are higgledy-piggledy. The large municipal fruit and vegie market (where there are surprisingly many Vietnamese venders) doesn’t really sell produce that seems very fresh, and the billboards and local announcements seem to be all done with WordArt. For some reason this place reminds me of a Pacific Cuba in that you get this sense of community - there are still new things to discover but that everything is a bit dated. Then again, I’ve never been to Cuba and am drawing from the olden day 1920s/30s/40s impression I have of it.
The view from the hostel balcony
Interesting graffiti outside the hostel. L says that it doesn’t mean anything (let’s save the ….??) because the remaining word/s may have been scrubbed off. I took the photo mostly because of the angry santa and ‘SCUM POSER’. There’s also slutty xmas bikini girl on the far right (not in picture) which was funny.
One of the night clubs (I haven’t seen the others really, but this one looked a bit Thai to me!) note the kanak (local/native people) street pole in front.
La Place des Cocotiers (Coconut Tree Square)
RE community feel - everyone says bonjour to you on the streets and the transition from the formal ‘vous’ form of the language to the familiar ‘tu’ form occurs remarkably quickly and smoothly. It’s a place where you should ask for help just in case, because everyone is so willing to give it. Today I find myself with a borrowed tent and snorkelling gear to take on my trip to Lifou island, where I’ll be hitch-hiking around the island with a French couple I met at the youth hostel the day I arrived. Hitch-hiking here is apparently safe and very common, though I am only feeling ok with it because I’ll be in a group of three. More to come on that adventure.
Today (my second day), a small group of us (future housemates and couchsurfers) drove down ~1.5h to Yaté in the south of the ‘Grande Terre’ (main island). The scenery is quite different to what we have at home – mountains (of note is Mont Dore), valleys, rivers that flow into a very large dam (Barrage de Yaté) and winding dirt roads. The greenery is more of a may green (rather than the khaki of Australia) - tropical shrubs and trees (palm, fern-trees, mangrove-like ones), and the soil is mostly clay. The latter is quite a feature of the land here because it’s become exposed due to the nickel mines that are dug on the mountainside (as opposed to mines that are huge holes in or under the ground. Another addition to my quickly expanding French vocabulary: éolienne: a windmill, derived from Aeolus, the greek god of wind I’m told.
Mont Dore
20min of hiking led us to this!
Swam in aqua green water with some fish and jumped from
those rocks on the right of the waterfall (despite having jumped into
lakes/waterfalls a couple of times before, it still takes me FOREVER to build
up the courage to jump off. Had to ask L to jump off the 5m ones with me,
haha). It was really something. Relaxed, beautiful, some singing, lots of French
that I didn’t understand again, but it was great. One of my future colocs, Q, has a
passion for collecting insects – he brought his insect net and spent at least a
couple of hours searching for new species of cicadas (les cigales) whilst we
were by the water. Unfortunately for him he only found two – he killed them
with an insect poison and will pin them on boards and send them to the Museum
of Natural History in Paris. Good for him.
So in summary, I have met some great people, seen some great
sites, been pushed outside my comfort zone and am otherwise fine.
Have a great day et à bientôt!
x
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