Halfway through the ride the rain started, then the lightning, then the wind. The bus stopped, and the driver and his assistants hustled everyone off the roof and into the standing-room-only bus. I offered Gunther my seat, deferring to his injured foot. Ever gallant, he refused.
Nat complained, “I wish they’d let us stay up top. It’s the dog’s ballocks up there! I don’t know what all the fuss is about. It’s just a bit of rain.” In response, one of the Nepalis pointed at the wall of darkness closing in on us and said two words: “Tropical storm.” Those words had barely left his mouth when the storm unleashed its full force with a sudden hammer blow of thunder, a blinding flash of lightning, and a deluge of water.
***
It was as if the storm began to wash our trek away. When we arrived back in Pokhara the group split up. We resettled into the separate guesthouses where we had each started a solo trek three weeks ago, and showered off the last traces of our journey together. Then we gathered to celebrate at the Everest Steak House. When we arrived, we gawked at each other in dumb surprise. None of us had ever seen each other looking quite so clean, or wearing anything other than two changes of clothes. Charlie and Allie wore skirts, and I wore my Chinese batik outfit; nothing fancy, but compared to what we’d trekked in, we might as well have been wearing the latest in haute couture.
During dinner, Lucy caught my eye and nodded in Gunther’s direction. He was slumped in his chair, slack-jawed and fast asleep. He’d given in and taken me up on the ice pack, though my guess was it was too late to do much good.
Nat and Ron shared a Chateaubriand for dinner, a hunk of steak so shamelessly huge it could easily have choked Shyama’s entire family. Quite a switch from daal bhat. I thought Charlie, a dedicated vegetarian, might make a derisive comment, but she took it in stride.
I said, “I feel like I could eat a steak, but I don’t dare. Do you know my stomach is actually bigger than when I started the trek?”
“Me too!” Charlie said. “I thought I could eat anything because I was getting so much exercise.”
“I’ve definitely lost weight,” Nat said in a girlish falsetto. “What about you, Ron?”
“Yes, I feel like a positive feather! I think I’ve lost just enough weight to fit into that cute little outfit in my closet.”
“All right, all right,” Charlie said with a crooked smile, as we all laughed.
I want to hold onto these people forever. But even if I could suspend time, all that would do is stop the very ebb and flow that brought us together. Without separation there can be no joining. After a couple of rest days in Pokhara, most of us are moving on.
After dinner, the boys walked with me part of the way back to my guesthouse. When we reached their guesthouses, I gave hugs all around and we parted company. The trek was over.
Walking the final blocks alone in the dark, I turned on my flashlight. As I passed one house, I noticed a dog perched on the fence. This didn’t alarm me. The dog started growling and barking. This didn’t alarm me, either. I figured that he was simply guarding his owner’s property, like any dog, and that as long as I didn’t make eye contact he’d leave me alone. Then, in my peripheral vision, I saw his lip pull back in an increasing snarl. Behind him on the lawn, another dog joined the chorus. Suddenly the dog on the fence leapt off, the other dog fast behind. Both charged straight for me.
I kept walking, a litany repeating in my head, “Don’t run, don’t run, dontrundontrundontrun!” I hoped they were bluffing, and I thought running would only make me appear more like prey, encouraging an attack. But in an instant they were at my heels, showing no signs of slowing. When the lead dog was close enough to take a chunk out of my leg, I whirled around and, without forethought, thrust my flashlight in his face and shouted: “Stop right there!”
And they did.
Although I walked back to my guesthouse with a pounding heart, a small self-satisfied smile began to assert itself on my face. In the guesthouse courtyard, I brushed my teeth at the outdoor basin. A small mirror hung above the basin, but I didn’t bother to look. For the first time, I didn’t feel the need. I just shook the water from my toothbrush and went up to my room, where I fell asleep to the scuttling sound of rats on the roof.
I’m still a Western woman, and I’ll never feel completely at home in the East. But I no longer feel lost. I only hope my new internal compass still works when I point it west.
Flypaper for Freaks
thirty-five years old—santorini, greece
As my ferry sailed into the crater of Santorini Volcano, I felt the awe of the tiny and insignificant when faced with unfathomable power. The crater was created in about 1650 B.C. by the deadliest volcanic eruption in human history.
Before the eruption, the volcano rose from the green and purple peace of the Aegean Sea in a single hill known as Round Island. Then the mountain exploded, spewing some seven cubic miles of molten rock from its magma chamber and creating a column of ash up to twenty-three miles high. Either moments or years later, the center of the island collapsed and filled with water, setting off at least one deadly tsunami. That titanic wave likely destroyed the entire Minoan civilization. The capacious bowl of water that remains is about thirty-two square miles wide and one or two thousand feet deep.
Today, three slender islands draw a sketchy circle around the caldera and the steamy, dark cone at its center. The longest cliff, shaped like a crescent moon, is the main island, known locally as Thira. Its cliff-side is striated in reds and yellows and earth’s other searing colors. Its top is crowned with breezy whitewash and flowers and tourists. In the main village of Fira, a slender tangle of footpaths teeters about 250 meters (some 800 feet) above the abyss, seducing visitors with an Olympian view of the caldron where Vulcan lies hidden beneath the sea.
To save money, I decided not to stay in Fira, instead heading to the beachside town of Perissa, an hour bus ride away. Perissa’s main draw is an attractive but scalding black sand beach. I found a cheap room just off the beach and immediately fell into a deep sleep, though the sun was high. It was full dark when I was awakened by the persistent drone of motorbikes passing on the street below and the insistent bass line of bad disco blasting from the bar next door.
Ravenous, I walked to a nearby restaurant, the Bella Aurora. I had no idea what time it was. So I was surprised when, before I finished my moussaka, the young Australian waitress began turning chairs upside down on the tables around me, imprisoning me with chair legs. Through those legs, I glimpsed the waitress sitting at a table with the owner and another man, all of them eating spaghetti. Not wanting to keep the staff waiting, I rose to slink out.
“Don’t worry, ah?” the owner called out. “Please! Sit, sit! Relax! We will be here for a while and there’s no rush, ah?” He waved his hands at me and spoke in a gruff manner that would have frightened me when I first arrived in this country two weeks ago. Now I realize Greeks use nearly the same tone to express friendliness as they do for anger. As it was, I felt intimidated enough to sit back down, lest I face his friendly wrath.
I started writing in my journal. A few minutes later the second man, the owner’s uncle, came over to my table. He was in his early fifties, but looked much older with unkempt gray hair, the deeply creased face of hard living, and a slight stoop to his walk. He sat across from me uninvited, and as he opened his mouth to speak several black teeth flashed into view.
Without preamble, he said, “There are two things I like to see: a young woman putting on makeup and a young woman writing in her diary.”
I smiled, but said nothing. While I like meeting new people, Greece had taught me to be on my guard against sexual harassment.
“So, what do you write in your diary?”
I told him I was writing about my trip. I tried to be vague, but he questioned me until I gave away enough information for him to understand I was on an extensive journey. This prompted him to tell me about his ow
n travels: he was born in Greece, used to live in Canada, currently lives in Rome, has traveled in the U.S. and Europe, and visited Nepal ten years ago. He gave me tips on things to see when I reach Rome. His name was Zephyros.
“But you call me Zeph. This is what my friends call me, right Susie?”
The Aussie waitress looked up from her pasta and laughed. “Yes, Uncle Zeph.” To me she said, “Be careful with him . . . No, don’t worry—he’s a perfect gentleman, but he’ll talk your ear off.”
This was true, but not in an annoying way. Finding a fellow wanderer in an unfamiliar place felt like drifting alone in uncharted waters and finding the only castaway who spoke my language—not English, but the true language of my secret self. Zeph and I talked until two a.m., long after the place was locked and empty. On her way out, Susie admonished him to see me back to my hotel.
After sharing our stories, Zeph observed, “You are someone who becomes lost among familiar things and can only find your way among unfamiliar things. I know. I have felt this way all my life. It is difficult for people like us to say this place is home or that place is home. It is difficult to stay in one place. You always make new friends, yet it is lonely.”
“Exactly. But the loneliness can be beautiful, in its own way.”
“Just be careful or you may wind up alone, like me. Then this loneliness will not seem so beautiful. I have seen many amazing things, but that is not enough. You must have someone to see those things with you. If you cannot stop wandering, then you must find someone who will wander with you.”
“My boyfriend’s meeting me in Italy.”
“Why did he not come with you?”
“He said he couldn’t afford it.”
“Ah, but this is no excuse. If he loves you, it should not be so easy to let you go away without him.”
“I think he regrets that now. That’s why he’s coming.”
“Do you love him?”
“Yes.”
“Does he love you?”
“Yes . . . ”
“Then you should get married! What are you waiting for?”
“I don’t know. For a while I thought I loved someone else. But I was wrong.”
“When he comes to Italy, you tell him you were wrong and you marry him. Then you can wander together.”
“What if he doesn’t want to get married?”
“Then you tell him ‘get lost!’” He gave me a knowing smile. “Don’t worry, he will marry you. A man never wants to get married. It is the woman who decides.”
“But will marriage make a difference? Sean likes to repeat this saying that ‘everyone sleeps alone.’ Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes, of course, I see. But when a man and a woman are in love, sometimes we find someone who understands our loneliness, and there are moments when you are like one person. You can live much life in these moments.”
“Maybe. To me, being with Sean has always felt like being at home. So, if I marry him, he’ll become my home, and maybe I won’t feel the need to wander anymore.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Zeph said. “People like you and me, rarely do we change.”
***
When I emailed Sean to tell him I was relaxing on the islands, he wrote back to accuse me: I don’t believe it. You’ll never relax, Cara. That’s not you. I think he finds comfort in the idea that some things about me won’t ever change. Maybe he’s right, about my never relaxing: I feel lost when I don’t have at least the illusion of a purpose.
So although this is the laziest part of my journey, each day I create one goal. Today the challenge was six hundred marble stairs leading from the cliff-top town of Fira to the tiny port below. I shared the stairway with hundreds of cruise ship passengers walking downhill and about fifty mules carrying tourists both uphill and downhill. The already-slick steps were slimed with mule shit, and I slipped, skidded, and swore my way to the bottom.
The mule drivers insistently called out to me, trying to sell me a mule ride. One of them refused to take no for an answer. As I rounded a switchback, the driver led his mount toward me and boxed me into a corner, repeating, “Why do you walk? It is better you ride!” I dodged to the left. He cut off my retreat. I dodged to the right. He cut me off again. All the while he insisted that I was foolish to walk in the heat. I refused to answer him, or look at him, just stood stubbornly silent in my corner until he backed off. A male tourist astride a mule gave me a sympathetic look and said, “Persistent, aren’t they?”
By the time I reached the bottom, my clothes were pasted to me with sweat. I noticed a German couple swimming near the dock. It wasn’t a proper beach and I didn’t have a proper bathing suit. No matter—I didn’t have any shame, either. I stripped down to my bra and panties and hopped in, which amused the Germans. The water was chilly but refreshed me for the climb back up the beshitted stairs in the pitiless sun.
Most people take the cable car to the top, and I hadn’t seen anyone hoofing it up the stairs, except the mules. This time the mule drivers were even more insistent and shook their heads at my incomprehensible desire to walk. Several tourists coming down the stairs gawked at me, a few laughed, a very few smiled encouragement.
I couldn’t explain to them my compulsion to complete this Sisyphean task. To me the steps represented something on which I could concentrate my attention and will, and that was enough. The steps were part of the Santorini experience, and I wanted to experience them. If I chose not to ride a mule, it was because I wanted the exercise, it was because I didn’t want to shirk a challenge when I had nothing better to do, it was because I refused to pay money to men who would publicly corner me rather than let me do as I wished.
But it was draining and disgusting. With a chagrined smile, I grumbled to myself, “Six Hundred Steps Through the Shit of Santorini.”
Back at the top, I lost myself in the cobblestone labyrinth of Fira. The maze of walkways was originally meant to confuse pirates. Now it just confuses tourists. I didn’t mind being lost, beguiled by the virgin white buildings and promiscuous magenta bougainvillea—tiny, nattily dressed pirates who had found a way to politely plunder the village.
I came upon an Orthodox Church and the sound of a priest singing prayers lured me inside. I stood among a handful of worshippers, most of them elderly women whose black dresses and black kerchiefs made them nearly invisible in the dimness of the church. Gold icons gleamed in the darkness. The priest walked around swinging a censer on a chain, trailing white smoke, the acridly sweet smell of incense, and the gentle jingle of tiny bells. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but his singing carried me far away, to a place where I met the quiet part of myself I sometimes forget is there.
I again asked God to help me discover my purpose in life and fulfill it. A voice echoed in my mind, “Six Hundred Steps Through the Shit of Santorini.” God, please tell me that’s not the answer.
turning thirty-six years old – santorini, greece
Red sand is beautiful, but it burns. “Ooh, ooh, aaa, aaa, ouch!” I yelped as I ran across the beach to jump into the water, its soothing aqua a sharp contrast to the feverish red sand and scorching white cliffs of Akrotiri. Floating effortlessly on my back in the buoyant, salt-saturated sea, I remembered today was May 30, the day before my birthday.
I’ve reached that awkward age when the life ahead is almost as daunting as death, when the excuse, “I’m still young, there’s plenty of time to decide,” becomes less and less convincing. Tomorrow I turn thirty-six.
It’s been nearly nine months since I left Alaska, and I’m tired in a way I never knew I could be without a job to blame. But like a whiny kid up past her bedtime, I don’t want to stop. There’s still so much to see. Besides, I have no real home to return to. All I know is that I carry with me a ticket for a flight from London to New York in August, which I’ll probably change to September. Sometimes I try to see
past that, but I stop myself before anything comes to me. I’m just not ready to look.
At sunset, I wandered to Perissa’s black sand beach where a full moon emerged blood red from a sea the color of lava. On the sand in front of one of the popular beach bars, a lone man fed tree branches into a fledgling bonfire.
After sunset, I started to walk back to my hotel but ran into Uncle Zeph at the Bella Aurora. “Ah, so there you are!” he called through the open door. “Why have you not come back to see us?” I sauntered over and sat to talk with him while he drank a couple of glasses of wine.
Slowly, a noisy crowd gathered around the nearby bonfire. Two young men filled their mouths with beer, flicked their lighters, and spit impressive jets of flame into the night. As each new flash burst from the young firedrakes, several dogs barked wildly.
I asked Zeph, “Is it like this all the time?”
“No, it’s the Full Moon Party. They have it every month. Would you like to go over there and have a drink?”
“Why not?” I smiled and shrugged. “At midnight it’ll be my birthday.”
“It is your birthday?” he shouted. “Then you must let me buy!”
We walked to the open-air bar, where Zeph was the oldest patron in a place hopping with young tourists and blaring with young music. In spite of his fish-out-of-water appearance, he was obviously a regular; the bartender and cocktail waitresses knew him by name. We sat at the bar, and I got tipsy on two glasses of wine while Zeph plowed through two more drinks. He’d switched to vodka on the rocks.
He asked me whether I was engaged yet.
“You mean since we talked two days ago? No. How about you?”
“Me? Nooo!” he said. “I have been married twice already. A gypsy fortune-teller once told me I would have three wives, but I don’t believe in that stuff. And I don’t want another wife. You tell me one thing I cannot do by myself!”
I thought of several smart-aleck answers, including the fact that this seemed a hypocritical position to take given his advice the other night, but I kept those thoughts to myself. Instead, I watched the people gathered around the bonfire, whooping and hollering like victorious warriors. Without taking my eyes off them, I said, “Did you ever notice that even if you’re part of a group, you are always the one person you can never see in the scene? I mean, you never really see yourself, your whole self, except in a mirror. You can see all the people around you, but never you. No wonder so many people never feel like they belong. They can’t see the evidence. It’s like . . . the opposite of solipsism.”
They Only Eat Their Husbands Page 28