My journey from Argentina to India wasn't your typical week in transit experience. To start, I arrived in Sydney the day before the 30th Gay Mardi Gras kicked off. I didn't realize this until I tried to check into multiple hostels upon my arrival into Sydney. All of which flat out rejected me and one receptionist even laughed at my ignorance. Not very nice... Anyway, after a 13 hour flight with no TV to pass the time, I was too tired to get freaked out about my situation. I found myself in an Internet cafe in Chinatown searching for a hostel gracious enough to take me in on such a momentous weekend. In the process I struck up a conversation with an Irishman named Dave. It was only ten in the morning but we headed to the local Irish pub to blow off some steam. What can I say, he’s Irish and drinking is national pastime in Ireland. After a couple of beers, he offered me a place to sleep on his hotel room floor. The thought did cross my mind about his intentions seeing how it was the weekend of Gay Mardi Gras but I had never met or even heard of an alcoholic Irishman that was also gay. I decided to go with it, the story of my life right now. It turned out to be a very nice hotel located on George Street, the main street in downtown Sydney.
Sydney was just voted the most desirable city in the world to live in. I can believe it after visiting. The city is immaculately clean with numerous pristine parks scattered around the city, and then there is Sydney harbor. The harbor is a little piece of heaven where the sun always shines, a breeze always blows in from the harbor and with the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Sydney Opera house providing picturesque portraits that even the most amateur photographer can't screw up. It’s close to paradise in my book. It truly is a great city but also very expensive.
I have never been to Mardi Gras back in the States or to Carnival in Brazil, but I can now say I have been to Gay Mardi Gras in Oz (Oz is the shortened hip saying for Australia). With over 10,000 people participating in the parade, I have never seen so many jock straps, speedos, ass-less chaps, the color pink and black leather in a variety of forms in all my life with the constant background music of Kylie Minogue's greatest hits. That being said, it was an amazing sight to see. Many of the floats had political and religious overtones to go along with the liberating outfits. "Gay Is The New Black" and "Would Jesus Discriminate" are the two saying that I remember the most. The streets were jam packed with eager onlookers to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the event. The parade lasted for hours. We decided to leave a little early and as we were making our way through the maze of people, we somehow managed to find ourselves on a side street where the floats were preparing to depart. There is where we got a up close and personal look at all of the floats; very different but clever to say the least. It was a great event all together with a very international crowd of participants enjoying the freedom to express themselves openly. It was a great event.
Over the next three days I was able to catch some sun on famous Bondi beach, explore the Blue Mountains which just make me homesick, and managed to catch a nasty stomach bug, a precursor to Delhi Belly that awaits me in India. I caught a 15 hour flight to Abu Dhabi, the richest city in the world, only to get stuck in the airport for 13 hours awaiting my flight to India. I cleared customs and tried to find a hotel room in the city but after five hotels were booked solid and the cheapest of them was asking $125US a night, I informed my taxi driver to drive 45 minutes back to the airport where we began our fruitless journey. Along the way I was able to gaze out the window at the second largest mosque in the world lit up at night, a magical sight, and the city itself. I now know whose coffers are filled with all of the money I spent filling up my Toyota Tacoma with gas for so long. Abu Dhabi is quite a sight, even at night.
In one week I traveled from the Paris of South America, Buenos Aires, to the most desirable city to call home, Sydney, via the richest city in the world, Abu Dhabi, and have finally made it to one of the most polluted hectic and bizarre places on Earth, Delhi. I think I am going in the wrong direction when I put it like that?
There was a poster in my freshman English classroom in college that depicted the globe turned upside down that said something to the effect, “The New World.” I always loved the poster but I am just now learning to appreciate its meaning. I can now understand what is means after being crammed into a rickety old rickshaw zigzagging through Delhi traffic sweating at the numerous close encounters to my drivers amusement as he looks me through the rear view mirror while still holding his hand firmly on the horn for no apparent reason while dodging weary pedestrians, begging children, nomad cattle and countless motorcycles weaving in out of the madness. It is organized chaos in the truest sense of the word. The world has been turned on its head for me once again. Now it is time to try to make sense of it all.
