I fall through dimensions and I’m no longer a newspaper reporter and I don’t have to think about what I am covering tomorrow or who I am interviewing.
There is only the fall.
The others are falling too. Into their mats. We fall together in formation.
She walks among us. In her bare feet on the wooden floor.
She helps us fall. I can hear her step behind my head. Her hands press into my shoulders and I fall faster and I smile wider and I breathe deep and my bladder is near my eye.
The only god I worship is my yoga instructor.
—
In shivasana, I fall.
How can I fall today? How can I fall now?
I come straight from the city council meeting. My fake life is too vivid, too real, too fresh. It still occupies my head. How am I supposed to explain everything? There are experts on everything and I know nothing. All I know how to do is ask questions. There is just too much too much history that I walked in on too much I don’t know and I am supposed to be the gate keeper I have a duty a responsibility. All of my sources are sitting here all the people I quote and someone says my story wasn’t very clear but I did my best I can’t explain everything. Life is complicated.
I’m trying to fall. But I can’t connect. Can someone turn me off and then turn me back on again?
There is too much information to sift through and my head hurts.
My physical body fees rejuvenated. My legs are relaxed my shoulders are down but my head was left behind. Someone grab it for me. Screw it back on.
The hostel is the state of nature. It is our reality but it is not real. We govern ourselves. We sleep together, we play together, we drink together, we smoke together and we laugh together.
What happens when you throw one hundred young travelers together? Inside these fences — which provide us with a pool, sauna, spa, volleyball court, table tennis, slackline, guitars scattered about, free breakfast, soup and bread — we have our paradise. But how long can this last? Is this sustainable? Mentally? Emotionally? Financially? I don’t know. That doesn’t matter. We are a family of friends and travelers, we care about each other and we learn everyday.
I teach impromptu yoga lessons in the park to whoever wants to join. An ever-changing assortment from France, Argentina, Greece, Uruguay, Germany, Holland, England and Canada. The sexy girls bow to me and say Namaste while the boys stay and smoke joints. I practice Spanish and correct improper English grammar. We are vigilant with language. We play soccer and I scored two goals and got a ball kicked in my face when I was goalie. We play music and sing.
In the park.
We all have a unique story. No one is here by accident. Some people are running away from their problems. Some people just need a break from their careers. Some people are trying to find their careers. Some people just graduated high school and they want to get drunk and party, yeah! Some people are lost souls trying to find a purpose.
Que rico.
No one is happy all the time, but some people are better at pretending.
What will you find within these walls? Sexual frustration and desperation.
Philina walked in to the kitchen and flashed me the innocent, pure smile that can only come from the gentle faces of the young, female warrior-angels traveling the world on their own.
I know this smile. I’m used to it. But it catches me by surprise and I think about what she is thinking about and what she thinks I’m thinking about and what if we are thinking about the same thing?
[REDACTED], you live in your own little world. None of this is real. But what if it’s not? I can’t stop thinking about a line from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, “Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention?”
We cooked on the same stove in the empty kitchen. I was making pasta with vegan eggplant Parmesan, substituting ground almonds for cheese topping. She was cooking pasta with beans and spinach. Clean.
She talks to Johannes in German. She has a slim face with shoulder length brown hair, strong eyebrows and dark eyes. Tiffany, the hostel manager, interrupts our silence and asks me why I am vegan and I tell her for the environment. It’s one change I can make as an individual to lower my carbon footprint.
When Philina hears this, she tilts her head down and whispers, “I’m vegan too,” with that smile.
She is the first vegan girl I’ve met. We share a moment and I continue my conversation with Tiffany. But all I can think about is, what is vegan sex like? My body feels better than it ever has. What is she like? I expect many vegan orgasms.
She sits down at a table by the window, alone. I join her.
We talk. She likes to eat, but she doesn’t like to cook. She makes the simplest vegan meals possible. Raw veggies, pasta, rice, beans. She looks at my salad of spinach, cucumber, tomato and sprouts with fresh squeezed lemon juice and my baked eggplants with tomato puree.
“I used to have a gourmet vegan cookbook,” she says. “But now I just do what is easy.”
The next day, we meet again in the kitchen. She is eating a plate of free bread after the communal vegetable soup has been devoured by the masses. I’m cooking a tasty concoction of crushed tomatoes, butter beans, Portobello, onion, garlic, spinach and oregano.
“Just bread tonight?” I ask across the table.
She says she is too lazy to cook. I ask her if she wants some food and before she can reply I fill her a bowl. I sit down next to her at the long wooden dining table.
“Oh my god, I am in heaven,” she says. I don’t think she is used to other people cooking for her.
I am awkward when I talk to girls that I have any interest in. Juan walks by and saves the day. He tells me how good he feels from yoga that morning. “Philina, you come tomorrow?”
Once darkness falls, I am the night porter. The watcher on the wall. The shield in the darkness. Protector of the realms of backpackers and hostel managers. I don’t tell the managers who has the weed connection. I don’t tell the backpackers what the managers do when no one is around. The bourgeoisie hides from the proletariat and the proletariat hides from the bourgeoisie. I am in the middle of these realms for three nights every week, in exchange for a private bedroom in this house and a bit of cash. Drink your beers and smoke your joints, no worries. But if you have the audacity to leave your pots, pans, plates and cutlery, I will playback the video footage and I will find you. And I will smite you.
I see everything and I keep the secrets.
Philina, you are sitting by the pool drinking a bottle of vodka with your roommate, Anthony, the French guy with a topknot and manicured goatee. You are laughing together while I pick up beer bottles.
You both disappear and I hear you giggling together in your bedroom, just down the hall. You both emerge with red faces and sex hair. The topknot is now a mop. You play card games together in the kitchen. The two of you ignore the crowds of international travelers.
You go to bed and Anthony comes out for a cigarette. He talks to friends while I clean the kitchen. They make fun of him, “Who was that? Your girlfriend?”
He is disappointed. “Psh, I spent all day and all night with that German girl and nothing happened.”
I laugh inside. C’mon man, think about this. She is your roommate for the next week, what did you expect? Girls in hostels have to be guarded. Don’t shit where you eat. Yeah, a bottle of vodka, that will definitely make her want to have sex with you. C’mon man.
I don’t proclaim to know how to win a woman’s heart, but I do my thing and sometimes it works and sometimes I am hurt. But what is hurt? It is a teacher. It makes you stronger and you learn and try to avoid the hurt next time. Maybe that means avoiding a woman, or maybe that means kissing her at the exact right moment.
Elevate yourself above the momentary and remember the infinity. There is an endless supply of females on this great Earth. Just stay at this hostel for a week, see how many warrior-angels flash you the smile that makes you melt. Put in some time and get to know her.
Anthony says she is 19 and she is cute. Nineteen. I’m twenty-four. As the week progressed, Philina and I shared more conversations over soup and bread. I see her young face and her young clothes. She is probably tired of every guy making a move on her. She’s too young. On her last day at the hostel, we say goodbye and I tell her to keep being a good person and now she is just a memory. I don’t know what she expected from me or what she wanted from me or if she wanted me. All I know is that I am different from the stocky South African lout who flirts with girls by splashing them from the pool. Different, not deficient.
I am back in college. But this is far from the homogeneity of Virginia yoga pants, north face and ugg boots. Here, everyone has a story. Everyone is from somewhere. But all people are pretty much the same. We all share the same desires and urges. We are all here for the same reason, to find paradise in ourselves and in others.
They are eating vacuum-sealed, dehydrated Fettuccine Alfredo flown in from California, sitting on folding chairs outside of their rent-a-van covered in a tiger mural. They are still hungry when they join me on my yoga mat. I’m slicing onions, garlic and cabbage with shoulder bacon waiting for a hot skillet by candlelight with my iPod on shuffle.
Americans. Fresh off the plane. Always in a rush.
We first saw each other at a scenic cove overlooking the eternal meeting place of blue-green water, forest-covered cliffs and smooth-stone beaches. We greeted each other and kept driving. I start down the unsealed road to the East Cape, the most easterly point in New Zealand and home of the most easterly lighthouse in the world, when I see their van behind mine. Awesome, I’ll have some cool people to hang out with tonight, I think to myself.
Isolated land and sea.
The drive is filled with cows and calves grazing unfenced on both sides of the gravel road. I have to stop to encourage the little ones to get out of the way.
You’re very cute. Now please move.
I see the hills reflect off of a still pond and I have to pull over to take some pictures. Their van stops next to me and he says,
“Are you looking for the same campground we’re looking for?”
I tell him I’m going to the lighthouse. I’ll see you there?
I didn’t know about a campground, I just wanted to check out the lighthouse to see if I could camp there for easy access to sunrise. Unfortunately, it is private land so I told them I plan on walking to the top tomorrow morning for sunrise. They agreed with my plan so we drove the slow, scenic six kilometers back to the campground, which was just a paddock with a spigot and an outhouse.
I’m excited to meet them and they want to learn about me. Britney and Tim lived across the hall at the University of California, Santa Barbara. They were both planning on traveling to New Zealand and when they met each other, they thought it would make sense to split the costs and go together. They are sleeping in a van about the same size as mine and they aren’t having sex. Weird.
Tim has long California hair and he lives two minutes from the beach. He is studying engineering and he works for some technology company. I assume he is well paid because he is able to take a three-week holiday to New Zealand.
Britney is graduated and is now working at REI, which explains why she brought along the backpacking meals-in-a-bag and why she is going on about her “Campsuds” when I say I’m going to wash my dishes.
After sitting and talking over the candle, we part ways and I fall asleep early to prepare for the next day. They said they would join me for sunrise at the lighthouse.
I woke at 5 am, brushed my teeth and flashed my lights at their van. No response. The lovely young Czech couple next to us shows signs of life. I give a double honk as I leave the campground, hoping Britney and Tim won’t be far behind.
I drive faster than I usually would on a gravel road with cows, calves, sheep, lambs and horses grazing unfenced in the dark. But I can’t wait to lie down in the grass with my camera on my tiny, flexible tripod to take a long exposure of the purple hues of early dawn.
The first picture of the day.
The Czech man crests the hill with his GoPro recording every second. They don’t speak much English but we don’t need to speak much to share such a special and beautiful moment. We are at the edge of the world witnessing the first sunrise together.
While the boyfriend is on the other side of the lighthouse taking pictures, I ask her where they are from and how she likes New Zealand.
She says they wanted to get away and travel and see beautiful places, and she was surprisingly eloquent with her limited English. I wish I knew more languages so I could have a full conversation with people from all over the world.
Then it was time for them to leave. They said Goodbye and then I said Goodbye. They were very happy and polite and not like the Americans.
Britney and Tim never made it to the lighthouse. By the time I returned to the campsite, they were gone.
They were probably driving all day. Meanwhile, I had a relaxing day of preparation and adventure. I cooked bacon, eggs and toast with blueberry jam over two cups of coffee, waxed my leather boots, sharpened my hand-forged knife gifted from my step-mother, mended holes in my merino wool underwear and socks, and packed my bag for a long walk.
I set off toward the paddocks and forests away from the coast, and as I’m walking out of the campsite, the farmer drives in. He kills his engine and motions for me to come around to the driver’s side.
“Kia Ora,” he says.
“Kia Ora,” I reply.
He tells me his name is Len and I tell him my name is [REDACTED].
Chill.
“Kia Ora, [REDACTED],” he says as we shake hands. His are callused, hard and dry.
“Nice to meet you,” I reply.
I ask him if he lives out here, Yup, the homestead is down by the lighthouse. I say it’s beautiful and isolated.
“Very isolated. My neighbor is just down the road, about four k’s,” Len says.
What a life.Epic sheep.
He says I look like a keen photographer, and I do with a full backpack and camera slung from my shoulder. I say I’m headed out for a walk and I’m wondering if this is all private land and if he minds if I wander around.
Without hesitation he tells me it’s fine.
I assure him I will shut all the gates behind me but he doesn’t seem to care at all at the thought of some random tourist tramping through his land. I’ve realized the importance of having a camera in hand. You can go anywhere if people see that you are just a photographer. As I walk away, though, I’m a little surprised that he didn’t tell me where his bulls are. I know they are out there so I’ll have to tread lightly.
He heads down the road a bit to shift his springer mob, the cows that are calving soon – and the only herd that are actually fenced in – and I open a gate and close it behind me and walk on his tyre tracks.
Len setting up his temporary fences.
There are paddocks with wire-less fence posts on either side of the road. On one side, the paddocks end at the beach, and on the other, they end at pine forests and native bush.
I follow his track to the edge of the forest and jump in. The pine trees are planted in neat rows, like every pine forest in New Zealand, and this helps me to not get lost. Where the pines end, the native bush takes over and I’m overwhelmed by its thickness. There is a bloated, decomposing cow in a ravine. I realize if I keep going forward I will get lost in the dense forest or I’ll fall or something bad will happen and I’ll end up like the cow so I turn back. I decide to walk along the road but then I see a logging track and decide that would be perfect. This is obviously not Len’s land, but he said I could go anywhere and I doubt there is anyone out here right now.
I think this means, Do Not Enter.
I walk down the path and practice my stealth skills so I can sneak up and capture birds with my time traveling device. It is futile. The birds have been evolving for thousands, or millions, of years and they fly away before I have time to draw and shoot. But my stealth skills still work on humans.
After walking as silently as possible for about 90 minutes, I turn a corner up a hill and see a small all-terrain-vehicle with three people standing around with coffee and smokes. They think they are alone out here so I don’t want to frighten them. I walk much closer than I expect before they notice me. I say, Hello. The Maori man facing away from me jumps. I say Kia Ora, I’m sorry, I’m just going for a walk. The man on the side of the vehicle is rolling a thin cigarette and asks me where I came from. Uhh, the end of the road, I’m staying at the campsite, I tell them. This is a very isolated area and they don’t understand how I made it up here on foot.
He says I’m not allowed to be up here, “We don’t give a shit, but the site manager would.”
He says there is a wild bull out here somewhere and I should be careful. I tell them Len said I could go anywhere and they all laugh.
I decided my best course of action is to head back the way I came so I don’t get caught here in the dark of night where I’m not allowed to be with a wild bull lurking.
I’m extra careful to listen for oncoming trucks and I look for places I can jump to stay out of sight. But I’m alone.
I make it back to the road and walk into the unfenced paddock and head toward the beach. A small group of cows and calves run away from me and I see a big black cow with its head down by the boundary fence.
Human! Run!
I sneak behind the big cow expecting it to hear me or sense me in the way that only animals can but it keeps its head down in the grass.
It looks… big.
I make it to the boundary fence and – by force of habit from working on Digger’s farm – I check it for electricity with a blade of grass. Of course there’s no power so I straddle the wire fence up to my crotch and step over. I walk in front of the big cow, now on the other side of the fence, and it finally acknowledges me.
It lifts its head. It is broad and heavy and powerful. His body is a mass of muscle and I realize, Holy Shit, I just walked a few meters behind a bull. I’m either really lucky or really stupid or this bull was just really hungry.
Menacing.
Cows can be controlled and guided while bulls are unpredictable. They don’t care how confident you are, they will charge you and pin you against a fence without thinking twice. On my first day milking cows at Rian’s farm one of his monstrous bulls hulked through the shed, after the girls were milked, with the swagger of Gregor Clegane. They are terrifying.
As I’m getting over how lucky I am, I see a self-contained Britz caravan trying to find the perfect spot to park for the night.
A new friend appears in the distance.
When I return to the campsite, I approach them. They are from Switzerland, on a two-month holiday.
I love the Swiss. They take their holiday seriously. When I was a waiter at the Overlander’s Steakhouse in Alice Springs – the real “Outback Steakhouse” – we had to place flags on every table to show the assortment of nationalities. Every night we had at least one table with the square red flag with white cross. They travel often and travel well. They don’t fly to the other side of the world for a measly fortnight.
Unlike the budget travelers I meet, who are usually a year or two or three younger than me, this efficient couple went for the camper with room enough to stand, cook, clean and have wild sex. He hasn’t shaved in four days and his English is more practiced than that of his wife.
She says with a hard accent that their car locks automatically and they have been locked out before so if it happens again they will come sleep in my van. We all laugh with the joy of meeting strangers in a strange land.
We tell each other how long we are here, the second mandatory question among travelers. I say two months is a good chunk of time, they aren’t in a rush and they can see most of the country without driving for seven hours a day. He says, Wow, a year. He says I have the best way to live. Work and little, travel a lot. He’s right.
There are difficulties, however, like finding a balance between going on adventures with wild animals, wild humans and wild landscapes and sitting down at my laptop somewhere with power and Internet to write about said adventures.
And what book should I read next?
When the Swiss couple leaves the next morning, we share a happy, hearty wave. I love the Swiss.
After another relaxing morning of seaside breakfast and yoga, I leave the East Cape and think about Britney and Tim.
They didn’t see the first sunrise and they didn’t meet Len and they didn’t trespass through crown forest and sneak behind a bull or see the sunrise the next morning with magical horses grazing through the campground beneath the magical sky. I can’t blame them, they don’t know any better. I’m on a completely different schedule than them. I can afford to spend two nights on the Cape and then spend three nights at a motor park in Gisborne to wash my body and my clothes and renew the Warrant of Fitness for my van and buy contact solution and thread and darning wool.
New Zealand, you are amazing.
Len is the luckiest man in the world. He owns the most easterly land in New Zealand. He spends his days with his sheep, cows and horses. His animals are happy — they graze freely and babies stay with their mums — and he is happy. He can go fishing or collect shellfish from the bountiful sea. And he can stop to talk to travelers who come to camp on his land.
I’m glad I decided to tour Eastland instead of heading straight to Gisborne to sit in the library and write all day. Adventure comes first. Blog comes second. You gotta have priorities in life.
stories from a drifter 