At least things are finally unambiguous with M. Only wish it would have happened a bit sooner so I had better circumstances under which to deal with it. Like Australia.
Not that what I currently have is bad or anything. Submitted the camera-ready version today and looked over the code I wrote in Denmark with Dan. Then got home to cook Seitan and watch three episodes of "How I met your mother". Then met up with Riinu and watched a movie with her. Then went for a swim with A. at roughly half to one at night. That was also fun, considering we hadn't talked for over half a year.
All in all, not too bad of a day. Still feel a bit shabby, though. But that will pass. What happened is actually for the better. It will just take some time to set in.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Nobody listens to Folk music
Well, except in Estonia, apparently, where Folk festivals are hugely popular. The biggest one is in Viljandi, held for 4 days. This year it had a theme "It's going to be a dance".
So, I got quite a bit of dancing in. Still a bit tired from it, even after two days... although, there may well be some residual tiredness left from my Australia trip.
Anyways, some things that I remember:
I got to dance waltz again after about 12 years of pause.. as a part of one of Latvian folk dances.
Saw a girl that was 1 cm taller than me during the Zetod concert. I stood right behind her and could measure.. I bet the people behind the two of us were quite pissed, though :P
Between two concerts, I (by accident) sat next to a very nice girl who seemed to be drawing something - looking towards the dance field where nothing seemed to stay still for long enough to actually be drawn. We exchanged a few words and then had a few dances. She was very cute :=)
Crazy Russian group Otava Yo who had a very energetic stage presence and music to go along with it. Sadly, the concert had no room for dancing because it was packed so full of people.
Everywhere the concerts were being videotaped - by girls - and fairly cute ones at that. Camera girl is the new weather girl?
Old friends and acquitances you meet, of course. Especially memorable was the scene of Annika and Richard arriving with their dinner and sharing some of it with me, at the last concert of the day. That was very sweet of them :)
So, I got quite a bit of dancing in. Still a bit tired from it, even after two days... although, there may well be some residual tiredness left from my Australia trip.
Anyways, some things that I remember:
I got to dance waltz again after about 12 years of pause.. as a part of one of Latvian folk dances.
Saw a girl that was 1 cm taller than me during the Zetod concert. I stood right behind her and could measure.. I bet the people behind the two of us were quite pissed, though :P
Between two concerts, I (by accident) sat next to a very nice girl who seemed to be drawing something - looking towards the dance field where nothing seemed to stay still for long enough to actually be drawn. We exchanged a few words and then had a few dances. She was very cute :=)
Crazy Russian group Otava Yo who had a very energetic stage presence and music to go along with it. Sadly, the concert had no room for dancing because it was packed so full of people.
Everywhere the concerts were being videotaped - by girls - and fairly cute ones at that. Camera girl is the new weather girl?
Old friends and acquitances you meet, of course. Especially memorable was the scene of Annika and Richard arriving with their dinner and sharing some of it with me, at the last concert of the day. That was very sweet of them :)
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Games people play - and what to do about them
Ever met someone who stubbornly refuses to admit to whatever he is doing? Annoying, isn't it. Also works magic, most of the time, because as long as you do not understand what it is you are doing wrong, you cannot be expected to change it.
Thomas Schelling, one of the people we can blame for not having a nuclear war just yet, had some pretty good insights into the topic, though. Looked at the proper level of abstraction, of course. I will also be relying on some insights from Eric Berne. Both were geniuses. They clearly had to be.
Essentially, what the person is doing is self-handicapping. Something that can indeed work wonders in a game of war, or business negotiations and of course, in intrapersonal communications. Essentially, it forces the other party to play a restricted game, which is probably not in his favor.
So, of course, the only real solution is to change the game to be more even again. This is fairly easy, if you have something that you can use to credibly punish the person for his transgressions - you just start doing that and pretty soon he will realize that it is not in his best interest to act in that way... and stop.
This, of course, assuming a repeated game. Otherwise, the best you can do is make a threat of punishment and hope he believes it.
However, it is often very hard to make a credible threat. Much of Schelling's "Strategy of conflict" deals with just that fact - and describes how it is often required to severely handicap yourself in order to make the threat credible.
An example due to Schelling himself - if you want to buy a car and are willing to go no higher than 50 000 but the dealer's last bid is 70 000 (but you know 50 000 would still give him profit), you can try signing a legally binding contract with a friend stating that if you buy that car for more than 50 000, you have to also pay your friend the same amount. This, in effect, takes away any possibility of you paying over 50 000 dollars - in a completely demonstrable and provable way that is evident to the car dealer. He will feel cheated, but might still sell you the car.
Not that drastic measures are needed everywhere, though. The point to take home is that credible threats can be notoriously hard to muster and can be very weird and contrived in some cases.
Now, suppose however that the only threat that you can really make is the one you cannot commit to in an at all believable way... or that if carrying out that threat will essentially leave you in so terribly bad state the other party will never believe you are willing to carry it out. Think nuclear war here.. or suicide... or telling a person you love you will never talk with her again. Essentially, something so bad that you just cannot make its consequences any worse for yourself even if you wanted to.
Although Schelling considered cases in which carrying out a threat makes you worse off than you are and showed that there are definitely cases when such threats work, the key point is you have to be able to commit to that. In cases where you can't...
Well, then, you're fucked.
Thankfully, humans are not completely rational beings. This is where Berne and his idea of people constantly playing games with each other comes to play. Namely, most people just play to win and it is often enough to just take away that joy of victory for them to stop. Which sounds a big no for empty threats because you will be called on it and it will amount to one big win to the other party. One that will keep him coming back.
You can of course try to make a threat and stick to it.. but hell, if it literally or figuratively kills you.. face it, you will be called on it and then have to die:P
Now, as stated initially, calling the other person on his game directly will not help - since he is playing that he does not acknowledge it is a game, saying he is playing it (which I believe Berne to advocate) does not take away his victory because he does not have to admit to you being right.
Albert Ellis (the creator of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy) was the person to figure things out, though. And the solution is supposedly surprisingly simple - just replace the verbal acknowledgment with a physical one - as purely behavioral cues often work better than rational ones. Theoretically, the other person is robbed of his victory without having anything to really argue against. Especially if you have set the rules beforehand saying that the "physical acknowledgment" is o.k. in certain well-specified circumstances. And it doesn't even have to be much - a weak slap to the face with a folded paper works miracles on both puppies and humans, at least according to Ellis.
Works especially well in cases where the penultimate threat is "I will never speak to you again" - because then you can just set the terms in a way that "this is how I will act when you do the things I have specified." The person can always choose not to interact with you any more, if he wants to - so this doubles nicely as a commitment to "never talking", as it will now be the other party who would have to worry about carrying it out, taking the burden right off your shoulders :)
It helps to have friends who study psychology. It also helps to study enough yourself to be able to understand that their seemingly ludicrous suggestions actually have a fair chance of working.
And Schelling is just a good general read ;)
Thomas Schelling, one of the people we can blame for not having a nuclear war just yet, had some pretty good insights into the topic, though. Looked at the proper level of abstraction, of course. I will also be relying on some insights from Eric Berne. Both were geniuses. They clearly had to be.
Essentially, what the person is doing is self-handicapping. Something that can indeed work wonders in a game of war, or business negotiations and of course, in intrapersonal communications. Essentially, it forces the other party to play a restricted game, which is probably not in his favor.
So, of course, the only real solution is to change the game to be more even again. This is fairly easy, if you have something that you can use to credibly punish the person for his transgressions - you just start doing that and pretty soon he will realize that it is not in his best interest to act in that way... and stop.
This, of course, assuming a repeated game. Otherwise, the best you can do is make a threat of punishment and hope he believes it.
However, it is often very hard to make a credible threat. Much of Schelling's "Strategy of conflict" deals with just that fact - and describes how it is often required to severely handicap yourself in order to make the threat credible.
An example due to Schelling himself - if you want to buy a car and are willing to go no higher than 50 000 but the dealer's last bid is 70 000 (but you know 50 000 would still give him profit), you can try signing a legally binding contract with a friend stating that if you buy that car for more than 50 000, you have to also pay your friend the same amount. This, in effect, takes away any possibility of you paying over 50 000 dollars - in a completely demonstrable and provable way that is evident to the car dealer. He will feel cheated, but might still sell you the car.
Not that drastic measures are needed everywhere, though. The point to take home is that credible threats can be notoriously hard to muster and can be very weird and contrived in some cases.
Now, suppose however that the only threat that you can really make is the one you cannot commit to in an at all believable way... or that if carrying out that threat will essentially leave you in so terribly bad state the other party will never believe you are willing to carry it out. Think nuclear war here.. or suicide... or telling a person you love you will never talk with her again. Essentially, something so bad that you just cannot make its consequences any worse for yourself even if you wanted to.
Although Schelling considered cases in which carrying out a threat makes you worse off than you are and showed that there are definitely cases when such threats work, the key point is you have to be able to commit to that. In cases where you can't...
Well, then, you're fucked.
Thankfully, humans are not completely rational beings. This is where Berne and his idea of people constantly playing games with each other comes to play. Namely, most people just play to win and it is often enough to just take away that joy of victory for them to stop. Which sounds a big no for empty threats because you will be called on it and it will amount to one big win to the other party. One that will keep him coming back.
You can of course try to make a threat and stick to it.. but hell, if it literally or figuratively kills you.. face it, you will be called on it and then have to die:P
Now, as stated initially, calling the other person on his game directly will not help - since he is playing that he does not acknowledge it is a game, saying he is playing it (which I believe Berne to advocate) does not take away his victory because he does not have to admit to you being right.
Albert Ellis (the creator of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy) was the person to figure things out, though. And the solution is supposedly surprisingly simple - just replace the verbal acknowledgment with a physical one - as purely behavioral cues often work better than rational ones. Theoretically, the other person is robbed of his victory without having anything to really argue against. Especially if you have set the rules beforehand saying that the "physical acknowledgment" is o.k. in certain well-specified circumstances. And it doesn't even have to be much - a weak slap to the face with a folded paper works miracles on both puppies and humans, at least according to Ellis.
Works especially well in cases where the penultimate threat is "I will never speak to you again" - because then you can just set the terms in a way that "this is how I will act when you do the things I have specified." The person can always choose not to interact with you any more, if he wants to - so this doubles nicely as a commitment to "never talking", as it will now be the other party who would have to worry about carrying it out, taking the burden right off your shoulders :)
It helps to have friends who study psychology. It also helps to study enough yourself to be able to understand that their seemingly ludicrous suggestions actually have a fair chance of working.
And Schelling is just a good general read ;)
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
I am one of those, melodramatic fools, neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it
Green Day is the thing that is most strongly tied with Australia for me. Maybe it is because they play them in the radio here quite often. Or maybe something even more. But "Basket case" is the appropriate song with which to end this series of posts.
This post is going to be about the things I left out in the previous posts. Personal revelations and realizations that have come to me during these two weeks and the like.
Firstly, some of you have probably noticed that since "New York City Boy", all the posts have been titled with song lyrics. Songs I used to like at one time or another. Depressing songs, mostly. Followed up with a fairly upbeat blog post. In some sense, this is my way of dealing with some of my past demons. Or current ones, in some other cases. I will not deny that a few nights here it got somewhat bad again. Lonelyness, hopelessness, despair and everything that comes with the three.
I would, of course like to blame it all on M. and say I still have very strong feelings for her. Nearly a year now. At least once a day, usually a bit more often. Pretty bad, huh?
However, I know that is not really the case. I do have a lot of history with her, and I do have feelings for her, but in most cases, it is not me missing her so much as me just needing someone to be close to -- mentally more than physically - and things that remind me of her (a lot of these lying around) also reminding me of that fact. Automatic thinking. Should put an end to that.
Moving on.
Most of us act in a way so as to earn the most respect from the people we ourselves respect the most. The "inner circle" of friends, or family. Most of us will also try to deny that and say they act by some higher moral code or by their inner sense of self or.. whatever. But that amounts to pretty much the same thing in most cases - as such people usually still interact with people who also act by the same principles. Chicken and egg problem and I will not get into the argument which comes first - principles to act by or friends who respect that you act by these. All I am saying is that in the end, most people end up acting so as to be liked and respected by their closest friends.
Now comes an interesting question though: what do you do if you have no inner circle of friends nor any strong and strict moral belief system to tell you what is right and wrong? Or if you are part of two circles whose views on many things are quite conflicting?
Enter me.
I really have noone to reliably set my good-bad compass for. So I interpolate from the few friends I respect the most.
I wish.
Anyways, all of us have achievements. For some, it is stuff like completing a PhD in 2.5 years. For others, it is having consumed 20 beers one night and still walked home. People who respect the first rarely respect the second.. and vice versa. Indeed, one thing I found here was that amongst backpackers, noone gives a damn if you had a PhD or how quickly you finished it. Conversation slides over it without anyone even noticing.
Playing your own game vs letting the other guy beat you at his. My main "problem" is I usually go along with other peoples games as I am not too interested in winning.. but losing also sucks bad.
Proper reaction to "I once drank 20 beers" is not "wow, cool" but "Do you think of your liver? Do you want to die of hepatitis before you hit 30?". One does make more enemies that way though. Not much less friends though, because do I really want friends who boast about their drinking habits?
Well, except I have done that a few times too (with 9 shots of tequila.. which was fun).. just to show some people I too have tried alcohol so am not as "uncool" as I may first seem.
Trouble is, though, I could spend years trying to catch up to people who spent their youth playing sports, drinking with friends and dating girls. Its pretty absurd to assume it would take me much less time to get good at these things than it did them. I have other strengths though. My ability to think.. or work hard.. or hold a steady job.
Which is another important point. Many "cool" people are on social welfare, students or are working one odd job after another. This type of lifestyle allows for much cooler stuff to happen to you than keeping a regular job.. but I think the latter is equally hard if not moreso - it takes resources, which others can easily locate to other stuff. Should we really idolize people who make one stupid decision after another?
Because, lets face it, stupid decisions always lead to better stories and always seem to "teach" us more. Usually they teach us to try a similar thing again though, because if things worked out once, theyll probably work out the second time too - you just have to change the details enough to make it hard to understand that the same thing is being done again.. and again.. and again.
And it is not actually about what you really did, but how you tell it. Coming back from the first rafting trip, there was this very cute Swiss girl on the raft. On the first bus back, we got talking a little and I mentioned I had studied french for 8 years.. she smiled nicely but then the conversation moved on. In the second bus, she was sitting next to a danish guy from the other raft and I overheared their conversation. He got a pretty similar positive effect with her by mentioning he knew just three words of french. One has to capitalize on what one has.
Biggest losers are usually also the biggest loudmouths - they have little, but they know how to use that little pretty damn well. After all, it is just a matter of forcing the other person to play by your rules - I did these things and these things define a person as cool. Done well enough, this premise is accepted without critique and the person indeed becomes cool in the eyes of the other person. But in reality, it is just good salesmanship.
Everyone reading this - think about how often has it happenned that you feel inferior to someone you have been talking to for a few minutes to a few hours. This is how it is done, by the way.
Over the course of the past two weeks, I have done a bunch of stupid things, stories of which I could live on for the rest of my life, if I really wanted to. And it has been tremendously fun. And not nearly as stupid as I first thought some of these things would have been. Furthermore, I now realize how cool some of the other stuff has been that I have done before in my life...
With my experiences over the past half a year, I now also have enough context to understand other peoples stories about drinking, partying and travelling... and give them due respect rather than over-idealizing them.
Should come in handy.
Another thing I have had a brush with is authenticity and masks. It is very easy to keep another person at a safe distance. Hold up a polite but fairly empty conversation, either about mundane or abstract matters.
However - it is hard to actually be authentic. To look a person in the eye and say that this topic is not interesting to you, but that you would instead like to know about something deep and profound within or about him. You know, go one step further.
Normally, the "one step further" thing just happens with people with whom it "feels right". But if a person is just very shy and likes holding up the polite barrier just for self-defence, he may well never get a chance to have an authentic covnersation. For these cases, a touch of brutal but caring honesty may come in handy. Or, well, there are of course less brutal ways of doing it, as any therapist worth their salt will tell you.
Might make for a bit more meaningful relationships.
So to sum up:
a) Direction is important in life. Be wary of how it is formed.
b) Most of my pain is due to automatic thoughts that tie M. directly with loneliness. Watch for it and make it stop.
c) Learn how to sell what you have well and to scrutinize what the others are actually selling.
d) Authenticity might be a good idea. As with everything, practice makes perfect.
Now to go and put all of that into practice.
This post is going to be about the things I left out in the previous posts. Personal revelations and realizations that have come to me during these two weeks and the like.
Firstly, some of you have probably noticed that since "New York City Boy", all the posts have been titled with song lyrics. Songs I used to like at one time or another. Depressing songs, mostly. Followed up with a fairly upbeat blog post. In some sense, this is my way of dealing with some of my past demons. Or current ones, in some other cases. I will not deny that a few nights here it got somewhat bad again. Lonelyness, hopelessness, despair and everything that comes with the three.
I would, of course like to blame it all on M. and say I still have very strong feelings for her. Nearly a year now. At least once a day, usually a bit more often. Pretty bad, huh?
However, I know that is not really the case. I do have a lot of history with her, and I do have feelings for her, but in most cases, it is not me missing her so much as me just needing someone to be close to -- mentally more than physically - and things that remind me of her (a lot of these lying around) also reminding me of that fact. Automatic thinking. Should put an end to that.
Moving on.
Most of us act in a way so as to earn the most respect from the people we ourselves respect the most. The "inner circle" of friends, or family. Most of us will also try to deny that and say they act by some higher moral code or by their inner sense of self or.. whatever. But that amounts to pretty much the same thing in most cases - as such people usually still interact with people who also act by the same principles. Chicken and egg problem and I will not get into the argument which comes first - principles to act by or friends who respect that you act by these. All I am saying is that in the end, most people end up acting so as to be liked and respected by their closest friends.
Now comes an interesting question though: what do you do if you have no inner circle of friends nor any strong and strict moral belief system to tell you what is right and wrong? Or if you are part of two circles whose views on many things are quite conflicting?
Enter me.
I really have noone to reliably set my good-bad compass for. So I interpolate from the few friends I respect the most.
I wish.
Anyways, all of us have achievements. For some, it is stuff like completing a PhD in 2.5 years. For others, it is having consumed 20 beers one night and still walked home. People who respect the first rarely respect the second.. and vice versa. Indeed, one thing I found here was that amongst backpackers, noone gives a damn if you had a PhD or how quickly you finished it. Conversation slides over it without anyone even noticing.
Playing your own game vs letting the other guy beat you at his. My main "problem" is I usually go along with other peoples games as I am not too interested in winning.. but losing also sucks bad.
Proper reaction to "I once drank 20 beers" is not "wow, cool" but "Do you think of your liver? Do you want to die of hepatitis before you hit 30?". One does make more enemies that way though. Not much less friends though, because do I really want friends who boast about their drinking habits?
Well, except I have done that a few times too (with 9 shots of tequila.. which was fun).. just to show some people I too have tried alcohol so am not as "uncool" as I may first seem.
Trouble is, though, I could spend years trying to catch up to people who spent their youth playing sports, drinking with friends and dating girls. Its pretty absurd to assume it would take me much less time to get good at these things than it did them. I have other strengths though. My ability to think.. or work hard.. or hold a steady job.
Which is another important point. Many "cool" people are on social welfare, students or are working one odd job after another. This type of lifestyle allows for much cooler stuff to happen to you than keeping a regular job.. but I think the latter is equally hard if not moreso - it takes resources, which others can easily locate to other stuff. Should we really idolize people who make one stupid decision after another?
Because, lets face it, stupid decisions always lead to better stories and always seem to "teach" us more. Usually they teach us to try a similar thing again though, because if things worked out once, theyll probably work out the second time too - you just have to change the details enough to make it hard to understand that the same thing is being done again.. and again.. and again.
And it is not actually about what you really did, but how you tell it. Coming back from the first rafting trip, there was this very cute Swiss girl on the raft. On the first bus back, we got talking a little and I mentioned I had studied french for 8 years.. she smiled nicely but then the conversation moved on. In the second bus, she was sitting next to a danish guy from the other raft and I overheared their conversation. He got a pretty similar positive effect with her by mentioning he knew just three words of french. One has to capitalize on what one has.
Biggest losers are usually also the biggest loudmouths - they have little, but they know how to use that little pretty damn well. After all, it is just a matter of forcing the other person to play by your rules - I did these things and these things define a person as cool. Done well enough, this premise is accepted without critique and the person indeed becomes cool in the eyes of the other person. But in reality, it is just good salesmanship.
Everyone reading this - think about how often has it happenned that you feel inferior to someone you have been talking to for a few minutes to a few hours. This is how it is done, by the way.
Over the course of the past two weeks, I have done a bunch of stupid things, stories of which I could live on for the rest of my life, if I really wanted to. And it has been tremendously fun. And not nearly as stupid as I first thought some of these things would have been. Furthermore, I now realize how cool some of the other stuff has been that I have done before in my life...
With my experiences over the past half a year, I now also have enough context to understand other peoples stories about drinking, partying and travelling... and give them due respect rather than over-idealizing them.
Should come in handy.
Another thing I have had a brush with is authenticity and masks. It is very easy to keep another person at a safe distance. Hold up a polite but fairly empty conversation, either about mundane or abstract matters.
However - it is hard to actually be authentic. To look a person in the eye and say that this topic is not interesting to you, but that you would instead like to know about something deep and profound within or about him. You know, go one step further.
Normally, the "one step further" thing just happens with people with whom it "feels right". But if a person is just very shy and likes holding up the polite barrier just for self-defence, he may well never get a chance to have an authentic covnersation. For these cases, a touch of brutal but caring honesty may come in handy. Or, well, there are of course less brutal ways of doing it, as any therapist worth their salt will tell you.
Might make for a bit more meaningful relationships.
So to sum up:
a) Direction is important in life. Be wary of how it is formed.
b) Most of my pain is due to automatic thoughts that tie M. directly with loneliness. Watch for it and make it stop.
c) Learn how to sell what you have well and to scrutinize what the others are actually selling.
d) Authenticity might be a good idea. As with everything, practice makes perfect.
Now to go and put all of that into practice.
Fully loaded, we've got snacks and supplies
I woke up at around 6.30. At this point it was light outside so I could take a closer look at the booth I was sleeping in and the ones next to it. They were all for boat tours on the river, main attraction being, of course, crocodiles.
The first boats were set to leave at 9.30 so I figured I could probably sleep for about an hour more without anyone coming to disturb me. Nevertheless, I knew that ferry had started running at 6 already so I thought I would try hitchiking again.
No luck for 2 and a half hours.. not that many cars passing by at that time of day. I had started reading a book on the side and was making good progress with that though. Nevertheless, I figured it was good time for a break so I walked up to one of the booths and asked about the tour. 20 bucks for 1 hour and 15 minutes of tour... Seemed reasonable, especially considering they were also serving coffe to the clients - which I quite badly needed at that point.
The tour was well worth the money. I got to see 4 crocodiles in the wild.. including a big fat 4 meter dominant male ("Fat Albert") and about a year-old baby croc hiding in the plants on the riverbank.
Now for some interesting facts about crocodiles. Males keep growing all their lieves. The largest male found in Australia was 8.5 m long (i.e. about the length of my appartment). Females usually grow to 3.5 m and then stop. Other than growth, it is pretty hard to tell males and females apart (besides literally taking a finger to their privates). The scales on the back are like tree trunks in the sense that if you cut one off, you can count the growth rings to get the age of the croc.. along with info about which years were good to him and which were not.Crocodiles are cannibals. Dominant males sometimes let young males set up their territories within theirs because they can then be counted to be there on the bad years where they then constitute a good meal. Chances of a newly hatched croc making it to maturity are about 1 in 50 - most just get eaten, either by sharks, eagles or other crocs. During colder months, crocs eat just once a week or even less often. They live to be about 80 and mature at around 25 - quite like humans. They have very good senses of sight, smell, hearing and vibration sensitivity (to detect ripples in the water) and use all four to hunt. They are also quite intelligent, remmembering patterns (i.e. stopping to let a ferry past). They are also very lazy (so standing back a few meters from the water will usually keep you safe - not because the croc could not get you but because it would be too much of a hassle for him to do so). And yes, only salties (salt-water crocodiles) are dangerous in Australia. Fresh-water ones feed on fish only.
Once I got back from the tour, I raised up my thumb again. After about half an hour, I finally get picked up by a small van. I ask whether they are going to Cape Tribulation. "Yeah, sure", the guy getting out of the car answers. The van was packed pretty full of stuff already, but my bass and backpack still fit in, and thankfully, so do I (but just barely).
I pretty soon realize I have hit the jackpot, when it turns out that
a) they also plan to go hiking in the Daintree park (just like I was)
b) they need to go back to Cairns the next day (just like I do)
c) they even have a spare tent, a spare sleeping bag and even a spare pillow
So more about the gang. I was sharing the backseat with a Taiwanese girl called Amy. Driving was a german girl called Franzisca and the guy who helped with my stuff was a scot named Lewis. Lewis and Franzisca seemed to have just gotten together as a couple, using every opportunity to make out. Amy was also a hitchiker, although a bit more organized than me - she had used a hitchiking website called Gumtree to get picked up instead of just standing on the side of the road like me. All three had been in Australia for months already.
So we first went to the camping grounds to set up a tent and have lunch. They offered to share their food with me and take me back to Cairns the next day, provided I pay them for gas. It was quite a good proposition so of course I took it. This meant handing them the last paper notes of australian dollars I had in my wallet - good, as I now did not need to worry about exchanging them back in estonia.
After lunch we did indeed go for a walk.. two actually, first on a very beautiful beach at Cape Tribulation itself and second a jungle track a bit south of it. The jungle track was a large boardwalk, so uncomparable to the up-close-and-scars-still-visible-personal experience of the previous day. Nevertheless, it was very beautiful. What more, we actually got to see a Cassowary.
Now, for those that do not know, a Southern Cassowary is a human-sized black bird with a bright blue head that is related to Ostriches and Emus. Meeting one in the nature may mean serious injury or even death if the particular specimen happends to be in a bad mood.
The guy we saw had a chick with him. You know, a smaller, more monochrome version of himself.
Of course, all of us tried to be very careful around him. Trouble was, though, he was pretty much right on the path, so we could not really go past him. He was clearly aware of all of us, but he was much less scared of us than we were of him. So it created quite an interesting situation...
That got resolved about half an hour later when we just gathered our courage and walked past him at about a meters distance. I was in front of the row of people... and it was pretty scary. (although, to be fair, by that time, 4 people had walked by him already one-at-a-time, but he was a bit further away in these cases).
I call the bird a guy, by the way, because we were later told that males usually care for the chicks once they are hatched. Equal division of labor :)
After that encounter, it was getting dark already so we headed back to the camping ground, had dinner and then went to bed. I shared a tent with Amy, but got to sleep before she had even entered.
And woke up at 7.30, the other side of the tent packed up just like it was when I went to sleep. Turned out she had woken up at 6 already. There was to be a crocodile feeding at 8.30. When heading towards that, we saw Lewis waking up too.
Croc feeding was fun. The guy told pretty much the same things about crocodiles I had heared the day before, though. But watching the croc follow the feeder with his eyes and ocasionally reposition itself.. reminded me of the beginning clip from Dr. Doolittle 2 - there may well be truth to that, actually.
We went to the hiking trail that was right behind the camp site.. and then drove to another one a bit southwards. Then headed back to the ferry and started driving south, making a stop in Port Douglas to stock up on supplies and look at the sights, briefly.
We then drove to Barron Gorge.. or well, would have if it would not have been a 20 km uphill drive. The car was quite heavy and was guzzling fuel at a bit too fast of a rate.. so Lewis and Franzisca decided to turn back at a lookout point that was about 5 km drive from the base.
However, as it was still fairly early (3 a clock), I was pretty intent on going up to see the Barron falls - so I asked them to drop me off at the base so I could hitchike up. We said our goodbyes, grabbed my stuff and started hitchiking.
About 20 cars later I got picked up by a woman in her thirties. On the way up, she showed me where a good spot would be to hitchike back, and also how to get there best on foot. She then dropped me off at the center of the small town just up the mountain and also pointed me to the direction of the falls.
The falls were 3 km away. I had a 25 kg backpack and another 5 kg of bass guitar with me. So instead of heading straight for the falls, I took a small detour towards a youth hostel. I asked the receptionist if I could leave my bags there for 1-2 hours. He was somewhat sceptical, but agreed once I explained I will definitely be back as I have a plane early next morning. When I said "Back in a few hours", he corrected me though, saying "1-2, that is a couple. A few is a few more than that".
I was now free of my burden for two hours, so I started towards the falls. 40 minutes later I arrived, only to experience what was truly one of the most beautiful sights I have seen in my life (yes, quite comparable to the road up to Port Douglas I mentioned about a week ago.. or the cliffs I saw at the first rafting trip. I do have pictures to prove it). I then also headed to the other nearby lookout point that supposedly had a good view of Cairns itself.. which it did..
By now I was running out of the 2 hours I had been granted.. so I raised my walking pace a bit and raised my thumb up whenever I heared a car passing by. Halfway I was indeed picked up and got a ride back to town in a pickup truck. Went by the hostel to collect my stuff and then followed the directions to get to the hichiking place I had been shown before.
It was quite nice, next to a long stretch of straight road, with a very wide roadside where a car could easily pull over. Two problems though. Firstly, it was a long stretch of straight road so cars were going quite fast. More worryingly, though, it was pitch-black dark again, I was still dressed in black-and-gray and there was no streetlight.
Ok, so there I was, at 7 a clock in the evening, with the whole night ahead of me and only 35 km to cover.
Well, except that the traffic was quite light, the cars did not see me before passing by (as they were going too fast) and oh, right, I could not go forward either because the downhill road did not even have enough room for a person to walk there safely without being run over, much less enough for a car to pull over. So I was, in effect, stuck, and in a pretty bad situation.
Thanfully, one driver did eventually notice me (after about 40 minutes of waiting), and managed to stop just right before the downhill trail so he still did have room to pull over. Driver turned out to be a youth worker, currently working with a problematic autistic kid who used to be pretty violent but seemed to be doing ok after three years of care. The driver was nice enough to drop me off at a good hitchiking location before heading into the opposite direction himself.
So, set out looking for the next car to pick me up. Decided to start counting cars again. I got to 2 - as the second car already pulled over, driver giving me a friendly greeting and introducing himself as Mick. He said he has a small errand to run before going to Cairns. I said I had all the time in the world.
So, he drove to a small town at the waterfront just outside Cairns - just to go check when a restaurant he had once visited would be open. He said he had been there once and really liked the food, but had not found them on the internet or on white pages once he got home.
That was a short detour and we were pretty soon at the airport. He dropped me off at the domestic, we exchanged contact info and then parted ways. I went into the terminal, sat down, made a cup of coffee and then...
...got kicked out, as the domestic terminal was closing for the night. I was directed to the international one next door, though. At about 4 a clock I got back to the domestic terminal and got on the 5.45 flight to Sydney, thus concluding my vacation in Australia
All in all, it was by far the best vacation I have yet to have. I got to swim underwater as well as to climb a mountain, meet interesting new people but also enjoy solitude, challenge myself but also do things easy and familiar to me. In short, it had everything I want in a vacation.
Well, nearly :)
The first boats were set to leave at 9.30 so I figured I could probably sleep for about an hour more without anyone coming to disturb me. Nevertheless, I knew that ferry had started running at 6 already so I thought I would try hitchiking again.
No luck for 2 and a half hours.. not that many cars passing by at that time of day. I had started reading a book on the side and was making good progress with that though. Nevertheless, I figured it was good time for a break so I walked up to one of the booths and asked about the tour. 20 bucks for 1 hour and 15 minutes of tour... Seemed reasonable, especially considering they were also serving coffe to the clients - which I quite badly needed at that point.
The tour was well worth the money. I got to see 4 crocodiles in the wild.. including a big fat 4 meter dominant male ("Fat Albert") and about a year-old baby croc hiding in the plants on the riverbank.
Now for some interesting facts about crocodiles. Males keep growing all their lieves. The largest male found in Australia was 8.5 m long (i.e. about the length of my appartment). Females usually grow to 3.5 m and then stop. Other than growth, it is pretty hard to tell males and females apart (besides literally taking a finger to their privates). The scales on the back are like tree trunks in the sense that if you cut one off, you can count the growth rings to get the age of the croc.. along with info about which years were good to him and which were not.Crocodiles are cannibals. Dominant males sometimes let young males set up their territories within theirs because they can then be counted to be there on the bad years where they then constitute a good meal. Chances of a newly hatched croc making it to maturity are about 1 in 50 - most just get eaten, either by sharks, eagles or other crocs. During colder months, crocs eat just once a week or even less often. They live to be about 80 and mature at around 25 - quite like humans. They have very good senses of sight, smell, hearing and vibration sensitivity (to detect ripples in the water) and use all four to hunt. They are also quite intelligent, remmembering patterns (i.e. stopping to let a ferry past). They are also very lazy (so standing back a few meters from the water will usually keep you safe - not because the croc could not get you but because it would be too much of a hassle for him to do so). And yes, only salties (salt-water crocodiles) are dangerous in Australia. Fresh-water ones feed on fish only.
Once I got back from the tour, I raised up my thumb again. After about half an hour, I finally get picked up by a small van. I ask whether they are going to Cape Tribulation. "Yeah, sure", the guy getting out of the car answers. The van was packed pretty full of stuff already, but my bass and backpack still fit in, and thankfully, so do I (but just barely).
I pretty soon realize I have hit the jackpot, when it turns out that
a) they also plan to go hiking in the Daintree park (just like I was)
b) they need to go back to Cairns the next day (just like I do)
c) they even have a spare tent, a spare sleeping bag and even a spare pillow
So more about the gang. I was sharing the backseat with a Taiwanese girl called Amy. Driving was a german girl called Franzisca and the guy who helped with my stuff was a scot named Lewis. Lewis and Franzisca seemed to have just gotten together as a couple, using every opportunity to make out. Amy was also a hitchiker, although a bit more organized than me - she had used a hitchiking website called Gumtree to get picked up instead of just standing on the side of the road like me. All three had been in Australia for months already.
So we first went to the camping grounds to set up a tent and have lunch. They offered to share their food with me and take me back to Cairns the next day, provided I pay them for gas. It was quite a good proposition so of course I took it. This meant handing them the last paper notes of australian dollars I had in my wallet - good, as I now did not need to worry about exchanging them back in estonia.
After lunch we did indeed go for a walk.. two actually, first on a very beautiful beach at Cape Tribulation itself and second a jungle track a bit south of it. The jungle track was a large boardwalk, so uncomparable to the up-close-and-scars-still-visible-personal experience of the previous day. Nevertheless, it was very beautiful. What more, we actually got to see a Cassowary.
Now, for those that do not know, a Southern Cassowary is a human-sized black bird with a bright blue head that is related to Ostriches and Emus. Meeting one in the nature may mean serious injury or even death if the particular specimen happends to be in a bad mood.
The guy we saw had a chick with him. You know, a smaller, more monochrome version of himself.
Of course, all of us tried to be very careful around him. Trouble was, though, he was pretty much right on the path, so we could not really go past him. He was clearly aware of all of us, but he was much less scared of us than we were of him. So it created quite an interesting situation...
That got resolved about half an hour later when we just gathered our courage and walked past him at about a meters distance. I was in front of the row of people... and it was pretty scary. (although, to be fair, by that time, 4 people had walked by him already one-at-a-time, but he was a bit further away in these cases).
I call the bird a guy, by the way, because we were later told that males usually care for the chicks once they are hatched. Equal division of labor :)
After that encounter, it was getting dark already so we headed back to the camping ground, had dinner and then went to bed. I shared a tent with Amy, but got to sleep before she had even entered.
And woke up at 7.30, the other side of the tent packed up just like it was when I went to sleep. Turned out she had woken up at 6 already. There was to be a crocodile feeding at 8.30. When heading towards that, we saw Lewis waking up too.
Croc feeding was fun. The guy told pretty much the same things about crocodiles I had heared the day before, though. But watching the croc follow the feeder with his eyes and ocasionally reposition itself.. reminded me of the beginning clip from Dr. Doolittle 2 - there may well be truth to that, actually.
We went to the hiking trail that was right behind the camp site.. and then drove to another one a bit southwards. Then headed back to the ferry and started driving south, making a stop in Port Douglas to stock up on supplies and look at the sights, briefly.
We then drove to Barron Gorge.. or well, would have if it would not have been a 20 km uphill drive. The car was quite heavy and was guzzling fuel at a bit too fast of a rate.. so Lewis and Franzisca decided to turn back at a lookout point that was about 5 km drive from the base.
However, as it was still fairly early (3 a clock), I was pretty intent on going up to see the Barron falls - so I asked them to drop me off at the base so I could hitchike up. We said our goodbyes, grabbed my stuff and started hitchiking.
About 20 cars later I got picked up by a woman in her thirties. On the way up, she showed me where a good spot would be to hitchike back, and also how to get there best on foot. She then dropped me off at the center of the small town just up the mountain and also pointed me to the direction of the falls.
The falls were 3 km away. I had a 25 kg backpack and another 5 kg of bass guitar with me. So instead of heading straight for the falls, I took a small detour towards a youth hostel. I asked the receptionist if I could leave my bags there for 1-2 hours. He was somewhat sceptical, but agreed once I explained I will definitely be back as I have a plane early next morning. When I said "Back in a few hours", he corrected me though, saying "1-2, that is a couple. A few is a few more than that".
I was now free of my burden for two hours, so I started towards the falls. 40 minutes later I arrived, only to experience what was truly one of the most beautiful sights I have seen in my life (yes, quite comparable to the road up to Port Douglas I mentioned about a week ago.. or the cliffs I saw at the first rafting trip. I do have pictures to prove it). I then also headed to the other nearby lookout point that supposedly had a good view of Cairns itself.. which it did..
By now I was running out of the 2 hours I had been granted.. so I raised my walking pace a bit and raised my thumb up whenever I heared a car passing by. Halfway I was indeed picked up and got a ride back to town in a pickup truck. Went by the hostel to collect my stuff and then followed the directions to get to the hichiking place I had been shown before.
It was quite nice, next to a long stretch of straight road, with a very wide roadside where a car could easily pull over. Two problems though. Firstly, it was a long stretch of straight road so cars were going quite fast. More worryingly, though, it was pitch-black dark again, I was still dressed in black-and-gray and there was no streetlight.
Ok, so there I was, at 7 a clock in the evening, with the whole night ahead of me and only 35 km to cover.
Well, except that the traffic was quite light, the cars did not see me before passing by (as they were going too fast) and oh, right, I could not go forward either because the downhill road did not even have enough room for a person to walk there safely without being run over, much less enough for a car to pull over. So I was, in effect, stuck, and in a pretty bad situation.
Thanfully, one driver did eventually notice me (after about 40 minutes of waiting), and managed to stop just right before the downhill trail so he still did have room to pull over. Driver turned out to be a youth worker, currently working with a problematic autistic kid who used to be pretty violent but seemed to be doing ok after three years of care. The driver was nice enough to drop me off at a good hitchiking location before heading into the opposite direction himself.
So, set out looking for the next car to pick me up. Decided to start counting cars again. I got to 2 - as the second car already pulled over, driver giving me a friendly greeting and introducing himself as Mick. He said he has a small errand to run before going to Cairns. I said I had all the time in the world.
So, he drove to a small town at the waterfront just outside Cairns - just to go check when a restaurant he had once visited would be open. He said he had been there once and really liked the food, but had not found them on the internet or on white pages once he got home.
That was a short detour and we were pretty soon at the airport. He dropped me off at the domestic, we exchanged contact info and then parted ways. I went into the terminal, sat down, made a cup of coffee and then...
...got kicked out, as the domestic terminal was closing for the night. I was directed to the international one next door, though. At about 4 a clock I got back to the domestic terminal and got on the 5.45 flight to Sydney, thus concluding my vacation in Australia
All in all, it was by far the best vacation I have yet to have. I got to swim underwater as well as to climb a mountain, meet interesting new people but also enjoy solitude, challenge myself but also do things easy and familiar to me. In short, it had everything I want in a vacation.
Well, nearly :)
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
No fear, destination Darkness
Hitchiking - a checklist of things to do:
Do it in the dark so you can just barely make out the road yourself.
Do it dressed in all black-and-grey
Forget to take a map with you.
Realize you do have a map, but let a car go by while searching for it.
Walk 7 km with a 20 kg backpack without seeing any cars pass you by.
Sit down to relax your legs, take your boots off and let the first car you have seen in 2 hours pass you by.
Look at the stars and realize just how beautiful they are in here.
Get barked at by a huge and scary dog.. til the owner calls him off.
Finally get to the crossroads where there are streetlamps and actual cars passing by.
Sit on your bag, watch bats fly aroung and realize that life is beautiful.
Attempt to hitch a ride.
Get picked up by the 25-th car.
Have the driver offer you a beer, and watch him also have one.
Have him tell you he drives tour busses for a living.
Let him drive you all the way to the ferry, about third of the way to the next destination.
Have a nice long conversation with the ferryworker lasting for 2 hours
While only 3 cars move in the direction you need to go.
When the last ferry goes, walk away from the river as not to be eaten by crocs.
End up at the river again, at a different pier with a few tour kiosks and a tourist information booth.
Attempt to sleep on the bench at the information booth.
Realize that the weather is not as warm as you first imagined.
Also realize you should have taken a sleeping bag, just in case.
Put a jumper on under your leather jacket.
Realize it is still too cold because of the wind.
climb into one of the tourist kiosks and attempt to sleep on the floor.
drag a wooden plank in front of the doorway just in case any crocodiles try something.
Realize that tiled floors are f***ing cold to sleep on.
Two hours later, realize you do have a towel in your bag.
Attempt sleeping on that with the leather coat as a blanket
Get 3 hours of sleep that way, then wake up because of the cold.
Oh yes, and enjoy every single second of everything described above!
Do it in the dark so you can just barely make out the road yourself.
Do it dressed in all black-and-grey
Forget to take a map with you.
Realize you do have a map, but let a car go by while searching for it.
Walk 7 km with a 20 kg backpack without seeing any cars pass you by.
Sit down to relax your legs, take your boots off and let the first car you have seen in 2 hours pass you by.
Look at the stars and realize just how beautiful they are in here.
Get barked at by a huge and scary dog.. til the owner calls him off.
Finally get to the crossroads where there are streetlamps and actual cars passing by.
Sit on your bag, watch bats fly aroung and realize that life is beautiful.
Attempt to hitch a ride.
Get picked up by the 25-th car.
Have the driver offer you a beer, and watch him also have one.
Have him tell you he drives tour busses for a living.
Let him drive you all the way to the ferry, about third of the way to the next destination.
Have a nice long conversation with the ferryworker lasting for 2 hours
While only 3 cars move in the direction you need to go.
When the last ferry goes, walk away from the river as not to be eaten by crocs.
End up at the river again, at a different pier with a few tour kiosks and a tourist information booth.
Attempt to sleep on the bench at the information booth.
Realize that the weather is not as warm as you first imagined.
Also realize you should have taken a sleeping bag, just in case.
Put a jumper on under your leather jacket.
Realize it is still too cold because of the wind.
climb into one of the tourist kiosks and attempt to sleep on the floor.
drag a wooden plank in front of the doorway just in case any crocodiles try something.
Realize that tiled floors are f***ing cold to sleep on.
Two hours later, realize you do have a towel in your bag.
Attempt sleeping on that with the leather coat as a blanket
Get 3 hours of sleep that way, then wake up because of the cold.
Oh yes, and enjoy every single second of everything described above!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Stairway to Heaven
I woke up at 6.20 to get some stuff done before the dawn, which I estimated to be at around 7. However, I finished a bit later, than estimated. Nevertheless, Diane was willing to give me a lift to the beginning of the track.. which was not far, thankfully.
The path was marked with small coloured ribbons tied to trees. However, in most places, it did not ressemble a path. It was just a trail of places that were a bit more easily passed through than everything surrounding it - but not by a large margin. Makes sense, though - the rainforest grows pretty quickly so unless the trail is walked every day by many people, it will stop looking like a trail quite quickly.
Before the trail up the mountain officially began, I had to cross a small creek. Small, but still big enough for me to have to take my boots off and walk through barefoot. Water reached up to my knee at the deepest place.
What followed was 4.5 km of walking uphill and then another 800m walking downhill, all that to reach the height of approximately 1300 m. Each of these 5.3 km took about an hour - and I was climbing nearly as fast as I could, not slacking off and watching the nature.
I did notice a few things though. In the first km, I was constantly pestered by waitawhiles, constantly getting caught in them. The second km was somewhat better and I did not see waitawhiles any more since then until climbing down again. That part had the prettiest ascents of the trail though, at least two of them actually ressembling stairways. Past the 2 km marker, the path changed somewhat. The climb got markedly steeper and past the 2.5 km mark also fairly wet and slippery.
Nevertheless, 3 hours later, I was at the 3.2 km marker - rainforest was briefly replaced by a thick overgrowth of ferns, initially only up to my knees but later as high as to my armpits.
What made that part especially scary though was that you could see clouds over the ferns. From above. They say that on clear days, one can see as far as Cairns from the top of the mountain. It wasn't one of those (on average) two days a year when it is clear there, though. But clouds themselves already gave a pretty good idea of just how high I was and just what exactly accidentally slipping on the wet path would mean.
Also, I discovered a dozen leeches sucking away at my legs, once I stopped to rest and have a drink. (Note to self - next time start with at least two litres of water instead of one - that way, you can drink one on the way up, which is the worst stretch in terms of sweating and exertion.).
The fact that the next part "requires above average fitness and rock climbing skills" was not also very promising - I was in no mood to climb a damp and slippery cliff in conditions where falling meant certain death.
Fortunately, it never came to that. Rock climbing was required, but only for two short stretches, with trees and roots offering quite a bit of support and in places where falling meant falling just a few meters before being stopped by a flat piece of land.. So nothing unreasonable. What made the last 2 km hard was the fact that the path went through fairly thick jungle and was at many places quite easy to lose.
Once I got to the top lookout point, I just verified that I was still indeed above a cloud and could not see anything below me, rested a bit and then started back. Coming down was easier, of course, but again with different stretches presenting different obstacles. first two km was easy to lose the trail, next 1.5 km required constantly reaching for nearby trees in order to not just slip and slide down (the wrong way and into certain death) and the last stretch, although walkable was still infested with waitawhiles - some of which did cut me up in a few places, but thankfully nothing serious.
As I had exhausted my liquid supply by the time I got down, I got a quick drink from the creek I had passed through before. I then crossed it again, walked back to the playhouse. The trip (10.6 km + 500m?) took 9 hours to complete. Considering I had made only 5 short brakes on the way, all of them no longer than 20 minutes, I had been walking on some of the hardest terrain I had seen for nearly 8 hours. Not bad. Not bad at all.
A good thing I started at 7.30 in the morning. It is 18.30 now and looking outside equals looking into complete darkness. If I were still at the trail, I would basically have to sit tight where I was because I would have no chance navigating the trail back. And you do not want to sleep in the jungle at night without any equipment or training. Seriously, you do not.
Hitchiking in pitch black night ought to be fun though.
The path was marked with small coloured ribbons tied to trees. However, in most places, it did not ressemble a path. It was just a trail of places that were a bit more easily passed through than everything surrounding it - but not by a large margin. Makes sense, though - the rainforest grows pretty quickly so unless the trail is walked every day by many people, it will stop looking like a trail quite quickly.
Before the trail up the mountain officially began, I had to cross a small creek. Small, but still big enough for me to have to take my boots off and walk through barefoot. Water reached up to my knee at the deepest place.
What followed was 4.5 km of walking uphill and then another 800m walking downhill, all that to reach the height of approximately 1300 m. Each of these 5.3 km took about an hour - and I was climbing nearly as fast as I could, not slacking off and watching the nature.
I did notice a few things though. In the first km, I was constantly pestered by waitawhiles, constantly getting caught in them. The second km was somewhat better and I did not see waitawhiles any more since then until climbing down again. That part had the prettiest ascents of the trail though, at least two of them actually ressembling stairways. Past the 2 km marker, the path changed somewhat. The climb got markedly steeper and past the 2.5 km mark also fairly wet and slippery.
Nevertheless, 3 hours later, I was at the 3.2 km marker - rainforest was briefly replaced by a thick overgrowth of ferns, initially only up to my knees but later as high as to my armpits.
What made that part especially scary though was that you could see clouds over the ferns. From above. They say that on clear days, one can see as far as Cairns from the top of the mountain. It wasn't one of those (on average) two days a year when it is clear there, though. But clouds themselves already gave a pretty good idea of just how high I was and just what exactly accidentally slipping on the wet path would mean.
Also, I discovered a dozen leeches sucking away at my legs, once I stopped to rest and have a drink. (Note to self - next time start with at least two litres of water instead of one - that way, you can drink one on the way up, which is the worst stretch in terms of sweating and exertion.).
The fact that the next part "requires above average fitness and rock climbing skills" was not also very promising - I was in no mood to climb a damp and slippery cliff in conditions where falling meant certain death.
Fortunately, it never came to that. Rock climbing was required, but only for two short stretches, with trees and roots offering quite a bit of support and in places where falling meant falling just a few meters before being stopped by a flat piece of land.. So nothing unreasonable. What made the last 2 km hard was the fact that the path went through fairly thick jungle and was at many places quite easy to lose.
Once I got to the top lookout point, I just verified that I was still indeed above a cloud and could not see anything below me, rested a bit and then started back. Coming down was easier, of course, but again with different stretches presenting different obstacles. first two km was easy to lose the trail, next 1.5 km required constantly reaching for nearby trees in order to not just slip and slide down (the wrong way and into certain death) and the last stretch, although walkable was still infested with waitawhiles - some of which did cut me up in a few places, but thankfully nothing serious.
As I had exhausted my liquid supply by the time I got down, I got a quick drink from the creek I had passed through before. I then crossed it again, walked back to the playhouse. The trip (10.6 km + 500m?) took 9 hours to complete. Considering I had made only 5 short brakes on the way, all of them no longer than 20 minutes, I had been walking on some of the hardest terrain I had seen for nearly 8 hours. Not bad. Not bad at all.
A good thing I started at 7.30 in the morning. It is 18.30 now and looking outside equals looking into complete darkness. If I were still at the trail, I would basically have to sit tight where I was because I would have no chance navigating the trail back. And you do not want to sleep in the jungle at night without any equipment or training. Seriously, you do not.
Hitchiking in pitch black night ought to be fun though.
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