The next morning, I felt like the usual "a bus has run over my body" self. I wasn’t really looking forward to the trip at all – with my stomach churning, my head pounding, and my eyes blurring, the idea of camping and hiking with a bunch of strangers – oh God! What if they’re BORING strangers? – wasn’t appealing. I exited the youth hostel in the cold darkness of 6:30am, watching my breath condense in white puffy clouds. I noticed a sweet-looking girl with glasses standing by the curb of the hostel. She smiled and turned to me to ask, "Oh, is the Wayward bus picking you up as well?" with an English accent.

"Yep," I replied.

Expelling a breath of relief she said, "Good, I’m not the only one from this hostel going. I was a bit disappointed I wasn’t going on the Mulga Tour. My name’s Alison."

Let me explain for those of you who are interested in the options for backpackers in Alice Springs. Annie’s Place, the hostel we were staying at, was owned by the same man who ran another Ayers Rock/Olgas 3-day tour called the Mulga Tour. Of course, if you’re staying at Annie’s Place, they want to sell you a Mulga Tour. It’s funny how the tour company politics work out there. Basically, if you’re between the ages of 18-35 and you want to do an "outback experience" tour, there are four companies you can go with: Mulga, Wayward, Adventure Tours and Sahara Tours. All companies do 3-5 days of THE ROCK, Kata Tjuta, Kings Canyon, including camping, all meals, all transportation, for roughly between $320-500 Australian dollars, depending on which package you choose. The differences between them are supposedly minute, and the people you get in your group and your tour guide are the ones who make the real difference.

Our bus was a bit late and, in the early morning darkness, I could barely make out our tour guide’s figure ambling towards us, woolly hat pulled down low, as he remarked, "It was minus two degrees last night, you know!" God, winter in the desert is freezing, I realized. Did I have a hat or gloves or even a real jacket? Um, no. Alison and I climbed onto the bus and we sat next to each other. The driver took us around to other parts of the town, picking up groups of people. I fell asleep immediately, wishing that I hadn’t gulped down that extra rum and coke at 2am. After about 15 minutes, our driver told us we were going to be driving 20 kms down an "unsealed" (read: bumpy dirt) road to hang on to our seats for a bit. I should’ve worn my sports bra for the amount of rocking I felt over the next 20 minutes.

We got to a place called Rainbow Valley – huge red sandstone cliffs jutting into the bluest sky I had ever seen. These two colors would accompany me for the rest of my stay in the Northern Territory. The morning air was cool and refreshing, and Alison and I, now the best of friends, made our way to the "mushroom rock" that Reg told us to stop at. As we walked along, we chatted to Robyn and Kevin, two guys from England who were so adorably gay that I had to laugh with happiness when they threw their arms around each other for a picture halfway through the walk.

At mushroom rock, all 22 of us stopped to introduce ourselves. Reg went first: grew up in Sydney, worked in the USA for two and a half years in a bar near New York City, moved to Alice Springs to see his dad, ended up staying because he fell in love with the land. He told us how he was friends with a bunch of Aboriginals and how, over the years, he’d learned a lot about Aboriginal culture and history. He told us how he worked at the Gap Youth Center in Alice Springs, trying to educate Aboriginal children, trying to make them hope for a better life. He said that he was taking a bunch of them to the UK and Europe in October/November with the help of fundraisers and sponsors because he wanted to "throw a curveball into their lives." I was impressed and electrified by his motivation. After his introduction, I was the first one to speak. I hated that. I hate telling people that I’m a med student. Another thing I’m embarrassed about: the length of my trip. Americans don’t go for long holidays, so to most of my friends, this 9 week trip is ridiculously long. To the other Europeans, Canadians and Australians who are traveling for 4,5,6, even 12 months, my little 9-week jaunt around the world is kind of a joke. "Why aren’t you traveling for longer?" is the question I’m always asked. So I meekly introduced myself, right after Reg, kind of whispering and not meeting anyone’s eyes. I couldn’t help it.

The others in the group were between 20-30 years old, hailing from England, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Holland and France. They were a fascinating bunch: plummers, artists, photographers, computer programmers, students, gap year students…even another medical student from Germany! They were all so well-traveled and my memory now burns with the way their rosy cheeks and squinting eyes gleamed in the rising daylight on that first morning. After the introductions, we got back into the Wayward bus and Reg started blasting Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Don’t know how, but I managed to fall asleep again.

We had a picnic lunch at a place called Mr. Ebenezer, looked around the Aboriginal cultural center, had a lesson on Aboriginal tools thanks to Reg, and then made our way back onto the endless highway. After a little while, Reg pulled the van over and belted, "Collect firewood, I’ll show you how." About 99% of the bus had been asleep, so it must have been a sight: 21 zombies stumbling off a bus, rubbing their eyes in confusion and yawning profusely. I looked over at Reg, who had raced into the bush and was now kicking down dead trees. Tree trunks and branches were flying everywhere, yielding to Reg’s karate-like kicks. "Come on, pick it up, take it to the bus!" I was in a daze. I’m sure everyone else was, too.

Well, despite our soporific states and amidst much groaning, we managed to strap a healthy amount of wood to the back of the bus. Then Reg headed back out into the bush and told us that he was going to dig up witchity grubs. Witchity grubs? What the hell were they? He got down on his hands and knees and starting digging with a frenzied, possessed voracity. He explained, "Witchity grubs live in the roots of the bush. They’re bush food. Aboriginals used to eat them and still do. You look for a swelling by the root of the bush and start digging, then you hack the root in two, and pull out the grub." In awe, I watched him catch a massive 5-inch long 2-inch thick white-looking catepillar-like (or maybe slug-like creature) and put it directly into his mouth. "A witchity grub contains all the protein an Aboriginal needs in one day," he said, as yellow and white liquid dribbled down his chin. I nearly hurled. The rum and cokes from the night before were haunting me with a vengeance. We got back onto the bus and I kept looking at Reg for signs of poisoning. Amazingly, he looked more energized than he had in the morning, cruising along with his sunglasses perched crookedly on his head.

Driving in the outback was a meditation. "White thinking," as Reg called it: your mind is active and running in high gear, but your pulse squeezes calmly and your visual fields are on autopilot. All thoughts slip quietly into the subconscious – you emerge feeling more peaceful, but you’re not really sure how it happened or what your thoughts contained. You glide through the endless stretches of red flat land dotted with dry patches of grass (called spinifex plants), occasionally spotting wild camels, horses, cows, kangaroos, only rarely coming across another car or truck. Because of this vast expanse of nothingness, the people who you DO see out there are your immediate friends – at every stop along the way, people are friendly, down-to-earth and puzzlingly relaxed.

I didn’t know how to behave. I’m used to interacting with people who are in a hurry, who are irritated, ready to brush past you in a second, willing to look right through you as if you don’t really exist – that’s life in a big city. Even in Rochester, a smaller town, that’s the vibe. Not in the Northern Territory. Out there, the land and the people exuded a serenity that could not be characterized by words.

We reached King’s Creek Cattle Station before sunset and set up our camp. FYI, an Australian bedroll is called a swag. Alison and I dragged out our sleeping bags and swags, deciding if we would pitch a tent or not. Feeling more lazy than I had felt in a long time, I chose to sleep in the open, without a tent. Alison assured me that we would secure a spot near the fire. Having successfully placed our sleeping bags in the swags, about ten of us took a walk onto the highway to watch the sunset. Blue. How the sky turns blue and purple in the outback, I’ll never know. Someone told me that the blue was the earth’s shadow. Is that true? I felt totally overwhelmed by the power of the land and it was only my first day. Out there in that vast territory, I was more at home than I had ever been before.

Reg cooked dinner for all of us – pasta, rice, chicken stew, soup and bread. He was sniffing miserably, and told us that he had a terrible head cold. I felt really sorry for him and kept wondering how often he did the tours. Was he sick of them? Unable to stop myself, I dug into my backpack and pored through the concoction of drugs I had acquired in India thanks to my run-in with pneumonia. I gave some medicine to Reg, who looked surprised that I was this walking pharmacy. Helping him like that made me feel better, more settled, somehow more stable. Sometimes that’s the only gut feeling I have about medicine.

All of us sat around the campfire the first night, shocked by how cold it had become. I was a slab of ice, not even wanting to touch my beer. None of us knew each other very well – the black air shivered with awkwardness. I chatted with Alison and Reg but I was mostly hypnotized by the fire and lost in my own thoughts. Around 10pm, Alison and I dragged our swags over to the fire and slid into our cold sleeping bags. I lay on my back and stared into the sky, marveling at the clarity of the stars. I could make out the Milky Way. I drifted off into a paralyzed sleep, not wanting to move in order to retain as much body heat as possible. Around 3am I woke and saw the light from the fire coals receding, waning in the shadows, and I knew that the next few hours would be very painful.

~Hope