The next day we started out on our desert trip.
There were a few flies out there in the desert so I said to Hannah, “You know how I have flies on my lip” In reference to this beautiful scab on my lip which came from I don’t know what.
“Yes”
“Well do you know how they get in?”
“No”
“Open wounds like that one on your ankle.”
“Sure”, she said sceptically
“Serious!”
“As if” she said her confidence wavering.
“Well if you want flies in your ankle and for maggots to crawl out one day fine by me, I was only trying to help.” I said a little wounded.
Hannah then started furiously shoo-ing the flies away from her ankle and then put on a Band-Aid to keep them totally off which only succeeded in making her ankle not scab over but go gooey.
“See how it is not scabbing over” I said a little later.
“Yes”
“The flies probably got in already and they keep it from forming a scab.”
“Really?”
“Yep, fly ankle.”
“Well your got maggot lip.”
“Nope see mine is scabbed over, its because I got the flies out when I washed it and put antiseptic cream on it.”
Hannah then ran to her bag and started putting on liberal amounts of antiseptic cream. Probably didn’t help when I would call to her every 20 minutes, “Hey maggot ankle, you that desert over there.”
At which stage she would put on more antiseptic cream.
The Desert was cool and we saw some sand and rocks. Also this mountain made of crystals like thunder eggs but bigger, a few meters wide. I found a crystal which was especially cool and handed around to show everyone.
Donkey boy came up to me 10 minutes later with the same crystal, “See this crystal, so beautiful, I am going to take it home.”
“Ummm, actually, ermm umm”, then I though of how excited he was over just a donkey, “Yes, so beautiful” I replied.
So instead I poked around the dirt looking for things. I found a rock similar in shape to Australia which Hannah confiscated, “Mika this would be so good for Max my nephew. He would absolutely love it!” then she continued behind big blue weasel eyes, “Can I have it? Please Mika?” which left me absolutely no choice but to give it to her. Bloody weasel queen.
I found a nice smooth rock which I gave to Hannah because I didn’t want it but she loves collecting things to amuse her hands like can lids, plastic bottle top insides etc.
After much digging and poking I triumphantly pulled from the ground what I had been searching for all this time.
“Yes, it’s a fossilized coffee bean” I proudly help up my extraordinary find. The Nipons Ohhh’d and Ahhhh’d, Donkey boy momentarily stopped his riveting story to mole face about how he walked in the desert with a camel once and then stopped and turned back and commented on how it was ‘so beautiful’ Hannah god bless her soul grabbed it out of my hand told me I was silly and broke it in half to prove it wasn’t a rock. Absolutely crushing I tell you. Crushing.
Lately Hannah had been getting bored about having no other female company for a few weeks and her attempts at gossiping with me had been met with grunts, Uh huh’s, Mmm’s and a nose in the book, so the 2 Nipon girls were a god send.
“So do you have a boyfriend?” Hannah asked them.
“Yes” One replied.
“So are you married?”
“No, but we live together.” At which stage Hannah started getting excited.
“Ohhhh! How controversial” she cried with joy.
“Yes, my father is not very happy”
This juicey bit of information seemed to captivate Hannah and the conversation for a while. Once that topic had been finally completely bled dry they asked if Hannah and I were married. The guides were listening in and foolishly the night before we had told mole face (named hence because he really pissed me off later on and in reference to the 50cent piece mole on his face) we weren’t so they had tried their best seduction techniques such as grabbing them and trying to sex dance them, or lick their lips in what they no doubt think is a seductive way, to try and get in bed with Hannah so we said we were engaged.
When the Nipon’s asked, “When are you getting married?”
I replied, “6 months”
Hannah gasped in shock and stated matter of factly, “No we are NOT. That is WAY too soon.”
Subtly I tried to telepathically tell her that we were in a pretend engagement and so it didn’t really matter and besides didn’t she remember razor blades? Lately I had been thinking I was quite the telepath but really I must have been deluding myself because she didn’t get the message, even the ones I was giving her with my foot in her shins. That only seemed to make her irritated.
That night we camped under the stars and played this game similar to slaps which was fun.