Sisterhood of Traveling Lies

by Rain Siahaan (Indonesia)

I didn't expect to find USA

On our way to Cholla Cactus Garden of Joshua Tree National Park, at the speed of 45 miles/hour, our rented Fiat 500 started to generate distressing engine noises, close to my passenger’s seat. Sound worried and unsure, my sister, who was behind the wheel, said: “Did you notice something buzzing? I think it is from your side.” “No, I didn’t hear anything” I lied. I could actually hear the buzz. My sister and I chose Joshua Tree National Park as testing ground for our first road trip together in the US. The park, a sprawl of hundred thousand acres of bushes and cacti, has stark desert landscape and quirky rock formations (one has uncanny resemblance to human skull) - unlike what we have seen in our tropical homeland. That day, we planned to end the drive at Cholla Cactus Garden to catch the sunset. We stopped at the parking lot that overlooks the garden, faced the Pinto Basin’s blue skies that hide the imminent appearance of the moon and accentuates surrounding Valleys. The garden is dotted by teddybear chollas, creosote bush and burobush that reflect the glows of the sun. These types of cacti have bristles of thorn at the bottom of their trunks. They don’t grow taller than human’s average height. We laughed at the cacti because they looked like dwarfs from afar. We were hungry and we ran thin on gas and drinking water. We arrived way early for a mid-October sunset. So we took alternating nap, sang to Fleet Foxes’ songs, and speculated over how two Park Rangers would problem solve for a couple of Chinese tourists who were locked out of their SUV - to kill time. We continued walking and reminiscing at my earlier misfortune as I had to drag my left foot around the Park. Hours ago, I slipped a flight of stairs over a relatively easy hiking trail at the Hidden Valley. I sprained my left ankle and went into blackout. As we drove back to our accommodation, I can feel that my left ankle worsened. I offered to cook ‘healthy dinner’ for our final night as my accident had deterred me from dining out. While I was chopping vegetables at the kitchen, I heard continuous thudding taps from the back door. It was probably a noise from adjacent neighbor, so I thought. As the tap repeated more aggressively overtime, I checked with my sister who was playing with her phone in our bedroom: “You heard something from the kitchen? There were continuous taps”. She said “No, I heard nothing”. Hungry and clearly in pain, I decided to ignore the sound. The next day, at the rent car return point in Los Angeles, I confessed about the engine noise, only to find my sister replied: “I need to tell you something, too”. “I actually heard taps from the kitchen. I didn’t want to tell you because you would be scared. It was a long day and if you hadn’t cooked, we would have been starving”. She then told me about a guest book that she decided to hid. Recent guests testimonial revealed that the house is haunted by a ‘motherly ghost’ who often ‘knocks’ at the kitchen backdoor. So she lied, too. I may or may not believe in the ghost story; She may or may not be panic about the car breakdown. However we both assumed the worst possible reaction out of each other and used white lies to avoid unintended consequences. It was our inclination to explore new territories, albeit unknown, that overweighed the fear of car breakdown and superstition. Joshua Tree National Park was a foreign territory for us – one with first aid response and traffic regulation we barely understood. Had each of us knew about those specific secrets upfront, we would probably be fleeing the scenes and enjoyed the experience of Joshua Tree National Park significantly less. There are atrocities along each journey, yet it was these little white lies, instinctive responses, that made me realize that our sisterhood bound us to intuitively protect each other to survive our journey and create wonderful memories.