Twitter Weekly Updates for 2008-08-31
- :: wohoo. Traveltrousers.com is up to position 4,687,000 in the world :p only a few positions to clear then :p #
- :: hmmm, going to the pastry shop so room before dinner was a mistake… But a tasty one
# - ::when you have to go… No power in xela atm so im crapping in the dark :p wonder if i should start a campaign to popularise bog seats? :/ #
- ::should i be concerned that everytime i use the unearthed electric shower in my host families house it lights up like a christmas tree? #
- @traveltrousers test! in reply to traveltrousers #
- :: what a nightmare, my usual teacher is on a course and her replacement is making me study! :p #
- ::salsa was so good, dancing as 2 couples & swapping partners after each move is such good fun! Only problem is my knees are now killing me! #
- ::while the rest of the northern hemisphere swelters in the summer heat i am stuck up a mountain in torrential rain. i should try research?! #
- ::after only 5 months i have nearly fixed my minifridge.Now it gets warm this is good, i just need to improve the cold side #
- :: My usual cafe is closed so Im forced to come to Baveria. Nice sofa, good coffee, but Lionel Richey and Whitney?? oooo soul2soul! better! #
- ::yay! After a week of frustration i have finally managed to get my firewire interface working. Dont expect a CD just yet but its a step… #
- :: im back at the cycle repair man, one of my pedals fell off. I could do it myself but why bother when it only costs 50c #
- :: does it mean im getting old because i object to people letting off fireworks outside my house at 5 in the morning? :/ #
- ::its so depressing to spend an hour in bed & you cant sleep… Maybe i Should study some verbs, that ought to knock me out! #
- :: Im sad the girl I danced with at Salsa class last week didn’t win the Miss Quetzaltenango 2008 competition :p The winner was nice though! #
- :: nice cafe? check. Good music? check. Hot coffee? Check. Interesting people? Check. Stinky chain smoking locals? Check
#
:: My usual cafe is closed so …
:: My usual cafe is closed so Im forced to come to Baveria. Nice sofa, good coffee, but Lionel Richey and Whitney?? oooo soul2soul! better!
Tags: coffees, coffee, cafe, sofaTwitter Weekly Updates for 2008-08-24
- :: i just swept my room & collected a huge pile of dust. I guess this is to be expected when you live under the shadow of an active volcano #
- :: i dont want to complain but i really wish people wouldnt give me meat and then laugh when they realise. Its very rude :/ #
- ::the hike was good,without the projected storm.we had to baby sit a moaning american mom/daughter all day though.if youre sick stay home! #
- ::its 6am & im up to go climb some mountain with school. I thought saturdays were for lie ins & football. Maybe i get one later…A match… #
- :: hah! I broke twitter! #
- :: 100 facebook friends! mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm carrot cake and coffee! # - :: i just looked in my mirror to see the car behind doing a 180 spin! Home safely in 10 mins after a 6 hour drive. Zzzz #
- :: guatemalan customs arent that bad. Im @ the border renewing my car permission & everyone is very helpful & no one is asking for bribes #
- ::will i really go to hell for using a computer program to conjugate the verbs in my spanish homework so i ago in our dancing? :p #
- ::after 15 minutes of whispering in the dark we are finally able to dance to rhianna. Why do the police hate gays so much? :p #
- :: is it really wrong to change salsa schools just because the other instructor is really hot? :p was fun dancing with someone new though… #
- bleh #
- ::why is my website such a pain? I change one little thing and then RSS stops working…. its a learning experience I guess… #
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2008-08-24
- :: i just swept my room & collected a huge pile of dust. I guess this is to be expected when you live under the shadow of an active volcano #
- :: i dont want to complain but i really wish people wouldnt give me meat and then laugh when they realise. Its very rude :/ #
- ::the hike was good,without the projected storm.we had to baby sit a moaning american mom/daughter all day though.if youre sick stay home! #
- ::its 6am & im up to go climb some mountain with school. I thought saturdays were for lie ins & football. Maybe i get one later…A match… #
- :: hah! I broke twitter! #
- :: 100 facebook friends! mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
- mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm carrot cake and coffee! #
- :: i just looked in my mirror to see the car behind doing a 180 spin! Home safely in 10 mins after a 6 hour drive. Zzzz #
- :: guatemalan customs arent that bad. Im @ the border renewing my car permission & everyone is very helpful & no one is asking for bribes #
- ::will i really go to hell for using a computer program to conjugate the verbs in my spanish homework so i ago in our dancing? :p #
- ::after 15 minutes of whispering in the dark we are finally able to dance to rhianna. Why do the police hate gays so much? :p #
- :: is it really wrong to change salsa schools just because the other instructor is really hot? :p was fun dancing with someone new though… #
- bleh #
- ::why is my website such a pain? I change one little thing and then RSS stops working…. its a learning experience I guess… #
:: nice cafe? check. Good musi…
:: nice cafe? check. Good music? check. Hot coffee? Check. Interesting people? Check. Stinky chain smoking locals? Check
My daily routine in Xela
Day 341
Xela, Guatemala
I’ve been here for three weeks now studying and my days are pretty much the same. I wake up at 7.30am, eat breakfast and walk the 50 meters to the school around the corner. I get a cup of coffee and sit studying Spanish until 10am when there is more coffee and usually cake. Every stands around chatting for half an hour and then there is more studying until 1pm. Sometimes myself and the other students and teachers will go for a walk around town to look at something interesting, sometimes we’ll go for coffee. The school hasn’t had many people in it so far, at most 5 students, which at least means its reasonably quiet.
After school I come back to my host family for lunch and then maybe I have the rest of the day to while away. For several afternoons in the week we take excursions out to markets or churches in the local area which fills the rest of the day. Sometimes I have a siesta in the afternoon, or just sit and play my guitar for a few hours. I found a cool little cafe with wireless Internet so like to sit there when I need to get my information fix. I pulled my bike out of my van as soon as I arrived so try to cycle everywhere. Xela is kind of hilly and the roads can be pretty bad but its small enough with a bike.
At 6pm I have a salsa lesson and there are two possibilities, Salsa Rosa, which is small and funky, or Guajira which is bigger and with a nicer room. They both cost Q30 ($4) for a group lesson but no matter which you go its always a gamble as to whether you end up dancing with someone suitable or not. There is a nice Canadian girl, Ashley, who usually goes to one of them who is pretty good to dance with, but you might end up with someone completely off your level, or worse, no one at all. It seems Salsa is pretty popular with guys in Xela.
And so it should be, last Tuesday I turned up at Guajira to find 8 new, and very attractive, girls lined up for the class. Apparently they were trying to learn some new skills as they were the contestants in the ‘Miss Xela’ competition later today. I had a fun hour dancing with some hot (and rather tall) girls but sadly they didn’t return the next night. :p On some nights there is Salsa music in a few of the clubs which I have been to a few times. I’m feel like I’m finally getting to a decent level but I am still hampered by the lack of a good regular partner…
After my class I head back home for my evening meal and maybe an attempt at my homework, depending on whether I was given any. I’ve been messing around with Cubase 3sx for a while in an attempt to record some music, but the PreSonus 1394 interface I have works but produces far too much noise to make it worthwhile. I’m still looking for a solution but its not easy without a permanent Internet connection.
Xela is nice, although a little cold and it seems to be raining a lot of the time these days. I figure I will study for another week, maybe two, while trying to find some travel companions on the road South before heading east to El Salvador and some more time on the beach.
Tags: traveller, guitars, week, excursion, salsa, night, coffees, Day, lunch, mess, Rosa, class, Home, coffee, rain, meter, localsBack to School….s
Day 326
Xela, Guatemala
I’ve been in Xela for 10 days now and not just hanging out watching cable TV! :p My travels have brought me here to improve my Spanish and its going quite well. My teacher Rosario is rather nice and we sitting chatting about all kinds of stuff in between learning a mass of verbs.
I’m paying $150 for a weeks tuition of 4.5 hours a day and that includes staying with a host family and getting 3 meals a day. Its not totally what I want, I’m sharing with another student Chris but we mostly eat our meals together. If I’m not be going to be spending time with the family, what’s the point?
The meals are rather basic and breakfast is something different every day, which sounds good but isn’t really. I would rather just get some nice cereal in the morning and some good fresh coffee. They only have nasty instant stuff, but happily the school provides a big urn so that provides my cerebral energy for the day.
My Spanish is getting to a passable level I think, although I am lacking lots of verbs and words I have a reasonable level of comprehension if the person speaks slowly and clearly. I easily have over a thousand words under my belt and my accent is coming along nicely. Now if I could just meet a nice local girl to help me…. :p
There are also a couple of Salsa schools here so since Wednesday I have being going to Salsa Rosa everyday at 6pm for a $4 group lesson. The classes are small enough for the instructors to keep an eye on you and you also have several ‘helpers’ hanging around who can offer advice too. Instead of concentrating on teaching a set group of moves they encourage you to think about the move and do it confidently when you’re ready. This makes a nice change from the hurried flailing I was used to in my classes in the UK. Well I was never that bad, but when you come to the sixth move of a set it can be hard to remember what it was.
I also got Chris to come along and he seems to be enjoying it, despite his initial reservations. I will probably stay for another 2 weeks and then have to skip back over to Mexico to renew the ‘visa‘ for my minivan. Maybe I will come back for some more punishment, we’ll see!
Tags: van, Travel, stuff, Day, courage, host family, accent, minivanWandering around Guadalajara
Day 181
Guadalajara, Mexico
I was getting close to finishing off the current book I’m reading, an Umberto Eco novel called ‘The island of yesterday’ which was a tour de force of brilliance but was slightly distracting in my quest to be a tourist. I must try not to read when I wake up as there is a natural tendency to fall asleep once more, which is of course what happened. It was afternoon by the time I woke and I wandered up into town to find something to eat. My car was sitting baking in the sun and I opened it up to find the new wax on my surf board had melted and dripped all over one of my camping mats :/
The city center isn’t very far so I decided against putting my bike together and just walked up. The traffic was pretty bad, but this being the second largest city in Mexico would only be eclipsed by Mexico City, a place I’m not looking forward to driving in, but shouldn’t be any worse than anywhere else, it would just be more crowded. People in the states told me that Boston had the worst drivers but I didn’t particularly find that to be true just as people in Mexico warn me that Mexico City is a nightmare to drive in, but I’m not so sure. I’m sure its only as bad as Bangkok or Kamapala in Uganda. More traffic means you go slower but also means its safer. Then you only have the problem with the cars around you. I’ve found Mexican drivers to be rather selfish though, the usual stupidity of third world thinking where everyone is looking out for number one. Yesterday I saw a ambulance sitting at the traffic lights with his lights flashing and no one moved. So either it wasn’t a real emergency or the driver realised that even using his siren wouldn’t get them out of the way. This is the scariest thing I guess, you can crash your car, get some help and the traffic still kills you on the way to hospital.
Surveys show that the vast majority of people consider themselves to be an above average driver but this is clearly impossible. I find it better to regard myself as a below average driver since I am regularly doing what is the most dangerous activity in my life it is better to regard the whole act of driving as a easy route to my own death and I would be better thinking I barely knew how to drive. Hidden oil spills, dogs on the road, blown tires, mechanical failure, gravel, dust and sand, huge potholes…. the list is endless and all waiting for an unwary driver to not be concentrating. Dying in a car crash is surely the stupidest and most pointless way to die as its highly preventable. Dying in a drink driving crash is far, far worse, but we’re in Mexico… It happens.
Maybe I should go shopping, Guadalajara has loads of stores and I think my current wardrobe is rather lacking. At least I don’t have to carry any clothes In the city center I set off in search of something to eat but I didn’t seem to have much luck. Everything seemed so… meaty! I wasn’t going to starve though I’m sure, and I’m happy to back into size 32" jeans once more, maybe I can get it down to 30" before the end of the year, something unseen for 10 years. Kira reminded me about a water/maple syrup/cayenne pepper/lemon juice diet with daily sea water enemas which would probably do it. 10 days of that and I’d be really able to eat like crazy for a few months :p If only I could find some food. I found myself in the wedding dress district which was clearly the wrong place for a hungry tourist although it was packed with hopeful looking girls all window shopping for their perfect dress, whether they had the perfect man to go with it was unclear.
Guadalajara isn’t a bad place to get lost searching for something to eat though, the architecture is stunning, with sunny plazas around every corner and neoclassic buildings towering overhead. Its still typical Mexico though with plenty of street sellers hawking their wares; beggars and buskers. I finally gave up and headed for Sanborns, a slice of the 50′s and somewhere I had eaten in before. I was disappointed to see that they give you Nescafe if you order coffee with hot milk, although I’m not sure whether that was a better option than the weak Americano coffee with those awful non-dairy creamer pots you get. What’s so wrong with milk?? I spent far too long reading but tempered my guilt with going through some Spanish-English flash cards and hopefully sticking a few more words to my dull brain. By the time I was onto the last chapter it was dark outside but it was still early and I hadn‘t even eaten. I then realised that I had gone through a time zone and lost an hour, but this is hopefully the last one I will have to suffer. I really don’t like going east!
Tags: coffee, rain, board, tires, nightmare, cards, campingTime to leave
Day 179
San Blas, Mexico
Everyone had gone! Even the two American girls camping under Cabana had left, heading into town for a hotel room before their early morning bus ride, there was only the German group left and they weren’t too keen on speaking in English all day. Maybe I should have gone to Sayalita with Ben and Noah, but they didn’t ask and I didn’t push. I made some tea (my coffee had run out) and sat on my balcony for most of the day trying to get back up to date with my blog. I wrote and I wrote and slowly the days disappeared, its funny how long it takes to get back up to date, even when you’re seeming doing very little. My legs and arms were a galaxy of red stars though, the sandflies setting off supernovas all over my body that itched like crazy. I was thinking it might be time to get out of San Blas, really break the curse and move on, I would head to Tepic and decide from there.
Tags: bus ride, flies, sandflies, hotel room, san blas mexico, legs, red starsAlone in Mazatlan
Day 165
Mazatlan, Mexico
I enjoy being with people and I enjoy being alone so I was perfectly happy to spend the day reading in my cheaper hotel room before heading back to the square in the old part of town for some food. After more than a month with Sheena and Roland it was good just to sit and do nothing
doing nothing./coffee on square/
Tags: sheena, coffee, Travel, cheaper hotel, heap, mazatlan mexico, mexico, hotel room, rolandRace to the Ferry
Day 159
La Paz, BCS, Mexico
It was time to leave Baja after nearly 4 weeks of fun but the whole of Mexico was still stretching before me. We got up, packed up and made our way back up to La Paz to get the ferry back to the mainland. The ferry left at 3pm, but you had to be there 3 hours before, ie noon. It was a simple calculation to make and a simple mistake. The road went north from the RV park and so did we. It curved around the coastal road and traffic was light. We passed the places we probably should have been camping for free but then I can confess we sneaked out in the morning without paying for the second night :p Roland‘s idea! The road became really quite bad, strange for a main road, sometimes the fallen rock debris forced us into one lane and the tarmac had fallen into the cliff on the right more than once. Up and down, around treacherous bends and over rutted sections we finally came to a place where the tarmac ended and it was just a dirt track. This obviously wasn’t the main road! We needed to go inland to get back to La Paz and we had just driven for half an hour north on the wrong road.
Nice View on the Wrong Road |
Cursing our stupidity we turned around and went back on the same terrible road, now an hour behind schedule and wondering if we should bother going to La Paz at all. We had been to the terminal before and it states quite specifically that you must be there 3 hours before. We would be there 2 hours before, but it wasn’t an international flight, and hey! We’re in Mexico! I was half hoping La Curva would be open for breakfast but it wasn’t and we found the proper road and put the pedal to the metal. Around 1pm we made it to La Paz and then went up the 25km to the ferry port but we need not have hurried, they would actually sell tickets up to 45 minutes before departure so we stood in the queue, I paid $180 for a 6 hour ferry ride and we went for a much deserved breakfast of fish tacos from the van near the entrance. So long Baja, hello mainland Mexico!
| The ferry ride was pretty mundane, Roland was kicked out of my van and I had to negotiate the boarding alone, which was mostly waiting around for the lorries to get on board. It was a pretty big ferry, and I was soon sitting on a ramp inside and trying to work out what I needed for the journey. I took so long that eventually the ramp behind me was raised and I stood there for another 15 minutes waiting with a deck hand for it to move. When I eventually set off to find another way out and wandering the |  The scary ferry ramp! |
lower decks for 5 minutes I ended up at the same point I started but with the ramp now down. Well I do like to explore. I found Roland and we stood in line for our included meal before going out to watch the ferry depart. A completely unremarkable journey, it soon went dark but the wind was enough to get us inside pretty quick and we read, I watched the end of ‘Stardust’ until my batteries ran out (the ferry had a non standard plug ) and we tried to ignore bad American movies dubbed in to Spanish.
|
Why is Roland wearing a dress? |
Roland had organised another Couchsurfing host in Los Mocis, a town of a quarter million people some miles inland from the port, so we gave him a ring and met him at a supermarket near the highway. Roberto was a big guy, talks good English and the only host in the area, so I guess we were lucky. He showed us the room we would share and then took us out for some 10pm tacos and we discussed a few things to do over the weekend. He works as a lawyer so I guess out timing was pretty good, however Roland had to head off to pick up his father soon so the timing was getting tight….
Waiting on the ferry…
up/wrong road/la paz/ferry terminal/shrimps/ferry/meal/laptop power/coffee/roberto/dinner
Tags: tarmac, ears, set, whore, dirt track, mom, photos, la paz, supermarketGringos Locos
Day 156
Los Cabos, BCS, Mexico
The local friendly Canadian tourist information neighbour had some tips for us when we were making our coffee in the morning. She had 4 dogs and many complaints about the nearby puppy farm. I wanted to ask her why she had one of their puppies herself but didn’t dare. She was bigger than me. We went into San Lucas for a look around and come breakfast. Still loving those fish tacos. San Lucas was the picturesque tourist trap of the 2, a typical Mexican town resided behind the facade at the beach and we ate there. I bought some heavy duty hooks, now I just need a hammock. My eyes are open for a nice one from now on. We dutifully drove back into Cabo for our appointment with Mona but we got the cancellation text just after we parked up and had spent 10 minutes washing on the street and changing clothes. It was time to hit the beach then! We walked back through the harbour and headed for sandy gringo central. Across from the Arch in the bay were a long line of hotels. Maybe one of them would have a shower! It was 4 days now and I wasn’t starting to smell like a goat. We found a nice hotel and went and sat by the pool, white skin is sometimes useful, before going for a swim and a game of pool volleyball with our American cousins.o
There is swearing the the rest of this post, I was a bit drunk when I wrote it
Surfs up!
Day 154
The beach!
Wednesday 13th February
God damn sun woke me too early, but I was on the beach and the waves were just crashing into the bay and god damn its good to be alive! The milk was still cold in the now semi working cooler, so after cereal and coffee I really didn’t have an excuse to not walk down to the water, with my surfboard and to try not to embarrass myself again. On went the board shorts and I tip toed into the water. At least the water has the decency to wash over your fear just before you get out deciding its too cold. I always get up to my crotch in the water with no problem, but getting my chest and beck wet just never wants to happen. The brilliant surf soon took care of my ‘neshness’* and I got down to the challenge of getting my hair wet. Wait for a nice breaking wave and hurl yourself into the white froth and my hippy hair was soon bedraggled all over my sun screen plastered face.
Before getting in I had done my ‘jump up on the board‘ prepatory exercises, just as my instructor in Byron Bay told me how to surf all those years ago. But its hard, so damn hard! I had a much smaller board than the one I had last been on in Cornwall so that didn’t help, although I do think I’m thinner than I was on that trip…. Its time for an embarrassing photo…..
Steady on girls, his friends reckon he’s gay… :p |
And the before… I have lost weight!! |
I messed around in the surf for a while longer but then I needed a drink, or a shower, or anything to get me out of the water. Life is so brutal for my readers, I’m able to go surfing but I’m just a bit too lazy :p I intended to have a productive (by my standards :p)day and got my guitar out and proved to Roland that, without doubt, I was a rubbish guitar player! :p I don’t play enough and I was starting to think I shouldn’t be distracting myself with literature when I could be singing/playing, learning Spanish, moving myself around a bit or chasing girls :p Oh and eating! Ah the 5 great truths of travel. No time to spend enjoying yourself, there is work to be done! I coaxed a couple of songs out of it eventually, which Roland reluctantly said were ‘not bad’ and then it was time to annoy everyone else on the beach properly.
My friend and I often say to each other, upon hearing the twang of nylon or steel on a fretboard “There’s always some twat with a guitar!” to which the standard reply is ‘Yeah, and usually its YOU!” and we laugh, but we retrieved the Frisbee from the car and attempted to act like Alpha Males. This was far worse than some random noise pollution which could be blocked with ear plugs or an ipod, we were throwing a deadly weapon! At least I could do my mis-throws into the car park, Roland would try his trick shots and nearly decapitate a gringo playing some dumb bag throwing game! We were joined by a third player in the form of a crazy dog who loved our toy. His owner came to tell us he wouldn’t bite, us or the Frisbee, and the dog would be safe, ba-tsssshhhhh! The owner, and the dog for that matter, was fascinated by hooplike Frisbee. He looked about 80 though and declined my offer of a game by telling me he had just broken 5 ribs. Nasty. He loved the thing though, I wonder where they’ve been hiding him…
I even got Eduardo, our camp neighbour, to give me a go on his skim board! (I was crap)
The day progressed with another surfing attempt for a while, but again my heart wasn’t in it and watching the other people have more luck was no fun, but I’ll be back at it, just wish it wasn’t quite so cold! We went over to the other side of the bay to watch the sunset and drink a beer. I asked our neighbour to watch our van and set off. Roland said something about rock scrambling and I guess I should be putting him off but he’s a big boy now. You could see the whales off the bay, loads of them and then we saw some breaching, leaping up towards the blue and red heavens before crashing back with the pull of gravity. Why do they do that? Probably the same reason I look at gulls flying past and breathe to myself ‘I wish I could do that…’. I will have to go paragliding again soon!
* Neshness: Stokie# word meaning ‘unable to take the chill of water cos he’s a big girls blouse’.
# Stokie: Someone from Stoke on Trent, my home town.
surfing/guitar/watching tents/surfing/sunset/whales/todos/no tacos/drive back/fire/halo moon
Tags: cornwall, sunset, guitar player, rope, gringo, whale, fearChillin’ by the beach
Day 135
La Mision, Baja California, Mexico
Rob took us for breakfast at a local place he knows, where they speak English and have good Mexican food, we volunteered Nathan to drive and afterwards he took us a few k’s into the mountains to see how the rain had turned everything green. The sun shone for a while but then it turned miserable again so we went back to Robs and watched Eddie Izzard on YouTube until it was time for him to go to work, Rob not Eddie. I drove him down to the hotel where he worked and said we would be back later to pick him up if he wanted. Sheena took the chance to catch up on some sleep so we missed out on happy hour with Nathan and his dad. It was cold and rainy, I was happy just to huddle inside, drinking coffee and reading. We got it together later on and went to pick him up and got a free Margarita out of the deal before returning to drink beer and watch insanely funny videos on YouTube. The Kelly shoes and lend me that top ones just slayed me and I love the one semester of Spanish Spanish love song….
breakfast/drive/eddie izzard/dropped rob at work/picked him up &Â nighth cap/kelly video/sanish love song
Tags: mexico, la mision baja, breakfast drive, drinks, funny videos, coffee, sanish, happy hour, beers, locals, sleep, eddie izzard, youtubeMad as a Coconut!
Day 141 La Mision Mexico
 |
We woke up with Rob gone but he left us a note telling us where he was so after a shower and some coffee we went to meet him at his local committee meeting at Arthur and Molly’s house down by the beach. Keith got a shocked laugh when he immediately asked Sheena to show him her tits, but everyone soon understood when she ‘got them out’ :p We chatted to the Mexican guy who worked for Arthur and Molly on the way out and I was somewhat pleased to say that I could understand most of the conversation. He talked slowly and clearly though which is always nice. We walked another 500 meters to the beachfront for breakfast. First we got to drink the young coconut juice, then they scooped out the flesh and blended it with shrimp, squid, lime juice and chili‘s. Spicy and delicious! Only $6 too and well worth trying. We went for a walk after the food and went north along the beach until we reached the place where Rob teaches Spanish every Friday but sadly the owner wasn’t home. Rob told us he was the artist who drew Betty Boop! |
Panic at the gay disco
Day 133
San Diego, Ca
We had been invited to a brunch after the CS party but didn’t quite make it for 11am, if I wasn’t getting the full 3 hours of all you can drink champagne I wasn’t interested :p Carrisa was there with her boyfriend, as well as Lilia (who I had requested a couch with the week before) and I her surfer, Ant, a Swiss German or German Swiss guy who was travelling around the states for a few weeks. I instantly hated him, since he makes his money from Photography and Paragliding, but I soon warmed up Joan and Sheena had some food but I stuck to the coffee, almost as if I knew I would need the room. It was highly prescient as we then went right to a place called Extraordinary Desserts for $8 cake! It was rather nice though, and a good a place as any to splurge before Mexico. Ant showed us his photography portfolio which was nice, I might have to get one sorted myself. I guess I better take some good photos first :p
Brunch with Sheena and Joan
We were invited to a BBQ later on but the girls wanted to dance. We took Ant back to Joan’s for a while since Lilia was at her grandma’s for the afternoon and I took the chance to take a dip in the pool and hot tub before we went out. I sat there reading on my phone as the rain started to fall and the night moved in. It wasn’t as bad as the Wednesday night but it was just getting started. Still, give me slightly warm rain over freezing snow any day; I was glad to be back on the West coast. Earlier at the supermarket I had bought 12 bottles of beer for the road but Sheena had got herself a bargain, a 1.8l bottle of vodka for only $10 or something… She set about drinking it as quickly as possible. She employed her usual plan for getting drunk, decant it into a plastic bottle and drink for cheap all night. I didn’t want to tell her the night that got my brother in to trouble at the pub but there is a different rule for girls.
Tarted up in the lift
First we went over to Lilia’s cousins house for the BBQ which we had pretty much missed. There were quite a few people there but the rain had started up again and most people cancelled. Carisa and her boyfriend turned up though, her night out was put off and there would be no bonfire for Brad due to the terrible weather. We didn’t need blackened meat though as we’d been to Whole Foods and spent a fortune on organic chips and dips. The girls were determined to dance in a gay club and they persuaded some other people in the house to come too which was good.
The first place we went to was nice but no one was dancing, and since there were no girls to pull what else was there to do. We stood in the covered garden part where the music was playing but it wasn’t loud enough, it was just full of fat lazy gay men chatting to each other. Apparently we needed more action, so without even pausing to get a drink (and my bottom felt like one guy we were with, at the bar) we headed down through the pouring rain to another more happening club. This one was $10 to get it, and they didn’t give a straight discount but what was I going to do? I paid up and we went dancing!
I feel rather ambivalent about gay clubs, it would have been better if there were at least a few girls in the place but there weren’t. Sheena and Joan loved it though and were soon flirting (uselessly) with the guys dancing in small briefs on the two podiums. At least the music was good enough to get down and boogie, we mostly stayed in our little straight group with an occasional gay interloper but Sheena and Joan were off dancing with everyone in the place. Poor girls, surrounded by beautiful men and they were all as bent as a dogs back leg :p I shared their frustration, who wants to dance with a load of blokes? Well, other gay men I guess… I danced and danced and then I was bored with it and they started playing really crappy music, but at least the night was nearly over. Sheena came over to sit down, now rather worse for wear from the vodka she had been throwing down her neck all night and miserably complained that she had been ‘molested’ by some guy. I really didn’t know whether to console her or tell her I wasn’t surprised :p She had at least finally convinced me that she was a party animal, but if she only liked gay clubs we might have a conflict of interests…
 The girls loved the erotic dancers |
 Sheena pulled the winner of the gay fancy dress! |
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 0.9l of Vodka later, poor Sheena was feeling not so hot…. |
Taking a trip down memory lane…
Day 134
Los Angeles
Bonnie went to work but had supplied me with a key to the fire escape so at least I could come and go as I pleased. The weather was kind of cold and overcast but I set off to the beach regardless. I had lived in LA in 1994 for a couple of weeks at a hostel down in Venice and wanted to go back and see if it had changed much. I plugged the address into the GPS, or at least as close as I remembered and hoping my memory would guide me to the place I set off on the LA freeways. Thankfully the traffic was not gridlocked like my trip into city and I was soon passing by vaguely familiar streets and bars. The hostel was located on a open square near muscle beach and was easy enough to find. It still looked the same, shops and bars had changed and moved but the Subway where my friend Sally ate her daily sandwich and the hostel were still there. Some things never change I guess.
Kitchen
Living Room + shocked guest
The view to Sally’s Subway
I had a walk down the beach and the place was still a hang out for hippies and pan handlers. In spite of my better judgement I stopped for some food at a small cafe by the walkway and got a terrible falafel and coffee for $14. I sat reading and trying not to listen to the crazies waffle on about Vietnam and drugs. It was overcast and I was cold, I didn’t linger. I went up to Santa Monica for a wander around and for the second time that day had someone comment about my sideburns. Maybe I wasn’t being fashionable with them :p I picked up some free movie passes for the following Friday, unsure if I would get to use them, but they were free. A couple of places give away tickets for screenings in return for your feedback at the end of the movie. No cost, no con, you just have to turn up early to get a seat.
Back at Bonnie’s we sat chatting occasionally but mostly giving our full attention to the Internet before us, who knows when my next connection would be. Eventually we cracked and had to go and see something. I was leaving the next day and this was my last chance. The streets were pretty empty as we wandered around downtown once more. She showed me some hip bars, pubs, cafe’s and roof top clubs on the top of a hotel, but we weren’t drinking, just exploring, not at $10 a drink. I would have jumped in the warm pool if it wasn’t so damn cold and the place was covered with a sheen of recent rain. Down in the hotel toilets I found some interesting signs over the urinals…
The hotel toilets had adverts for escorts on the left and comics for kids on the right!
Tags: walkway, santa monica, hostel, sea, gridlock, rain, angel, trousers, beaches, tent, toilets, living room, seat, drugs, friend sallyThe Pacific!
Day 129 San Diego CA
God I need help! Why can’t I get up at a reasonable time? Still, I only had a few miles to the CA border and San Diego was pretty close. This was the area of the real desert, like huge sand dunes and passes through the hills strewn with millions of huge boulders. My stupid cruise control stopped working too but at least I knew how to quickly fix it now and happily I finally got a call from Tamara. She had missed all her mails being forwarded from her Couchsurfing account and hence didn’t know I was in Tucson. She was now in the middle of Mexico after sitting on a bus for a whole day and miles away from me. I was glad she was ok but now I was 2 hours outside of San Diego and thinking about visiting my other surfing friend Bonnie in LA, since I was so close. As I came into SD it got nice and warm as I hoped it would. The Pacific was keeping the chill off the land and I was desperate to get away from the near freezing conditions I had endured for the last month. I found a Starbucks to get my coffee and Internet fix and pondered my next move.
Tags: Travel, couchsurfers, cruise, chill, god, tamara, mexico, ca border, san diego ca, carissa, pizza place, cruise control, starbucksTravel scrabble??
Day 127 Tucson AZ
I spent most of the day installing Ubuntu on my laptop which worked without a problem but getting it to connect to the Internet wasn’t happening. The wireless drivers for this Aspire 5520 don’t work natively and I couldn’t get the madwifi drivers to work or ndiswrapper. No sound either but I got the graphics to work ok, it looks good in 1280×800. I ended up downloading the 64-bit version of Ubuntu and switching to that, not that it made any difference. I was semi scared of messing with the hard drives since I have XP set up nicely now and didn’t want to screw it but it was ok. The laptop comes with a 10gb partition for recovering the system but I had not compunction wiping that for Linux. I should be able to connect through my other laptop to the Internet if I can figure out how to fix the wireless problem. A laptop that can’t connect to the net is neither use nor ornament.
Lashel was out to Uni for a while but when she came back she volunteered to try to show me some of Tucson’s more wacky sights, specifically some kind of crazy welded truck out in the suburbs somewhere but we couldn’t find it. When I found out Tucson has a Govindas restaurant I was so there! I love those places and we sat on the floor cushions filing our faces with yummy curry and salads chatting about Lashel’s forthcoming trip to India. I’m guessing she’s going to be having a great time! I decided I should probably leave the next day and hence we wouldn’t be drinking, well, only coffee. The three of us went out to Coffee X Change with a scrabble board for a game. I haven’t played it since I was a kid but Grace didn’t kick my ass too much, at least I didn’t come last! :p I protested weakly back at the house and got my guitar out to see if I could remember any songs. The girls were a gracious audience but my voice was a mess, all gravely and uneven. At least I wasn’t so horribly embarrassed and coerced like I was at the ski resort. They forced me to play until 3am, so much for an early night eh? :p
Tags: curry, trucks, coffee, having a great time, installing ubuntu, salads, forthcoming trip, natively, Travel, madwifi drivers, board, screws, ski resort, floor cushionsKind of exploring Tucson a bit more, at least the 80′s disco bars….
Day 126 Tucson Az
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Lashel agreed to take me out to see more of the center of the city and we ended up going for lunch on 6th street at The Casbah, a lovely vegetarian organic cafe with a middle eastern flavour. I ended up ordering far too much food but it was all really delicious, if a little slow in coming. Lashel is a doctor in waiting and instead of studying for her exams was letting me distract her from her important studies, but I was happy to have the company, she’s great fun even if she does think she’s insulting me all the time and apologising. That certainly makes a change We wandered around the shopping street and you can tell you’re in a cool student town from all the crusties with dogs on string and tattoo parlors. I had heard nothing from Tamara and was now wondering what I should do, head to Mexico alone or maybe go to California for a while. I suddenly remembered that I wanted a tattoo and San Diego was the place to do it… |
Surfing in the Desert
day 124 Tucson AZ
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I made a couple of Couchsurfing requests the previous night and when I pulled up to Starbucks the following morning I got a call from Lashel, one of the girls I had asked to stay with. She wasn’t 100% sure it was cool since her sister was still in bed and would probably want consulting but she said we could still hang out even if I didn’t stay, she needed something to help her to avoid studying :p I said I would come over later and sat drinking coffee |
for a while and chatting to my old UK friend Tim over Skype. I learned he was once more due to become a father. News to me! I was still waiting on my site to be indexed by Google properly but checking it every 10 minutes didn’t help, it was going to take days… I finished my coffee and drove over to Lashel and Graces place where I was hoping I could stay over the weekend. Grace had finally got up and given her approval so everything was hunky-dory. After apologising multiple times for the state of their house (which was only slightly untidy) Lashel offered to show me the Desert Museum near Tucson so we set off in Graces car to do some touristy stuff…
Tags: one of the, gap, cars, pool, mountain lions, multiple times, couchsurfers, drinks, desert museum, photograph, coffee, museums, degree of freedom, one of the girls, couchsurfer, desert, nearby mountainsWelcome to Mexico!
Day 117
Well I left it until the very last day but I finally left the States on my trip south. I wasn’t going to be in Mexico for a long time as I was hoping they would let me back in for at least a while so I could pick up a fellow Couchsurfer in Tucson and help alleviate some of my costs. That’s if they would let me in. First I had the problem of being let out of the US. Well, that’s easy, you just drive over the border, but my problem was that if I didn’t hand in my visa waiver form I would be hard pressed to ever get back in. I grabbed a final starbucks coffee and headed to the border. Parking up I had to walk all the way around the checkpoints and then stand in line waiting to see an immigration officer. When I finally got to her she was so brain dead from asking all the same questions to the Mexicans she even said them to me.
‘”How long are you planning on staying in the US?”
“I’m not, its my last day, I need to leave”
Of course, this she already knew as it was the first thing I had told her. She then asked me all the other questions I had heard each time I went through the border but I wasn’t really worried… I didn’t get a stamp either, I just pray she processed my form properly. Back in Juarez it felt like coming home and I went looking for the highway 2 west and on to Nogales. Using my Mexican map it wasn’t to hard to find, although I took a wrong turn and ended driving about 5 miles along another highway which was split by concrete bollards. I didn’t think I would ever get back on track… That’s when I nearly got myself into trouble. I was so used to seeing a gas station every 20 miles I sent off into the Mexican desert with only a quarter of a tank…
Tags: laptop, desert, map, cars, concrete bollards, couchsurfer, brain, nogales, immigration officer, waves, gas station, mexican desert, highways, coffee, wanderings, laptops, sunsetDumbass Dani :p
Day 112
Juarez, Mexico
The first day of the year was spent lazing around the house. Dani and I went into the city in the evening (despite my lack of insurance) and sat in Sanborns coffee shop using their wifi until the kicked us out. When we got home we realised she had left her laptop there. Racing back at 1am we learned it was locked up safely but they couldn’t give it to us then. At least we would have something to do the following day…
Tags: juarez, dani, lazing, insurance, spite, day of the year, wifi, eve, laptop, Travel, coffee shop, mexico, coffee, juarez mexico, shopping