Another dodgy place to sleep
Day 157 Los Cabos
After what can only be described as a pretty restless night I woke to a knock on the window from Roland. He had slept soundly in his tent on the roof by Eduardos room and learned he had come home really dunk at lord knows when and passed the tent without so much as a glance or recognition that we were waiting for him. We went for breakfast and then went to use Eduardos shower and have a chat. He gets by by selling crystal rocks to tourists, seems to suit him as he didn’t look the person most likely to get up at 7am without fail. The first warm shower in 5 days was rather nice, but I don’t think I was smelling too bad, my salt crystal deodorant had been working wonders now since Toronto and day 2. I felt glad to be alive when he told me this was a area with a crack problem and he always locked his door. That made me feel super about sleeping in my car! Maybe we’ll see him in his home town soon, but since his Canadian friend left him a load of food he said he may stay longer in Cabos just to eat it.
Ah, Beach Life
We had arranged to meet Betsabe at 2pm so wasted the time by going to a nearby beach, Santa Maria, which was quite nice and quite hot. We spent most of the afternoon watching 3 girls chase each other up and down the beach in an attempt to throw one of them into the sea. It was very warm though so after some reading and Spanish lessons I went to tidy my car and check why my cooler is no longer cool. I put all Roland’s stuff on one side and then had a minor crisis when I couldn’t find my replacement camera charger. Not another $40!! Time flies when you’re having fun and after sorting out my increasingly untidy food box was nearly ran over by Betsabe as she came to join us on the beach. We then froze as we watched a completely crazy whale jumping about and smashing its tail into the water over and over. Roland went for another suicide attempt on the cliffs and happy with living for another day we went over to Betsabes house after picking up some groceries and made dinner. I’m not sure I was a very good guest since I spent nearly the entire time getting my Internet fix. Still no word from Sheena, 5 days now, I wonder when the FBI will be wanting to ask me when I last saw her… :/
We spent the evening with a surfer and made dinner for her flatmate and boyfriend but when it got to 11.30pm we didn’t have a couch to sleep on and headed back to the beach we had scouted out earlier, but it was too close to the center of San Lucas and we couldn’t even say goodnight to Betsabe without being hassled for change. Not a good place to spent the night and we went back to our RV beach which we found packed with Mexicans partying on the beach in their 4×4′s. The music was pumping across the dunes at party levels and despite driving up tired as hell, by the time I got my tent up I was wide away and ready to dance, if not for the god-awful Mexican ‘music’ and their bloody trumpets! You’re on the beach for gods sake, buy some Bob Marley! They soon gave up though and we retired, happy to know the van would block the sunrise this time and the bulldozers nearby would be at morning Mass.
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
Lazy La Paz
Day 149
La Paz, BCS, Mexico
We returned to Super Tacos and this time they had Manta-ray, which was kind of weird. It had the consistency of cheap tuna all mashed up and I got the deep fried one which was a mistake. Around the corner we went shopping at the Pastry place Sheena had spotted as we drove in and bought a few tasty items which I then managed to get all over my face. Yum! Sheena set off to the harbour to see if she could catch a ride to the mainland and I went for a walk around town. That morning in the shower I discovered I had a rash and decided I should probably get it checked out. My lonely planet advised me that a Hospital in town had English speaking doctors and I set off in search of it. The road signs don’t exactly make it easy, half of them are missing but I eventually found it and stood at the reception until someone noticed me. No one spoke English but I knew enough to Spanish to say I needed a English speaking Doctor. The nurse mentioned some Doctor and waved in a vague direction making me think he had his own practice outside the Hospital so I set off looking for him. No use. After 20 minutes I was back in the Hospital and now everyone ignored me. I found the original nurse and after she finally understood I understood nothing took me to the Doctor who worked in the ER. Typically my rash was now gone but he gave me a prescription for an anti-fungal cream and sent me on my way. God help me if I need to go to Hospital for something more serious.
Mike said something about going to the beach at 3pm and I got back for that but he was too busy supervising the creation of his new gate post into the field he owned. He lives next door to a load of Mexicans and takes an interesting stance on his relationship with them. They will accumulate trash and pollute the area which he will then buy and pay to haul away so the place looks respectable again. He will also employ his neighbours if they have no work and he needs something doing, in this case building gateposts for his ‘nature preserve’. I stood chatting for a while and observing the work but it became obvious he wasn’t going to the beach anytime soon, if he left the work would end for the day but he would still be paying his $5 a hour. He was also having trouble getting his cleaner to come clean the place, she wanted paying for the time he wasn’t there and she wasn’t cleaning. It didn’t make any sense to me either.
I went to pick up Sheena in town and found she had maybe found a ride from a guy called Scott who was sailing his boat from Hawaii to Columbia. She had arranged to meet up with him again on Sunday. Apparently its that easy (if you’re a 25 year old girl).
super tacos/pastries/docs/back to mikes/wall/beach?/pick up sheena/boat/supermarket/dinner
Im on vacation!
Day 147Â Santiparc Beach, Baja California, Mexico
Pat and Drake had made friends with an Israeli couple that were cycling south; we passed them 2 days before and they came over to have a go on the kayaks. I was mooching around the van, gluing flapping parts and spraying WD40 on rusty bits and messing up Sheena bed in the back in the process. I had to have a bit of a tidy though, it was messed up. Its simpler for her though since all her stuff is concentrated in one backpack and my gear is stowed all over the place. The wind was blowing around, on and off, strong then soft, making it cold out of the sun and then too hot in it. It didn’t know what it was doing. We said we would give them a lift into town when they came back and figured they would be about an hour but they were gone ages! The wind was blowing right out from the beach though so they had a nasty headwind to overcome to make it back and we were just getting more worried when they rounded the headland and came into view. They were cycling around the world, I’m guessing a little breeze wouldn’t tax them too much…
We formed up the convoy and went into town, it was high time for me to do my laundry so I dropped it off and met the 3 others at a local taco place for some great cheap food, which was generously covered by Pat. Its a good job I eat fish now as the fish taco places are all over and cheap and delicious. I had some shrimp ones and they give you a case full of salad and condiments to drape over them. Really good stuff. I dropped Sheena at the Internet cafe and then went looking for a tire place to fix my flat. The only place I found couldn’t repair it and didn’t have any spares, I would have to find another solution as the spare was useless and also meant my insurance was currently worthless. The tire guy suggested a place 20km south of town and didn’t mention anywhere else nearby so I thought his was the only show in town… Across the road I filled up our containers and the solar shower as the campsite was ‘dry’, they only had long drop toilets and the hot showers were $3 each in the morning. Still, at $7 a night it was nice, there were only a few people on our section of the beach, the only slightly annoying thing was the irregular stream of Mexicans driving up and attempting to sell us all manner of tourist tat. I wanted a hammock but after asking for some of their prices on stuff decided I would be better off in a shop where I could walk away if I didn’t like the haggling. Besides I was on holiday and didn’t want people constantly offering me things which I almost certainly didn’t need.
| I took a quick swim before the sun went down and earned a beer from Drake in the process, he didn’t think I had it in me, and neither did I. I just remembered the warm solar shower waiting for me up on the beach. We walked over to see how the Israelis plan of cooking up the hundreds of clams was working out. Pat was determined to get completely shit faced and was drinking a $2 bottle of tequlia which smelt lethal. |  |
We loaded up on beer and walked across the bay to the other side, pausing to take a drink at Ana’s Restaurant on the way. Pat is sweet on the girl who works there and after drinking the gasoline/tequila above was knocking back the normal stuff like water.
Brett, Jack, Drake and Sheena.
The Israelis neighbours had found a huge stack of driftwood somewhere and were planning on burning it until 3am. They also had 72(!) beers to get through before heading back to the US and we had to give them a hand!
It didn’t look like the Scallops were going to be cooked but something started to happen in the ‘kitchen’ but it was decided we were too many people for only a big bucket of scallops and we should go and eat at the Restaurant.
Seafood is weird!
We gave Pat a chance to flirt with his girl and he proceeded to order a *load* of food. I felt kind of uncomfortable and admitted I had forgotten my wallet…. So had Sheena…. So had Drake…. Pat just said ‘Its ok, Im on vacation!!’ before ordering everyone beers and shot after shot of tequila for himself…
The Campers                                         Pats fav barmaid.
We were making real racket and it didn’t look like we were going to make it back to the party, but everyone else seemed to be having a good time regardless. We paid and got up to leave but then started talking to a group of American, Canadian and Australian Couples and then we were trapped for another hour. Drake was trying to charm the ladies and we thought at one point he was going to get into a fight when he split off one guys wife for a more private chat. We retreated to the bar for another final drink and we realised the big group had gone and Drake was no where to be found. We were about to head back to our camp site to see if he was there and finally he responded to our cries of his name. He was in a 80 year old widows RV and couldn’t escape. His gratitude was written all over his face and we headed back to the party to find everyone still there and the wood pile only halfway down.
I can’t believe I let Pat drive us all home. :p
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…. |
Yet another Couchsurfing party!
Day 137 San Diego, Ca
Joan had a voucher for $30 for a Indian Buffet place which she hadn’t cashed in 3 years and we decided it was time to use it or lose it. It was miles away though but this was America and driving for 20 minutes for food was a normal thing to do :p I just didn’t have an appetite though, I must have been ill or something but after some soup and nan I was nearly full! It was up to the girls to get their moneys worth since I was such a lightweight. Why did I eat breakfast!?! Joan took us on a round about tour of the beaches but she had to work and abandoned Sheena and I to our own devices for the afternoon. We had a CS pot luck party to attend too and after throwing a few ideas for food around decided the best option was to buy a big pie and ice cream and claim traveller immunity from cooking. We were on the road dammit!
San Diego rain
Day 135
Los Angeles
| Somehow I managed to get to the place Sheena was staying at for noon exactly. I warned her not to expect this ever again, although I had spent 15 minutes around the corner tidying up all my junk. She wasn’t completely ready anyway so I didn’t need to hurry. She wanted to see Venice Beach and I didn’t have the heart to tell her I had seen it the day before. The weather was just as crappy as the previous day and we wandered around, took a few photos and then went into Santa Monica to get some food before heading south. |  Even the palm trees have Graffiti in LA. |
Sheena was nursing a slight hangover and professed to be something of a party animal, something I was eager to test out! :p However it was too early for that and San Diego was too far away. She had arranged a place for us to surf with a girl called Joan and after huddling outside Panera Bread trying to keep our lunch dry we set off into a rain shower down the highway towards Mexico. I discovered she had nice taste in music which is good and that she wasn’t getting enough sleep as she nodded off halfway down. There wasn’t anything to see except the highway which I’d already seen and we arrived in San Diego after a uneventful couple of hours.
Joan was fretting over us finding her place but we got right up to the door thanks to my GPS, Mexico will require me to reacquaint myself with paper maps! Joan was fun, never shut up, talked all the time like a maniac. We decided to go out for dinner up in the “gay-berhood”. Not knowing each other very well and with no one wanting to take charge we wandered around 5 Asian places in the rain before I got made the decider and we went for Thai. Well I wasn’t going to eat American junk was I? As we sat eating noodles and curry the rain really started to come down. You could see all the drains overflowing outside in the street and then all the emergency services seemed to be driving past us every few minutes. San Diego gets rain, special report…
Japanese weirdness and an illegal party in the Porn Studio
Day 131 LA
I managed to get up and moved my car before I was collared by the parking wardens and soon after Bonnie’s friend Susie turned up and we went for a walk. We went through the Mexican area on the way up to Little Tokyo and by then my hunger was building. The plan was to go and see some kind of art exhibition but first we needed to eat and sat in a cute little Japanese place and ate fish. I was served a mound of fresh soy beans which i took an age to shell, but they were something I had seemingly never had before. We got to the queue for the exhibition but it was 100 meters long, filled mostly with Asians who were desperate to see this show by Murakami. I wasn’t sure I wanted to wait but Susie didn’t have another chance, and surely if 500 people were happy to wait to get in it would be good. Eventually we got to the front of the queue and got in and I was amazed and confused.
Bonnie and Susie try to enjoy the huge queue.
The paintings were simply astounding, it was Japanese pop culture at its weirdest with tiny icons and cute creatures jumping about the very bizarre worlds they lived in. The same themes were evident in most of the paintings and they were weird variations on the same images. It’s kind of hard to explain. Not only were there paintings but huge sculpture of amazing creatures, the size of a room. I couldn’t take any photographs which was tragic as I could have snapped away all day. He didn’t just create sculptures of imaginary creatures but had a more adult edge too. His ‘My lonesome cowboy’ was a full sized naked manga character, erect penis in hand ejaculating his semen in a laughing whirlwind of potency around his upper torso, next to him a naked woman squeezed milk from her breasts as if in a bizarre dance.
There were also a set of 3 sculptures with a robot girl, impossibly perfect, transforming into a jet plane. I asked one of the guards if they had joints and he thought I wanted to know if I could smoke a joint :p My accent gets me into funny places sometimes
On a loop next to the sculpture of 2 small naked cyber boys, one white, one black, ran a series of ‘adverts’ which people stood watching in bemusement, shock and fascination. Click the clip below. Why anyone would want to purchase a perverted robot that feels love, albeit just like any other small child, I couldn’t explain, but the 3 clips made me feel good in that I had found something weird to freak out my friends.
Afterwards Bonnie took us out for Mexican food which she slavered with Chili sauce.
We said goodbye to Susie and went to buy wine for the evening party we would be attending later on. We then settled into wait until we could arrive at a fashionable time, Marsellus turned up and eventually a girl called Suki, but she protested her fatigue and I didn’t think she would last long…. We went back over to the Korean Area of town and found the party was taking place over a Korean Bakery, we went upstairs and happily found we were all on the guest list, saving a nice $20. The party didn’t have a liquor license so the procedure was to take your bottles of booze over to the ‘bar’ where some girls would help you pour it into a cup. We took cheap wine and I’ve no idea if we touched our bottles all night. The bar was full of booze though and you could have pretty much anything you liked, since they didn’t know what you had brought. Sweet. The music was distinctly funky in sound and I spent most of the night dancing by the two guys that reinforced the funkiness by playing drums and percussion. The club was called ‘Funky in the middle’ and this was their first anniversary. And many happy returns to them. The place was busy but not so full as you couldn’t dance and the layout of the place was kind of weird. The band were set up in a ‘corner’ that was white, with curved floors and ceiling, obviously a place to take photos. But the other parts of the studio had fake walls, fake windows and a few beds. I was partying in a porn studio!
Suki lasted about an hour before she spent most of the evening asleep.
 2 Fluffers fighting over their stud |
 When I came to leave I couldn’t find my coat, this lightweight was sleeping on it! |
California knows how to party!
Day 130 Los Angeles
| I finally had a chance to wear my sandals and shorts again. I drove over to the beach area and sat in the sun. It was still pretty cold but at least the temperature had seemed to increase by 15 degrees in a day. It didn’t seem like SD was going to happen for me though and rather than fight it I decided to text Bonnie in Los Angeles as a backup to the mail I had sent her through Couchsurfing the previous day. It was a good job I texted as my mail was still in transit and she was happy to put me up for a while while I decided on my plan. That morning I spotted a post on the Couchsurfing site from a girl called Sheena who was in San Fransisco and looking for a lift down to Mexico. Seemed like good timing since she was heading to LA after the weekend. Hopefully I wouldn’t be driving all the way south on my own…. LA was supposedly a couple of hours away and it was 1am by the time I set off. The freeways were suddenly busy after all the empty ones in the south and gas prices were pretty crazy now. $3.40 a gallon was not uncommon, but my green girl was thirsty and thats what I had to pay. Not wanting another ticket I drove with my main beam on and hoped I wouldn’t get busted for that. The traffic was simply awful and I had no chance of getting into LA before sunset. The interstate seemed endless and the traffic was stop and go for two hours. I finally got to the cause which was a 3 car pileup in the car pool lane and then I could finally speed up the last 5 miles into the downtown area. |  |
Caught by the fuzz
Day 128 Yuma AZ
Staying up until 3 in the morning is never conducive an early start and it wasn’t in this case either. Reluctantly I packed up my gear into my car and said goodbye to Lashel and Grace. I had a great time in Tucson and I shouldn’t have even been there! Tamara was dead or lying in a Mexican ditch somewhere which was a shame, although I suspected the problems on the Couchsurfing website had something to do with it. I had 2 choices, south or west and hope to pick up a passenger on the west coast. It would be nice to see my old stomping grounds in LA too, and San Diego was only 5 hours away. I chose to go west and waving to the girls put the address in my GPS and set off back into the desert…
Travel 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
Kind 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… |
Another Couchsurfing Party
Day 125 Tucson AZ
Happy that I didn’t wake with a hangover I hung out on the couch for a few hours taking advantage of the girls Internet connection until their friend Patrick came over and suggested a late lunch. Leshel was mortally ill in bed and couldn’t get up so just the three of us went out for a great curry at a nearby Indian Restaurant called Gandhi’s. Patrick is a funny guy and when given a good foil like Grace even better. I learned later that they had sadly toned down their conversation for my benefit. I want the uncensored version dammit! Back at the house we learned that Leshel felt much better and was up for going to the Couchsurfing gathering that was already taking place in Tucson. I was happy I wasn’t going to have to go on my own and we even dragged Patrick along. We had hardly gotten through the door before we were engaged in a circular introduction that went on for 20 minutes, the place was pretty full and they even had some surfers instead of the usual 95% hosts and just me. We got there quite late and stayed until 9pm which is when it was due to finish. I forgot to suggest we all go to the karaoke afterwards :p We headed over to the local video place called Casa Video which was simply awesome and the only place I have seen that could fill out my missing movie knowledge. We ended up renting Crash which Patrick and Grace hadn’t seen before crashing on the sofa for the night….
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…
Wasting a day in El Paso
Day 114
El Paso, Tx
I had a minor panic in the morning when I discovered I couldn’t find the title to my car. I was looking for it the previous day when I bought my insurance but my registration suffice for that. After half an hour I found it in my sun shade…. At least it hadn’t blown away. So, one more day in El Paso…. What to do…. I spent the majority of it in Starbucks catching up on my blog and messing around with my site. I’m creating quite the beautiful waste of time I think Certainly managed to fill most of my day, the stupid Starbucks staff didn’t tell me I could get 50c refills though!! 
I went to Walmart and got myself a headseat which would work with Skype and tested it on Miriam for a while before thinking about where I was going to sleep. Now, I knew there was a mega cheap hotel in town, I had seen the huge sign on the highway, and another one in town so I set off looking for it. I drove for more than an hour looking for the this sign downtown, as I couldn’t remember the name of the hotel. I finally drove the 30 miles up to the big sign on the interstate and found where it was. It didn’t take long to find after that, but it was 9pm and the place was now closed. I took a room down the road at a place that looked like a crack addicts hotel, but at $31 was the cheapest I had gotten the entire trip. I wouldn’t want to take a girl back there though…
Goodbye Mexico
Day 113
El Paso, Tx
I only had 4 days left on my visa and wasn’t really sure what my plan was now going to be. Dani was leaving back to Montreal the next day but at breakfast I was told ‘so you’re leaving today then?’ and I didn’t quite know what to say. It was kind of bizarre living with a family that all speak rapid Spanish, are all quite friendly but I wasn’t able to really communicate with them. Dani was kind of trapped as well, it would have been nice to set off to see something else after Christmas but then I became trapped and bereft of options. I still had a nice, and vitally, interesting time, but its always good to be able to decide your own destiny. My brother had finally asked me to be his best man at Christmas so I now had a date to alter my trip and I wasn’t sure I liked it. Freedom is probably the best thing in life, and I wanted to enjoy it as much as I could. But now I was about to be set free again I hadn’t the faintest idea of what to do with it. We went and picked up Dani’s laptop from the Cafe and then went to buy some flowers for our hosts and some tequila for Dani’s dad. I said goodbye to Dani and for want of something better to do went back into the States…
This time I was stopped at the border and searched properly, but the guards were quite nice about it, asked if I was writing a blog, were slightly interested in the fact that I could own my own car in the states but were happy to let me come back in. Seems crossing the border was becoming less and less stressful…. :p I went back to Circuit City to see if they had any cheap laptops in stock. They didn’t but I was assured they would be back in on Friday. That was when the truck would be turning up. Hmmmm. Should I stay or should I go…. Checking the couchsurfing site I learned there was an American girl heading south into Mexico around the 12th and she would be flying into Tucson which was pretty close. I would have to leave the states on the 6th but there was a chance I could get back in, my Australian friend Renae had done it. I decided to get a cheap laptop on Friday and then drive over to the border at Nogales. It was only 2 days.
In the meantime I went and bought 6 months insurance for Mexico for $200 and went to watch ‘Aliens vs Predator Requiem’ which was simply terrible (5/10) followed by a night in a cheap hotel.
Ski Apache
Day 105
Ruidoso, New Mexico
Only 4 of us were brave enough to head out that morning but I had already bought my lift pass the previous afternoon so I really didn’t have a choice. I tried to tell someone that they could do with a lesson but I wasn’t getting through, maybe it was my lack of Spanish skills. We got up to the slope and it was snowing now, usually a good sign but I wasn’t equipped for cold. I passed out the hot hand packets and hope my charges would make it through the day, it was -5 and I was with 3 Mexicans! I would be lucky if they didn’t all die of exposure. I decided the best policy was to keep them moving, so set them off on the very very green run we had been doing the previous day. They did it with no problems but then I saw the queue for the lifts. I left them queuing and skied back UP the slope and got there faster than them. There were only 4 lifts open, all the top runs were closed and the gondola would only take sightseers up. What the hell was I doing here?? I scoped lift 4 and it seemed to be quieter with a ride to a long green run. That was the plan, I got them moving up to lift and we waited and waited. When we finally got to the front I took Stephi up as she hadn’t been on a lift before, and we somehow made it off without falling over before seeing Dani come up and not get off before jumping off at 2 meters! I nearly had a heart attack. I then saw Raphi come up and fall over before he left the chair! Then I looked down the run and saw this green was so blue you could use it to hide the Blue Man Group! With 3 beginners!
I thought it was too late to put them back on the chair and if I had know how long it would have taken me to get down I probably would insisted they put them on the lift but once we got started it was too late. I told Raphi to snow plough over to the main run and he said ‘what’s a snow plough?’. I then realised he had only been a couple of times when he was 6! I have no idea what he was doing the day before but Dani and Stephi managed to get over to the run and start going down, but Raphi didn’t even know how to stop. Everytime he moved he turned, went backwards and then fell over. If he got any speed up he would probably kill himself, or worse, someone else. I had argued for proper lessons the previous day but my concerns fell on deaf ears. I was the only skier but obviously I didn’t know what I was talking about… The slope was far too steep to get down safely but the girls were slowly moving down, I had to concentrate on Raphi. I made him hold my pole and tried to get him to slide down on the sides of his skis. It seemed to take forever… I would have skied down in 2 minutes but it took more than 30 minutes of falls and frustration.
When I was done I pointed them at the easy slope and went off to find a proper green, but first I stood in the line for the other blue run, I needed to work out some of the stress of anchoring a beginner down a blue run so no one would get hurt. Only 4 lifts open and the place was packed. They had a line for single skiers but far too many lifts were going up with only 1 person and there were no ropes to divide the skiers. After the ease and speed of skiing in Canada I was sorely disappointed by the American experience. I didn’t understand why so few lifts were open! At least the ticket price was reduced but I didn’t think I got any kind of value for money for the day. I wanted to be skiing and keeping warm but instead I was waiting for an inefficient lift. I found a nicer green for the others and directed them onto it, now with the slope being less scary I was able to give them some tips and advise, but I’m not sure an Englishman instructing 3 Mexicans was the best plan. :p
The slopes were full of Texans but there was non of the chat I enjoyed while skiing in Whistler. Going up on a long lift and talking to the people I was sitting with was always great but I didn’t get any of that in Ruidoso. I guess I wasn’t having a very good day :p It didn’t take too long for Stephi and Raphi to give up and go to find some warmth while Dani and I did a last run but I was tired of waiting for 30 minutes in line for 2 minutes fun. One days skiing gave me about 7 runs down which was hardly sufficient and left a bad taste in my mouth for American Skiing but at least I had some time back on the slopes, possibly my only chance this trip, although I suspect there is some good skiing in South America. I certainly hoped so.
Up to the ski fields/3 lifts open/no gondola/another lesson/blue not a green run
Mexican Christmas
Day 104 : Juarez Mexico
It was Christmas Eve, my favourite time of the year…. Not. Its not that I hate Christmas but I think that its been perverted by capitalism. I’m not a Christian but I’m expected to celebrate it non the less. Sure there should be a time in the year for families to come together and give out gifts but why should it be the day that Jesus was supposedly born for non-Christians. Atheists should swap out Halloween and Christmas, give out gifts at he end of October to each other and dress up as zombies in December. Seems like much more fun. After completing so many miles the previous day we only had a short hop ahead of us into El Paso. The sun was shining as it always does and we followed the signs for the highway. Just on the intersection there was a guy with a cowboy hat, a guitar case and a big smile holding out his thumb. Getting Daniella’s opinion first we pulled over to pick up the hiker…..
Santa Rampage!
Day 101:Las Vegas
We went back to Macys for breakfast and had some nice waffles and oatmeal for breakfast. We figured it was about 5 hours to Las Vegas give or take and we would gain an hour at the Nevada border. A guy called Leon had replied to our couchsurfing requests but made the offer on the provision we would come out to the Las Vegas Santa invasion with him. Since I missed the one in Austin this was fine by me, and might help to keep me out of the casinos… :p The walls at Macys were covered with prints from a local photographer, I was amazed anyone could charge $2300 for essentially a large poster. I guess you can tell I wasn’t overwhelmed by the pictures. Certainly not for that much, but I guess if he can charge that much people might pay it. On the way to Vegas we went looking for a ‘Ghost Town’. There is a website dedicated to such places and after checking for somewhere on the way we went to a place called Chromium or Chlorine or something. After bouncing down a bumpy dirt road for 15 minutes we found a normal town. There were even people! So much for the Ghost towns of the west. Tempting as it was to kill a few locals to try to make it a bit more authentic time was pressing and we had to get a move on. No one else had offered us a place to stay so it looked like we would be getting santafied tonight.
Did you hear about the dyslexic devil worshipper?
He sold his soul to Santa….
96:Santa Fe, Nm:Too cold for art.
I wasn’t going to make the same mistake I did at the dinosaur park and we paid up our $14 pronto before they called in the feds and we headed back to Roswell, intending to go to the museum. I also intended to get a photo of me standing by the city limits sign with a plastic bowl dangling on a piece of fishing wire as I cowered in terror but we somehow drove past it on the way. There was always the one on the way out though. We went back to the coffee shop to make some couchsurfing requests for the next stop, Santa Fe. We didn’t hold out much hope since it was pretty late in the day already but we crossed our fingers and left town, not even bothering about the museum. I guess that was one mystery that would have to remain unsolved for us. Terrible tourists.
We had put my bike on the roof and it constantly flapped in its tarpaulin, buying a load more bungee cords didn’t help either so when the noise got too much it went back in the back, quieter and better for the gas consumption. I haven’t even ridden it for a mile either, tragic. We looked for the city limit sign on the way out but couldn’t find it this time either so that’s a photo that will have to wait until I go back one day. We got an text from a guy called Mike as we drove up to Santa Fe offering us a place to stay for a couple of nights so it looked like we wouldn’t be sleeping in the walmart car park again for a while. We thought it prudent to wait and check his profile before we said ok and we stopped to steal some wifi and found 2 more people offered us a place to stay. Even better. We ended up going with Mike in any case and one of the other guys suggested we try to arrange a meal out in town the next night. Seems they don’t get too many visitors, especially ones as fascinating as us!
Mike was busy working on editing his cousins novel so didn’t have time to take us out to explore the town but gave us a few ideas for dinner. He lived in a small condo complex with another girl so we dumped our stuff in the living room and went out to check out the infamous Santa Fe. Its about 7,000 feet above sea level and it was cold. Very cold. We parked up near a group of bars and went for a walk. It turned out to be a very short walk as within 5 minutes we were desperate to get inside to get warm. We ended up going into the Cowgirl which is a popular bar, but they had lots of vegetarian options on the menu so I was perfectly happy with that. I had some great quesadillas and despite constant warnings of the level of spiciness am not really finding Mexican food too hot on the tastebuds. We went back to Mikes and there I found Dani had never seen Taxi Driver. Well that would never do so we sat and watched Bob DeNiro go slowly insane on Mikes big TV.
87:Austin, Tx:Killed by cheap lager….
Ah, the bliss of a bed that isn’t wrapped in plastic like the one at the hostel. Josh had gone out early leaving me his phone number and his key. I hope he checked my references :p I took a shower, read for a bit and then found out where he was a drove up to join him. He was in some cool co-op supermarket/café near the University and on the drive up I decided I not only liked Austin, I could possibly live there. Would just have to get past the whole stupid American work ethic and I could be quite happy. Maybe I should see the place in the searing summer first though. It’s a major, MAJOR University town so the place is packed with students and the cool places they love to hang out in. It was a breath of fresh air after driving through the hick towns of the south and I got myself a Tempeh Burrito and coffee and we sat in the sunshine checking the local free paper for bands to see.
81:New Orleans:Don’t look down
I got up with a minor hangover and it been so long since I’ve been drunk I thought I might be ill! Just a mild case of not remembering to drink water before I went to sleep. needed to use the laundry but I guess it could wait for a while. Since Jeff was on his way to South America for 5 months I offered and gave him a copy of my Spanish Language class. I hoped he would make a bit more use of it than me since I was being rather lax in that department. It was usually so much hassle to connect up my laptop in the car that I just did it and set it playing whatever was random in the playlist and forgot to study some Spanish as a matter of course. I was coming up to a month left and knew it was going to be interesting when I finally hit the border with a tiny vocabulary and bad accent. Still, this wasn’t the time to worry about it and I should concentrate on enjoying my time in New Orleans since I was planning on leaving the next day.
80:Louisiana:Living it up in the Big Easy
I guess the slight advantage of it being so cold while camping is that it certainly encourages me to get my ass out of bed. It was 6 degrees, so not too bad, and I was wearing plenty of clothes which certainly took the edge off it. I was starting to hum a bit since my last shower wasn’t since Tuesday and there wasn’t a shower in the Parkway campground but I was planning on making a hostel in New Orleans tonight. I cooked up some oatmeal and finished up my left-overs from the night before and carried on South West through the Parkway. I was looking for somewhere to grab a cup of coffee on the way but I would be waiting a long time for it. We were in the midst of a high pressure system so the sky was clear and the heater in my car soon got the chill out of my feet. Best to make the most of it since there was rain forecast for the weekend.