You’ll never catch the Assman alive!
Day 201
San Juan Teotihuacan
Somehow I got up, got my car packed and left Valle de Bravo. The question of whether there was any paragliding to be done was unresolved. I didn’t see anyone in the air during the 4 days I was there. I wasn’t in the mood to find out it seemed.
I had no idea where I was going.
I looked at the my Lonely Planet in a vague attempt to at least work out my next destination. Roland had texted me to say he was on the beach with his friend but that was a bit to far to go and then head back to Mexico city after only 2 weeks. I figured I could make it to the pyramids near Mexico City, they had a cheap camp site and it seemed a good enough idea. My only small problem was getting there, but it didn’t seem to far… Driving in Mexico is easy, navigating is not too bad, but there was only me, and driving and looking at maps isn’t a good idea. I was about to have maybe my worst day in the country…
The first few hours were fine, I followed the road towards the capital intending to avoid it at all costs. 25 million people would be a lot of traffic… I also realised I had another problem, it was Friday. Mexico City has a law, not a bad law either, that restricts cars with the last number on the plate from using the roads for one day a week on a rotating basis. So on Fridays the numbers 0 and 9 were banned. I planned to follow the highways around the capital anyway so I figured I would be ok. As soon as I started getting close to city I became increasingly frustrated in a way I hadn‘t felt before in Mexico. The road signs would direct me to various suburbs but wouldn’t tell me how to get clockwise around the capital. I had to keep pulling over to consult my map which was proving to be reasonably useless, I couldn’t find any of the places on the signs and eventually found myself driving into the city. Not good. I turned around and came 10 miles back out which was a waste of time, then found the toll road and figured that had to take me North and towards my destination. Regretting the 33 pesos it cost me I had found the right road and joined the speedway drivers taking advantage of the comparatively empty road. I figured I would be able to get to the main town to the north of the capital and the carry on to the pyramids but ended up getting off at the next exit.
My map was off scale, I couldn’t find any where on the signs (half of which were obscured by graffiti), I kept trying to steal glances at my map but at one point nearly came off the road and decided I would rather live. I was getting slightly annoyed. I had no idea where I was so drove onto the next sign. I was soon waved over by a police car on patrol. Uh oh. I shook his hand and gave him my licence and then as usual asked if he spoke English. I knew I was in trouble, but I knew also it wasn’t really a big deal. I felt quite justified being in the wrong place at the right time… fix your bloody signs! The cop started going on about the plates and numbers and althought I didn’t know the specifics of what he said I could guess what the problem was right away. I got my dictionary out and replied as best I could to his questions, mostly I said ‘I don’t understand’. After 10 minutes or so of telling him I didn’t want to be there and I was lost he gave me my licence back and told me to keep going and I would get to the pyramids. I asked if I should go back to the toll road once he showed me on my map where I was but he said ‘just keep going’. Maybe this ‘no driving on friday’ law wasn’t that strict after all…
I did another 10 miles or so in thick and fast traffic. I saw a few cop cars but they didn’t see me. I started to relax… The traffic started to get more stop and go and I pulled up to some lights and a couple of cops were standing there just waiting to bust someone. A fat grey haired codger and his younger, equally rotund companion. That someone was me. They took my license and I pulled over. They didn’t speak English either but they had a nice tatty folder explaining the law in English, as if I didn’t already know. They told me I couldn’t drive until 10pm, they also mentioned fines and then wandered around trying to find someone who spoke English. I acted as though I was quite happy to wait around until 10pm, I asked if there were any hotels nearby. I figured I wasn’t in any immediate danger of being arrested. I looked at them a bit closer. Were they really police men? They didn’t have guns or handcuffs. They seemed quite reasonable really. They mentioned ‘Multa’ a few times, the Spanish for fine, but I mostly just ignored the word and asked if I could just hang out until 10. After 20 minutes of hanging around the fat older ‘cop’ handed me back my licence and told me to drive around the block and wait until night. It was about 5pm now and I was still miles from San Juan Teotihuacan where the pyramids are…
I got back in my car, turned left to go around the block… and kept going. It felt so wrong to driving away from the cops but after looking at the map I figured I wasn’t actually in Mexico City anymore. With a deep sense of unease I picked my way through the back streets until I was a few blocks away from my second encounter with the cops. I seriously considered implementing the ‘Assman’ card but then figured what was the chances of getting caught again. I got back on the main road and was stopped at the next lights. This time they really were cops and not just part time security guards dressed up as them.
Bollocks!
Of course they didn’t speak English but I guess they didn’t need to. I pulled over and was directed to a side street where a very seriously looking cop did all the talking. He blathered on for ages, I didn’t understand 10% of what he said but I just played it dumb as much as possible. When he used a word a few times I looked it up in my dictionary. He also kept going on about fines. I tried to bore him by asking where I was on the map, an insisting I wasn’t in the capital anymore. I asked about hotels and waiting around, he told me the fine was 4000 pesos. I ignored that and went back to trying to find out if everywhere nearby had the same law. He said he could let me off for 200 dollars. I said I didn’t have any dollars. I got my wallet out and opened it. Happily it had 20 pesos in it. I pointed to the ashtray full of change I had. He didn’t notice the 450 pesos that was sitting on the seat next to me partially obscured by my guidebook and I ignored it, and covered it up whenever I could. If he asked for my passport I would have been screwed because I always keep some cash with it.
He consulted with his colleague. I guessed I was going to be taking a trip to the station… Instead he gave me back my licence, then gave me directions to the pyramids and… gave me a receipt for the fine I just hadn‘t paid ! I drove off quick before they changed their minds!
This is all you have to do if you’re in DF illegally.
I was still deep in Mexico city suburbs though and I didn’t fancy wasting another 20 minutes on cops who may, or may not, get bored with my lack of Spanish. Lets face it if they took my keys and passport I would have no choice but to pay them. And they had guns. It was getting late, I was tired, I just wanted to get to the campsite and go to bed. I knew I was breaking the law but instead of the police enforcing it properly they were just trying to shake me down for some cash and my licence was giving them all the excuse they needed. I felt I had no choice but to go Assman on them.
I pulled over and removed my licence plates.
In New York I had been on the Kenny Kramer tour, the inspiration for Kramer in Seinfeld, one of my favourite shows. In one episode he accidentally gets sent the wrong licence plates which he put on his car. Kenny also sells these along with his T-shirts and mugs. I bought one myself.
I would never dare to do this in the States but I decided I was either going to the pyramids or to jail, I was bored with listening to crooked cops…
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I made it to the Pyramids eventually via the most convoltuted route you could imagine, cursing all the way, but I didn’t get stopped again! 
Driving down to purgatory
Day 166
San Blas, Mexico
Most of my afternoon was spent driving down the coast to a small fishing village called San Blas. I had heard that it was a good place to practice my surfing and I was looking for a place to chill and improve my Spanish. It was only 4 hours or so down the highway and I listened to my language course and Manu Chao as I rolled along. My planned place to stay was a camp ground place called ‘Stoners’, nothing to do with any illicit activities, it was built by a gringo called Bob Stoner. The present owner is the Mexican surf Champ, an imposing guy called Pompis, helped out by his German girlfriend Nicy. It sits right next to a nice break on the beach and has a few cabanas for $10 or camping for only $3. I found myself a nice little spot where the sun wouldn’t kill me in the morning and said hi to the few other guests before heading off to see if I could remember how to surf.
The afternoon break is pretty rough, I would have to try to get up in the morning and catch that one instead but the area seemed pretty good. The camp ground has boards for rent and offer lessons too as well as a kitchen and fridge, which is great. The only problem is that it pretty much closes at night, so after I had showered and watched the sunset the place was deserted apart from the night watchman who just wanted to get an early night. I was happy to join him, although it would preferably be alone in my own tent…
drive to san blas/stoners/surfing-offer rick my board/quiet night
Tags: language course, cabana, chill, mexico, tea, night watchman, desert, gringo, quiet night400 km run to Mazatlan
Day 163
Mazatlan, Mexico
Time like an ever rolling stream keeps on moving and so should we, next stop : Mazatlan. A major tourist city 400km south of Los Mochis. There are toll roads on the way but we opted for the more interesting route of the free roads which snake through the mountains. Nothing really to report about the drive, we stopped at a Walmart on the way down and stocked up on crap we didn’t need, although a steering lock for my car probably didn’t fall into this category. I nearly killed us by doing a stupid u-turn in the highway and not having the space to get all the way around and nearly being beaten up for having the gall to refuse to get my wind screen washed. My car might be filthy but my windows are perfectly clean, thank you!
We got to the main town in the early evening and started looking for a place to camp before the sun set but to no avail. This was for posh tourists and there wasn’t a tent to be seen. We decided after not spending money on accommodation for the last 3 weeks that a hotel wouldn’t kill our budgets too much but were pretty annoyed to find the 2 bed room for 200 pesos on the phone became 350 pesos when we arrived, 300 with some negotiation. The usual tricks. We set off for a walk around town and saw the crazy statues all along the beach front before heading into the old part to find the funky square where everyone hangs out in the evening. Very romantic but Roland isn’t my type. It was far too expensive though so we wandered back to the hotel and happily found a street stand with tacos and roast potato that turned from being healthy to a health risk after they finished filling it with fat. Was pretty yummy though
 Roland enjoys his street food roast potato + 1/2 kg of butter,cheese, cream and meat! |
long drive/toll roads?/walmart/illegal u turn/more driving/onto the beachs/no camping/phone hotel/350 not 200/walk along beach/statues/square/catherdal/roast potato/no cafe/free wifi
Tags: toll road, mexico, roland, u turn, wifi, highways, pot, set, beds, thumb, long beach, free wifiRace 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.
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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: tent, coffee, mexico, half an hour, laptop, rope, stupidity, american, tarmac, queue, roland, hellLooking for a shower
Day 160
Los Barilles, BCS, Mexcico
Roland had most of the shade under the campsite tree and hence was getting more sleep than me, I got up at 9.30 as usual when the suns heat on the tent became unbearable and went to work on my latest obsession, putting the date information on my GPS track. Using Excel I was slowly working out how to search through the information until the date changed and then put in a marker which would also be a link to that days blog entry, but my lack of knowledge of excel macros was holding me back and I couldn’t understand why it was giving me errors. My laptop battery doesn’t last very long anyway and Roland blearily enquired from his tent which bastard was running a generator so close to his head so early… I told him it was 10.30am and shocked him into getting up. We had kind of decided to leave and go north somewhat, if only to look for a shower. Roland is cool, if I had wanted to stay another day it would have been no problem, but we were both getting a bit smelly and the milk had run out! :p
Back on the appalling road we learned it soon became sealed and then we only had to watch for the usual insane pot holes dotted around the highway and the ever present ‘topes’ or speed bumps. There was an occasional cow wandering too and we saw a couple of escaped horses but I kept my speed down enough to avoid such dangers. Later on we saw a rolled car, complete with emergency vehicles right outside a school along with scores of on looking children and a body on the ground… Not the way I want to go…
Up at the next town, Las Lagunas, we drove around looking for a Taco place and checked out the beach. There was no surf as promised in our guidebooks so we looked, reversed and drove off towards Santiago. We needed somewhere to camp, with a shower and we hoped to find somewhere there. The weather is just great now, its mid twenties all day and the nights are usually cloudless with a nearly full moon, cold enough to enjoy a fire but not so cold to be uncomfortable. Perfect weather, it can’t last. When we eventually found Santiago we discovered a charming little town with no cheap food and no where to camp. The one hotel/bar in town was no longer allowing camping and again we couldn’t find a Taco place. I was getting very hungry now after only eating half a papaya in the morning but Los Barriles was only 25km away and I thought I could make it.
It would take longer since seeing my first dead Mexican…
Los Barriles is gringo-ville but still we couldn’t find a cheap taco stand, there was a nice seafood restaurant though and after not paying for accommodation for 10 days or so could afford to spend the $10 on the seafood soup which was very tasty but not very filing. I will get the special Tacos tomorrow then, Marlin, Octopus and Shrimp. If I didn’t eat seafood now I would be losing lots of weight or possibly ballooning out on cheesy quesadillas. The town was dotted with RV sites and after checking out the nice, but empty beach we decided to splurge on the $13 to park up and get a hot shower. The RV park is really just a big car park for Americans but lots of them stay here for months and make their spots really quite nice, planting fauna around and even building their own shower blocks on their sites. We settled for a place to pitch our tents and I got the usual regular comment about my Massachusetts licence plate. ‘Yes I have come quite a way….’.
Tonight was a lunar eclipse at 8pm so we showered, went to get beer and went over to the pot luck by the beach to watch the show. Roland didn’t know what a pot-luck was and seemed disappointed when I explained it wouldn’t be a party for stoners :p It was moderately cloudy but regular breaks meant that we saw most of what was going on . I have seen 2 solar eclipses but can’t remember if I have every seen a lunar eclipse. They happen regularly enough but its usually too cold or late to watch them. Either that or I have something more interesting to do. It wasn’t exactly mind blowing so we finished our beers and then went looking for some action in town, which basically meant we went for a walk because there was nothing going on at all…
Doing gps logs/papaya/sealed road/crappy beach at next town/no camping at santiago/up to los Barillos/seafood soup/shower at camground/130 pesos/out for beer/lunar eclipse/looking for bar/charlie wilsons war
Tags: crap, blog, car park, stoners, cheap food, set, sun, potBlog day
Day 159
Los Arbolitos Beach, BCS, Mexico
It seemed like I didn’t do much but I sat and tried to get up to date with my missing blog entries. I was on about 28 days and still had notes to fill out from before New Years Eve… How did I get so far behind? Laziness and laziness I guess. Writing my blog is just about the only thing I promised myself I would do everyday and it seemed it was slipping away. I justified it to Roland by saying that normally I would spend travelling time on buses reading but now when I’m bored I will just read my novel and everything else gets ignored… He probably just thinks I’m lazy :p I was surprised by how long it could take to write an entry though. When you factor in time to search for a few photos to flesh out the entry and hammering out the text, each entry can take 30 minutes or an hour. And the longer I left each entry meant I was sitting looking at the keyboard wondering what else happened that day that I didn’t make a note about. Months after I had travelled around New Zealand in 1994 I could recall pretty much every day, where I was and what I did, everything was fun and fresh but now all that remains of that trip are my photos and occasional journal entry. I didn’t want that to happen with this trip.
I got my missing entries down to about 10 days and was mostly satisfied. When I return to the UK I would have more work to do adding photographs to my previous entries to make them better but using the Windows Live Writer program has certainly made my life easier. I could write, add photos and save the drafts without an Internet connection and upload them when I found an access point. I also started working on splitting up my GPS tracks into each days, and I have to think about making the tracks more efficient. I dont need 200 points when I’m travelling down a straight highway, the start and the end will do, but that will require several hours of hacking to figure out and the day was too nice!
Roland borrowed my surfboard, despite the total lack of surf, and went to the beach and I got out my Guitar and spend most of the afternoon making my fingers hurt. Another job I had mentally set myself was to move any guitar tabs over to my phone so I had a ready supply of songs to play when required. I love playing the guitar but finding myself required to play and not being able to remember the songs is just embarrassing :p
That night we burned ‘Mr Woody’.
Tags: mexico, board, graphs, thumb, photos, guitars, flesh, eve, tent, trousersThe end of the Sur
Day 155
Los Cabos, BCS, Mexico
We finally got as far south as we could in Baja California today, the place known as Los Cabos, the 2 towns furthest down the coast. Tourist city? Traveller hell? The highrises, hotels, expensive bars and the nightmare that is the Hard Rock Cafe all gave it away as hell on earth that the gringos go to to get drunk and have sex. But who am I to pass judgement? As far as we could get and all the kilometres further south only helped the sun to get hotter and more brutal. After a few days without Internet that would be a goal for the day along with the usual problem of finding somewhere to stay. We parked up and went for a walk around town. Near to the harbour the white flabby faces were everywhere, Americano’s on vacation, 2 weeks of release from the burden of being the richest people on earth but still on the edge of ruin. Go Barack, go!
I didn’t get a Valentines Card on the porch of my tent but the sings were all over the town, little children ran around with red heart lollipops not knowing what it meant. I’m sure there were a lot of romantic proposals in town that day but it mostly passed me by. I’m sure my true love was waiting for me somewhere out there in the vast sea of humanity, maybe I had already met her… or maybe today was the day…
Roland had some notion of seeing some arch in the town and since I hadn‘t bothered to read my guidebook how could I gainsay him. Baja is big, I’m small, I’m not going to see it all and since I have someone with an idea of what to do I was happy to release my less immediate goals to other people. We asked one of the multiple tourist information booths where we could find it and they gave us a map and tried to get us on a tour but we fooled them into giving us the information we were after before sneaking off. Waltzing through the harbour we admired the expensive gringo powerboats, but they held no allure for me, I would rather be racing with the wind as I’m sure Sheena was doing right then. We skirted around the guys selling silver necklaces like he had leprosy and made our way around the harbour area. Tourists were flocking like rich seagulls all around us and the other touts ignored us after one look at our clothes. We’re rich too! I silently yelled but they ignored us and concentrated on more affluent white people. Past the port and over to the beach we finally saw some indications of proper life and hints of nature. The pelicans squatted on the small boats in droves, too lazy to even float in the heat and the sand shimmered before us reflecting the sun from the mountains across the bay. That was our destination but somehow we had to get there. The free map hinted at a road but the touts that instantly attached his self to us the moment we entered his ‘patch’ assured us we wouldn’t be able to get there by car. I promised Roland he was lying but due to language issues beyond my control he was soon negotiating a ride on a boat over to the arch. 10 pesos each, 8 with no discussion, ‘tell her 5 and I’ll walk away’ was my suggestion which worked perfectly. It was a small victory however, we soon learned we had haggled down to the standard price. :p
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The glass in our glass bottom boat wasn’t so clean but the sea was clear and quite a few people were diving as there was no fishing in the area and the fish were crazy for the rich tourists and their bread. Just like the Mexican touts. We splashed around by the point, looking at the tourists crammed into their expensive boats on their expensive tours, although I suspect they would be shooting over the waves as soon as they were done. I had reached as far south as I could go on the peninsular and it would soon to be time to head over to the mainland on my way to Cancun and temporarily home.
After our boat tour we went to find fish tacos in town. I had also been working on a plan for some business cards and today was the day to get them sorted out. We found a photography place and sat eating tacos across the road until it reopened at 3pm. I made up a card and then the plan was to put 4 on a 4×6 photograph, print them off and cut them up, 40 cards cost me $3 which was a better option than getting 500 cards and then throwing 90% of them away when my phone number changed in Guatemala.
I already have a new version ready to print, I forgot my email address :p
I hate the Hard Rock Cafe’s even more because of Rod Stewarts Trousers!!
Mexican Parking: Front and back…. Maybe I need a car wash…
We went to find a beach to camp on after we had spent a couple of hours in the Internet and eventually found a load of RV’rs off the highway between the 2 main towns. Our Canadian neighbours assured us it was a nice place to camp but we couldn’t find the original planned beach of La Playita, but where we were was good enough for one night. The moon was shining brighter each night as it waxed towards fullness and we drank a few beers and played ‘find the dropped nacho’. Not so easy on a moonlit beach!
drive to cabos/walk around/boat tour/photo cards/tacos/expensive internet/looking for beach/hide the nacho/
Tags: traveller, gringos, beers, earth, mountains, sal, rope, boats, Guatemala, sheena, one of the, photographs, camping, map, waves, fool, americanMental Hangover
Day 148 Santiparc Beach Baja California Mexico
After the fun of the previous night we were all pretty wiped and spent most of the day lazing around doing nothing. I felt ok physically but was just annoyed all day at the weather. It was lovely and warm… in the sun. Under the shade it was kinda cold, I huddled in my tent and every 20 minutes the wind would pick up and try to lift it off and down the beach for a minute. I tied it down the previous day which stopped it. Sheena slept nearly the entire day which put paid to my plans of driving into town to sort out my flat tire, by the time she had gotten up and went for a walk I was dozing myself and the day was wasted. Every night we would be woken by the trucks passing along the highway and although it was forbidden, they would all use their engines as brakes. The sound of the throbbing engines would cascade down the cove like a huge passing dragon that was thundering past, roaring as it went and for some it would be too distracting to sleep a full night.
I had set up my solar shower but it didn’t even get luke warm all day. Pat, Drake and Sheena walked over to the Jimmy Buffet night for a hamburger and a drink while I sat in the car burning DVDs. They were soon back as the place was packed out. We fired up another couple of toxic logs and sipped hot chocolate and marshmallows before retiring to the van to watch ‘knocked up’….
Tags: cars, hot chocolate, huddle, dvds, Travel, tent, sun, sheena, baja california mexico, dragonBack on the beach
Day 145Â Santisparc Beach
| We woke up to a miserable day, but at least I didn’t feel too bad. The owner of the tank campsite had finally turned up and he fired up the shower for us. Literally. It burned wood and the cold water from the tank flowed through to heat up. We said goodbye to the bikers we had eaten dinner with and set off to the south once more, destination, the beaches of Mulege. We paused in the center of San Ignacio to take a few pictures but it was cold and overcast, we didn’t linger. |  2 dirty objects of wonder |
It was only 2 hours or so down the pacific highway and eventually the sun made a reappearance, as made it to the Sea of Cortez. Hopefully the water was going to be warmer than the Pacific side and with high hopes we followed the coastal road down into Mulege.
Tags: kayaks, campsite, liters, cold water, san ignacio, kayak, highways, sheena, beach shelters, mulege, americanSan 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…
Tags: heading south, lunch, angel, venice, emergency services, weather, crappy, set, rain, asian places, palm trees, venice beach, decider, eve, mexico, disco, sheenaIllegal Alien & Illegal Vehicle!
Day 118 Northwest Mexico
I was awoken by the hotel owner wanted to know if I was staying another night. At least that’s what I thought she asked since my Spanish was atrocious. Still I had managed to get a room the night before, get gas and buy a soda. How hard would it be to get fluent? At the immigration office I had spotted I also did very well. I understood enough to know they didn’t issue visas there and the guy on the gate was wondering who the hell I was to be turning up asking for one. I just smiled and drove off. I hoped this wasn’t going to cause me a big problem… There was a big town called Agua Prieta quite nearby and that was near the border. I resolved to go and sort out my paperwork ASAP. I put on my Spanish lessons and listened all day. I would need to get myself up to speed right away. Actually being there would help, I was looking at signs and then checking my dictionary, seeing something in context always helps. The sand that had piled up under my hotel room door was slowly stripping the paint from my car and I had a few encounters with the every present tumbleweeds. When I got to Agua Prieta I was so distracted I blew right through it. Right into another military check point, and this time they were checking people heading west!
Tags: visa, arse, trucks, decider, smile, highways, rain, soda, Travel, dictionary, spanish lessonsWelcome 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: crack, trip south, wanderings, gas station, mexico, borders, checkpoints, deserts, setWasting 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…
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…..
Tags: halloween, intersection, beers, showers, screws, nomination, dish, guitar case, sun, minivan, thumb, shopping, zombie, atheistsSanta 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….
What a Grand 100th day!
Today marked the hundredth day of my trip and was also the day I would finally get to see the Grand Canyon which always appears near the top of all the spectacular travel lists in the world. We even managed to get up reasonably early since we would be driving and walking around all day. The sun shone but there was a chill in the air which would only get deeper. We scoffed our bran flakes in the room and went off to discover the next great American State park. Daniella really isn’t a very good navigator, I had put in a random road for the town by the park village and was following those directions and we passed the turning for the south rim without me seeing it. Dani did say something but then waited for another 50 miles before mentioning that we had probably gone past the turning. The random road was the highway that leads to the village and I had obviously messed up but she should have more forcefully told me I had passed the junction. Oh well, cursing our dual doziness we had to turn around and head back. More time wasted we could be spending in the canyon though. At the junction we stopped for coffee and m&m’s. As I’m getting in the car a woman pulls up and tells me that the coffee I had just bought isn’t very good and I should be buying it from the coffee place just around the corner. Apparently they make it with ground water. Great. Thanks for telling me I wasted my $1.20! Like I’m now going to tip it away and go buy some more…..
Tags: sun, mistake, great american, couchsurfing, money, tourists, ground water, dani, couchsurfer, curse, drinks, peace, desert, walmart, morning joe, ella99:Tuba City, Az:Shiprock, 4 Corners, Monument Valley, getting covered in shite…
This part of New Mexico was pure desert, mostly flat when we started out in the morning but we could see a massive rocky mountain looming on the highway as we drove towards it. Checking the map identified it as Shiprock and it looked like a mass of sails towering into the sky. I will have to Google it sometime, but my guess it the remains of a volcano. The state park where the 4 States meet was close by now and we were happy to learn we wouldn’t have to pay the normal $3 entry fee as it was a holiday. Why anyone would want to go there and pay to have their picture taken surrounded by a circle of souvenir shops… I don’t know. 90% of the stalls were closed though so we grabbed our pictures and got the hell out of there. The Grand Canyon was getting close now just another day away and the scenery became more rugged and dramatic. Shiprock was a just a taste of monument valley further up the road. I should look at the map a bit more I guess but that wasn’t my job any more. We drove slowly through a huge valley of dramatic rocks erupting from the red dust, flecked with snow that hadn’t quite melted.
Tags: rocky mountain, souvenir shops, american, buses, traffic, job, stupidity, freedom, bad mistake, salads, possiblity, electricity94:Carlsbad:The end of the road?
When I got up my headache was still throbbing in my skull but at least I could see and think straight, everytime I bent over my forehead would feel like my brain was trying to slosh out of my head. Still I had a job to do and it was the last day of my crazy writing tour of the South, one final line south and then the road to victory north. Daniella would finally be free to direct me as she would, preferably somewhere warm. We left Ozona temporarily to head down towards Mexico but before we made it to the Rio Grande I did a u-turn and the final line was in the making. Could you see my trip from space I have been asked? Probably not, but then it depends on how many pixels wide it was.
Tags: coffee, road to victory, blog, brain, logs, tarmac, mcdonalds, atm, paint, crash, sun, skull, map, beds, cold clouds90:Junction:7 letters done, 7 to go…
I looked out of the hotel window and could have sworn I was back in the UK. It had been raining and the sun was no where to be seen It was cold and miserable. Bleh. No time to sit around moaning and no chance to jump on a plane to warmer climes, I had a stupid route to complete and by god I was going to do it. Passing by the rollercoasters in Six Flags again we drove for quite a while on the Interstate before turning south towards Junction a couple of hundred miles away. We stopped for some greasy breakfast in a pretty seedy truck stop café and I hoped this wasn’t going to be a feature in the trip now Daniella was along for the ride for a while but she was as unimpressed as I was. At least I finally found out what ‘biscuits’ are, kind of like a scone. You see them advertised everywhere so its nice to know.
Tags: hotel window, laugh, rollercoasters, set, madness, camping, single lane highway, cars, Travel, car park, shame, radio stations, map, moneys, locals, biscuits86:Austin, Tx:Guilty as charged officer!
Well doesn’t time fly. Only one month left on my US visa and still so long to go. After a night of catching up on my blog and then taking some fun long exposure photos I was back on track and ready to get a move on. Stupidly forgetting to set my alarm meant that I was up very late and as I sat eating my breakfast pancakes was collared by the park ranger who drove up in his big white truck. I saw the night before that the camping was going to be $5 entrance plus $25 to camp. Kinda crazy prices I thought. I considered telling him I had come in early but decided quickly that honesty was the best policy and promised to come check in (and then leave) when my breakfast was done. I was feeling more hard done by when I took a shower in a block filled with dead and dying bugs and felt the ‘no dishwashing’ sign was an affront to my personal diginity as I washed my dishes in the toilet block anyway. Where was I supposed to wash my dishes? Isn’t this a camp site?
I went off to see the place with the tracks again and found myself on the cliff over the river I was walking along the previous night. It showed some tracks in the water on the photographs but after climbing down the rather perilous bank I saw nothing after a good look. Some marks in the river bed were contenders but the tracks can freeze over and they slowly erode, nothing to see here, move along. I hauled myself back up the dirt slope using the abundant roots and thinking how much my nephews would love to come Dinosaur hunting with me down here one day. I swung by the main site but I could see nothing down the bank. Most of the best tracks now lived in the New York Natural History Museum I learned and wondered if they were on display when Renae was corralling me through so she could get packed up in time. Who knows. I had a thought in the back of my mind as I got in the car to leave, I would be able to make a choice when I got to the gate and I didn’t know what it would be. $30 or doing a runner? I’d spent loads in all these state parks and wasn’t really using the water and electricity. I wasn’t even staying a full 24 hours like most RV’rs, usually turning up after dark and leaving in the morning. $30 was horrendously expensive. I drove up to the office by the park entrance…. I saw one parked car, no Ranger 4×4 ….and… kept going…. I got about 100 meters and saw a flash of white in my rear view mirror. The Ranger pulled out into pursuit….
Tags: pumps, hosts, excuse, sofa, beers, toilet block, blog, buses, contenders, sun, animals, toilets, nephews, gps84:Texas:Warm and wet campin’
I stopped off in Quitman on the way back down south to send a Christmas card to my Grandmother and my old UK sim card to Miriam who needed a European number for the business cards she wanted to make for her trip. I then settled back into the boring rerun of the 165 highway back down to Alexandria and then on to Fort Charles and *Texas*! I was going to go further south and follow the coast for a while but that would add another 150 miles or so and I was going to finish off this damn U today or die in the attempt. The latter very nearly came true. I took the chance at the Texas border to use the free wifi and pick up some maps, it didn’t take long for the receptionists annoying greeting to *everyone* to grate and I got out of there. I learned there was a CS meeting in Dallas that night and with that in mind got off the I-10 and turned back north.
Tags: wifi, fool, texas border, sim, cotton wool, tarmac, grandma, grandmother, locals, free wifi, apartment, money, slaves, wisps, receptionists, photo, cards83:Monroe, La:Cold Campin’
No frozen toes when I woke up today but could I get an early start? Nope. After a quick breakfast I hit the showers and was further delayed by the discovery of a frog under the shower outlet that needed to be photographed. I thought it was plastic until it opened its eyes. My camera then steamed up as soon as it got in the washblock but I used my reserved Pentax (which I can just run under the hot tap) to spend a happy half hour chasing another more exciteable green frog around as it jumped from wall to wall and futiley wait for my Canon lens to clear. I did consider liberating them to a more natural setting but then I figured the place was full of bugs and would be warm all year round so left them to it.
Tags: beds, bugs, highways, photographs, drinks, frog, sleep, Travel, camping, guitars80: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.
Tags: groceries, chill, couchsurfer, traveller, sonic restaurant, beers, dorms, chill out, salads, rain forecast, showers, earth79:Mississippi:Looping down to New Orleans
After a night in a carpark in some nameless town I was desperate to check my bank balance after constantly forgetting the previous day and my funds were in dire need of a top up. I was now driving west again in the big S loop down to Louisiana and the Big Easy, New Orleans. The roads were pretty much the standard I was now used to, long, flat and boring. All the junctions had the same set of chains for gas, food and lodgings. The interstates were convenient for getting around the country quickly but hardly a tourists dream journey. For most of the day the most exciting thing I saw was a dead mountain lion on the side of the side of the road. What a treat it would be to see a live one but I would guess roadkill would be the closest I would get this trip.
Tags: carpark, sinatra classic, starbucks, checks, mountains, junctions, girls, sending mail, lodgings, desperation, cars, minivan, photo