Depressed….
I’m back in Arica, and instead of the 1 day I intended to stay on my way back to Peru I’m now looking at another few weeks to get my car fixed…. again. I drove through a river crossing, got stuck and water got in the engine. So stupid and so avoidable. I didn’t even get to explore all the places I wanted to in the Altiplano…
I went to a garage and the guy seemed to think it was the piston rings but it would take a few weeks to even look at it. At least that means he’s a good mechanic I guess. I’m not even sure I have a few weeks on my visa. At least the border is close so I can always pop over and get an extension. I don’t know what to do… head back to Peru for a few weeks and then come back for the car? Will it even be fixed? How much would he charge me?
On top of this I found out last night that I deleted a lot of photos and they’re not backed up. Lunch at the Hare Krishna place might make me feel better…..
I think I’m losing my mind
Today I had a minor miracle. I went to VIP Iquique for the eighth time and… They were open! I was coming back from the printer i tried last night, clutching my, slightly better, print when I thought I would try again. They couldn’t always be closed so I tried knocking. The woman from the hotel in the same building said I had to go in through another entrance. They have a huge padlock and you can’t see the office and staff from the street…. Grrrrr! They had some iMacs and printers but I didn’t have my file. When I came back after lunch we did a test print that was much better but still has banding in the twilight sky part of the image, the same as I’m using as a logo on my site. I had created the file as an 8 bit image instead of 16 bits which might affect it. So now I’m rebuilding my 9 image cover again from the original files…. And my laptop is SHIT! This is really getting to me now, I can’t see why everything has to be so damn hard!! I’m going to reboot, put in the last two images and head back to hopefully get a good print. I think I might had to select some images that dont have such a big colour range since the 6 ink printer at VIP still struggled. They didn’t have a colour calibration device I could hire either… Maybe in Santiago…
Mark vs The Evil Band of Printers
Sitting in the fifth printing place today… Earlier I went to the duty free shopping zone to buy one white printable DVD… There were people demonstrating outside and 95% of the shops were shut… I did find White DVDs though… In packs of 50. I guess I can just add them to the 30′or so that’s I’m already trying to give away 
After lunch I had another search for a printing place. Asking at a place I spotted they directed me towards a place with an 8 ink printer!! Looked like a result until I found the girl who dealt with the printing was at lunch… At 3pm I went back and it looked pretty good. Lots of big printers….. But no paper. Unless you consider office paper to be a suitable printing medium… They had very impressive posters on the walls, but all done in Santiago. I went across the road in search of better paper and then headed a few blocks away. Every place required me to explain everything, which was basically ‘print this so it doesn’t look like shit’. I found some heavier, slightly glossy paper that wouldn’t suck up all the ink and went back to wait around for the girl to get out of the bathroom. 2 hour lunch needs a 20 minute bathroom break after you’ve been back half an hour it seems. Turns out really she was really the only one who knew how to open photoshop since my questions about resolution, colour space and file types were met with mostly blank stares. She would take a tif file at least, which was better than the kodak place. While she was indisposed I asked the other guy exactly how many colour the printer had. ‘All of them’ was his reply, meaning the 4 primary colours made them all. 8 inks?? Basically it was a colour photocopier… I let them do their thing and as expected, lots of nice bands of colour… I was starting to get rather frustrated now.
I got another address and he sent me to somewhere else but they were a proper printer place, lots of huge machines churning out stuff. Better! I established they could print for me and was told they want the file in CYMK! now I was getting excited! They had an impressive print of the Tomb Raider poster and I made a few adjustments in photoshop and handed over my pen drive… Lovely bands of colour…./sigh.
However they had another printer upstairs and we went up to find a guy in front of a 27″ iMac! I explained what I wanted and looked at me like I was an idiot for explaining the obvious! I could have kissed him! Finally someone who seemed to have a clue. The 40″ plotter is churning out a big file so I have to go back in a couple of hours but I’m finally beginning to feel I might get somewhere! A 2 hour job in England is a 4 day epic quest in Iquique! Will I get a princess at the end??
Laptop problems
Well, I’ve ‘finished’ all up until India at least… again. All the weak and problem photos are chucked and now I regret hacking the 570 picks down to 500 because its gone down to 480. Photoshop has stopped working and needs reinstalling and lightroom is becoming less responsive all the time. I now find that although I have 4Gb of RAM only 2.6 is useable and as soon as I do anything complicated my laptop uses 100% of it and goes very slowly. I am about to head into town for lunch and to see how much an upgrade to 8Gb will cost. Hopefully they will take the 4Gb I already have in part exchange….
Most of my adjustments are minor colour adjustments and minor cropping. Nothing too radical… Hopefully LPI will prefer the change from this:
to this:
My daily routine in Xela
Day 341
Xela, Guatemala
I’ve been here for three weeks now studying and my days are pretty much the same. I wake up at 7.30am, eat breakfast and walk the 50 meters to the school around the corner. I get a cup of coffee and sit studying Spanish until 10am when there is more coffee and usually cake. Every stands around chatting for half an hour and then there is more studying until 1pm. Sometimes myself and the other students and teachers will go for a walk around town to look at something interesting, sometimes we’ll go for coffee. The school hasn’t had many people in it so far, at most 5 students, which at least means its reasonably quiet.
After school I come back to my host family for lunch and then maybe I have the rest of the day to while away. For several afternoons in the week we take excursions out to markets or churches in the local area which fills the rest of the day. Sometimes I have a siesta in the afternoon, or just sit and play my guitar for a few hours. I found a cool little cafe with wireless Internet so like to sit there when I need to get my information fix. I pulled my bike out of my van as soon as I arrived so try to cycle everywhere. Xela is kind of hilly and the roads can be pretty bad but its small enough with a bike.
At 6pm I have a salsa lesson and there are two possibilities, Salsa Rosa, which is small and funky, or Guajira which is bigger and with a nicer room. They both cost Q30 ($4) for a group lesson but no matter which you go its always a gamble as to whether you end up dancing with someone suitable or not. There is a nice Canadian girl, Ashley, who usually goes to one of them who is pretty good to dance with, but you might end up with someone completely off your level, or worse, no one at all. It seems Salsa is pretty popular with guys in Xela.
And so it should be, last Tuesday I turned up at Guajira to find 8 new, and very attractive, girls lined up for the class. Apparently they were trying to learn some new skills as they were the contestants in the ‘Miss Xela’ competition later today. I had a fun hour dancing with some hot (and rather tall) girls but sadly they didn’t return the next night. :p On some nights there is Salsa music in a few of the clubs which I have been to a few times. I’m feel like I’m finally getting to a decent level but I am still hampered by the lack of a good regular partner…
After my class I head back home for my evening meal and maybe an attempt at my homework, depending on whether I was given any. I’ve been messing around with Cubase 3sx for a while in an attempt to record some music, but the PreSonus 1394 interface I have works but produces far too much noise to make it worthwhile. I’m still looking for a solution but its not easy without a permanent Internet connection.
Xela is nice, although a little cold and it seems to be raining a lot of the time these days. I figure I will study for another week, maybe two, while trying to find some travel companions on the road South before heading east to El Salvador and some more time on the beach.
Welcome to Guatemala
Flores, Guatemala
No breakfast for us, Katrijn and I set off early for a very sweaty walk back to the car. Once there we found that Bill had patched up my leak with some JB Weld and we poured in a quart of oil and held our breath. It seemed to hold so in went another gallon and we ran it for 5 minutes. It was already roasting so didn’t take long to get very hot. It seemed we would be able to leave that day.
I took a few photos of Bill and his wife Katherine since they wouldn’t take anything for their trouble. I found out Bill is from Hendersonville in North Carolina, the place I spent my very strange thanksgiving last year. I promised to send them a copy once I got Internet access.
We left their little slice of heaven and drove gingerly along the rutted track, inevitably we snagged a few rocks on the way and each time I hopped out to survey the potential damage. Luckily I was careful enough to make it back to the paved highway, from now on it would be plain sailing.
We gave a lift to a local into San Ignacio which was much closer than I thought and we decided what to do. It was 11.30am by now and San Ignacio didn’t look that exciting. We had some lunch, worked out a few financial sums to make sure we had enough cash and headed towards the border. Hopefully we would be in Flores sipping beer by the lake very soon.
It was only 9 miles to the border and it didn’t cause any major problems. I got myself stamped out of Belize, canceled my car importation, paid my $37.50B and drove over no mans land towards the Guatemalan border. You have to drive through a building that sprays your car which proved completely ineffectual as by the time I had the windows up it had sprayed mostly the air in front of my car and little else.
No visa was required for me, I stood in the line behind a tiny Guatemalan lady and paid Q10 (€1) for my 90 visa. Next I did the paper work for my car which required my title and a copy of my title and passport. It cost Q40 which was payable at the nearby bank and I was given a sticker to place in my window. A border guard checked my paperwork and after paying a further Q50 cross the bridge we were in Guatemala and I was on country 5 of my trip.
The roads were worse than Belize which seemed strange and half of the trip over to Flores was on a rough, but mostly flat dirt track. I was just happy to get through the border in only an hour and relived my oil pan was still holding out.
I still wasn’t driving through the deep jungle I was hoping for, most of the roads look pretty much alike, houses and shops every once in a while and the usual hazards of dogs, horses and motorbikes. Flores was only a couple of hours away and a major tourist stop. It sits in the middle of a lake and we were early enough to check into one of the best and most popular hostels, Los Amigos.
We met Eva in the street and decided to give the tourist stuff a miss and spend the next day chilling out. I had ten million photos to process and lots of blog entries to write. Seemed like this was the place to do it, and when that was too boring I could go and visit the mythical city of Tikal. More ruins…. I think my last for a good while!
walk to car/bill and katherine/Â jb weld/photos/lift to local/lunch/money-atm/hour at border/ok roads/flores/met eva/los amogos/shower/blog
Up the creek
Orange Walk, Belize
The night in the restaurant wasn’t too bad after all, and you can’t beat $5 us for a place to stay. We were up early getting prepared for the river trip up to the Lamanai ruins which we had booked with the river lodge. It was $40 us, the same as everywhere else in town, but these guys started further downstream which meant you got another 7 miles of wildlife to spot on the way up. The river was high right now too, check out the breeze block walkway to our hotel.
There wasn’t a huge amount to see really, but then we had just spent the day at the zoo! :p A few iguanas and crocs but not too many birds. Why the tour left at 9am and not earlier didn’t make much sense but then I wasn’t running it. It was going to be a hot day either way.
During lunch I took a swig of my Sprite and was rewarded with something that had crawled or flew into the bottle. This normally wouldn’t be so bad but it then proceeded to sting me inside my throat! The pain was excruciating and I could feel it moving around in my neck. Several cups of water didn’t seem to dislodge it but I was worried about the potential swelling. I blagged a anti-histamine from the Canadian mom in our group and was reassured to see she also had a syringe for when/if I stopped breathing. Luckily I felt fine, if very uncomfortable for the rest of the day.
The beach of Death
Puerto Escondido
Day ??
I’m on day 8 of my visit to Puerto Escondido and thoroughly enjoying doing very little. I’m with 3 charming sisters from South Africa that I managed to persuade to share my van down to coast from Mexico City and I’ve been teaching them to surf. They’re very enthusiastic and between them seem to spend all day a the water on my board and a long board they rented. We spend half the time checking out the dead animals washed up on the beach though. 2 days ago we had great fun trying to help the lifeguard pull a dead and very rotten turtle up onto the beach so he could burying. What a stink. We also keep finding dead sea cobras. I want one for the hood of my car!
Its a nice little beachside town not that I’ve done too much exploring. Maybe its best to stay in the hotel, 2 people were kidnapped at gunpoint yesterday at a nearby restaurant. The sun shines in the morning but has started to disappear in favour of an afternoon shower that comes in varying degrees of ferocity. Yesterday it came down HARD. The little restaurant we had lunch at was leaking water everywhere and then the huge guttering inside collapsed under the weight of the water. If anyone had been underneath it they would have been killed.
Our Israeli neighbours standing in water with the electricity still on….. :p
Caryn cleans her feet
Back in the USA
Day 220
New York, NY
Thankfully felt a lot better after my trouble on the plane and managed to get my bags, onto the train into Penn Station and into a hostel. I didn’t feel like wandering all around Manhattan so looked up a hostel in Starbucks and wandered the few blocks to get to it. $48 for a 4 bed dorm! Might have been better value if I could have gotten up for the breakfast but it didn’t happen. I wandered around for a couple of hours and had an early night.
Next day I packed up my bags and jumped onto the Subway to where I would be spending my second night in NY, the floor of a Daniella’s hotel room. She was over for a course for a couple of days and generously let me share her room. I dumped my bags and set off on a mission to buy a new camera lens. My 17-55mm was good, great in fact, but I was constantly finding myself wishing for more reach. A 70-300mm would suit the bill perfectly and despite the fact that B&H, the best camera shop in NY, if not the world, was closed for passover the prices were pretty much the same all over the city. I walked up past Union Square, which I didn’t even recognise in the sunshine and walked west along 17th Street to the Camera store of the same name. $400 poorer I could now stalk celebrities! After a lunch of falafels and snapple I decided to wear out some shoe leather and try to find something interesting to snap. Sadly the track of my route will never be published as I had managed to lose my GPS tracker! It was my own stupid fault for attaching it to my belt and then putting on my backpack. Bleh.
I headed east and then south, ending up under the brooklyn bridge and finding I could photograph birds with some success at last!
I also checked out the World Trade Center site again, and although construction has started on the new towers it still looked much the same as it did the last time I was there in 2002. A bloody mess!
It was a nice afternoon walk back up to the hotel, I was absolutly knackered but I had arranged to meet Dani when she got off her bus…. I took my laptop out to the local Starbucks but for some reason didn’t bother checking my mail…. duh!
I sat waiting from 11pm until 1am and she didn’t show up. I tried in vain to call her but just ended up shouting at the stupid phones in frustration. Her bus broke down and she finally turned up at 2am. If I had checked my mail I would have had a nice sleep :p
wander past union/can’t find shop/17th str photo/wander west/photo bridge/WTC/walked north/use net/meet Dani/2am/sleep on floor.
Sick and tired of it all
Day 219
Mexico City
Well if seems like its that time to put my trip on hold for a month, I will be back in the UK on Saturday after 3 days in New York. I was lucky I made it to the airport. I was woken up multiple times by the ignorant French wanker who moved into my dorm yesterday. I needed to get up but I felt really awful. I staggered down to breakfast and only managed a small plate of fruit. I was convinced I was going to throw up sooner or later but somehow I avoided it. I guess I will blame the lentil soup I ate for lunch yesterday, I can’t think what else it could be. Max and Josca were fine, but they had pasta.
Josca gives me some ears while Max dishes up the Jamaica
I hovered around the toilet for ages but eventually I had to get my stuff packed and get myself to the airport. I took the Metro and by the time I got here I felt somewhat better, I was shuffling around like a zombie though. I’m soooooo tired!
New York here I come!
Windy by the Pacific
Day 164
Mazatlan, Mexico
Today was the day of partings once more, Roland decided it would be time to head to Guadalarja to meet his father in a few days and would have to go now. We checked the bus station and the buses left every 1/2 hour 24 hours a day so he would be off whenever, but we wanted to try to see a few things first. Mazatlan boasts the second highest lighthouse in the world, but the weather was awful, with low clouds and a heavy wind, it would be pointless to climb that today. We decided to go over the bay to the local ‘island’ (its attached to the mainland) where there was a nice long beach but we didn’t last long. The wind just threw sand everywhere and after an hour of getting blasted we gave up and headed back. Today would have been the one to drive down the coast, but how were we to know!
Cloudy Lighthouse.
We went back to the main beach as the sun slowly started to appear but it was still pretty windy. For a late lunch we had the local speciality ‘Pescado zzzzzzzzzzz something’ which was pretty good and then went back to see the old town some more in the daylight.
Cheers!
We spent some time in the Catherdral before wandering back to the square where we sat and people watched for a few hours. There is a local music school nearby so we listened to the students practice their various instruments and just chilled, quite literally, it wasn’t a good place to sit still in shorts. That became too much so we went off for some internet usage and returned to the potato woman for some much needed late supper. I was going to be sorry to see Roland go, but he’s in the country for a few more months and we’re both going south, I will no doubt bump into him again. Maybe then he will have become a Couchsurfing Ambassador like me and I won’t look down on him so much 
new hotel/checking bus station/over to ferry/lighthouse cloud/sitting on the beach/too windy/horses.ATVs/back to maz/claifornia grass/fishy dish/catherdral/sitting in square/fast internet/potato woman/bheer by the beach/bus for roland
Shocking roads
Day 158
Somewhere in Baja California Sur
After getting gas and not having to worry about driving like a maniac the dusty, sandy road we had attempted the previous day didn’t seem to bad. We soon learned our mistake in that the road was really only rocky at the start, there were plenty of campsites soon after we gave up the previous evening and we had enough gas to get to the next station. However hindsight is always 20/20 and prudence is not always a bad thing, especially when you’re facing the possibility of getting stuck somewhere dangerous. It seemed Betsabe drove horrendously slowly and since we didn’t have her rolling along in front of us made much better time. The road up the coast was best in a 4WD but easily done in a regular car, as long as care was taken when the rocks started poking up. The amount of property for sale out there was astounding, it made little sense to me since there was little water available, the road was bad and there wasn’t electricity. All they had in abundance was sunlight and sea. I’m not sure what people will do when gas becomes so expensive they can’t afford to ship water in. It only rains for a month a year…
We made it up to Cabo Pulmo after only 2 hours, which was much less than the projected 10 hours from the previous day, but then once you hit 40mph on the slightly rutted roads you stop bouncing and glide over the mini-topes. It was pretty windy now, so no weather for snorkelling or diving, we had lunch at a place on the beach with the other gringos and drove back to Los Arbolitos to find a camp spot. Any spot on the beach would blow our tents away pretty quickly and we faced the challenge of getting my van onto the beach safely, and the greater challenge of getting it off again without being towed. We settled on the better option of camping near the road under a nice tree which was only 2 minutes walk to the water. The place was full of semi-permanent Americano’s with their satellite dishes and solar panels. Down by the beach there was a ramshackle village of mostly abandoned huts and shacks, I wouldn’t have risked sleeping on the mattresses down there though. We collected firewood for our new spot and Roland went off rock scrambling again. I went looking for him as the sun set as I didn’t fancy carrying him back in the dark. Why do I get stuck with the ones with the deathwish?? :p
Another perfect camp spot!
Back and forth in San Lucas
Day 157
San Lucas, BCS, Mexico
We returned to the supermarket on the advice of our neighbour to buy more supplies for Los Arbolitos beach which was in the middle of nowhere and on a terrible road. We didn’t want to be driving around looking for food, we would be pretty much trapped with whatever we took with us. Betsabe was at church, it seemed Sunday had rolled around again without us noticing but had invited us to lunch and we drove over to sit and chat and leech her Internet connection. Expecting to spend the night at a dodgy beach I had left my laptop at her place, uploading photos and downloading movies. She is a Lost addict and was stunned to learn that the fourth series has recently started and I spent quite a while earning a extremely positive CS feedback by copying the latest 3 episodes to her laptop and ensuring they play. She made delicious lunch and I finally got to eat cactus which was really nice, although I have no idea how she made it. Roland is the chef, I hope he took notes.
Lunch was late though and I started wondering where we were going to spend the night. When we eventually got going it was 3pm and Betsabe drove us over to La Playita beach, which we had been looking for, before putting us on the road along the coast up toward Los Arbolitos. Of course all this passed me by as everyone was chatting in Spanish, but the road was pretty appalling, sandy with regular bottom scraping rocks. Betsabe got her Toyota saloon over the obstacles with no problems and I followed, with an increasing sense of uncertainty and dread. No one was camping up here, the road was bad, the sun would be setting soon and I only had a quarter of a tank of gas. Not a good combination for a trip out into the Baja wilderness. We came to the first town after half an hour and I decided we should go back to the original beach and come back better prepared, if at all. We said goodbye to Betsabe and her friends and once again went to set up our tents by Barb, our Canadian neighbour, who once again wanted to know why we hadn’t left :p
Larento
Day 149
Larento, BCS, Mexico
The plan called for a 9am start to drive the convoy south but I still didn’t have a new tire. Leaving Sheena and Pat at the beach Drake followed me back up Mulege to get a new tire. The first place said they could get one for me if I wanted to wait 10 minutes. 30 minutes later they turned up with the wrong tire and we carried onto the place recommended by the owner of the bar on the beach. This met with more success and after trying one that didn’t work I finally got myself fixed up with a used tire for 400 peso’s. I was tempted to get a spare wheel with tire to replace the crappy spare but it was getting late and we had a long drive to Larento. More desert and another military checkpoint later we drove into Larento and started looking for somewhere to stay. There were no couchsurfers in this part of the world but after checking our mail learned that we would be able to stay in La Paz with a German documentary film maker called Mike so we were sorted for a few days. We found an RV campsite and negotiated a camping rate for the night along with a $2 charge for use of the Internet. I attempted to put up my tent but it was just too windy and I also discovered one of my poles had a split which needed fixing. I gave up and decided Sheena wouldn’t be sleeping alone that night…
In Larento town we had lunch with a couple we had chatted to at the previous beach and I finally picked up a Mexican sim for my phone. Telcel apparently have the best coverage and for 300 pesos I got a sim and 300 pesos of credit. They still have the retarded American system of paying for incoming calls though, but my T-mobile sim was hardly connecting anymore and I needed a reliable connection to the rest of the world.
up early/tire saga/drive south/larento/new sim/met other campers/rv park/dinner/no sleep for sheena
A Whale of a good time in a couple of boats
Day 144
Guerrero Negro Baja California
We had left a note on the door of the tour office saying that we wouldn’t be making the 8am tour. I had made the executive decision to go at 11am and then we would head over to the cheaper campsite nearby for another night while I went surfing. With barely any time to remember stuff I was herded into the bus with all the other tourists and we set off towards the Pacific. First we had to pass through the salt factory which employs most of the people in Guerrero Negro. Our guide, Pedro, went on and on about it, constantly watching Sheena since he had learned we weren’t a couple. I think he might have a had a bit of a crush going on He recited lots of interesting information about the whole business of salt and went on about it so much I believe he is only working the whale tour until he can get a job hauling salt about in one of the big trucks.
The weather was too cold for surfing and after chatting to some people on the boat decided it would be better to head for the oasis town of San Ignacio, half way to the beaches of Mulege and a nice small town to spend the night. We went for some delicious fish tacos when we had picked up the van again and Sheena declared she wanted to marry a fish taco. I’ve been eating enough that I’m sure I’m turning into one, so you never know! :p
We made good time and were soon out of the desert and into the palm tree filled town in the desert. Following the directions of our friends on the boat we found the campsite which was basic and rather empty. A Spanish lady turned up and started chatting about the site and the cost. I only vaguely understood what she said but we were soon joined by a couple of American’s on motorbikes, one of whom spoke Spanish and he explained that she didn’t work there but the site was open and someone else would be along sometime to take our money. The cost? She didn’t know, but no more than $10.
Camping by the muddy lake
The bikers were going for dinner in town and we invited ourselves along. They met up with another couple of bikers that they had met only that day and we drove the couple of miles into the small town square and spent a pleasant evening drinking beer, eating tacos and chatting about our adventures. I learned Sheena was a professional traveller! We all drove back to their guesthouse where we broke out the tequila and vodka but the party wasn’t going to last long because they needed to close the gates at 10pm. Since that was one hour after Baja Midnight it was pretty late, but I didn’t want to spend the night trapped there, although it probably would be cheaper than the $10 at the campground.
We went back to the campsite and since it was on a small lake we decided to go for a spin in the supplied transportation. The lone working pedalo was not a good move, since it barely moved and only had one set of pedals. I was surprised that we managed to get it back to the shore, but we had better luck with the metal canoe that was pulled up. We got some beer and jumped in, admiring the milky way over head and trying to sneak up on the bikers tent. They were only talking about motorbikes…. still! But when you’re on a trip like that I guess you become a little obsessed :p One of the guys had crashed his bike earlier in the day and was probably lucky to be alive.
Beer and boats = not a good combination!
When it came time to get out we nearly met with disaster, I foolishly pulled the canoe up directly to the shore, but not alongside it. It was a sloppy, muddy bank and as soon as she stepped on it she started pushing the canoe away. I was certain she was about to take a bath but somehow she managed to jump back in the canoe and it didn’t tip up. She got a wet backside and I got an earful :p Personally I consider her lucky not to have put us both in the muddy lake, which would have made some even better photos :p
whales/pedro crush/change plan/fish tacos/scallops/empty camp ground/bikers/dinner/drinks with boys/locked in/canoe trip
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…
Kind of exploring Tucson a bit more, at least the 80′s disco bars….
Day 126 Tucson Az
  |
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….
What is the Spanish for ‘Happy New Year’ again?!?
Day 111 Monday
Chuidad Juarez
New years Eve was a quiet day for me, once again I phoned the insurance places which were closed and the family took us all out to lunch, to a Steak house…. Maybe I should repeat I don’t eat meat a little louder, although I thought we were going for Tacos… I slobbed around until the evening watching Mexican Soaps with Grandma (and switching to Seinfeld when she went to the bathroom) and not getting much done. People started arriving so I went for a shower and changed my clothes to something less ‘backpackery’ and when I came down there were 2 Mexican guys in white shirts serving drinks to everyone. Posh!! They didn’t give the maid a night off though which was something of a shame… New Years Eve was just like Christmas really, drinking, snacks, some songs on the piano, someone brought a guitar and no one could find the right channel at midnight to do the countdown. I was handed 12 grapes which I was apparently supposed to eat as the clock counted down the seconds but I was probably the only person who finished them completely, but then Im a tourist. I then set off attempting to wish everyone else a happy new year but should probably have sat in one spot and let them come to me because everyone set off around the house trying to hug everyone as quickly as possible. More smoking and drinking commenced but I grabbed Raphi’s ipod and watched Superbad with Dani which would have been a much better option the day before. Quite hilarious! Mc Lovin!!!!! :p
The Heart of Darkness
Day 102: Las Vegas
That morning Leon had disappeared off to some hiking place in the nearby mountains and we had a city to explore. He had furnished us with maps and some suggestions but the first thing we wanted was some food. We headed to Chinatown and after a wander around found a nice Thai place to get lunch. This was the nicest meal of the trip so far, we both agreed and since it was Vegas it was pretty cheap. Further into town we started looking for a place to park and drove back into the strips gridlock. We were surrounded by posh shiny new cars and we were sitting in a 10 year old minivan which was still covered with the mud from Monument Valley. I wasn’t embarrassed, I just wished I had my website name on the side :p We took a few wrong turns and ended up by the Sahara and decided to park there. All the casinos have free parking but we had chosen the one furthest from all the others which wasn’t so smart, but I needed the walk since I was getting lazy and we hiked down into town. I wondered how long the $50 I had allocated to my gambling would last….
91:Abilene Tx:Time to face the music…
We were woken by the rangers truck. I sank deeper into my sleeping bag and advised Daniella to pretend to be asleep. He only stuck a thing on the window though reminding us to pay before 9am. I doubted we would be that efficient. After breakfast, showers and the long overdue washing of my cooking gear we went over to the office to face the music. I was slightly concerned when they said ‘we were just talking about you’ and expected to be tazered or worse for my previous crime so I quickly explained I had driven off without paying at the previous place and they could hardly believe it. Hardly believe that I was owning up to it, its apparently a very common occurrence. They called the other park up while they took my details and payment for the night before and I then had a nice chat with the ranger about what to do. He gave me the address of the head office and said I should send the money with my details and they would sort it out. He also advised me that I could have been arrested but that they didn’t link the park information so if I hadn’t said anything they never would have known. He was extremely impressed that I ‘fessed up. Apparently they have lots of people doing the same at the South Llano River Park too.
78:Alabama:Back in Brum
Despite my thermal bottoms and socks I was woefully under dressed for the night and woke up at 5am absolutely freezing, well almost, the thermometer said 0 degrees. I had to get up and start the heater and since I was up I made a cup of tea and thought I may as well get an early start. If I hadn’t taken a shower Im sure I would have gotten away with the heinous crime of leaving the park without paying but the guy got me while I was having a much needed wash and left a note on my windscreen saying I should pay at 8am when the office opened. It was 6.45am and there was no way I was waiting around for over an hour. They have slots at the entrance where you can pay but the ranger saw me in the car park while I was taking dawn photos and took my $11 there and then.
Everglades National Park: Alligators, Crododiles *and* sharks! Jump in the water is lovely!
The next morning Miriam was gone! I heard her messing around with the stuff on the table and asked what the hell she was doing!?! But it was the bloody crows attacking our belongings and then cawing very loudly so as to stop me from getting back asleep. It was rather cold in the morning, but I now learned that the firepit was full of wood from the previous campers and my mashmallow addiction could have been fulfilled after all! Blast! We had eggies in the basket for breakfast which is always fun and a skill I have yet to master, but would be better with a non-stick pan Im sure. I bought a single petrol fuel stove which seems to work quite well and I shall have to make some extra soda can stoves too in the near future. This was really my first camping trip too as I only bought the tent on Thursday and had thus far been sleeping in the minivan on the platform. Perhaps I should lose the rear set of seats to make more room or perhaps store them on the roof. Time will tell. …
The road to New York City
I managed to haul my ass out of bed at 10am or so and sorted my stuff out. Renae had mailed me the previous night to say there was a NYC party on that night and when that happens it usually means something. She needed someone to go to a gig she wanted to see too so my next stop looked like New York. I went and got the car, loaded up and then what? NYC was quite close, only about 4 hours away and the gathering wasn’t until 9pm so I had time to kill. I decided to see something of Rhode Island so started driving south. I grabbed some lunch in Providence which is the state capital but you would never guess it from looking at it, it’s tiny. I carried on down to Newport and stopped at some mall for a couple of hours for some supplies, I went to the dollar store and got basic camping and cleaning gear as well as some stuff from Radioshack as my power inverter was lost in my little bag. I was still on a budget of sorts though so refused to get a $20 tape adapter. Shocking prices. I had a minor heart attack when I got back and found I had walked off and left my trunk wide open!