Driving into San Cristobal was interesting. Narrow streets that can be both one ways and two depending on how far along the street you are, and the fact that we didn’t have a map of the city ended up with me driving through a market. But we made it to the hostel Las Palomas.
The hostel was mostly dead, but there were still quite a few interesting travellers that we spent a couple nights drinking with. The second night of drinking involved watching “G.I. Joe” with Ben and a few of the other backpackers. It wasn’t a movie any of us took seriously, and spent most of the time making fun of it, which is pretty much all you can do with a movie like that. But the Martin from Poland couldn’t even dredge comedy out of the bad. I have never seen anyone with so much disdain or disgust for a movie. He looked like he was in physical pain watching it. And if you were to ask him about the movie his only response would be a simple, “No”. Can't say that I blame him. He eventually shut it off and took the DVD out of the player.
After the movie a few of us went out drinking. The first bar was a nice sit down place with live music. Eventually we ended up at a Mexican night club that was dead when we first got in. Dead enough that they were giving us free shots. Eventually the bar got busier and we ended up dancing with the locals. My rhythm needs work; I don’t think I was doing it right, but I tried, and it was fun.
The morning we left San Cristobal, we met another couple who are driving an old beat up VW rabbit down to Argentina and back. We swapped stories and they told us about the mecanical problems they have been having. We bid farewell, but as we were talking to hostel owner we saw the rabbit die perfectly in front of the door. We burst out laughing and then helped them push start it.
We then headed towards Palenque and past another couple shake downs, one involving homemade spike-strips. The military has also taken more of an interest in us, and the searches have became more thorough, which is annoying. However my only real gripe with the military is that they left my day pack open when they searched it. In normal cases this wouldn't have been a big deal, but our circumstances were not normal.
Based on the title you might have thought that I was referring metaphorically to Ben and I travelling southward (in a cheesy manner), but I was actually referring to the ants that live in our Van. We started seeing a few crawling around about a week ago, since then the colony has been thriving. We're not 100% sure what they are eating. One theory is that they go out at night to forage and are safely back in the van each morning, since they know we avoid driving in the darkness. Luckily they're just small black foraging ants that don't bite, so we haven't been too concerned about the situation. Besides they're really the only ones that have been cleaning our van, so we let it be. However, when the military did not close my backpack the ants moved their nursery into it during the drive to Palenque. It was annoying trying to sweep all of the ants and their eggs out of my backpack, but I think I dealt a swift blow to the colony. The ants have not been as prominent in the van lately, but the Queen is still at large. Maybe the vents?
We stayed at Palenque for a couple days, went a bit hippy and saw the ruins.
From Palenque we drove to Chetumal and drove around looking for a cheap place; we found one. It looked like a place where criminals would go after they were realeased from prison and trying to reincorporate themselves into society, but it was nice enough for one night. In the morning I went down to the lobby in order to use the WIFI. As I was on the internet it started pouring and Ben came down the stairs half naked and soaking wet. He was doing yoga on the roof (where are room was) when the wind blew the door shut. The owner gave us a spare key, but unfortunately it didn't work. After trying to break into the room with the leatherman without succes, I tried with a spoon and was able to break in within a minute -- maybe not the most secure accomodations.
This set us back a little, but we still made it to the border fairly early. We stopped at the Mexican immagration office so Ben could cancel the insurance for the vehicle. At the same time the power window panel on the drivers side stopped working and we couldn't close it. The fuse was fine, so we went to the next logical step -- Ben started pulling off the door panel. We tried to push it up manually, as well as a multitude of other things that people, who are not mechanically inclined, would try. I even spit on the connection points of the wires where they intersect with the panel controls. Nothing. But shortly after when we gave up and were driving to Belize they worked (maybe the spit completed the circuit?).
Now we're just before the Guatemalan border -- about 2 hours from Tikal.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
The Pilgrimage Continues
We left the RV park just north of Acapulco early in the morning and headed south. We circled around Acapulco for a bit, but eventually got on the 200 south of the city. This is were we saw about 8-10 Federali trucks with at least 4 officers each in full swat gear refueling at a Pemex. We decided to stop at the next gas station. Haven`t heard anything about it in the news so far -- maybe they all just happened to need gas at the same time?
There also seemed to be a higher concentration of military checkpoints along the way, and we had to stop more than once to have the van searched -- it was the first time they actually checked the roofpod or asked for our passports. They are all still quite friendly though, and I think they got a kick out of a tall pale freckled shirtless Canadian. Especially when I misheard a question and told them that I was from Mazatlan -- somehow I don't think they believed me.
We also encountered our first Federali checkpoint. On this occasion I was again driving shirtless to avoid decimating another shirt with sweat. They all just laughed as we pulled up, and let us go through after only a couple questions.
Puerto Escondido looks like a pirate cove that slowly and grudgingly became a tourist town, not because it wanted to, but as a last ditch effort to adapt to the changing times. It`s now a great surfer / beach bum town and I truly feel at home here. Mainly because it is the place that has the highest ratio of chin straps that I have ever seen. The first night we got there it seemed like every 2nd or 3rd guy was chin strapped. I may no longer be sporting chin strap (I'm now just a normal beardy), but I still feel a sense of kinship with them. It also had a good pizzeria that was empty. Pizza isn't big in Mexico, and we saw a few Mexicans wander in looking for tacos and being shocked and walk off when the waitress told them they didn't have them.
We lazed about the town for a couple days and I revelled in being clean for the first time in awhile, and not driving for a full day. We had been on the move for the last 5 days and it was nice to relax for a bit and a break from the pilgrimage to Tierra Del Fuego.
After Puerto Escondido we had our first shakedown since coming to Mexico. You can read all about it in Ben's blog http://www.thebestbenandshaneblog.blogspot.com/ .
There also seemed to be a higher concentration of military checkpoints along the way, and we had to stop more than once to have the van searched -- it was the first time they actually checked the roofpod or asked for our passports. They are all still quite friendly though, and I think they got a kick out of a tall pale freckled shirtless Canadian. Especially when I misheard a question and told them that I was from Mazatlan -- somehow I don't think they believed me.
We also encountered our first Federali checkpoint. On this occasion I was again driving shirtless to avoid decimating another shirt with sweat. They all just laughed as we pulled up, and let us go through after only a couple questions.
Puerto Escondido looks like a pirate cove that slowly and grudgingly became a tourist town, not because it wanted to, but as a last ditch effort to adapt to the changing times. It`s now a great surfer / beach bum town and I truly feel at home here. Mainly because it is the place that has the highest ratio of chin straps that I have ever seen. The first night we got there it seemed like every 2nd or 3rd guy was chin strapped. I may no longer be sporting chin strap (I'm now just a normal beardy), but I still feel a sense of kinship with them. It also had a good pizzeria that was empty. Pizza isn't big in Mexico, and we saw a few Mexicans wander in looking for tacos and being shocked and walk off when the waitress told them they didn't have them.
We lazed about the town for a couple days and I revelled in being clean for the first time in awhile, and not driving for a full day. We had been on the move for the last 5 days and it was nice to relax for a bit and a break from the pilgrimage to Tierra Del Fuego.
After Puerto Escondido we had our first shakedown since coming to Mexico. You can read all about it in Ben's blog http://www.thebestbenandshaneblog.blogspot.com/ .
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Mainland
We stayed in La Paz for another day, wandering around the city in the heat – making the mistake of not finding out exactly how far it is when asking for directions. What’s the quote, “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid day sun.” It always seemed wise, but I never truly understood how sage the advice was. I do know.
The next day we packed up our gear and found the Ferry Office, and Ben in a fantastic use of Spanish was able to sort everything out to get the van onto the ferry. We beat the heat by seeing a movie then drove down to the ferry terminal and ended up in line in front of a couple from Edmonton, Alberta, who had driven down from their place in Arizona. We then confusedly boarded the barge amidst a myriad of vague hand signals, spinning flashlights and whistles that let me know I wasn’t doing something right. Eventually we got on the barge parked, and climbed out of the oppressive heat and fumes into the passenger section.
The airconditioning seemed like a blessing at first, but it soon became apparent that the boat was kept uncomfortably cold, and we weren’t allowed to go back to get anything out of the vehicle, so we ended up using our backpacks as blankets or sleeping on our bellies to conserve heat. Nothing else of note happened except that I saw a short old Gaucho with jeans, a plaid shirt, cowboy hat and boots and a face deeply creased with wisdom sleeping, with tears running down his cheeks – so sad and odd to see it in a hyper air conditioned modern ferry with “What Lies Beneath” playing in the background.
Once we got to mainland, we drove out of Mazatlan to San Blas. Shortly past San Blas we found an Idyllic RV Park on the Playa de los Cocos. The only other people staying there were a couple from Cold Lake Alberta. It was everything a tropical RV Park should be except it had no beach only rocks with fairly strong waves crashing on them. However, after a 12 hour ferry ride and all day after in the car the water was too nice to resist. My reckless nature saw me bashed up a little, but it was still worth it. The picture I'm going to try and post on the blog will be from this location.
In the morning we headed further down the coast into Puerto Vallarta and beyond to just outside of a small town where we camped at an RV park that a retired couple from Ontario was opening up for the season -- we seemed to be there first clients. Unfortunately we couldn't swim off of the beach, but they did say that the fishing was good. I didn't really know what to expect, but I decided to try my luck, so I wandered down to the crashing waves. It was my first attempt at fishing in Mexico and I had no idea what to use so I randomly chose a white jig and started casting by some rocks -- the pelicans seemed to be staring at me sceptically. However to my suprise, something actually bit my hook and I hauled in a "Jack" as they called it onto the beach. That was the easy part, filleting the fish was the hard part especially sie th sun was setting, the bugs were coming out and I had no idea how to. I did my best, which was poor, and was left with a few small pieces of boneless fish. Unfortuantely we had no butter or oil, and no eggs to make a batter. We cooked some in beer on the frying pan, but it didn't turn out so well -- I still ate some of it.
Since then we have stopped at a Mexican resort for a day, and now find ourselves in an RV Park (with WIFI) just north of Acapulco.
The next day we packed up our gear and found the Ferry Office, and Ben in a fantastic use of Spanish was able to sort everything out to get the van onto the ferry. We beat the heat by seeing a movie then drove down to the ferry terminal and ended up in line in front of a couple from Edmonton, Alberta, who had driven down from their place in Arizona. We then confusedly boarded the barge amidst a myriad of vague hand signals, spinning flashlights and whistles that let me know I wasn’t doing something right. Eventually we got on the barge parked, and climbed out of the oppressive heat and fumes into the passenger section.
The airconditioning seemed like a blessing at first, but it soon became apparent that the boat was kept uncomfortably cold, and we weren’t allowed to go back to get anything out of the vehicle, so we ended up using our backpacks as blankets or sleeping on our bellies to conserve heat. Nothing else of note happened except that I saw a short old Gaucho with jeans, a plaid shirt, cowboy hat and boots and a face deeply creased with wisdom sleeping, with tears running down his cheeks – so sad and odd to see it in a hyper air conditioned modern ferry with “What Lies Beneath” playing in the background.
Once we got to mainland, we drove out of Mazatlan to San Blas. Shortly past San Blas we found an Idyllic RV Park on the Playa de los Cocos. The only other people staying there were a couple from Cold Lake Alberta. It was everything a tropical RV Park should be except it had no beach only rocks with fairly strong waves crashing on them. However, after a 12 hour ferry ride and all day after in the car the water was too nice to resist. My reckless nature saw me bashed up a little, but it was still worth it. The picture I'm going to try and post on the blog will be from this location.
In the morning we headed further down the coast into Puerto Vallarta and beyond to just outside of a small town where we camped at an RV park that a retired couple from Ontario was opening up for the season -- we seemed to be there first clients. Unfortunately we couldn't swim off of the beach, but they did say that the fishing was good. I didn't really know what to expect, but I decided to try my luck, so I wandered down to the crashing waves. It was my first attempt at fishing in Mexico and I had no idea what to use so I randomly chose a white jig and started casting by some rocks -- the pelicans seemed to be staring at me sceptically. However to my suprise, something actually bit my hook and I hauled in a "Jack" as they called it onto the beach. That was the easy part, filleting the fish was the hard part especially sie th sun was setting, the bugs were coming out and I had no idea how to. I did my best, which was poor, and was left with a few small pieces of boneless fish. Unfortuantely we had no butter or oil, and no eggs to make a batter. We cooked some in beer on the frying pan, but it didn't turn out so well -- I still ate some of it.
Since then we have stopped at a Mexican resort for a day, and now find ourselves in an RV Park (with WIFI) just north of Acapulco.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Original Post
I may have been neglecting the blog just a little, but to be fair I have been either sleeping in the van or camping in the wilderness without a way to interact with the internet, so I'll do my best to catch everyone up; warning this could be a long post.
First a brief explanation of the trip and the crew. You most likely already know me or you probably wouldn't be reading this blog, but you may not know my friend Ben Orr. He will most likely be the logic filter to my ideas on the trip, weeding out the altogether bad, insane, inane and stupid ideas from the good and probably won't get us injured ideas. So far he has been a great filter, although I distinctly remember him trying to get me to dress up as Tom Cruise from "Risky Business" last night for Halloween -- you know the scene where he slides into the kitchen in his underwear, socks, aviators and a popped collar shirt (we were struggling to come up with costumes based on what we had in our backpacks). On the other hand he did stop me from dressing up as a pile of dirty laundry, which seemed, at the time, to be the best idea I had ever had. Luckily I didn't or half of my clothes would have been scattered throughout San Francisco. Ben also has his own trip blog, "The Best Ben and Shane's Travel Blog" http://thebestbenandshaneblog.blogspot.com/. This will give you a refreshing non-rambling account of the trip, and he has been much better for updating the his blog.
As for the trip we are planning to drive down to the tip of South America. We're not 100% sure how long it will take us or the exact route we will take, we just want to make it to "Tierra Del Fuego." The only thing on our itinerary is to be in Nicaragua at Christmas.
Day 1 "The Leaving of Regina"
We were so proud of our packing and I remember us commenting on how well everything fit into the vehicle. We even had a large open space between the front and back seats where we could comfortably sleep on the mats. We both commented on how good and organized the van looked. There was only one thing missing -- the wooden shark car freshner. We both hopped into the vehicle ready to start the trip, but encountered our first problem. The shark wouldn't fit over the rearview mirror, so while Ben started driving I struggled with the shark and eventually tied to the mirror. I turned triumphantly to Ben and said, "I got it." At this point we heard a clunk on the roof. Ben slowly pulled over on Broadway and looked at me, "I think we forgot to close the roof pod." We got out of the vehicle looked up at the wide open roof pod and laughed. I started walking back down Broadway to see what we had lost. It seems the only thing that fell out of the roof pod was the extra bolts and nuts to attach the roof pod. We still don't think that we lost anything else on that occasion. Probably not the best start to the trip -- foreshadowing maybe? We've made sure that it has been locked since that time.
After reaching Airdrie I went up to Edmonton to visit my cousins, while Ben stayed in Airdrie with his family and did the “Public Service Commission” test.
We regrouped a couple days later and left from Airdrie in the morning, after adding a little duct tape to the roof rack as a precaution. We also vowed to start driving slower than we had been; the van was getting horrible gas mileage going 110 km/hour on the #1. We drove down through Calgary and headed west towards Banff National Park and on into BC. We eventually turned south and drove through the mountains on a small highway as sleet started to pour down. Sleet turned into huge mobs of wet conjoined snowflakes and the roads got more than a little icy. Luckily the roads were quiet, and it was nice to see a little proper snow before heading south.
We arrived at the BC Idaho border in the afternoon. We passed through the crossing without too much hassle. Although they did find it curious that both Ben and I had forgotten to sign our passports, but I don’t think anyone really wanted to search our vehicle outside in the cold blowing sleet.
We we’re planning to camp in Spokane, but the weather was too cold to justify camping so we kept driving through a mix of rain and snow, when we climbed back up into the mountains. We made it into Washington and kept driving as night fell. We did our best to avoid the interstate. We got lost a couple times.
I remember waking up once and after Ben had stopped the van. When I asked where we were he just looked back at me and said, “I’m not sure.” While he fumbled with the map. At that instant we heard a train creepily squeak to a stop about 20 feet away from us. We both agreed that it was more than likely that the train carried someone brandishing a machete. A few minutes later another train rushed past us at full speed maybe 5-10 feet from where we were parked. We found out where we were and decided to get the hell out of there. We ended up sleeping in the parking lot of a gas station.
The next day we continued driving down through Oregon. We found the coastal highway and followed it through the day and into the night, only stopping for gas and once to eat. Eventually I took over the wheel and drove into California. It was late at night and Ben had to use the washroom, so I pulled off into Crescent city and found a gas station. I was exhausted and starting to drift off, when Ben got back into the car and urgently told me to go.
In my stupor I looked up and asked, ‘What? Why?”
“Go, just go!” We sped off into the night, and my first thought was did he Ben steal something, but that seemed so out of character that I didn’t really believe it. He later told me that he had accidently made a mess of the washroom and was just too tired to deal with it. I still don’t know exactly what happened in that washroom, and I’m thankful for it. We slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot that night amongst the safety of the flock of caravans already there.
In the morning we drove to Jebediah Smith Redwood State Park and set up camp in a mostly abandoned campground. Since it was low season we were able to find a huge campsite with 2 picnic tables away from any other campers. We set up camp for the first time, and wandered off into the campground and chatted a bit with the campground hosts, who kept pressuring us in a neighborly way to go to the buffet at the casino, “It’s $9 all you can eat. They have sirloin steak and seafood, crab legs. $9 all you can eat steak and seafood.” It was a hell of a deal, but we were content with our $1 8 pack of hot dogs, no matter where the meat had come from.
We went back to the camp and planned out a jog, unfortunately we had a little trouble finding the bridge over the river that lead to the trails and ended up jogging back and fourth along the river and campground like lost mice in a maze who remember a door being where a wall now is and can’t quite understand what’s happening. We later found out that it was only a summer bridge, so we ran on some convoluted circular route around the campground passing a family, who probably assumed we were a little crazy, several times. Regardless the scenery was beautiful, unlike anything I had seen, and since the campground was nearly deserted it made the experience that much better.
The next day we found out where the really big trees where and drove on a steep windy road from Crescent City up towards the park. We jogged up the road with massive 300-350 foot redwoods on either side of us, and a dense ground covering of ferns. It all seemed prehistoric, where dinosaurs wouldn’t seem out of place. I think we were more shocked that we didn’t see a dinosaur. Velociraptors were a big concern.
After the Redwood State Park we drove down the coast along the #1. As night set and a fog descended over the road and small towns that we drove into the set of a standard horror movie set. It’s not normal for someone to have a bunch of cars and winnebagos with a variety of plates stashed on your property. We ended up sleeping just off of the interstate into San Francisco, and driving into town in the morning. The fog was so bad that it took me a second to realize that I was on the Golden Gate Bridge because I could just make out the bottoms of the support cables. In town we didn’t quite know where to go, so we went in search of internet witnessing the first of the H1N1 flu shots. They started the line across the street from the clinic in the park, which it looped around. There were already several hundred people waiting before the clinic was open.
Luckily we met an old lady in the park who needed a knife to cut into a bundle of newspapers. I cut the bundle for her, so she could take or steal a newspaper (her reasoning was that the paper boy had left it there because he was scared of the crowd in the park). Regardless she led us to an internet café where we found a hostel. It was expensive, but it had free internet and was going to have free food and alcohol at the Halloween party. We made as much use out of the freebies as possible.
After San Fran we continued down the coast and crashed just before Los Angeles, and then passed through LA during the day and went straight to San Diego where we slept in a discount Grocery store parking lot where we slept for a couple of days after being politely asked to leave the Wal-Mart lot. We hung out at the beach and visited the zoo.
We got up early in the morning and prepared for the border crossing into Tijuana. Things almost went well, but I drove straight into the city without stopping to get the proper immigration stamps and car registration. Luckily I used my confused Gringo look and to nice ladies at a hotel helped me with directions back to immigration without heading back into the states, and also gave me a mini map of downtown Tijuana. We finally got back to immigration and started wandering aimlessly through the building as people nicely directed us around and helped our lost souls complete the process. We then got the hell out of Tijuana and headed south. Mexico did not get nice until at least two hours south of Tijuana, and then the Baja peninsula got increasingly less skuzzy and the landscape changed into a western with stunning scenery. Unfortunately we didn’t make as good of time as we thought, and we noticed that the sun was starting to go down as we drove towards our first stop “Bahia de los Angeles”. I pulled over once to see Giant boulders that are scattered in the desert. It was gorgeous as the sun went down, but we decided to keep moving on. Unfortunately the sliding door on the car wouldn’t close. I started spraying WD-40 everywhere to no avail, while we toyed with the thought of camping out by the boulders or driving for a couple hours or more with someone holding the door shut the entire time. As we considered the options we figured out the problem and were able to use the nail file of Leatherman to unjam the latch. After that scare we made it to Bahia de Los Angeles. There was a bit of trouble finding La Gringa campground, since it’s on a horrible dirt road, past a military installation, but we eventually found it and set out our chairs, drank our Tecates and watched the “Squid Tide”.
We weren’t 100% sure what it was when we first sat down. All we could hear is “huuaaah” a small pause and “Foooosh” a sound like a big out of shape man breathing in after climbing 3 flights of stairs and then sharply expelling. When we investigated with the flashlight we found out that large squid were feeding in the bay and some had accidentally beached themselves and where uselessly shooting jets of water out into the air. Unfortunately no dolphins though.
We set up camp the next morning and stayed a few days practicing our Spanish a little in town, lounging on the beach and snorkeling off the rocks after being led to a snorkeling spot by what can only be described as the Mexican version of the “littlelest Hobbo”. He looked like he was ready to save us from danger at any moment, until he jumped in the water with us and was almost taken out to sea by the tide – he left shortly after. When we got back we realized that we had accidently left the light on in the vehicle and the battery was dead, luckily everyone at the camp was so nice that they basically took care of the problem for us and boosted our van – we really didn’t have to do anything.
After a couple days we packed up camp and I snorkeled one last time in the bay and finally saw a few stingrays and found a golf ball. We left towards Mulege. At one of the Military check points Ben gave a brief English lesson to one of the guards who wanted to say Comprar in English, while the other guard spoke with the little English that he had. Once he ran out of things to say in English he looked very sheepish and nervous even though he was the one who was carrying a gun about half the length of his body.
We have been through quite a few military checkpoints so far, ad all of the officers have been young, bored and nice. We were only searched once, but not thoroughly and we both think that they were just bored and curious about our setup. Even when they found the open leaking bottle of Bacardi in the cooler in between the front seats they just said “Bacardi” with a smile.
We stayed the night in Mulege and got into La Paz, yesterday. It seems to be a really nice University town, which is good because we are no longer the bottom of the food chain – lost university exchange students have now taken that spot. We also met an Australian I the hostel, who stopped me because I was wearing my Riders shirt. He has worked in Saskatchewan on a farm outside of Kenaston. Although he claims that when he saw Ben talking on the phone that he thought he was from Saskatchewan because Ben apparently has a Saskatchewan look about him – still not sure what a Sask look is though. We hung out with him drank some beers and went to play pool at a bar across the street from the hostel. We stayed there until it closed, and played against some of the locals for most of the night.
Now off to Breakfast. Sorry for the incredibly long post. I will try to keep up in the future.
First a brief explanation of the trip and the crew. You most likely already know me or you probably wouldn't be reading this blog, but you may not know my friend Ben Orr. He will most likely be the logic filter to my ideas on the trip, weeding out the altogether bad, insane, inane and stupid ideas from the good and probably won't get us injured ideas. So far he has been a great filter, although I distinctly remember him trying to get me to dress up as Tom Cruise from "Risky Business" last night for Halloween -- you know the scene where he slides into the kitchen in his underwear, socks, aviators and a popped collar shirt (we were struggling to come up with costumes based on what we had in our backpacks). On the other hand he did stop me from dressing up as a pile of dirty laundry, which seemed, at the time, to be the best idea I had ever had. Luckily I didn't or half of my clothes would have been scattered throughout San Francisco. Ben also has his own trip blog, "The Best Ben and Shane's Travel Blog" http://thebestbenandshaneblog.blogspot.com/. This will give you a refreshing non-rambling account of the trip, and he has been much better for updating the his blog.
As for the trip we are planning to drive down to the tip of South America. We're not 100% sure how long it will take us or the exact route we will take, we just want to make it to "Tierra Del Fuego." The only thing on our itinerary is to be in Nicaragua at Christmas.
Day 1 "The Leaving of Regina"
We were so proud of our packing and I remember us commenting on how well everything fit into the vehicle. We even had a large open space between the front and back seats where we could comfortably sleep on the mats. We both commented on how good and organized the van looked. There was only one thing missing -- the wooden shark car freshner. We both hopped into the vehicle ready to start the trip, but encountered our first problem. The shark wouldn't fit over the rearview mirror, so while Ben started driving I struggled with the shark and eventually tied to the mirror. I turned triumphantly to Ben and said, "I got it." At this point we heard a clunk on the roof. Ben slowly pulled over on Broadway and looked at me, "I think we forgot to close the roof pod." We got out of the vehicle looked up at the wide open roof pod and laughed. I started walking back down Broadway to see what we had lost. It seems the only thing that fell out of the roof pod was the extra bolts and nuts to attach the roof pod. We still don't think that we lost anything else on that occasion. Probably not the best start to the trip -- foreshadowing maybe? We've made sure that it has been locked since that time.
After reaching Airdrie I went up to Edmonton to visit my cousins, while Ben stayed in Airdrie with his family and did the “Public Service Commission” test.
We regrouped a couple days later and left from Airdrie in the morning, after adding a little duct tape to the roof rack as a precaution. We also vowed to start driving slower than we had been; the van was getting horrible gas mileage going 110 km/hour on the #1. We drove down through Calgary and headed west towards Banff National Park and on into BC. We eventually turned south and drove through the mountains on a small highway as sleet started to pour down. Sleet turned into huge mobs of wet conjoined snowflakes and the roads got more than a little icy. Luckily the roads were quiet, and it was nice to see a little proper snow before heading south.
We arrived at the BC Idaho border in the afternoon. We passed through the crossing without too much hassle. Although they did find it curious that both Ben and I had forgotten to sign our passports, but I don’t think anyone really wanted to search our vehicle outside in the cold blowing sleet.
We we’re planning to camp in Spokane, but the weather was too cold to justify camping so we kept driving through a mix of rain and snow, when we climbed back up into the mountains. We made it into Washington and kept driving as night fell. We did our best to avoid the interstate. We got lost a couple times.
I remember waking up once and after Ben had stopped the van. When I asked where we were he just looked back at me and said, “I’m not sure.” While he fumbled with the map. At that instant we heard a train creepily squeak to a stop about 20 feet away from us. We both agreed that it was more than likely that the train carried someone brandishing a machete. A few minutes later another train rushed past us at full speed maybe 5-10 feet from where we were parked. We found out where we were and decided to get the hell out of there. We ended up sleeping in the parking lot of a gas station.
The next day we continued driving down through Oregon. We found the coastal highway and followed it through the day and into the night, only stopping for gas and once to eat. Eventually I took over the wheel and drove into California. It was late at night and Ben had to use the washroom, so I pulled off into Crescent city and found a gas station. I was exhausted and starting to drift off, when Ben got back into the car and urgently told me to go.
In my stupor I looked up and asked, ‘What? Why?”
“Go, just go!” We sped off into the night, and my first thought was did he Ben steal something, but that seemed so out of character that I didn’t really believe it. He later told me that he had accidently made a mess of the washroom and was just too tired to deal with it. I still don’t know exactly what happened in that washroom, and I’m thankful for it. We slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot that night amongst the safety of the flock of caravans already there.
In the morning we drove to Jebediah Smith Redwood State Park and set up camp in a mostly abandoned campground. Since it was low season we were able to find a huge campsite with 2 picnic tables away from any other campers. We set up camp for the first time, and wandered off into the campground and chatted a bit with the campground hosts, who kept pressuring us in a neighborly way to go to the buffet at the casino, “It’s $9 all you can eat. They have sirloin steak and seafood, crab legs. $9 all you can eat steak and seafood.” It was a hell of a deal, but we were content with our $1 8 pack of hot dogs, no matter where the meat had come from.
We went back to the camp and planned out a jog, unfortunately we had a little trouble finding the bridge over the river that lead to the trails and ended up jogging back and fourth along the river and campground like lost mice in a maze who remember a door being where a wall now is and can’t quite understand what’s happening. We later found out that it was only a summer bridge, so we ran on some convoluted circular route around the campground passing a family, who probably assumed we were a little crazy, several times. Regardless the scenery was beautiful, unlike anything I had seen, and since the campground was nearly deserted it made the experience that much better.
The next day we found out where the really big trees where and drove on a steep windy road from Crescent City up towards the park. We jogged up the road with massive 300-350 foot redwoods on either side of us, and a dense ground covering of ferns. It all seemed prehistoric, where dinosaurs wouldn’t seem out of place. I think we were more shocked that we didn’t see a dinosaur. Velociraptors were a big concern.
After the Redwood State Park we drove down the coast along the #1. As night set and a fog descended over the road and small towns that we drove into the set of a standard horror movie set. It’s not normal for someone to have a bunch of cars and winnebagos with a variety of plates stashed on your property. We ended up sleeping just off of the interstate into San Francisco, and driving into town in the morning. The fog was so bad that it took me a second to realize that I was on the Golden Gate Bridge because I could just make out the bottoms of the support cables. In town we didn’t quite know where to go, so we went in search of internet witnessing the first of the H1N1 flu shots. They started the line across the street from the clinic in the park, which it looped around. There were already several hundred people waiting before the clinic was open.
Luckily we met an old lady in the park who needed a knife to cut into a bundle of newspapers. I cut the bundle for her, so she could take or steal a newspaper (her reasoning was that the paper boy had left it there because he was scared of the crowd in the park). Regardless she led us to an internet café where we found a hostel. It was expensive, but it had free internet and was going to have free food and alcohol at the Halloween party. We made as much use out of the freebies as possible.
After San Fran we continued down the coast and crashed just before Los Angeles, and then passed through LA during the day and went straight to San Diego where we slept in a discount Grocery store parking lot where we slept for a couple of days after being politely asked to leave the Wal-Mart lot. We hung out at the beach and visited the zoo.
We got up early in the morning and prepared for the border crossing into Tijuana. Things almost went well, but I drove straight into the city without stopping to get the proper immigration stamps and car registration. Luckily I used my confused Gringo look and to nice ladies at a hotel helped me with directions back to immigration without heading back into the states, and also gave me a mini map of downtown Tijuana. We finally got back to immigration and started wandering aimlessly through the building as people nicely directed us around and helped our lost souls complete the process. We then got the hell out of Tijuana and headed south. Mexico did not get nice until at least two hours south of Tijuana, and then the Baja peninsula got increasingly less skuzzy and the landscape changed into a western with stunning scenery. Unfortunately we didn’t make as good of time as we thought, and we noticed that the sun was starting to go down as we drove towards our first stop “Bahia de los Angeles”. I pulled over once to see Giant boulders that are scattered in the desert. It was gorgeous as the sun went down, but we decided to keep moving on. Unfortunately the sliding door on the car wouldn’t close. I started spraying WD-40 everywhere to no avail, while we toyed with the thought of camping out by the boulders or driving for a couple hours or more with someone holding the door shut the entire time. As we considered the options we figured out the problem and were able to use the nail file of Leatherman to unjam the latch. After that scare we made it to Bahia de Los Angeles. There was a bit of trouble finding La Gringa campground, since it’s on a horrible dirt road, past a military installation, but we eventually found it and set out our chairs, drank our Tecates and watched the “Squid Tide”.
We weren’t 100% sure what it was when we first sat down. All we could hear is “huuaaah” a small pause and “Foooosh” a sound like a big out of shape man breathing in after climbing 3 flights of stairs and then sharply expelling. When we investigated with the flashlight we found out that large squid were feeding in the bay and some had accidentally beached themselves and where uselessly shooting jets of water out into the air. Unfortunately no dolphins though.
We set up camp the next morning and stayed a few days practicing our Spanish a little in town, lounging on the beach and snorkeling off the rocks after being led to a snorkeling spot by what can only be described as the Mexican version of the “littlelest Hobbo”. He looked like he was ready to save us from danger at any moment, until he jumped in the water with us and was almost taken out to sea by the tide – he left shortly after. When we got back we realized that we had accidently left the light on in the vehicle and the battery was dead, luckily everyone at the camp was so nice that they basically took care of the problem for us and boosted our van – we really didn’t have to do anything.
After a couple days we packed up camp and I snorkeled one last time in the bay and finally saw a few stingrays and found a golf ball. We left towards Mulege. At one of the Military check points Ben gave a brief English lesson to one of the guards who wanted to say Comprar in English, while the other guard spoke with the little English that he had. Once he ran out of things to say in English he looked very sheepish and nervous even though he was the one who was carrying a gun about half the length of his body.
We have been through quite a few military checkpoints so far, ad all of the officers have been young, bored and nice. We were only searched once, but not thoroughly and we both think that they were just bored and curious about our setup. Even when they found the open leaking bottle of Bacardi in the cooler in between the front seats they just said “Bacardi” with a smile.
We stayed the night in Mulege and got into La Paz, yesterday. It seems to be a really nice University town, which is good because we are no longer the bottom of the food chain – lost university exchange students have now taken that spot. We also met an Australian I the hostel, who stopped me because I was wearing my Riders shirt. He has worked in Saskatchewan on a farm outside of Kenaston. Although he claims that when he saw Ben talking on the phone that he thought he was from Saskatchewan because Ben apparently has a Saskatchewan look about him – still not sure what a Sask look is though. We hung out with him drank some beers and went to play pool at a bar across the street from the hostel. We stayed there until it closed, and played against some of the locals for most of the night.
Now off to Breakfast. Sorry for the incredibly long post. I will try to keep up in the future.
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