I had forgotten just how crazy the US and A actually is. In 11 months in NZ I think I saw one crazy dude. It was on the first day we bought Biff. It was hammering down with rain but we decided to drive him to a local beach just to get a feel for him, and to double check he was waterproof. We sat overlooking this huge bay in the rain very happy with ourselves but after a while I needed a wee. I ran across the parking lot to the public toilets through the rain and barged my way into the mens loo, only to be greeted by some crazy Maori dude wiping his butt! I about turned and got the hell out of there but the crazy dude started shouting at me. I swiftly hid/used the ladies toilet next door but while washing my hands I could still hear the loon in the mens shouting and crashing about. I ran back to Biff but it was a good 10 minutes before the nutcase emerged and staggered off through the rain. Seriously though we never saw one other loony for the whole time we were there. America, however, is a lot different from NZ.
Here it is literally packed to the rafters with the mentally unstable! (see what happens when you don’t have an NHS?) We have already seen a bum fight, which I of course found hilarious. We got the bus to Ocean beach to check out what this side of the pacific looks like and had a wander along the cliff tops and past the shops. There were tramps everywhere! I have been to America enough to know they have a huge homeless problem over here but in that short stretch of beach it was like tramp-opolis! We kept ourselves to ourselves, dodged the vast clouds of marijuana smoke and got through it as quick as we could. I couldn’t help but stare though at these two hobo’s going at each other over a reportedly stolen 5 dollars. It was a bit one sided to be fair with the smaller tramp kicking the larger younger tramps arse before the cops pulled up and broke it up. You can totally see how bum fighting became an internet phenomenon a few years back. But I guess this is par for the course when you ride the bus over here. I’ll tell you more about that in a bit.
We have left San Diego now and I am writing this from my hotel room in "The Meadows" or Las Vegas as us non Spanish speakers know it. We pretty much scoped out the whole of San Diego before we left though. Well, we did as much as we could do in the short time we were there. We went to the gas lamp district again and gave it a more thorough inspection, hit up Seaport village and Balboa park and also checked out the world famous San Diego Zoo. I only wanted to go and see Marcel the monkey who used to be Ross’s pet in friends, but after of hours roaming around the monkey section, he was no where to be seen. I was actually a little disappointed with the zoo. Don’t get me wrong, you will have to go a long way to see such a diverse collection of animals in one place but there was just something a bit too cramped about it all. It is spread over a huge expanse of land yet the animal enclosures just felt too small for the animals in them. I felt sorry for the animals, as I do in most zoos, but more so for them not being able to stretch out. The bears for example were in these tiny enclosures, even the pandas. I think I noticed it more because only a few weeks ago we were at Auckland zoo were I was impressed with just how big the animal enclosures were. They didn’t cram in too many animals either. At San Diego they had about 10 yakins (buffalo like animals from China) in a space about as big as my old back garden. These were big animals too. I just felt sad for them. For all the animals really. I know zoos do a lot of breeding programs and have brought some species back from the brink of extinction but I just feel that that work should be done away from their exploitation. OK, save the California condor but don’t charge me $35 to watch you do it. I know that without zoos people wouldn’t be able to see such exotic and endangered animals but it just doesn’t sit right with me. Kate didn’t think much of it either but only because they didn’t have penguins!
The weather turned for the worse again the day we left. The storms had passed and for a while we had some sun but yesterday it all went to shit again. Not a problem really as we spent the day in transit. I hadn’t really considered just how much of a problem it is dragging so much gear around. We left our hotel and walked the relatively short 20 minute walk to the Old Town transit centre but when you are lugging nearly 100 lbs of gear it suddenly becomes a nightmare. Kate had to keep stopping because her elbow (?!) was killing her whereas my hands and shoulders felt strained. We got our bus and struggled on with our big cases and ski bags before the usual comments of "What’s in the bag?" or "You going skiing?" from the bus crazies. We caught the greyhound bus which zoomed us away from San Diego north to San Bernadino. Or maybe that should be called San Murder-dino! What a fucking shit hole. We got dropped at the bus terminal in the outskirts of town where we had a supposed 50 minute layover. I headed out of the terminal to check the surrounding neighbourhood for places to eat but I only got to the corner of the block before fearing for my life and going back to what I thought, was the safety of the terminal. It was rough out there. Derelict buildings, graffiti and dodgy looking characters everywhere. I was back at the terminal maybe 5 minutes though before a fight broke out in the mens bathroom. Well, some dude tried to mug some guy. We were sitting chatting when we heard all this shouting and saw two men come crashing out of the mens onto the floor. Some dude was on top of another pounding the crap out of him. I jumped up, much to Kates dismay who thought I was going to go break it up, and went and grabbed the security guard who I had seen outside when I returned to the terminal. He rushed in and tried to grab the mugger but he just smiled this evil ass smile and sprinted out through a door. He chased him but came back 10 minutes later empty handed. The police arrived a few minutes later and gave us all "scum of the earth looks" before taking the muggee for questioning and to identify a guy matching the muggers description that had been picked up a few blocks away. All pretty frickin scary stuff. I just hope they caught the guy. What a dick! I know they say how some people do these things out of sheer desperation but come on, a bus terminal? Had this guy not seen the dregs who ride the bus? Your not exactly gonna bump into Donald Trump are you? The dude who got mugged can’t have had more than ten bucks and lint in his pockets. I had told Kate about the types that travel on the bus here but it was a real eye opener for both of us. We both looked at each other and said "Hire car?"
The rest of the journey went smoothly though and the guy on the bus next to me said it was a California thing and not to expect the rest of the states to be like that. We chatted for a while about travelling and it was quite refreshing to meet an American who had seen the world. You hear so many tales of the huge percentage of yanks who don’t own passports or that so many people die within 20 miles of where they were born but this guy had seen it all. He had been in the navy as a youngster but when he got out he just kept on going. He’d lived in the UK and in Asia but hadn’t been to NZ. He was on his way home to Boston as he had had his work van and all his tools stolen in Santa Barbara (another California thing apparently). He was gonna be on that bus from Tuesday morning until Friday morning! Screw that! The air fare was only $100 more!
We got in to LV late last night as our bus got a bit delayed in all the rain and trouble in San Murder-dino. Again, the trip from the bus terminal to our hotel was fun with all our gear and of course filled with nutters. Some tramp at the bus stop gave us the third degree and another rough women entertained us on the bus with her speech about god. We dumped our gear in the room then headed for a much needed beer in the casino downstairs. Man this place must have a huge lekky bill! Every hotel is strewn with lights and neon and it’s all 24 hours. I’m looking forward to checking out sin city though and maybe even playing a bit of poker. Well, I already won at video poker. We were walking back to the room last night and I couldn’t resist sticking in a dollar. Played one hand, won 8 bucks. Hopefully a sign of things to come. Yeah right, my next blog entry will be hand written on a napkin because I lost the lap top in a game of craps!
Anyway, I will let you know. I’m off to look at hire car prices.
Peace
D
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