Lots of lava:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=171415&id=510568119&l=e14baf3339
Just outside of Antigua is Volcan Pacaya - a rather large, rather active volcano. One of the world's most active in fact. After being dormant for a century it erupted violently in 1965 and has been erupting continuously since then - in 1987 eruptions destroyed 63 homes and 3,000 people were evacuated, multiple lava flows up to 400m long regularly run down its slopes and lava fountains seen on the volcano over the past few years have reached heights of 800m. Apparently, such latent danger constitutes a tourist attraction in Guatemala and no self respecting backpacker is able to leave Antigua without undertaking a climb to the top of said volcano and having a bit of a play amongst the lava flows. (I know this, for I tried).
Having failed to convince Rich of the potential risks involved in climbing up a volatile exploding mountain I found myself on a bus heading towards the looming behemoth. Upon arrival we were greeted by our cheery tour guide (who presumably has some telepathic link with the goddess Pele which prevents us from meeting a fiery end on his tour). Stage one of volcano climbing involves the relatively mundane hike up to the lava field, the expanse of solidified lava flow that emanates from the crater. However, said hike is 3 kilometers straight up, so any feeling of relief at not yet being within spitting distance of the crater were obliterated by feelings of pain and an inability to breathe.
After 2 hours of climbing, followed closely the whole way by a local woman leading a horse and regularly gesticulating towards it asking "taxi"? we reached the lava field. If you're wondering what a lava field looks like, think of Mordor from Lord of the Rings. It looks like that, only mercifully without the lava in the sky on the day we visited. I'd heard that you have to be extremely careful when walking on lava fields, as the lava rock is razor sharp. I decided to test the extent of this sharpness by stumbling slightly at one point and brushing my knee against it. As the disproportionately large gash on my knee and tear in my trousers will attest, yes it is very sharp.
Moments later, we were presented with the reward for our labours - our first glimpse of a river of flowing molten lava. It's difficult to describe what it feels like to stand next to flowing lava. This is largely because whilst doing so I was distracted by thoughts such as "are my shoes melting" "is that man cooking sausages?" and "should I really be standing on this see-sawing piece of rock with a glowing orange crack in it?" Melting shoes is a genuine problem - we were told in no uncertain terms to wear sturdy hiking shoes because the crust of hardened lava you're walking on often has molten rock just underneath, causing many adventurers to take misshapen-soled shoes home as a souvenir. Even if your shoes manage to survive, its still impossible to stand still for more than a minute near the lava flows unless you want to simulate the opening moments of being burnt at the stake.
After some time contemplating the resemblance of your surroundings to your mental image of hell and watching people disregarding all common sense and personal safety to get the perfect lava photograph, we were told it was time to start the hike down. As relieved as I was to be moving away from the hot, unstable razor rocks this relief was tempered by the fact that while we were transfixed by the pyrotechnics the sun had set and we were now climbing down the volcano in darkness. By the time we finally got to the bus I was thoroughly convinced I deserved a medal. All in all, it was a once in a lifetime experience.
Thursday 29 April 2010
Sunday 25 April 2010
Spiders, Spanish & School buses
Find photos here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=169471&id=510568119&l=7fc8ba3e31
And so we arrived in Guatemala, first stop on our journey through Central America. Getting in was interesting - most borders I've crossed in the past were (as you'd expect) fairly regimented and had checkpoints, barriers and that sort of thing. Cross overland from Mexico to Guatemala at La Mesilla and you'll find yourself traversing a bustling street market with a large "Welcome to Mexico" sign at one end and a "Welcome to Guatemala" version at the other. In between there's a small office partially obscured by stalls selling Bob Esponga beach towels where you're supposed to go to get your passport stamped, but from the activity going on outside it was clear that most people were skipping merrily between the countries as and when they fancied a Mexican tamale or a Guatemalan cup of coffee.
After leaving the mayhem behind we arrived at one of Guatemala's gems - Lago de Atitlan, a huge lake ringed by volcanoes, beaches and jungle villages only accessible by boat. We spent a night with our new friend Mike in the tourist mecca of Panajachel sampling our first Guatemalan beer and trying the excellent street food (sausages, chicken & chorizo cooked over a charcoal grill and served up with fresh guacamole and endless tortillas). Next morning we squeezed in between the locals and luggage already crammed onto one of the lanchas that zoom around the lake and set sail for San Marcos la Laguna.
San Marcos is an odd place. On one hand it's a beautiful tropical paradise, filled with banana, avocado and coconut trees, coffee plants, exotic flowers and hummingbirds, but on the other it's a perfect example of tourism gone wrong. The town itself is small, unremarkable and totally removed from the strange pseudo-village that's grown up along the lake shore. In the latter, backpackers rub shoulders with wealthy new age practitioners who come to find themselves and study astral projection at expensive meditation centers. Unfortunately, the only contact we had with those of the new age persuasion was being woken up by drunken primal screaming at 3am and later learning from the locals that said screaming and general drunken nuisance is common behaviour from their new neighbours. I'm sure this is in no way reflective of the new age movement generally, but what it does seem to typify is a disturbing trend we saw repeated across Central America - wealthy "gringos" who decide to buy a slice of cut-price paradise, set up home there, set up all the things they miss from their old home (places to buy cappuccino, etc) without giving any thought to the impact this will have on the places they've decided to colonise or the people who were living there first. We certainly enjoyed sipping fresh mint lemonade surrounded by orchids and butterflies, but we felt less comfortable about it once we'd explored beyond our (beautiful) eco-hostel's cafe garden.
Before we left, San Marcos gave us our first taste of tropical wildlife - a scorpion in our bedroom. In fact, this turned out to be less of a health hazard than the pesky hummingbirds that insisted on flying very fast very close to our heads whenever we were foolish enough to sit next to anything with flowers. After several near death experiences while trying to photograph the little buggers they'd definitely lost a lot of their charm.
Next stop was the old colonial city of Antigua where we'd decided to base ourselves for a few weeks and attempt to learn some more Spanish at one of the highly recommended and highly cheap language schools there. This was to involve one-on-one tuition from 8am - 1pm 5 days a week, with optional afternoon activities conducted entirely in Spanish. Things started off well - after a few days the Spanish I picked up years ago in Mexico started to come back and suddenly I was able to hold mini conversations where previously I'd thrown a few words at people and hoped they got the gist. However, after 4 hours a day of talking to the same person you start to run out of topics of conversation, even in your own language. To try and keep things interesting my teacher steered the conversations into more and more complicated areas, which resulted in me having to explain the British electoral system and my thoughts on the UK's involvement in Iraq to her. In Spanish. It wasn't pretty. Also, many of the conversations my teacher instigated ended in a comparison between Guatemala and the UK and when you're talking about crime, unemployment, war and politics Guatemala invariably comes off worst. Unfortunately, after one week of Spanish lessons my vocabulary was only developed enough to offer the less than profound opinion in each case that the situation "is bad" and "a problem."
The afternoon activities were a bit less of a brain-fry, as despite best intentions most of the other students were happy to lapse into English in order to actually communicate with each other. On our first day we took one of Guatemala's famous chicken buses to a macadamia farm where we were given a guided tour. For those unfamiliar with Central American transport, a chicken bus is so named because it will carry anything from people to large sacks of potatoes to, well, chickens. The buses themselves are former US schoolbuses that get driven south when they're past their prime, overhauled, painted in a variety of bright colours and handed over to, in some cases, anyone who'd like a go at driving them. (Technically the drivers should have licenses, but according to locals whenever there's an accident - which there frequently are on the overloaded, badly driven buses and terrible roads - drivers often run away rather than hanging around to answer questions about paperwork). Saying that it's not easy being a Guatemalan bus driver - 170 drivers were murdered in Guatemala City last year for failing to pay gangs protection money.
We also paid a visit to a second division Guatemalan football match (I know very little about football, but I know this was not a good game) and the local insect house and reptilarium where I held a snake and Rich got up close and personal with a tarantula. The most unsettling moment of that excursion came later, however, when during a tour of the snake house we came face to face with a glass case containing a large boa constrictor and a fluffy, hoppy bunny rabbit. It took quite a while for us to accept that yes, we were understanding our guide's Spanish properly and yes, the rabbit was the snake's lunch...
Speaking of food, Rich and I had been looking forward to treating ourselves to a nice dinner on Valentine's Day. Sadly, several days beforehand we both came down with a stomach bug that was doing the rounds at school and when the big day came the only restaurant with food familiar enough to be trusted in our digestive systems was good ole' Maccie D's. Who says romance is dead?
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=169471&id=510568119&l=7fc8ba3e31
And so we arrived in Guatemala, first stop on our journey through Central America. Getting in was interesting - most borders I've crossed in the past were (as you'd expect) fairly regimented and had checkpoints, barriers and that sort of thing. Cross overland from Mexico to Guatemala at La Mesilla and you'll find yourself traversing a bustling street market with a large "Welcome to Mexico" sign at one end and a "Welcome to Guatemala" version at the other. In between there's a small office partially obscured by stalls selling Bob Esponga beach towels where you're supposed to go to get your passport stamped, but from the activity going on outside it was clear that most people were skipping merrily between the countries as and when they fancied a Mexican tamale or a Guatemalan cup of coffee.
After leaving the mayhem behind we arrived at one of Guatemala's gems - Lago de Atitlan, a huge lake ringed by volcanoes, beaches and jungle villages only accessible by boat. We spent a night with our new friend Mike in the tourist mecca of Panajachel sampling our first Guatemalan beer and trying the excellent street food (sausages, chicken & chorizo cooked over a charcoal grill and served up with fresh guacamole and endless tortillas). Next morning we squeezed in between the locals and luggage already crammed onto one of the lanchas that zoom around the lake and set sail for San Marcos la Laguna.
San Marcos is an odd place. On one hand it's a beautiful tropical paradise, filled with banana, avocado and coconut trees, coffee plants, exotic flowers and hummingbirds, but on the other it's a perfect example of tourism gone wrong. The town itself is small, unremarkable and totally removed from the strange pseudo-village that's grown up along the lake shore. In the latter, backpackers rub shoulders with wealthy new age practitioners who come to find themselves and study astral projection at expensive meditation centers. Unfortunately, the only contact we had with those of the new age persuasion was being woken up by drunken primal screaming at 3am and later learning from the locals that said screaming and general drunken nuisance is common behaviour from their new neighbours. I'm sure this is in no way reflective of the new age movement generally, but what it does seem to typify is a disturbing trend we saw repeated across Central America - wealthy "gringos" who decide to buy a slice of cut-price paradise, set up home there, set up all the things they miss from their old home (places to buy cappuccino, etc) without giving any thought to the impact this will have on the places they've decided to colonise or the people who were living there first. We certainly enjoyed sipping fresh mint lemonade surrounded by orchids and butterflies, but we felt less comfortable about it once we'd explored beyond our (beautiful) eco-hostel's cafe garden.
Before we left, San Marcos gave us our first taste of tropical wildlife - a scorpion in our bedroom. In fact, this turned out to be less of a health hazard than the pesky hummingbirds that insisted on flying very fast very close to our heads whenever we were foolish enough to sit next to anything with flowers. After several near death experiences while trying to photograph the little buggers they'd definitely lost a lot of their charm.
Next stop was the old colonial city of Antigua where we'd decided to base ourselves for a few weeks and attempt to learn some more Spanish at one of the highly recommended and highly cheap language schools there. This was to involve one-on-one tuition from 8am - 1pm 5 days a week, with optional afternoon activities conducted entirely in Spanish. Things started off well - after a few days the Spanish I picked up years ago in Mexico started to come back and suddenly I was able to hold mini conversations where previously I'd thrown a few words at people and hoped they got the gist. However, after 4 hours a day of talking to the same person you start to run out of topics of conversation, even in your own language. To try and keep things interesting my teacher steered the conversations into more and more complicated areas, which resulted in me having to explain the British electoral system and my thoughts on the UK's involvement in Iraq to her. In Spanish. It wasn't pretty. Also, many of the conversations my teacher instigated ended in a comparison between Guatemala and the UK and when you're talking about crime, unemployment, war and politics Guatemala invariably comes off worst. Unfortunately, after one week of Spanish lessons my vocabulary was only developed enough to offer the less than profound opinion in each case that the situation "is bad" and "a problem."
The afternoon activities were a bit less of a brain-fry, as despite best intentions most of the other students were happy to lapse into English in order to actually communicate with each other. On our first day we took one of Guatemala's famous chicken buses to a macadamia farm where we were given a guided tour. For those unfamiliar with Central American transport, a chicken bus is so named because it will carry anything from people to large sacks of potatoes to, well, chickens. The buses themselves are former US schoolbuses that get driven south when they're past their prime, overhauled, painted in a variety of bright colours and handed over to, in some cases, anyone who'd like a go at driving them. (Technically the drivers should have licenses, but according to locals whenever there's an accident - which there frequently are on the overloaded, badly driven buses and terrible roads - drivers often run away rather than hanging around to answer questions about paperwork). Saying that it's not easy being a Guatemalan bus driver - 170 drivers were murdered in Guatemala City last year for failing to pay gangs protection money.
We also paid a visit to a second division Guatemalan football match (I know very little about football, but I know this was not a good game) and the local insect house and reptilarium where I held a snake and Rich got up close and personal with a tarantula. The most unsettling moment of that excursion came later, however, when during a tour of the snake house we came face to face with a glass case containing a large boa constrictor and a fluffy, hoppy bunny rabbit. It took quite a while for us to accept that yes, we were understanding our guide's Spanish properly and yes, the rabbit was the snake's lunch...
Speaking of food, Rich and I had been looking forward to treating ourselves to a nice dinner on Valentine's Day. Sadly, several days beforehand we both came down with a stomach bug that was doing the rounds at school and when the big day came the only restaurant with food familiar enough to be trusted in our digestive systems was good ole' Maccie D's. Who says romance is dead?
Saturday 17 April 2010
A Tale of Two Beaches
Photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=164439&id=510568119&l=f5ece0c814
When you go backpacking for any length of time you expect to encounter the odd cockroach infested bedroom, death-defying bus journey or bout of digestive unwellness, all of which are considered part of the adventure. What you don't expect is to encounter all of these things within the space of 24 hours, and if you do you are fully entitled to be extremely unhappy about it, as was I the day we left Oaxaca.
The day had not started well. After shoehorning ourselves into a minibus clearly designed for short Mexican people we began the 7 hour drive to Puerto Escondido. Not along 7 hours worth of nice straight highway though, no - this journey was almost entirely on narrow, windy mountain roads along one side of which ran a bottomless ravine. This would have been bad enough with a half-sane driver, but unfortunately ours was in something of a hurry and had clearly been taught that driving behind any other vehicle is highly illegal and must be prevented by immediate overtaking. At one point he overtook 2 cars, a coach and a motorbike while approaching the brow of a steep hill and talking on his mobile phone. Not the most fun experience to sit through if you were fairly recently involved in a car accident...
Matters did not improve upon arrival at our hostel. It had looked promising enough - close to the beach and with its own pool, cocktail bar and cheap private rooms. What the website didn't mention was the crazy Englishman who ran the place, or the large cockroaches that live in the rafters above the bed and come out at night to say hello. After that there was no point even getting upset about something trivial like no longer being able to digest food properly.
Fortunately, our next port of call was a small slice of heaven. Two hours down the coast is the hitherto largely undiscovered beach hamlet of San Agustinillo. In a few years it's guaranteed to be swamped by hotels and tourists, but for now all it has is a single road running along a beautiful beach, with just enough palapas, pizza restaurants and purveyors of cerveza to look after the handful of backpackers that have stumbled across its pristine shores. We checked into a beachfront B&B, donned our swimsuits and spent the next 3 days sunbathing, swinging in hammocks, drinking pineapple smoothies and playing in the waves. Much better.
Our last stop on our tour de Mexico was the lovely San Cristobal de las Casas. Perched in the lofty Chiapas highlands, the city is surrounded by numerous Mayan villages where ancient traditions and religious practices remain a part of everyday life. San Cristobal achieves a rare balance between catering to a healthy tourist industry without prostituting its unique cultural heritage. We visited one of the larger Mayan villages, San Juan Chamula, on horseback (which was an experience in itself given that the horses barely came up to our waists). In the village church, the ancient traditions are demonstrably alive and well. Although in theory a Catholic place of worship, the local priest only visits when invited by the villagers to perform christenings. For all other religious matters they have their own church elders, and their own customs. You wouldn't find many Catholic churches where chickens are routinely sacrificed in front of statues of saints, or worshippers drink bottles of coke in order to induce burping and thereby expel evil spirits.
From San Cristobal we continue the journey south and into Central America. Next stop, Guatemala...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=164439&id=510568119&l=f5ece0c814
When you go backpacking for any length of time you expect to encounter the odd cockroach infested bedroom, death-defying bus journey or bout of digestive unwellness, all of which are considered part of the adventure. What you don't expect is to encounter all of these things within the space of 24 hours, and if you do you are fully entitled to be extremely unhappy about it, as was I the day we left Oaxaca.
The day had not started well. After shoehorning ourselves into a minibus clearly designed for short Mexican people we began the 7 hour drive to Puerto Escondido. Not along 7 hours worth of nice straight highway though, no - this journey was almost entirely on narrow, windy mountain roads along one side of which ran a bottomless ravine. This would have been bad enough with a half-sane driver, but unfortunately ours was in something of a hurry and had clearly been taught that driving behind any other vehicle is highly illegal and must be prevented by immediate overtaking. At one point he overtook 2 cars, a coach and a motorbike while approaching the brow of a steep hill and talking on his mobile phone. Not the most fun experience to sit through if you were fairly recently involved in a car accident...
Matters did not improve upon arrival at our hostel. It had looked promising enough - close to the beach and with its own pool, cocktail bar and cheap private rooms. What the website didn't mention was the crazy Englishman who ran the place, or the large cockroaches that live in the rafters above the bed and come out at night to say hello. After that there was no point even getting upset about something trivial like no longer being able to digest food properly.
Fortunately, our next port of call was a small slice of heaven. Two hours down the coast is the hitherto largely undiscovered beach hamlet of San Agustinillo. In a few years it's guaranteed to be swamped by hotels and tourists, but for now all it has is a single road running along a beautiful beach, with just enough palapas, pizza restaurants and purveyors of cerveza to look after the handful of backpackers that have stumbled across its pristine shores. We checked into a beachfront B&B, donned our swimsuits and spent the next 3 days sunbathing, swinging in hammocks, drinking pineapple smoothies and playing in the waves. Much better.
Our last stop on our tour de Mexico was the lovely San Cristobal de las Casas. Perched in the lofty Chiapas highlands, the city is surrounded by numerous Mayan villages where ancient traditions and religious practices remain a part of everyday life. San Cristobal achieves a rare balance between catering to a healthy tourist industry without prostituting its unique cultural heritage. We visited one of the larger Mayan villages, San Juan Chamula, on horseback (which was an experience in itself given that the horses barely came up to our waists). In the village church, the ancient traditions are demonstrably alive and well. Although in theory a Catholic place of worship, the local priest only visits when invited by the villagers to perform christenings. For all other religious matters they have their own church elders, and their own customs. You wouldn't find many Catholic churches where chickens are routinely sacrificed in front of statues of saints, or worshippers drink bottles of coke in order to induce burping and thereby expel evil spirits.
From San Cristobal we continue the journey south and into Central America. Next stop, Guatemala...
Thursday 15 April 2010
I'll have a bag of grasshoppers and some cheese ice cream, please.
Culinary craziness:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=164429&id=510568119&l=2e1f18d38f
Why is it that I can fall asleep within the opening minutes of a training conference, regardless of how much coffee I drink to try to stay awake, and yet I can't get to sleep at 4am on a sleeper bus? This was one of many questions I had plenty of time to contemplate as the hours dragged by on our nocturnal journey from Palenque to Oaxaca. Actually, the answer to that question was easy - I couldn't sleep because the man in front had reclined his seat so far back it was difficult to breathe, the bus driver kept stopping, switching on every light in the bus and allowing hordes of people to clamber noisily on and off, and every now and again armed soldiers would get on to look for drugs and fugitives. The joys of travel...
Fortunately, Oaxaca was a destination worth making the journey for. Known as the culinary capital of Mexico, Oaxaca is also a cultural hotbed of artists and local craftsfolk; a beautiful, vibrant colonial city and somewhere I'd been looking forward to coming back to for a long time. Top of the list of things to do was reaquaint myself with the amazing Oaxacan hot chocolate, served delicately flavoured with orange and cinnamon. Yum. Less appealing, but equally essential on any trip to the city, was a trip to the market to sample the local delicacy - chapulines. Or, as we would call them, toasted grasshoppers. Watch Rich's reaction to his first crunchy critter here:
And what better way to celebrate your first toasted grasshopper than with a nice bowl of cheese ice cream? Well, there are probably many it turns out - given the choice I think I'd rather have more of the grasshoppers...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=164429&id=510568119&l=2e1f18d38f
Why is it that I can fall asleep within the opening minutes of a training conference, regardless of how much coffee I drink to try to stay awake, and yet I can't get to sleep at 4am on a sleeper bus? This was one of many questions I had plenty of time to contemplate as the hours dragged by on our nocturnal journey from Palenque to Oaxaca. Actually, the answer to that question was easy - I couldn't sleep because the man in front had reclined his seat so far back it was difficult to breathe, the bus driver kept stopping, switching on every light in the bus and allowing hordes of people to clamber noisily on and off, and every now and again armed soldiers would get on to look for drugs and fugitives. The joys of travel...
Fortunately, Oaxaca was a destination worth making the journey for. Known as the culinary capital of Mexico, Oaxaca is also a cultural hotbed of artists and local craftsfolk; a beautiful, vibrant colonial city and somewhere I'd been looking forward to coming back to for a long time. Top of the list of things to do was reaquaint myself with the amazing Oaxacan hot chocolate, served delicately flavoured with orange and cinnamon. Yum. Less appealing, but equally essential on any trip to the city, was a trip to the market to sample the local delicacy - chapulines. Or, as we would call them, toasted grasshoppers. Watch Rich's reaction to his first crunchy critter here:
And what better way to celebrate your first toasted grasshopper than with a nice bowl of cheese ice cream? Well, there are probably many it turns out - given the choice I think I'd rather have more of the grasshoppers...
Tuesday 13 April 2010
Bienvenidos a Mexico!
Mexican magnificence:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=164049&id=510568119&l=268db84be4
After an excellent 8 months in the US and Canada it was time to begin the next phase of our travels in Mexico and Central America. First stop south of the border was the old colonial city of Merida, a quintessentially Mexican town where tourism seems to be mainly for other Mexicans, there's banda music blaring from every other window and the streets are a chaotic mass of pedestrians, street vendors and erratically driven vehicles. At its heart, however, is a peaceful leafy plaza surrounded by grand old buildings built from the remains of Mayan pyramids. We arrived just in time for the 6 January - an important feast day in Catholic Mexico and one which is particularly celebrated in Merida as it happens to coincide with the city's birthday. The Dia de los Reyes (day of the kings) as it is known is traditionlly marked by eating "rosca de reyes," a sweet bread encrusted with dried fruits, bits of jellied sweets and meringue. On the way to the supermarket on the eve of the festival we stumbled across an entire street cordened off and lined along both sides with tables, along the length of which ran three rows of the aforementioned cake, interspersed with intricately carved watermelons. An army of chefs in white hats patrolled the space inbetween the two rows of tables handing out large pieces of cake and cups of fizzy pop to anyone who presented them with a couple of pesos. Later the next evening we watched a dramatic reenactment of key moments in Mayan history in the main plaza, followed by a procession through the city led by women in elaborate dresses handing out roses, carrying candles, singing patriotic songs and flanked by balloon-bedecked horse drawn carriages, before several local mariachi bands took it in turns to sing songs about Merida on a stage back in the main plaza as a prelude to an impressive fireworks display launched over the heads of the audience from at least 4 different points around the square. I plan to propose similar annual festivities to Redcar council when I return to the UK.
After a relaxing week of roaming the city and trying to remember (i) my Spanish and (ii) not to put toilet paper down the toilet we moved on to the smaller but even prettier city of Campeche where I spent several days to fending off a particularly vicious cold. In between violent sneezing fits I noticed that almost every building on each street was painted a different colour, which made the whole place feel slightly like somewhere out of a fairytale. During our stay we also sampled some of the local delicacies, including pollo pibil (chicken marinated in sour orange juice, spices and sweet chili then cooked in banana leaves), pipian de pavo (turkey in a chocolatey pumpkin seed sauce) and cactus and pineapple yoghurt (self explanatory, but see video for tasting notes).
Finally, no trip to the Yucutan peninsula would be complete without admiring some Mayan ruins, and we liked the ones at Chichen Itza so much we decided to visit Palenque as well. What Chichen Itza lacked in atmosphere (unlike Palenque, where it still felt like you were wandering through the jungle, Chichen Itza's ruins have been cleared so drastically you can see more tourists than trees) it made up for in grizzliness, with carvings of warriors holding enemy heads and eagles tearing out human hearts. One temple was entirely covered with engraved images of human skulls. Nice.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=164049&id=510568119&l=268db84be4
After an excellent 8 months in the US and Canada it was time to begin the next phase of our travels in Mexico and Central America. First stop south of the border was the old colonial city of Merida, a quintessentially Mexican town where tourism seems to be mainly for other Mexicans, there's banda music blaring from every other window and the streets are a chaotic mass of pedestrians, street vendors and erratically driven vehicles. At its heart, however, is a peaceful leafy plaza surrounded by grand old buildings built from the remains of Mayan pyramids. We arrived just in time for the 6 January - an important feast day in Catholic Mexico and one which is particularly celebrated in Merida as it happens to coincide with the city's birthday. The Dia de los Reyes (day of the kings) as it is known is traditionlly marked by eating "rosca de reyes," a sweet bread encrusted with dried fruits, bits of jellied sweets and meringue. On the way to the supermarket on the eve of the festival we stumbled across an entire street cordened off and lined along both sides with tables, along the length of which ran three rows of the aforementioned cake, interspersed with intricately carved watermelons. An army of chefs in white hats patrolled the space inbetween the two rows of tables handing out large pieces of cake and cups of fizzy pop to anyone who presented them with a couple of pesos. Later the next evening we watched a dramatic reenactment of key moments in Mayan history in the main plaza, followed by a procession through the city led by women in elaborate dresses handing out roses, carrying candles, singing patriotic songs and flanked by balloon-bedecked horse drawn carriages, before several local mariachi bands took it in turns to sing songs about Merida on a stage back in the main plaza as a prelude to an impressive fireworks display launched over the heads of the audience from at least 4 different points around the square. I plan to propose similar annual festivities to Redcar council when I return to the UK.
After a relaxing week of roaming the city and trying to remember (i) my Spanish and (ii) not to put toilet paper down the toilet we moved on to the smaller but even prettier city of Campeche where I spent several days to fending off a particularly vicious cold. In between violent sneezing fits I noticed that almost every building on each street was painted a different colour, which made the whole place feel slightly like somewhere out of a fairytale. During our stay we also sampled some of the local delicacies, including pollo pibil (chicken marinated in sour orange juice, spices and sweet chili then cooked in banana leaves), pipian de pavo (turkey in a chocolatey pumpkin seed sauce) and cactus and pineapple yoghurt (self explanatory, but see video for tasting notes).
Finally, no trip to the Yucutan peninsula would be complete without admiring some Mayan ruins, and we liked the ones at Chichen Itza so much we decided to visit Palenque as well. What Chichen Itza lacked in atmosphere (unlike Palenque, where it still felt like you were wandering through the jungle, Chichen Itza's ruins have been cleared so drastically you can see more tourists than trees) it made up for in grizzliness, with carvings of warriors holding enemy heads and eagles tearing out human hearts. One temple was entirely covered with engraved images of human skulls. Nice.
Thursday 8 April 2010
Cacti and cocktails
Cacti galore:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163740&id=510568119&l=87e14fe104
From Sedona we made our way southwest towards San Diego, our destination for NYE and final port of call in the States. En route we encountered some prime examples of the oddities of roadside USA including a spaceship-themed diner, a cafe next to a date plantation that specialised in date and cactus milkshakes, numerous jumbo jet sized RVs and a classic Airstream silver retro caravan.
The highlight of the trip for me, however, was getting up close and personal with the saguaro cactus, ubiquitous symbol of the American south west (even though they only grow in a small area of Arizona - contrary to what Old El Paso would have you believe, there ain't no saguaro in Texas).
We arrived in San Diego just in time for a big parade, complete with giant inflatable hot dogs and dinosaurs. Then, to end the year in style we went for a quiet meal in a lovely Thai restaurant. We may also have had some happy hour cocktails. And the happy hours may have lasted from 6-11pm, after which time the price of the drinks became strangely irrelevant...
Unaccustomed as we were to such revelry, I can report that 1 January 2010 was largely spent in bed.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163740&id=510568119&l=87e14fe104
From Sedona we made our way southwest towards San Diego, our destination for NYE and final port of call in the States. En route we encountered some prime examples of the oddities of roadside USA including a spaceship-themed diner, a cafe next to a date plantation that specialised in date and cactus milkshakes, numerous jumbo jet sized RVs and a classic Airstream silver retro caravan.
The highlight of the trip for me, however, was getting up close and personal with the saguaro cactus, ubiquitous symbol of the American south west (even though they only grow in a small area of Arizona - contrary to what Old El Paso would have you believe, there ain't no saguaro in Texas).
We arrived in San Diego just in time for a big parade, complete with giant inflatable hot dogs and dinosaurs. Then, to end the year in style we went for a quiet meal in a lovely Thai restaurant. We may also have had some happy hour cocktails. And the happy hours may have lasted from 6-11pm, after which time the price of the drinks became strangely irrelevant...
Unaccustomed as we were to such revelry, I can report that 1 January 2010 was largely spent in bed.
Christmas in Arizona
For festive photos, see here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163656&id=510568119&l=1c8c853cc2
One of my favourite things about Christmas is that Christmas Day in my family is always and without fail exactly the same every year, right down to the time we crack open the M&S cocktail sausage rolls. There's something nice and reassuring about that, I think. (Plus it means I can always count on having a Cadbury's Treatsize Variety Bag is to accompany the Queen's speech). Unfortunately, this meant that my first Christmas away from home, let alone in a foreign country where they don't understand the concept of Christmas pudding, was something of a daunting prospect. In the preceding weeks homesickness reared its head with increasing regularity - the slightest whiff of a Christmas carol could reduce me to a snivvling mess and I think Rich fully expected me to have a meltdown when the day finally arrived.
Fortunately for all involved, Christmas turned out to be really rather excellent. We'd found a beautiful apartment/annex in the desert on the edge of Rimrock, a little town close to the famous red rocks of Sedona, Arizona, and on Christmas Eve we moved in and began the Christmasifying process. First up, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a tree. As the cost/benefit analysis wouldn't stretch to us buying a proper tree plus decorations, we fashioned our own out of our 2 backpacks balanced on top of each other, wrapped in a couple of fake pine tree garlands and twinkly lights and strategically hung with cheap candy canes and shiny baubles. It actually looked pretty convincing in the end, we think the Tate Modern might be interested...
Then, of course, there was the food. Neither of us had been let loose on the Christmas food shopping singlehanded before so it was all a bit of an adventure. We went for a traditional approach, but with an American twist to fill in the gaps. So no Christmas pudding or crackers, but instead the joy of egg nog and American football themed Santa hats. We even found a bag of "bagel dogs" to fill in for the traditional sausage rolls. Inspired.
The rest of Christmas Eve was spent finding streaming Christmas songs online (you can't have Christmas without Slade or Fairytale of New York), decorating our own 99 cent stockings and drinking mulled wine. We found a nice church in Sedona to provide carols by candlelight and midnight mass before settling in to wait for Santa.
Christmas Day was similarly successful. First prize for making Christmas has to go to the wonderful Skype, which let me "be there" while my family opened their presents on Christmas morning. The wonders of technology, eh? My presents from home were particularly appreciated - a whole fridgeshelf full of Cadbury's finest confectionery. (Proper chocolate, not the pale imitation they brand as Cadburys in the States or, heaven forbid, Hersheys). After exchanging presents and enjoying a hearty breakfast of bucks fizz and eggs, ham & asparagus on toast we drove out to the red rocks for a Christmas Day perambulation. It was beautiful - see photos. Christmas Dinner also turned out perfectly, a feat which I attribute partly to our culinary expertise and partly to the steady supply of sparkling wine which accompanied the cooking process.
To round things off nicely we took another trip to the red rocks on Boxing Day, including a stop at the impressive and unusual Chapel of the Holy Cross. The chapel, originally conceived to take up an entire city block in Budapest, was eventually constructed in Sedona, built into the red rocks themselves and overlooking the valley 200ft below. The giant cross which forms the building's front can be seen for miles and complements the surrounding landscape surprisingly well.
Before leaving Arizona we ate more festive foodstuffs, watched Christmas movies and packed up the remaining chocolate for a visit to the Grand Canyon - quite a sight, especially in the snow. All in all, t'was a very merry Christmas.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163656&id=510568119&l=1c8c853cc2
One of my favourite things about Christmas is that Christmas Day in my family is always and without fail exactly the same every year, right down to the time we crack open the M&S cocktail sausage rolls. There's something nice and reassuring about that, I think. (Plus it means I can always count on having a Cadbury's Treatsize Variety Bag is to accompany the Queen's speech). Unfortunately, this meant that my first Christmas away from home, let alone in a foreign country where they don't understand the concept of Christmas pudding, was something of a daunting prospect. In the preceding weeks homesickness reared its head with increasing regularity - the slightest whiff of a Christmas carol could reduce me to a snivvling mess and I think Rich fully expected me to have a meltdown when the day finally arrived.
Fortunately for all involved, Christmas turned out to be really rather excellent. We'd found a beautiful apartment/annex in the desert on the edge of Rimrock, a little town close to the famous red rocks of Sedona, Arizona, and on Christmas Eve we moved in and began the Christmasifying process. First up, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a tree. As the cost/benefit analysis wouldn't stretch to us buying a proper tree plus decorations, we fashioned our own out of our 2 backpacks balanced on top of each other, wrapped in a couple of fake pine tree garlands and twinkly lights and strategically hung with cheap candy canes and shiny baubles. It actually looked pretty convincing in the end, we think the Tate Modern might be interested...
Then, of course, there was the food. Neither of us had been let loose on the Christmas food shopping singlehanded before so it was all a bit of an adventure. We went for a traditional approach, but with an American twist to fill in the gaps. So no Christmas pudding or crackers, but instead the joy of egg nog and American football themed Santa hats. We even found a bag of "bagel dogs" to fill in for the traditional sausage rolls. Inspired.
The rest of Christmas Eve was spent finding streaming Christmas songs online (you can't have Christmas without Slade or Fairytale of New York), decorating our own 99 cent stockings and drinking mulled wine. We found a nice church in Sedona to provide carols by candlelight and midnight mass before settling in to wait for Santa.
Christmas Day was similarly successful. First prize for making Christmas has to go to the wonderful Skype, which let me "be there" while my family opened their presents on Christmas morning. The wonders of technology, eh? My presents from home were particularly appreciated - a whole fridgeshelf full of Cadbury's finest confectionery. (Proper chocolate, not the pale imitation they brand as Cadburys in the States or, heaven forbid, Hersheys). After exchanging presents and enjoying a hearty breakfast of bucks fizz and eggs, ham & asparagus on toast we drove out to the red rocks for a Christmas Day perambulation. It was beautiful - see photos. Christmas Dinner also turned out perfectly, a feat which I attribute partly to our culinary expertise and partly to the steady supply of sparkling wine which accompanied the cooking process.
To round things off nicely we took another trip to the red rocks on Boxing Day, including a stop at the impressive and unusual Chapel of the Holy Cross. The chapel, originally conceived to take up an entire city block in Budapest, was eventually constructed in Sedona, built into the red rocks themselves and overlooking the valley 200ft below. The giant cross which forms the building's front can be seen for miles and complements the surrounding landscape surprisingly well.
Before leaving Arizona we ate more festive foodstuffs, watched Christmas movies and packed up the remaining chocolate for a visit to the Grand Canyon - quite a sight, especially in the snow. All in all, t'was a very merry Christmas.
Thursday 1 April 2010
Vegas, Baby!
For neon-filled photos, see here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163224&id=510568119&l=bb271ddfb1
Ah, Vegas. As a Disney-obsessed child who never quite grew out of her guilty love of all things glitzy, gimmicky and over the top, I had been looking forward to visiting ole' Sin City for quite some time. Fortunately, it didn't disappoint. As we were stopping by only a few days before Yuletide, mum and dad had booked Rich and I into a junior suite at the Signature - the new and tres swanky part of the MGM grand - as a Christmas present. After 7 months of sleeping in hostels, tents, campervans and bedsits you can imagine the joy with which we greeted our king- sized bed, his & hers sinks, private hot tub, flatscreen TV, kitchenette, living area and balcony overlooking The Strip. I could've just stayed in the suite for 4 days.
Soon, however, the call of $1 margaritas and slot machines drew us from our utopia and we set off to explore further afield. The first thing I noticed: the hotels are massive. It took us almost 20 minutes to walk from our suite to the front door of the MGM Grand, and that was without stopping at the in-house McDonalds, swimming pool and gym,"CSI Miami Experience," plethora of restaurants or the casino. It really did feel like walking through a giant adult's playground.
The next few days whirled by in a heady mix of late mornings and even later nights, cut-price cocktails, bad karaoke, victories on the slot machines and defeats at the blackjack tables. We lapped up the free shows - the Mirage's volcano, the Bellagio's fountains and the lions at the MGM Grand. We took in a Cirque de Soleil extravaganza, visited Old Vegas to admire Vegas Vic and Vegas Vicky, found our favourite slots (The Enchanted Unicorn and Hoot Loot) and strained our necks marvelling like Lillipudlians at the giant-sized Eiffel Tower, New York skyline, Caeser's Palace and other assorted edifices.
Continuing the festive theme of pushing the boat out, we also indulged in a trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet at the Wynn, currently held to be the best buffet in Vegas. In terms of choice alone it was a winner - we feasted on everything from Giant Alaskan Snow Crab legs to prime rib; pizza to potstickers. And then there were the desserts... As a fully paid up member of the Sweet Tooth Club I felt it only my duty to try as many of the sample sized delicacies on offer, and narrowing the field to only a final 7 was almost as tough a job as trying to eat them all. Needless to say the rest of that day was spent moving very, very slowly in the direction of our suite and a much needed place to lie down.
On our last night we wandered around some of the hotels we'd not explored yet and stumbled upon the newly opened CityCenter complex which includes the Aria casino resort and the Mandarin Oriental hotel. Although from the outside it looks unfortunately similar to something out of London's square mile, inside it is, well, pretty breathtaking. The photos don't do it justice, but every square foot of the place is like a shrine to the gods of chic and stylishness. I'm not usually impressed by minimalist decor and ultra modern architecture but this place is something else. If only I could afford to stay there...
Not to be overshadowed by the glitz and glamour of Vegas is mention of our trip to a place at the other end of the spectrum - the Gold Rush ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada. The town began in 1905 as a mining camp which sprang up when gold was discovered in the surrounding hills. By 1907, Rhyolite had electric lights, water mains, telephones, newspapers, a hospital, a school, an opera house, and a stock exchange, along with a population of around 5,000. By the end of 1910, however, the mine was operating at a loss and in 1920 the town's population had dropped to almost zero. Today, all that remains are the ghostly ruins of once proud buildings, a house made almost entirely out of bottles and a surreally placed outdoor sculpture museum. As the museum's website states, should you drop by "you'll encounter a life-size, ghostly interpretation of the Last Supper painting by Leonardo Da Vinci; a 25-foot high pink woman made of cinder blocks; a 24-foot high steel prospector accompanied by a penguin; a blossoming tangle of gleaming chrome car parts; and an exquisitely carved winged woman reaching for the sun from high atop a wooden pillar."All this in the middle of the desert, next to a ghost town. Pretty trippy, I can tell you.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=163224&id=510568119&l=bb271ddfb1
Ah, Vegas. As a Disney-obsessed child who never quite grew out of her guilty love of all things glitzy, gimmicky and over the top, I had been looking forward to visiting ole' Sin City for quite some time. Fortunately, it didn't disappoint. As we were stopping by only a few days before Yuletide, mum and dad had booked Rich and I into a junior suite at the Signature - the new and tres swanky part of the MGM grand - as a Christmas present. After 7 months of sleeping in hostels, tents, campervans and bedsits you can imagine the joy with which we greeted our king- sized bed, his & hers sinks, private hot tub, flatscreen TV, kitchenette, living area and balcony overlooking The Strip. I could've just stayed in the suite for 4 days.
Soon, however, the call of $1 margaritas and slot machines drew us from our utopia and we set off to explore further afield. The first thing I noticed: the hotels are massive. It took us almost 20 minutes to walk from our suite to the front door of the MGM Grand, and that was without stopping at the in-house McDonalds, swimming pool and gym,"CSI Miami Experience," plethora of restaurants or the casino. It really did feel like walking through a giant adult's playground.
The next few days whirled by in a heady mix of late mornings and even later nights, cut-price cocktails, bad karaoke, victories on the slot machines and defeats at the blackjack tables. We lapped up the free shows - the Mirage's volcano, the Bellagio's fountains and the lions at the MGM Grand. We took in a Cirque de Soleil extravaganza, visited Old Vegas to admire Vegas Vic and Vegas Vicky, found our favourite slots (The Enchanted Unicorn and Hoot Loot) and strained our necks marvelling like Lillipudlians at the giant-sized Eiffel Tower, New York skyline, Caeser's Palace and other assorted edifices.
Continuing the festive theme of pushing the boat out, we also indulged in a trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet at the Wynn, currently held to be the best buffet in Vegas. In terms of choice alone it was a winner - we feasted on everything from Giant Alaskan Snow Crab legs to prime rib; pizza to potstickers. And then there were the desserts... As a fully paid up member of the Sweet Tooth Club I felt it only my duty to try as many of the sample sized delicacies on offer, and narrowing the field to only a final 7 was almost as tough a job as trying to eat them all. Needless to say the rest of that day was spent moving very, very slowly in the direction of our suite and a much needed place to lie down.
On our last night we wandered around some of the hotels we'd not explored yet and stumbled upon the newly opened CityCenter complex which includes the Aria casino resort and the Mandarin Oriental hotel. Although from the outside it looks unfortunately similar to something out of London's square mile, inside it is, well, pretty breathtaking. The photos don't do it justice, but every square foot of the place is like a shrine to the gods of chic and stylishness. I'm not usually impressed by minimalist decor and ultra modern architecture but this place is something else. If only I could afford to stay there...
Not to be overshadowed by the glitz and glamour of Vegas is mention of our trip to a place at the other end of the spectrum - the Gold Rush ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada. The town began in 1905 as a mining camp which sprang up when gold was discovered in the surrounding hills. By 1907, Rhyolite had electric lights, water mains, telephones, newspapers, a hospital, a school, an opera house, and a stock exchange, along with a population of around 5,000. By the end of 1910, however, the mine was operating at a loss and in 1920 the town's population had dropped to almost zero. Today, all that remains are the ghostly ruins of once proud buildings, a house made almost entirely out of bottles and a surreally placed outdoor sculpture museum. As the museum's website states, should you drop by "you'll encounter a life-size, ghostly interpretation of the Last Supper painting by Leonardo Da Vinci; a 25-foot high pink woman made of cinder blocks; a 24-foot high steel prospector accompanied by a penguin; a blossoming tangle of gleaming chrome car parts; and an exquisitely carved winged woman reaching for the sun from high atop a wooden pillar."All this in the middle of the desert, next to a ghost town. Pretty trippy, I can tell you.
UFOs, Ghost Towns and Death Valley
Spot the UFO here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=157354&id=510568119&l=3e38bfa7fb
The next phase of our travels needed to put us in Las Vegas by December 21, and so several weeks previously we set about wondering how we might get there. When I say "wondering," what I of course mean is finding out which buses leave from San Francisco travelling in the general direction of Las Vegas, where we would need to make connections in order to eventually end up in Las Vegas, what time the various buses leave, how much each bus costs and which route is cheapest, how we would get to and from the relevant bus stations, how long each journey would take etc, etc. Then doing the same thing for trains. Then doing the same thing for flights. Then finding out how much it would cost to rent a car. Then doing it all over again, but this time with various bus/train/plane/car combinations until we eventually come up with a plan which we can afford, doesn't take 3 months and doesn't require us to paddle downstream in a canoe in order to make one of our connections.
And so it was that at 4.30am one morning we walked to the BART station to catch a train to the airport to catch a flight to Los Angeles to catch a bus to the rental car office to pick up a hire car to drive to Las Vegas. And so it also was that we ended up sitting bleary-eyed outside a cafe in Venice Beach at 8am that same day wondering where the ridiculously hot sunshine had come from and trying not to fall asleep into our breakfast veggie burgers. After realising that a trip to downtown LA or Universal Studios might be the end of us in our current state we decided instead to hover on the periphery of the city, taking in the view from Mulholland Drive, the pier at Santa Monica and the wonderful LA traffic. Thanks to some covert-carpark-wi-fi-purloining we then located the nearest, cheapest motel, checked in and managed to order in and eat a pizza before passing out.
Next day we struck out for the town of Lone Pine, en route to Death Valley and Vegas. As soon as we left LA we noticed how dramatically different the scenery was from anywhere we'd visited so far. Mile upon mile of desert highway and distant horizons flanked on all sides by barren tawny mountain ranges and punctuated only by the occasional cactus or telegraph pole oddly disguised as a tree. Not the sort of landscape I'm used to looking at in the run up to Christmas.
Somewhere along one of the aforementioned desert highways we turned off at a sign which simply said "Ghost Town." I'd heard of American ghost towns from the Gold Rush era which could, with the right degree of squinting, resemble the dilapidated sets of old Westerns, but this one was much more recent. Smashed up TV sets, sofas and suitcases littered a handful of gutted trailers and bungalows, and what used to be streets were scattered with rusting bed frames, splintered wood and broken glass. We couldn't find any reference to the settlement on the map, and in the absence of further signage we left the eerie scene non the wiser about its origins or its mysterious demise.
As evening closed in we stopped to check out a couple of likely looking sleeping establishments. Unfortunately they turned out to be deserted, surrounded by the bones of long dead animals and eerily reminiscent of the Bates motel. Moving swiftly on, we arrived at the infinitely more welcoming town of Lone Pine, and checked into the kitsch but comfy Trails Motel. We soon noticed that the town had a distinctly Wild West feel to it, largely, it transpired, due to the fact that the nearby Alabama Hills were the setting for over 300 Westerns and TV shows. Upon further exploration we discovered the Museum of Lone Pine Movie History and that everyone from Clint Eastwood to John Wayne to Erroll Flynn had filmed in "them thar hills." We spent a happy evening watching the Western B movie "Riders from Tuscon" in the museum's wild west theater before heading down Movie Road the next morning to see where all the action took place and to re-enact scenes from The Lone Ranger (see photos).
Later that day, many desert highway miles later, we arrived at the entrance to Death Valley. Fortunately for us, we were visiting at a time of year that didn't put us at risk of destroying the car's air conditioning and dying of heat exhaustion, but we still found ourselves surrounded by an impressively dry, hot and arid wilderness. We passed through desolate canyons which unexpectedly transformed into golden sand dunes before arriving at Badwater Basin - a salt flat 282 feet below sea level. As dusk fell the evening shadows gave the valley the appearance of a lunar landscape, with nothing but rocks and mountain ridges as far as the eye could see. We left Death Valley surprised by the bizarre variety of landscapes we'd encountered, impressed by the majestic unearthliness of the place and definitely glad we stopped by.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=157354&id=510568119&l=3e38bfa7fb
The next phase of our travels needed to put us in Las Vegas by December 21, and so several weeks previously we set about wondering how we might get there. When I say "wondering," what I of course mean is finding out which buses leave from San Francisco travelling in the general direction of Las Vegas, where we would need to make connections in order to eventually end up in Las Vegas, what time the various buses leave, how much each bus costs and which route is cheapest, how we would get to and from the relevant bus stations, how long each journey would take etc, etc. Then doing the same thing for trains. Then doing the same thing for flights. Then finding out how much it would cost to rent a car. Then doing it all over again, but this time with various bus/train/plane/car combinations until we eventually come up with a plan which we can afford, doesn't take 3 months and doesn't require us to paddle downstream in a canoe in order to make one of our connections.
And so it was that at 4.30am one morning we walked to the BART station to catch a train to the airport to catch a flight to Los Angeles to catch a bus to the rental car office to pick up a hire car to drive to Las Vegas. And so it also was that we ended up sitting bleary-eyed outside a cafe in Venice Beach at 8am that same day wondering where the ridiculously hot sunshine had come from and trying not to fall asleep into our breakfast veggie burgers. After realising that a trip to downtown LA or Universal Studios might be the end of us in our current state we decided instead to hover on the periphery of the city, taking in the view from Mulholland Drive, the pier at Santa Monica and the wonderful LA traffic. Thanks to some covert-carpark-wi-fi-purloining we then located the nearest, cheapest motel, checked in and managed to order in and eat a pizza before passing out.
Next day we struck out for the town of Lone Pine, en route to Death Valley and Vegas. As soon as we left LA we noticed how dramatically different the scenery was from anywhere we'd visited so far. Mile upon mile of desert highway and distant horizons flanked on all sides by barren tawny mountain ranges and punctuated only by the occasional cactus or telegraph pole oddly disguised as a tree. Not the sort of landscape I'm used to looking at in the run up to Christmas.
Somewhere along one of the aforementioned desert highways we turned off at a sign which simply said "Ghost Town." I'd heard of American ghost towns from the Gold Rush era which could, with the right degree of squinting, resemble the dilapidated sets of old Westerns, but this one was much more recent. Smashed up TV sets, sofas and suitcases littered a handful of gutted trailers and bungalows, and what used to be streets were scattered with rusting bed frames, splintered wood and broken glass. We couldn't find any reference to the settlement on the map, and in the absence of further signage we left the eerie scene non the wiser about its origins or its mysterious demise.
As evening closed in we stopped to check out a couple of likely looking sleeping establishments. Unfortunately they turned out to be deserted, surrounded by the bones of long dead animals and eerily reminiscent of the Bates motel. Moving swiftly on, we arrived at the infinitely more welcoming town of Lone Pine, and checked into the kitsch but comfy Trails Motel. We soon noticed that the town had a distinctly Wild West feel to it, largely, it transpired, due to the fact that the nearby Alabama Hills were the setting for over 300 Westerns and TV shows. Upon further exploration we discovered the Museum of Lone Pine Movie History and that everyone from Clint Eastwood to John Wayne to Erroll Flynn had filmed in "them thar hills." We spent a happy evening watching the Western B movie "Riders from Tuscon" in the museum's wild west theater before heading down Movie Road the next morning to see where all the action took place and to re-enact scenes from The Lone Ranger (see photos).
Later that day, many desert highway miles later, we arrived at the entrance to Death Valley. Fortunately for us, we were visiting at a time of year that didn't put us at risk of destroying the car's air conditioning and dying of heat exhaustion, but we still found ourselves surrounded by an impressively dry, hot and arid wilderness. We passed through desolate canyons which unexpectedly transformed into golden sand dunes before arriving at Badwater Basin - a salt flat 282 feet below sea level. As dusk fell the evening shadows gave the valley the appearance of a lunar landscape, with nothing but rocks and mountain ridges as far as the eye could see. We left Death Valley surprised by the bizarre variety of landscapes we'd encountered, impressed by the majestic unearthliness of the place and definitely glad we stopped by.
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