Well the end is nigh, the road to NZ is complete. I am safely ensconced in the very cosy confines of 20 Lastel Place, otherwise known as my parents house. To be honest at the moment it’s all a bit of blur. The long haul on the bus from San Fran down to LA including two delays followed by a 15-hour flight from LA to AKL has kind of done my head in. On the whole I also think there is a need for a “travellers rehab”, as at the moment I feel like I am completely disjointed about what I should or should not be doing. Logically it’s all pretty obvious but my instincts are to be thinking about the next place I want to visit and how I should get there, followed by where I should sleep. Weird. I’m sure it will pass after a few home cooked meals and more than 4 nights in the same bed.

The final few days in Sac-Town (as the locals call it) were mostly sport orientated, watching a lot of NFL on TV – now have a new appreciation for the game and can talk about “secondary’s”, “pass protection” and “4th and goal” with some semblance of knowledge. One of the places we chose to watch said football was a total dive bar called The Sea Shanty, a class establishment that served only beer, had a country/70’s rock loaded jukebox, and a bar woman whose patron policy was to throw out anyone who didn’t agree with her. Sounds like a bar I would own. I also got along to a Sacramento Kings vs Portland Trailblazers basketball match which also proved highly entertaining. Interestingly, it seemed a lot slower in real life than on TV – though still exceptionally athletic and even the time outs seemed to make sense which is something that usually drives me insane about American sport.

From Sacramento its only an hour and half on the freeway to San Francisco – with zero flowers in the hair. San Fran is a brilliant place, big enough to have more than one “scene”, yet small enough to feel compact and even a little friendly. In setting it resembles Sydney with the harbor and bridges and likewise Manhattan with the downtown at one end of a longish peninsula. But the vibe really is all its own, definitely helped by the steeply inclined streets, and little neighbourhoods scattered around the city. Golden Gate bridge stands as a backdrop on the ocean side and the somewhat more sizable, yet far less iconic, Bay Bridge on the harbour side. Not forgetting little ‘ole Alcatraz sitting not so pretty in the middle.

Alcatraz…..it turns out, is a national park, not your usual type for sure. The audio tour is voiced by former inmates and guards and retains a spooky “from the grave” resonance - even in digital. On the whole it’s a grim place, made much grimmer with tales of stabbing in the kitchen, guards shot to dead in escape attempts and even syphilis-mad convicts. Step up Al Capone. A visit to the place is an interesting factual insight into perhaps one of the most notorious prisons ever constructed, and the view from the ferry towards the city and bridges isn’t too bad either. And that’s pretty much it for my visit to San Fran outside of eating some Mexican and Chinese food, chilling in the Golden Gate Park and watching more NFL while having a few final “farewell America” Bud’s. It’s a top city and extremely livable from my short but very sweet visit, which is probably a good as summation as any of my experience overall in the state of California.

All of which brings me to here. The End of the Road. Well, the end of this road anyway……this would be the place in my little narrative for some quote about life being in chapters, and doors closing and others opening or something equally as worthy of a hallmark card, an agony aunt column or even your average pub psychiatrist. Wherever I end up next will be no doubt be wherever I choose to put myself. Being now a fervent believer (not always the case) of life being a series of choices – 99% of which are under my own control. Blah blah blah…….whatever…..I’m sure it could be an interesting blog but that’s another story I suppose. I’d like to say Thanks to all those who’ve been reading or at least partially following my trip over the last 7 months – if you’ve had 1/1000th the fun reading it, as I’ve had living it, then its been a riot.

San Francisco: 9/10
Travelling as a Pastime: 11/10

Current Mood: Dislocated
Music on My Mind: California Love - Dr Dre & 2Pac.

Songs with Cali in the title....Hotel California, Californication (ish), California Girls, California Dreamin', Going to California, Dani California and finally It Never Rains in Southern California.

NZ, and England as well I guess, are really very safe and docile places where animals really pose little to no threat to the daily comings and goings of humans. Not so in Yosemite National Park in Northern California where the campsites have “bear chests” to store all food and anything with a scent, including toothpaste. Even cars aren’t safe as bears have been known to rip doors off in the search for pre-hibernation chow. Fortunately they have little to no interest in people as tents aren’t exactly the most secure of accommodations.

Yosemite park is centered around a huge glacial valley carpeted with fir trees which was carved out thousands of years ago. The valley itself is surrounded by 2000 ft cliffs that are then topped by curious looking granite domes created by even larger glaciers that previously used to cover the entire area. All in all a geologists dream environment and a very scenic place even to the amateur. The four days we spent camping up there were spent hiking around in different areas of the park to the tops of waterfalls and domes, peaking over cliff edges to the valley below, watching sunsets and visiting groves of giant sequoia. The giant sequoia is one of three varieties of redwood - they aren’t the tallest trees in the world, but are in fact the largest living organism. If you imagine how big a whale is then you can imagine how big these trees actually are. Big enough to drive a car through, so big that I guess the tree huggers in this part of the USA have a hard time expressing their love adequately.

My arrival in California was ignominious to say the least, after a rather taxing 18 hours flying up from BA I found myself at the Greyhound terminal in downtown LA. Downtown LA appearing from the inside of my taxi like it does in the movies. Crack dealers on the corners and barred-up liquor stores abounding. All set to the bass heavy hip hop soundtrack from the nearby tinted out gigantic SUV that easily penetrated into the back seat from a good 10m away, and on top that I think it may have been the dodgiest bus station I have been to in all the world. No worries though, i watched 3 consecutive simpsons episodes and then it was time to board the bus.....i've spent many much worse 90 minutes. Things improved somewhat upon boarding the bus and the locals were a friendly bunch on the way up to Sacramento. In fact in general this is proving to be the case throughout California, people here are a happy, friendly bunch. On the way to Yosemite we popped into a roadhouse for a couple of beers and something to eat and started talking to an old guy who kept reminding God to bless New Zealand before ordering a bloody Mary and telling us he was the father of the singer in the band Smash Mouth. I’m inclined to believe him as he was about 70 and there is no other possible way he would even know who they are.

On return to Sacramento after 5 days avoiding bears, we headed out to enjoy some quality American culture. That is, I went bowling, Big Lebowski style – the place could have been straight out of the set. I didn’t see anyone resembling the Dude and I didn’t get started on the White Russians but the Budweiser pitchers were excellent, though unfortunately the bowling wasn’t and I was glad to get a couple of strikes in my piss poor 86. Sacramento as a medium sized town that is really only notable as the state capital, where the Governator – as the locals call the governor who also happens to be Arnold Schwarzenegger – resides. It kind of reminds me of a souped up Hamilton (in New Zealand), though the curious American habit of naming streets with letters – as in L street etc, makes it somewhat different I suppose. I’ve got a couple more days mooching around here, probably having a few more Buds and checking out an NBA game then off to San Franscisco and home.

Yosemite National Park 9/10
Sacramento 7.5/10

Current Mood: Americanized
Music on My Mind: Telegram Sam – T Rex

ps there are a some new photos in the gallery

So I’m sitting at an outside table at a café on a cobbled street in Colonia de Sacramento listening to some slow reggae style rhythms come wafting out the windows and watching the streaky clouds drift through the blue sky. And it occurs to me that life is indeed pretty good, for no other reason than its great to be alive and to feel a good meal in the stomach, the taste of the beer, and the sun on the face. It also occurred to me later these moments/feelings/whatever come all too rarely in modern living, in golf Jack Nicklaus says you have to “smell the flowers” to play better. He means to enjoy the basic fact that you are walking around in nature and you will find that the game doesn’t dominate your thoughts to the point of distraction. I think perhaps that’s a pretty good euphemism for life in general.

Colonia de Sacramento otherwise was a very quiet little place, but just what the doctor ordered really. I spent a couple of lazy days watching sunsets, reading and eating. Got a bit of an intro to my 2 weeks in the US by having dinner and then a few drinks with a guy and girl from Colorado and Idaho respectively which was a bit of a laugh - got the low down on how to defend against Shaquille O´Neill in the NBA amongst other enlightening topics. You know, in the travel “scene”, Americans and the USA itself are almost fashionable to slag off at a moments notice but in my experience on this trip they are generally a good laugh, well educated, and light of nature. Obviously travelers from any country are a certain subsection of society and hardly a good sample, so I’ll have to see what I get when I am more seriously “in country”.

The delights of C de S wore somewhat thin by the end of the second day so I took a day trip to capital Montevideo further down the coast. The countryside very much reminded me of NZ which shouldn’t come as a complete surprise since it’s a big farming country on roughly the same latitude as Auckland but still it was a pleasant entrée of what awaits. Unlike Montevideo itself, which bore an uncanny resemblance to an eastern European city of a similar size, apparently the Uruguayan economy nose-dived in the 60´s and has never quote recovered leaving plenty of 60´s rectangle block style architecture abounding. Still it wasn’t an altogether bad place as they are as steak mad there as the Argy´s, so I indulged myself in chivito´s – basically a steak sandwich - to my hearts content. It appears also the lack of development has affected other area’s as well, never in my life have I heard so many cover versions of Bon Scott era AC/DC as I did in Uruguay, being an Acca Dacca connoisseur I have say they weren’t half bad.

After 3 days of Uruguay I boarded the ferry for my last few days in Buenos Aires and, in fact, South America. It hasn’t really sunk in that a) I am getting on a plane and b) I am leaving South America maybe forever. My final days have been pretty lazy – in keeping with the theme – though have caught a few museums, most interestingly the Latin American modern art museum. Without fail, I always find modern art museums trippy places and leave feeling slightly disorientated but in a refreshing way. Like someone has dumped the mental version of cold water on me and I am wide awake again. I spose that’s the effect they are going for.

Off to Cal-I-Forn-I-A tomorrow for hiking, Mexican food and more of the good life!

C de S 8/10
Montevideo 6.5/10

Current Mood: Reflective
Music on My Mind: Traveling Riverside Blues – Led Zeppelin

Buenos Aires means good air in Spanish and there definitely must be something in that, it´s a top city, kind of like a cross between Spain, France and Italy with a heavy helping of Latin America dumped on top. In the centre there is the 20 lane world’s widest road, 9 de Julio, which is not as bad to cross as you would think considering the amount of cars going from one direction to another. Outside of the centre BA stretches out into different suburbs, each with a different character and style and basically the last 5 days or so have been spent checking them all out.

On the first day here I managed to get to a football match between River Plate and San Lorenzo which was a brilliant experience, whilst River Plate stadium wasn’t quite the Maracana, the atmosphere was excellent. The soundtrack to the match was one long sing along – all in a far more tuneful (as you would expect) way than what I’ve witnessed at English matches, which also was matched by the higher level of technical excellence in the game itself despite it pouring with rain the entire match. River Plate hammered them 5-0 so it was all one way traffic but still a vastly enjoyable experience and we had much fun practicing our pogo jumping and latin style arm celebrations. Quite different to the English speaking way in that the fist is not closed and it involves a sort of loose elbow movement reminiscent of Iraqis protesting against the Americans.

Also at the top of the agenda was the much acclaimed Argentine steak, previous readers will know that I am partial to a bit of beef at the moment…and I have to say its one of those rare times when a reputation is well deserved. It’s a no-frills affair as you only order the meat on its own with accompaniments down to personal preference – mine being a huge salad with “papas fritas” on the side to share. They don’t mess around with quantity, its seriously massive, at least twice if not 3 times the size what you get in NZ or the UK, there’s usually 3 or 4 style available - Bife de Chorizo (nothing to do with the sausage its basically sirloin) being my favourite – and i´ve been eating my way through the selections and haven’t been disappointed yet. The average argentine (man, woman and child) eats about 1.25 kg a week of beef alone putting them in the top flight of beef eaters and its easy to see why....and how.

Aside from eating beef and watching football, much time has been spent in plaza´s in different neighbourhoods sipping a drink and watching the world pass by. Every now and then a pair of tango dancers turn up dressed to the nines and to perform for a few peso´s from the tourists. Tango has to be the sexiest thing invented since red lipstick and it’s from Buenos Aires and you see references to it everywhere….the music itself is rather mournful and the lyrics are apparently very sad about loss and death – kind of like country music. The dance itself looks complicated with all the legs flicking around but the woman especially is seemingly attached to the man at the hip and they move in absolute harmony – it really catches the eye.

So that brings me to Uruguay, as with all things in life (in my opinion), distinction is only possible through contrast. Although 10 days in Buenos Aires could quite easily be done without a moments hesitation, I have decided to give myself some serious R’n’R (that’s rest and relaxation not rock and roll) across the river in Colonia de Sacramento. Theres only so much twice a day steak eating, siesta having, drinking till 5 am one 30 yr old can take. C de S is a tiny heritage listed town made up of cobbled streets and alleys right on the waterside with not a lot going on. Perfect. I´m going to spend a couple of days here before a final frenzy of beer, beef, football and late nights sends me off to California.

Buenos Aires 9.75/10 - straight into my top 5 cities of all time

Current Mood: In the Zone
Music on My Mind: 8 days a Week - The Beatles

In Brazil they have these places called churrascaria (sp?) which are basically your average buffet set up with about 20 different types of salad. The slight but pleasing difference to the usual set up is that instead of having a meat selection there is 2-3 waiters cruising the tables with various types of meat of offer, all the usual suspects that previously were wandering around the nearby farm. Given such a wide selection I decided to not make a decision and attempt to eat the whole farm…mmm chicken….mmm beef….mmm lamb…..mmm pork (chops, ribs and sausages). Pity the poor Californian hippy-save-the world type on my left who was expounding on the topic of modern meat production methods while I was busy sipping on cerveza and motioning the waiter in my usual subtle manner to make it snappy with the next round of steak.

Over the last 4 days or so I have been hanging out in Foz de Iguacu, right on the Brazilian/Argentine border. A reasonable size town grown up around tourism of the nearby falls and the construction of the Itaipu dam. The falls themselves are pretty damn (no pun intended) impressive – even though its only the start of the wet season the sheer scale of the area is overwhelming. The river empties its load across over perhaps a 1500m area, though most of the volume comes over the “Garganta de Diablo” which creates a fine rainbow coloured mist over the whole area within which millions of swallows swoop and dive to their nests alongside the falls. I managed to view the falls from both sides, with the Argentine side proving much more interesting due to proximity and the ability to get very close to the many cascading falls in the area.

Between visiting waterfalls and eating the farm Foz was a pretty quiet place, one night I went out with a crew from the hostel to see a Brazilian reggae band – Cidade Negra (Black City). It was great to just get out to see some live music and they weren’t too bad, kind of like a poppy version of Salmonella Dub, the locals loved it and went nuts – and we didn’t get home till 6am. Nice to know I’ve still got it in me……unfortunately the downside of such behaviour is that the visit to the worlds biggest hydroelectric dam got canned – ah you cant do it all and I think I needed a night out to clear out the cobwebs as it were.

Have now made my way to Buenos Aires, I had all these good intentions about heading down the Brazilian coast but I am starting to lose my mojo for long bus rides and the general grind of travel. Not sure if this is related to the proximity of the finish of my trip or just general jadedness….no probs though as Buenos Aires has a lot going on and over the next 10 days I plan to get across to Uruguay for some of it and perhaps out into the countryside as well. Kicking off with a football match this afternoon, so that should give me an insight into one side of the Argentine mentality.

Foz De Iguacu 7/10
Iguacu Falls 9/10

Current Mood: Jaded
Music on My Mind: I Wanna Be Your Dog – Iggy Pop