World of Travel – Page 4

The lesson of the Frenchman

May 15, 2011

Before I left LA I made up all these flyers to put up in hostels to find company along the road from place to place. I figured what’s a road trip without any company.

On my last evening in Vegas, the staff at the hostel said an old French guy was interested in getting a lift. I was a bit carried away by all the social activities, so I didn’t follow it up. Anyways, he found me and told me he was looking for a ride to see Southern Utah.

I told him my vague plans and said I could take him to Zion National Park, an offer he took up.

He wasn’t the best car company. It came to pass that he hadn’t understood that I was going to be camping and so he had a little melt down in the supermarket as he started to buy food provisions only to realise he probably wouldn’t be able to use them as he wouldn’t be able to stay at a campground.

I waited in the car while he checked out a number of accommodation options. I used this time to consult the map again and discovered that after Zion my next stop would be to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon instead of Bryce Canyon which is where Andre wanted to go.

When I told him this, he got a bit upset as he said there is no public transport to get where he wants to go. We arranged to be in touch and then I received an email from him saying he couldn’t get to Bryce and that if wasn’t going north then he would hitchhike back to the next big town to catch the bus somewhere else and he didn’t know why I’d changed my plans.

Part of the reason I have a car is that it gives me freedom and flexibility to make my mind up as I go. I also have the luxury of a schedule that means I don’t have to stick to a timeframe.

So now, I have learned a lesson in offering rideshares. I need to do my due diligence and specify that there are no promises beyond the next destination.

Hitting the strip

May 11, 2011

I thought seriously about what shoes I was going to wear out tonight.

I was weighing up the pros and cons of my only pair of heels (red patent leather) and a pair of coral flats. Eventually the heels won out as I’d figured we’d be sitting in a magic show and then walk to the nightclub for a night of dancing. They could hold up for that kind of activity.

However, the free magic show tickets we thought we were getting were all gone, so Dustin from Hostel Cat took us on a tour of the Strip instead. If you’ve been to Vegas before, you’ll know that the Strip is not as small as the word implies. Roaming the Strip to check out the casinos and the free shows requires stamina, and a pair of comfortable shoes. I’m not suggesting that you’d want to run up and down in your sneakers, that wouldn’t fit the picture, but a nice pair of flats will keep you on the go more than a pair of sexy heels.

We saw the Mirage volcano erupt in fire and fireworks, we saw the Treasure Island sirens enchant the sailors, we saw the Bellagio lake burst into dancing fountains and watched gondoliers sing to passengers at the Venetian. In amongst these highlights were food stops, chats with impersonators, drink stops, finding ways into others’ photos and a zillion photo stops, but all the while moving quickly up and down the Strip having a great time with new friends from the hostel.

At one stop for a photo in front of the waterfall in the Palazzo or whichever hotel/casino has the ceiling painted to look like daytime (they all kind of ran together into one) Stunt Joel grabbed a fistful of coins that had been thrown in by people making wishes and while I was posing for a photo he threw the wet coins down the back of my top. I think this was because he blamed me for splashing him with water in a wet-tshirt-competition type of way. So my top got wet and suddenly all these people’s wishes had been relocated to me. I was careful to make sure I threw them all back in the water with a sorry, but it wasn’t until I got back to the hostel and went to the toilet that I found a penny had hitchhiked a ride in my undies. All those penny sayings like “find a penny pick it up, all day long have good luck” and “then the penny dropped” and then most crucially “spend a penny” all just kind of came true in that moment.

So when in Vegas, do make sure you roam the Strip. Preferably with a bunch of people in the mood for hijinks (and a pair of flat shoes).

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Just another jaded traveller

May 9, 2011

Chopper into the Canyon — The chopper ride into the Grand Canyon

I’m embarrassed to say it. To say it is like committing some kind of treason. I know people won’t agree with me, but I just have to say it. The Grand Canyon isn’t so grand.

There. I’ve said it now. I’m prepared for the onslaught of comments telling me how wrong I am, and I’d love to receive them from those of you who were totally amazed. At the hostel I’ve now created some kind of reputation that I’m hard to please. It’s not true, but I’m prepared to laugh about it.

I don’t think the Grand Canyon is pathetic or anything, I just think my expectations were mismanaged. In the lead up to my ranch and raft tour on the Colorado River in the bottom of the Grand Canyon I read about the sway the river and canyon has over the river runners who guide groups through the canyon every season and that was reiterated with great emphasis by our host who went into great detail about it before we even glimpsed the canyon.

My expectations were that I would be captivated by the river and the canyon, that I wouldn’t ever want to leave and I also pictured sheer walls and dirty big rapids. Clearly they were way too high.

I love rivers and the opportunity to raft the river was something I was especially keen to do. The Murray River has a very special place in my heart, but it seems there is not enough room in there for a green Colorado River.

Canyon view — View of the canyon from the waterfall we visited

All this jaded-ness aside, I had an enjoyable trip. We saw some beautiful colours in the canyon walls, the camping was fun, the chopper ride into the canyon great and the walk up to the waterfall extremely pretty. I guess I just came away glad that I had only gone on the 3 day, 2 night trip and not the 6 day trip! Maybe my impressions of the Grand Canyon will change when I look over the rim. I certainly hope so.

Dreaming of a Volvo

May 6, 2011

Getting ready for the roadtrip — Esmeralda and I before setting off on the roadtrip. First stop Las Vegas.

When I was 22, it was my dream to be a full-time mum with four kids and a Volvo station wagon.

I really don’t know how I decided I specifically wanted a Volvo station wagon, but this whole dream evaporated after I came back from a year of travels at age 25. I no longer wanted to have kids, I no longer had a desire to get married, and the Volvo, that just didn’t fit the picture of my new dream to travel the world.

So it is rather interesting that I am now the owner of a green Volvo named Esmeralda. Not a station wagon, or even a family sized car, but still a safe Swedish import.

Maybe this tells me that despite our dreams changing following different experiences or paths, there is still an undercurrent at work on those old dreams. Peeps of the past perhaps.

From today, Esmeralda and I are embarking on a grand US roadtrip. We’re going to have a great time together following no set plan, just seeing where the road and the people we meet take us.

Inspiration for life

May 4, 2011

I’m a bit of a fan of inspirational quotes, and I love sticking them up around me.

My friends know this so I have a wall of cards with great quotes and little inspirational boards in front of my desk.

Poking around the Arclight gift shop, I found myself drawn in by the quotable cards and magnets (as per usual) and had to buy myself a card that really spoke to me right now. It said:

find life experiences
and swallow them
whole. travel.
meet many people.
go down some
dead ends and
explore dark alleys.
try everything.
exhaust yourself
in the glorious
pursuit of life.

lawrence k. fish

This quotable card really resonates with me right now because I’ve decided to move on from Los Angeles and get travelling. After three months I’ve found that this isn’t where I’m supposed to be right now. The road has been calling me, and I think that’s where my wellspring of creativity lies.

Riding the ferris wheel

May 2, 2011

I have to admit to having more adventurous tastes in show rides than the Ferris Wheel, but it was befitting of the spontaneous trip to Santa Monica with Michele.

Our original plan of doing one of those bus tours (specifically one targeted at the tragic side of Hollywood) fell by the wayside when there weren’t enough people for the tour to run. We vacillated over the Getty Center and then decided to trip down the 10 freeway to Santa Monica and see the beach.

As we know, I’m not a beachy person, but Santa Monica had the added bonus of the pier with the show rides to draw me in.

I made a wrong turn coming off the freeway, turning right instead of left, which meant that we started driving towards Malibu on Pacific Highway. It was quite pretty, but there was no way of doing a u-turn or even making a right turn for quite a-ways because of the cliffs that rose steeply up from the highway.

Peek through the struts — Peeking through the Ferris Wheel struts

When we finally got back to the pier, we weren’t disappointed. It was a beautiful clear 31ºC day and the beach and pier were busy enough, but certainly not crowded.

As we made our way up the steps to the pier, I marvelled at the age of the wooden steps. They were grooved and hollowed out from so much traffic over the years. I pressed my feet into the depressions which would turn into puddles on a rainy day. There is something in me that loves to see worn timber like this. I can think back to two specific experiences where it made an impression on me. One in Fray Bentos, Uruguay at the tinned meat factory, and the other time on a spiral staircase leading up to the belfry at the cathedral in Mexico City’s Zocalo. (Yes, this is now the third blog entry in six years that relates a story about well-worn boards, so there is clearly a fascination with this little detail)

The boards of the pier weren’t as smooth as I expected. They were rough, like rough-hewn timber with grooves running from side to side and had shiny silver dumps (bolts) fastening them down to the supports. They were really beautiful. The lurid show rides looked out of place perched upon these old boards, but they also added height and colour to the skyline.

Colourful Santa Monica pier — A giant octopus is growing out of my head

Seeing the Ferris Wheel circling above us, we decided we had to go for a ride on it and eventually found our way to the ticket booth which is cleverly hidden in the middle of all the rides so you can be tempted to buy tokens for more than one ride. We shared our gondola (is that what you would call a Ferris Wheel carriage?) with an English girl as there was a strict rule that there were no single riders.

The Ferris Wheel circled fast, not giving us much time to take photos of the amazing views it afforded of the beach, the pier and the distant mountains. At any rate, it was definitely worth the $5 fare to be child-like, snap-happy tourists and gave a different perspective to the beach.

Making up for being a bad friend

April 29, 2011

I’ve been in LA for three months and hadn’t yet caught up with my friend who I met when she was on exchange in my hometown 15 years ago. That’s poor form.

I guess a number of things conspired against it, like my car woes and her late stage pregnancy. So now that her baby is birthed and Esmeralda is fixed, we finally arranged a meet up.

It was a nice 30 mile drive out to her place on the Foothills Freeway 210. This is a much nicer freeway than the 10 freeway. As the name suggests, it traverses the foothills of the mountains and it quite pretty. On the way back in the evening it afforded incredible views of the city lights and downtown.

Meeting my friend’s new baby was lovely. When I visited her about 11 months ago, I had no idea that I’d be back to see her so soon and that by that time she’d have another child. It must be quite some time since I’ve seen a newborn because I couldn’t believe how tiny he was. As I held him while he struggled against sleep, his head warmed up the crook of my arm. That’s a nice feeling. For all my friends who know about how I feel about me and babies, I tell you I’m not getting clucky!

My friend and I talked about how it is that we’ve kept up our friendship that started way back in 1996, and the fact that we have seen each other four times since then, once when she returned to Australia and now that I have visited her in LA three times. Whilst Facebook makes it easy to stay in touch, actually visiting really cements the friendship beyond the electronic. I never regret travelling to meet up with my friends living overseas, be it Los Angeles, London, Buenos Aires or whether it’s even just closer to home in some far-flung place in Australia. There is something special about the memories you create with them in their current cities, and it adds to the relationship because you understand their life there.

I hope that I will continue to do this for the rest of my life, because a little bit of effort goes a long way. Perhaps I should be looking to book a flight to see my friend Shanghai Slipper.

Last minute Grand Canyon

April 26, 2011

After a long time humming and harring about what to do for my birthday, I finally booked an adventure.

You see, ever since I spent my 25th birthday straddling the equator in Ecuador, I have vowed to go away and do something exciting for my birthday. I used to expect others to make my birthday special for me, but after adopting this new philosophy I found that the only person my birthday is special for is me, and that it’s up to me to drive the celebrations.

So my birthdays have involved parasailing on the Gold Coast in Australia, kiteboarding in the Philippines, cycling around Rottnest Island in Western Australia, climbing the Sydney Harbour bridge, visiting Angkor Wat in Cambodia and swinging in a hammock in Puerto Escondido in Mexico. Sometimes these trips have been alone, and some have been with friends or family, but they all involved me taking responsibility for enjoying myself on my birthday without the need for birthday wishes or gifts.

I had been looking at stacks of Grand Canyon rafting tour websites, trying to find the best deal and best adventure. I would have loved to do a week-long trip but my travel budget couldn’t quite extend that far, so I settled on a shorter 3 day trip. I was worried that I wasn’t going to find one that would have availability over my birthday in a week and a half’s time because these trips are usually booked way in advance, but the first company I called, Arizona River Runners, had an opening and they were super nice on the phone.

So now I’m booked on a tour that includes a flight to the canyon rim, a ranch stay, a helicopter flight to the canyon floor, a whitewater rafting and camping trip and a jet boat across Lake Mead. I’m pretty darn excited.

A Mulholland drive

April 21, 2011

In our beat up little mechanics replacement car we were driving while Esmeralda was having her fan problem checked (yes, visit number four to the mechanic), we hit the roads of LA.

We started at Rodeo Drive. A stop at Wholefoods got us some lunch which we picnicked on at Via Rodeo, surrounded by posh shops and lampposts with cascading flower baskets and tourists. Rodeo Drive is a bit over-rated as a tourist destination, but it makes for an interesting little wander or drive if you want to pretend to re-enact Pretty Woman. The distinction between tourist destination and shopping destination is pretty hazy. Judging from the foot traffic, I’d say it attracts more tourists than shoppers, but that would hardly pay the rent on these massive flagship luxury brand stores. Getting out of Beverly Hills I heard the most number of car horns tooting than I’ve heard across the rest of LA. People must be so much more uptight, impatient and aggro here. A little further down the road is the craziest intersection I’ve had the pleasure of not crashing at. At the junction of N Beverly Drive, N Canon Drive and Lomitas Avenue it is a 6 way stop. This is an upgrade of the traditional 4 way stop (for which us Aussies would have a roundabout) where you all have to stop and then the person who got there first goes first, or otherwise the direction with the most traffic goes. It requires driver to driver communication, which always works better the lighter the tinting of the car. It also means you have to understand when it’s your go. At a 6 way stop there seems to be no real rules. You creep, creep out from the stop line painted on the road until you have claimed your turn and then you go for it. Miraculously there were no Mercedes Benz, BMW and Lexus pile ups. This is the second time I’ve driven through this intersection and the second time it has freaked me out. We drove up Beverly Glen Boulevard to the ridgetop Mulholland Drive. Made famous by famous people living there and the magnificent views of both Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, this highway is named after William Mulholland who was head of the LA Department of Water and Power and was responsible for building much of the infrastructure that supplies LA with water. While Mulholland Drive and Mulholland Highway stretches all the way from the Hollywood 101 freeway to Malibu, we drove only a short way, but appreciated the views from pull-ins and the winding road. At the last point of our drive, we stopped at an outlook that offered amazing views of downtown, the Hollywood Bowl and the Hollywood sign. Unfortunately this is also a stop on those bus tours and it got pretty clogged with them at about 5pm, so clogged we had to wait in the car to leave because one was blocking my exit from my park in a designated car space. I’d love to drive the whole section, but I think I will have to do it in small chunks because the windy road made me feel slightly carsick. Tips for driving Mulholland Drive:

Pull over if you start to hold up traffic
Stop at the designated points to admire the views
Give yourself plenty of time as the going can be slow

Neverending freeways

April 17, 2011

I’ve had two days of driving the freeways and I have to say that they never seem to end.

Heading out to Venice yesterday we took the 10 freeway in a westerly direction. All the freeways in LA are known by their numbers which, until you are here, sound so confusing. For example, a friend recently posted to my Facebook wall the directions to Los Angeles airport. It read “101 south to 110 south to 105 west.” Anyone reading that back home would think it was some kind of code to find a treasure (in this case I did find a treasure at the end, Movie Lass).

However, once you get the hang of the traffic arteries, you can pretty much go anywhere. That said, a GPS with advanced lane assist makes things so much easier, especially when there are carpool lanes or you come to an intersection where, if you were looking from above, it would look like a bowl of grey spaghetti.

Today’s freeway adventure was driving Movie Lass east on the 10 freeway to Redlands, which is a lengthy 60 odd miles away. For some reason, in my head I equivalated 60 miles with 60km and wasn’t expecting the drive to be so far. In reality it was something of a 100km drive on a freeway with 6 lanes and walls, making it somewhat of a tunnel with nothing interesting to look at except the back end of cars passing me.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like driving here. But on my solo trip back home as I battled with bleary eyes from the long, hazy drive, I just kept thinking “there is no way I could do this in peak hour traffic.”

a little cameo

Category: World of Travel