Tony's Travel Tales - uni flunkie and travel junkie...

Arequipa to La Paz - via Colca Canyon, Copacobana, Isla Del Sol and Deep Fried Guinea Pig!

2009-10-11T02:37:00.007+11:00

Hola,

I am in La Paz right now...time to rest for 5 days. Was only planning to stay for 3 days, but I found out about a World Cup Qualifier Football match between Bolivia and Brazil on Sunday (tomorrow) and simply could not miss it!! Muy Bien, Very excited!!

From Arequipa I booked a 3 day/ 2 night trek through the Colca Canyon, dubbed the world deepest canyon. The "group" turned out to be just myself, A Belgian named Kevin, and our guide, Juan.

A 3am start, with a pick up from my hostel, had then crammed into a mini-bus with 3 other tour groups for 5 hours to small town Chivay to organise our permits, and then on to Condor Lookout for a 1hour stop. Giant Condor birds frequent this part of the Canyon, gliding gracefully throught the skies looking for prey. A fantastic, but extremely touristy spot, with some wonderful photography at 9am in the morning.

From there to Cobanaconde, the starting point for the mindly strenuous 3 day, 20-odd kilometre hike down, through, and up out of the Colca Canyon. Cobanaconde is a very small village, and has a definite Wild West frontier feel about it...bleak and forbidding, with dusty gravel and dirt lined streets stretching from the main Plaza De Armas, local folk slowly going about thier business with nary a need to rush, dressed in traditional brightly coloured outfits and hats. After a brief lunch there, we set out in bright sunlight and mild temperatures across fields of corn to edge of the canyon itself, and descended, for the next 3 hours, along narrow, gravelly paths and switchbacks to the canyon floor, crossing a rickety suspension bridge over the Rio Colca. A brief 30 minute uphill stretch on the other side and we stopped at San Juan De Chucco, a local Quechuan village, where we would spend the night.

From here we could see the path we took on the opposite side of the canyon. Impressive stuff.

When I booked the tour, I was promised an English-speaking guide. While Juan was a fantastic guy, his English was actually negligible....but in this case here, it became irrelevant as Kevin was pretty well fluent in both English and Spanish, so acted as translator and teacher for the whole trip. It was a blessing in disguise as I pretty much had a free Spanish language session for 3 days, which has since proved very helpful indeed.

After a Cervesa or two and a home cooked meal of Alpaca stew with rice and chips, it was most definitely time for bed. Accommodations, while extremly basic, were perfectly fine, and I was well impressed with the Solar Powered hot water system, which gave us a hot showers inside a tiny little bamboo stall. Senorita Gloria, who ran the Pousada Gloria was a most genial host, always with a smile and a laugh, except for when I asked her to pose for a photograph...everyone here always seems to go po-faced serious when a camera is pointed towards them...its not a grumpy, displeasure thing, it just seems to be a cultural thing. Five seconds after the photo, she was all smiles and giggles again!

The next day, setting off at a leisurely 9am, was another brief 3 1/2 hour hike across, up and down and over the ridges of the canyon wall, passing through numerous villages, each as impressively self-sufficient as San Juan, with Solar Power, satellite dishes and general ingenuity, contrasted with terraces of corn fields and coca fields dug into the side of the canyon, giving us a glimpse of both how hard the life is here, and hoe they are trying the darned best to modernise and use technology to their best advantage.

The "money shot" of this trek was at the bottom of the canyon at a natural oasis called Sangalle, which has been developed over the past 10 years as a major tourist destination. Set amongst the tough, dry and dusty and forbidding granite and gravel of the canyon is a gorgeous splash of green, supplied by some internal, underground natural aquifier. Several resorts have been set up here, with pools and palms dotting the canyon floor.

We arrived just on Midday, and upon arrival, immediately slipped into relaxation maode, soaking up the salubrious surrounds, taking a dip in the pool, sunning ourselves, and swaying in hammocks with a cervasa in hand. Bliss.

Again, accommodation was still very basic, with bamboo beds on dirt floors under thatched roof huts, but still perfectly adequate.

Upon nightfall, it was Full Moon, and the moon lit up the night sky and canyon walls, and as the night progressed we had out own mini-light show as the shadows of the ridges moved along with the movement of the moon.

I had an early night, 8.30 to bed, while Juan and Kevin stayed up with the other guides and staff of the resort until 1am. Not really a smart move, given out 5am start the next morning.

We finally set foot on our way at 5.30am, with the sun already risen, blue sky, but with the canyon floor still in full shade - a godsend given that we had a tough 3 - 4 hour climb up out of the canyon to the top and back to Cobanaconde.

Locals also use this trail, and we often had to stop and let pass several mule-trains, at least 4 or 5 donkeys and mules carrying supplies up and down to and from the villages in the canyon. Trying to keep up with one of them as a personal test, I failed dismally, as a local 50-something year old guy skipped nimbly up the rocky path, put me to shame.

We were told 3 to 4 hours...I, hangover free and generally adjusted to the altitude conditons, did it in 2hrs, 20minutes. The record for the climb, by a local is reputedly 45 minutes!

Back in Cobanadconde, breakfast was had, and back on the mini-bus, we headed for la Calera, a hot springs town, for an hour, to give our weary, aching bones a nice treat.

It was a long drive back to Arequipa, arriving back at about 6pm. I then had a bus ride to catch to Puno at 10.30pm, and then on across the border to Bolivia, to Copacobana, which gave me just enough time to search out a restaurant serving the local Peruvian delicacy of Cuy...also known in English as Guinea Pig! I kid you not. It was something I had seen on the menu several times in Lima and Cuzco, but was kinda expensive. After eating Alpaca steak, another local delicacy, I just had to try the Dinner Pig, as I nicknamed it, before I left Peru.

Let me just say, MIssion Accomplished, and I have the pics to prove it. Fried Guinea Pig!! This was prepared with the whole animal splayed across the plate, head, feet, tail and all, and on abed of garden salad and chips. The meat was great, a strong, rich, chicken flavour...but actually getting to the flesh, through the deep fried skin, and multiple tiny bones, was quite a trying effort. Ultimately, not all that satisfying for the effort involved, but hey, worth the effort just for the experience.

Onwards to the bus station, and uneventful 6 hour bus ride overnight had me arrive at Puno Bus Station at 4am.....only 3 1/2 hours to kill for the next bus to the border and onwards to Copa....joy, yawn.

The time duly passed, we finally reached the frontier between Peru and Bolivia, and formalities completed, I had another stamp in my passport, and country #51 entered.

3hrs to Copacobana, and sleep was required. Not wanting the day to wasted completely, I was up at 1pm to wander the small, heavily tourist-oriented town. Another dusty, dry, but quaint South American town, every shop front was either selling handicrafts, a travel agency, restaurant or bar. Not incredibly attractive, but not too shabby either.

The reason being is that it is the Bolivian jumping off point for Lake Titicaca, an incredibly large (230 Km Long by 97 Km wide)and very beautiful spot, reputedly the worlds highest navigable lake, at altitude of 3820m above sea level. In the centre of the lake are Isla Del Sol (Island of the Sun) and Isla De La Luna (Island of the Moon), said to be the cradle of the Incan civilisation, and a major tourist attraction for the ruins to be seeen, and hiking available.

I was planning an overnight stay on the island, but realising that I was rapidly running out of time, already about 5 days behind my initial "plan", i just went for a day trip. For a measly 20 Boliviano´s (A$3.50), I had a return day trip to the island booked.

I had some dinner at a local bar that night, joining a table of other tourists who were already well on the way to getting blind drunk. While there, I met a Chileno artist who was sketching with pencil various scenes going on in the bar. When he´d finished a drawing of our table, I was most impressed with the detail he had put down on paper in under an hour. 25 Boliviano´s later (about A$4) I had my very own original pencil sketch of my first night out in Bolivia....that´s gonna get framed when I get home!!

Next day, kicking off at 8am, I was on a small boat headed to the North side of Isla Del Sol, 2 hours across azure blue waters with the snow-capped mountains of Cordillera Real in the background.

It was turning into a rather warm day, and the 4 hour hike across the islands ridge was, while on a well trodden and easily navigable path, a mild challenge given the altitude and heat. but more than making up for this was the views, the barren rocky island set against a backdrop of clear blue skies, and the afore mentioned azure waters and snow capped mountains.

Tired and sunburnt, but well and truly satisfied and happy, I returned to Copa, with enough time to get ready for another 4 hour bus ride to La Paz, the Bolivian capital.

Resting nicely on the local bus I had booked, with 80% locals and 20% tourists aboard, we were all ordered off the bus at one point at around 8pm for reasons not immediately clear. Once off the bus, it became apparently clear.....there was a big lake that needed to be crossed, and rather than spend money building a bridge, the government had set up a ferry/barge system, whereby the passengers board a small ferry and all vehicles (buses, trucks, vans etc) are driven onto barges to be ferredi across the lake. once other other side, it´s all aboard on your way.....Nothing surprises me anymore!!

At La Paz bus station it was pushing 10pm. La Paz has a reputation of being slightly seedyb and dangerous at night, especially for tourists, and so a taxi to your hostel is recommended...only problem being in my place was that I was following a recommendation from another tourist, an "X marks the spot" on my Lonely Planet map, and on booking it online, forgot to write down the address...and i had no cash on me!

My poor taxi driver. 1st stop was to find an ATM...Mission Accomplished, but it only issued 100 SB notes, large currency here, so then we needed to find somewhere to change it for smaller bills...DONE... 2nd was to find my X on the map....this proved to be impossible, as my friend had labelled the wrong spot on my map!!, so then 3rd stop was to find an internet cafe that was open at 10.30 at night....DONE...now that we were on the right track, it should be smooth sailing. But the taxi wouldn´t start! Hailing a local to assist we tried to push start it by rolling down a slight hill around the corner. No Luck. Worse for the driver was that it was a one-way street in the main plaza outside a heavily fortified and policed Government building!! The driver was ordered to stop by local Policia, and was now begging and pleading to let off, given the situation. Thankfully, the cop let him off, i think after seeing me and realizing I was a gringo, and then actually assisted in push starting the car.

By this point, I had been in the cab almost an hour, and i was feeling incredibly sorry for my driver, but he was all smiles when we finally got the right street, and dropped me off....all for 30Bs!! (A$6)!!

Finally, reaching my hostel, an Irish Backpackers called The Wild Rover, at 11pm, and immediately crashed...what a ride, what a night.

Another New Day, Another New Town, Another New Trek

2009-10-03T09:55:00.004+10:00

Hola,

Well, I've left Cuzco now, but not before experiencing one more surreal moment in a million surreal moments in my travels.

The day after we got back from the trek, I was taking myself on a tour of the city, wandering the lanes and alleys again, this time without the burden of altitude sickness upon me....fully acclimatised now.

Mid-afternoon, making my way back towards Plaza De Armas, the main square, I noticed a massive throng of people gathered outside the cathedral, spilling onto the streets and everything. Literally minutes later, I hear the distictive sounds of V8 Rally cars approaching the square from the surrounding streets. Burning around the corner comes the leader of the pack, pulling up outside a sponsors banner, immediately swamped by media, the ubiquitous glamour-model grid girl types, and fans and on-lookers. I got caught up in the moment, and NOT being a motor-sports fan, i found myself, camera in hand, trying to get up close for a decent snap of whoever the hell it was that was driving.

After 10 minutes of obligatory interviews and media ops, rally-car dude revs his engine, takes off and heads out the opposite end of the square...Cuzco must have been a completion stage point for some cross-South-American rally of some description.

So, with the clamour over with for the moment, I continue on my walk around the city. Periodically, another car or batch of 3 or 4 come racing through the tiny side streets of Cuzco, curiously along the same streets that I am exploring. I managed some more 'action' shots with iconic Cuzco background, until it got too dark, and headed back to my new hostel.

I had one last day in Cuzco before I had booked on an overnight bus to where I am now, Arequipa. This was to be my 'shopping' days, taking care of souvenirs and gifts. Only it decided to piss down rain all day, so much so that it wasn't worth leaving the hostel. So a day of internet and DVD´s it was then.

Last night, I had one of THE most comfortable bus journeys I have ever had in my life. The South American bus system is pretty good, so far...given that I´ve only had one journey, that may be an early call, but so far, so good.

I had booked an overnight ride, and was advised that being an overnight-er, it was best that i paid a bit extra and got a decent bus company, rather than the local buses with the chickens, sacks of rice and screaming vomit spewing babies taking up all the room.

I took that advice, and boy am i glad i did.

Double decker bus, with seats that recline almost to horizontal - known as 'semi-cama', with a bus-hostess providing you with a meal and complimentary blanket!, DVD playing on the TV screen, in English (with Spanish sub-titles)...it was better than some airlines i have flown!

Another reason for choosing the higher confort level was that I had eaten some dodgy Peruvian street food the previous day - the first time i had given it a shot - and i´d developed a mild case of the squirts...the on-board el-bano (toilet) proved to be a god-send!!

Right now, I´m in Arequipa, Peru´s 2nd largest city (approx 1 million population), upon a recommendation from several other backpackers i´d met so far. An unscheduled stop for me, I´ll now no doubt need to drop something later on in the journey.

It is dubbed the White City, having been built from a light coloured volcanic rock called "sillar" that dazzles in the sun. The city is surrounded by 3 active volcanoes, El Misti (5822m), Chachani (6075m), and Pichu Pichu (5571m), as well as high altitude deserts and thermal hot springs.

The big attraction here is the Colca Canyon, dubbed here "The Worlds Deepest Canyon", rivaling the Grand Canyon in Arizona for the title. I´ve booked on a 3 day 2 night trekking tour of the canyon starting tomorrow morning....as if I haven´t had enough already!!!....well I suppose I am a glutton for punishment.

I´ll check in again in 3 days when i return from this latest trekking adventure!

Lima to Cuzco and Machu Picchu

2009-10-02T03:45:00.006+10:00

Hola Amigos,

Am currently ensconsed in Cuzco, Peru...relaxing after completing my Lares Trek and Machu Picchu visit.

I met up with my fellow travellers at Los Girasoles Hotel in Lima, a posse of 14 including 5 Canadians, 3 Irish girls, 4 Latvians, and 1 one other Aussie from Melbourne.

Our flight with local airline "Taca" was an uneventful 90 minutes, but saved us a 20 hour bus journey over the Andean Mountains.

Arriving in Cuzco, at an altitude of 3400m above sea level really affected me though, and while walking around the city, catching the sites, I was decidedly woozy with light-headed-ness and breathing problems. Even climbing a set of stairs to a 2-nd floor restaurant overlooking the Plaza De Armas took the wind out of me.

Anyway, after spending the day wandering the 15th Century era city streets, laneways and markets, it was early to bed as we had an early start to out tour.

Ostensibly, my original plan was to trek the Inca Trail all the way to Machu Picchu, but only a certain number of permits are issued for each day, and despite putting in for one 3months in advance i missed out. My consolation was to book on another tour for 7 days, encompassing what´s called "The Lares Trek", a 2 and a 1/2 days, 35Kilometre trek through the Andes.

The first real day of travel is Day 3 of the tour (Day 1 - Lima, Day 2 - Cuzco). This took us through "The Sacred Valley", taking in local communities, markets, and important and impressive Incan ruins from the 15th Century, Pisac and Ollantaytambo. The 2nd site is known as the best surviving example of Incan urban planning and engineering, with steep terraces guarding the Incan Fortress, and one of the few places where the Spanish lost a major battle during their conquest.

Day 4 began the actual trek. An early start of 6am had us in a mini-bus to the beginning of a 2 and a 1/2 day hike through the steep terrain of the Andes. If I thought my altitude sickness affected me at 3400metres, well then taking in mountain passes at 4400m and 4500m, and camping on the 2nd night at 4200m certainly had me struggling. Existing fitness levels aside, trekking at this altitude can certainly take your breath away (in more ways than one).

Our trek took us through the Cuncani Valley and over the Cuncani Pass (4440m), around Sondor Mountain, past Huacahuasi Lake, over the Ipasayqocha Pass (4550m), and thought the Patachanka Valley. At each pass, we celebrated by making an offering of Coca Leaves to the Andean Gods. This land is home to the indigenous Quechuan people, direct descendants of those who fled to the mountains during the Spanish rule to avoid being enslaved into working the salt mines of the day, a certain early death. How they manage to live here, with so little, and in such harsh conditions, boggled our minds.

Each morning, we were up at the crack of dawn or before, generally about 5am. The sun rises very early here, and also sets very early. The 2nd morning, after camping in freezing conditions at 4200metres, I woke up with the ground completely frosted over, and icicles forming on our tents...bloody cold!

The scenery was phenomenal. Glacial covered mountain peaks, jagged ranges, ice-cold streams, and terrain that varied from grassy plains to rocky plateaus that reminded me in parts of the Scottish Highlands and the west coast of Ireland. Me being the photographic nut that I am, was in 7th heaven. I had just bough a brand new digital SLR too, and boy did it get a work out. Check out my facebook link for a sample.

Every where we went, we met up with members of the local Incan communities, including numerous cute little kiddies. Each one of us had little gifts to pass on to them, from pencils and sticker books, to candy, and in my case, little toy Koalas holding onto a boomerang. Kitschy I know, but the kids loved it!. Also, for the adults, we made offerings of coca leaves, which they thrive on and love, and could be bought at a local market for 1 soles (local currency - about 40cents) a bag.

At the end of each day, I was sorely feeling the affects of the altitude. My head felt like it was going to explode. It was all I could do to just clamber into my tent, get changed into my warmest clothes and try to doze off. Some of the local women from the surrounding communities would set up little blanket stalls with trinkets and rtugs and scarves, etc, as well as bottles of water, sports drinks and beer....not one of us took up the option of a beer, it was the last thing on our minds.

Along with out two guides, Abel and Carlos, we had an additional team of 6 porters and 2 cooks, and mules and llamas carrying our gear, and full credit must be given to the team that set up our campsite, cooked us breakfast, lunch and dinner each day.

At the end of Day 6 we ended up, via bus to Ollantaytambo, and train to a town called Aguas Calientes (Spanish for Hot Waters), where a hot springs pool was located - just the thing at the end of a tough 35 Km trek. Pity they were kinda shit, and not that hot at all.

Aguas Calientes is also the jumping of point for an assault on Machu Picchu, the final stage on the Inca Trail. In our case it was an assualt by tour bus up to the entrance...not exactly how i pictured approaching Machu Picchu in the many, many dreams I have had about visiting this Ancient Wonder Of The World, but that´s how it was to be.

Up at 4.30am for a quick brekky before heading off, the day began shrouded in thick fog and mist....and it didn´t lift for the whole day. On arrival at the entrance gates at 7am, it turned out was pretty much my best photo opportunity for the whole day. Our guide Abel was full of promises that the cloud would life giving us a clear view of the ancient city of Machu Picchu and the overlooking mountains of Wayna Picchu, the iconic "money shot" that no doubt you have seen before. It wasn´t to be. After a 2 hour guided tour of the site, explaining the history and significance for the Incan Empire, we were left to our own devices. A trek up to the Guard House at the very top and a very patient wait while wave after wave of fog drifted across, above and below was almost completely in vain. Just when we were about to give up, suddenly the clouds did lift and gave a clear shot of the city and a partially obscured Wayna Picchu.

But despite the disappointment the cloudy day gave us, it was also spectacularly eerie to watch just how quickly and thoroughly the fog came in, and how all-encompassing it was. When it was at its thickest, it was as if Machu Picchu was not even there. Pea-soup winters days in Melbourne or Edinburgh or anywhere else had nothing on this display.

Nevertheless, I had been to Machu Picchu, one of the many dreams I´ve had since I started travelling 11 years ago. A day to remember.

New Day, New Age, New Continent, New Friends

2009-09-24T01:39:00.004+10:00

Hola Amigos,

Well, I've arrived in South America for the first time, and am currently writing from Lima, Peru.

It was a rather harrowing journey too, but nothing i cant handle.

Briefly:

Sept 18th - fly to Sydney, spend the weekend there.
Sept 21st 4am - wake up and head to airport for a 6.15am flight to Auckland. I dont sleep.

3hr flight, Arrive Auckland 11am-ish local time. 5ish hr layover at Auckland airport. No sleep.

Sept 21st 4.40pm local time - depart Auckland, 11hr flight, heating on full blast, too hot to sleep, watch 3movies straight, no sleep.

Sept 21st 11.30am local time....arrive SAntiago, Chile...i have travelled backwards in time!!. i arrived here 5 hrs earlier than i left Auckland!...how cool is that!

RANDOM AWESOME MOMENT #1

Make my way by Public Transport to the city. Meet up with random Irish backpacker, James, whose birthday is the day before mine (ie: today). still no sleep. i dont want to sleep in the middle of the day and keep the body clock in ruins.

we walk around the city for a few hours, beautiful, but not so good in the rain.

3pm - Return to hostel...plans are to hit the town tonight for James and my birthday with some other backpackers...decide to finally get some sleep - a 3hr power nap should do it....

it has been about 28hrs since i last slept, i have time travelled backwards and covered some 11000 Km's.

6pm - wake up, contemplate, but never actually get to dinner. all i have eaten since Sydney is airline food and a Burger King at Auckland airport.

10pm - FREE BEER!!! - the hostel puts out a slab every night at 10 for the guests. AWESOME!!!

Midnight of 22nd Sept, my birthday - time to hit the town: a coupla bars and a nightclub.

5am - return to the hostel, hammered drunk, no time for sleep. need to get to the airport for a 7.30am flight to Lima. Taxi is ordered.

7.30am - on board the plane, pass out, dont remember take-off, wake up mid flight for brekky, back to sleep. In "real time" i have had the sum total of 3hrs sleep out of 36hrs.

10.30am - arrive Lima, thankfully i had pre-arranged an airport pick-up from my hostel....there was no way I was gonna be able to deal with Peruvian public transport or taxis, suffering from mass sleep deprivation and a raging hangover.

11am - arrive at my hostel, crash out, remainder of daylight hours a write-off.

RANDOM AWESOME MOMENT #2

6PM - wake up, get chatting to Aussie girl in bunk next to mine...Amelia lives in a neighbouring suburb to me, Northcote, in the same street that once lived in back at Uni, Clarke Street...she also has the exact same backpack as me and also has a penchant for sewing flag patches on to it.

We go out to dinner with a friend of hers....my first real meal since Sydney 48hrs ago.

Back at the hostel...crash out, soooo super tired now...i think jet-lag still has a hold on me

Sept 23rd *today*

Light brekky at the hostel...have to check out and move across town to another hotel where my Macchu Picchu Inca Trail group is meeting

Midday: arrive at new hotel...decide to have a quick kip before having a wander around Miraflores, the suburb i am in......6hrs later i wake up from my comatose state, light-headed and woozy...

....maybe i should slow down???...nah, its the evening, gotta check out this place before i leave tomorrow morn for one last flight to Cuzco..wake up call will be at 6.30am.

phew!

Later,

Tony

travelling again - for a short while

2008-11-10T01:09:00.005+11:00

I'm back on the road again...but this time for a, by my standards, very short trip - 5 weeks. I'll be doing the Trans-Siberian Railway from St. Petersburg, Russia to Beijing, China, via Mongolia, with a tour group called "Vodka-Train", and then back on the train solo to complete the Trans-Sib route to Vladivostok, then back home via Seoul, Korea.

I've got a few days beforehand tho...

I left Melbourne on Thursday morning, flying Korean Air to Seoul, a lazy 9 hour flight. With my next stop being Moscow, and the next flight not for 16 hours, Korean Air kindly put me up overnight at the Hyatt Regency (if you don't mind!! :-) - very happy 'bout that!)...and arranged for dinner and brekky the next morning to be 'on the house'. Eating buffet-style for free at a 4-5 star hotel...I could get used to this....big kudos to Korean Air. I'd fly them again anytime.

After another 10 hours to Moscow, I arrived at around 7pm, I then had to endure another hour of queueing to get thru Russian immigration....very officious mob these guys. I guess it harks back to the Soviet Communist days. Once I got thru that, I decided to opt out of the potential rip-off of a Russian taxi into downtown Moscow, and caught the local bus. Over an hour later, crammed in like sardines, we trundled slowly along the motorway in Moscuvite peak-hour traffic (it seems peak hour lasts until after 9pm at least here!). This took me as far as the outer edges of the Moscow Metro, and then I had to catch two Metro trains, changing lines after a few stops. All this after the afore-mentioned 10hour flight and hour long queue....wish I had've gotten the cab, hey!!.

Trying to figure all this out with only written instructions, no maps to work from (my Lonely Planet didn't have a Moscow Metro map in it), how to buy/ask for the right ticket, while jet-lagged up to the eyeballs, well it was some challenge!

By this stage its 9pm. Still haven't made it to my hostel either. it was supposed to be "5minutes walk". Could not find it. In the end, I borrowed a phone from a stranger and rang them for directions, and finally lobbed in at "Godzilla's Hostel" at sometime after 10pm.

Tired? Betchya arse I was!

I flopped into my bed and passed out instantly, not opening my eyes again til 8am next morning.

Las Vegas Pictorial

2006-11-07T11:24:00.001+11:00

Phoenix - Flagstaff/Grand Canyon Pictorial

2006-11-07T11:22:00.000+11:00

THEY SAY BAD LUCK COMES IN 3’S

2006-01-10T21:27:00.000+11:00

THEY SAY BAD LUCK COMES IN 3’S – I HOPE THIS IS MY THREE…COZ I JUST WANT TO MOVE ON FROM THIS PERIOD OF MY LIFE.

Man, I just can’t seem to take a trick at the moment…and forgive me if I sound like a whingeing bastard. Let me just run you thru what’s happened in the month of December for me – possibly the most frustrating and demoralising month for me in a long time.

Okay, #1 –

You may remember me mentioning that I was applying for a job with Flight Centre Travel Agency, basically for me an entry into an industry that I had decided I wanted to pursue a career in after not knowing what I wanted to do during my entire adult life. I didn’t get it. In Australia, this is the one and only Travel Industry company that advertises its positions as ‘no experience required’. All other travel agencies require at least 1-2 years industry experience. As a result, Flight Centre is recognized as the main ‘foot in the door’ to this industry. It seems as though if you can’t get in here, then the rest of your opportunities are incredible limited. As I say, I didn’t get the job, and I was well f**ked over in the way it all happened.

After getting thru most of the rather gruelling interview process, including an interview with an Area manager (which went very, very well in my opinion), I was granted the opportunity for an in-store assessment, and at this stage I thought it was a mere formality that I’d be hired, it was in the bag, it was a done deal. I was very, very excited, and anxious to get moving on this fantastic new role. They said that they would ‘get back to me’ regards an opening. After a week and a ½, I was told that they’d ‘get back to me in another week’ with some news. A further 10 days after that I contacted them again, only to be told that suddenly no place could be found, and that my application would be placed ‘on hold’. It remained that way for almost a month.

Any communication with the HR folks only occurred when I chased them with a phone call – very frustrating, as they were hardly forthcoming with any news themselves.

I then finally received a call suggesting another interview with another Area Manager – which I readily accepted. Another week after that passed with no word. I finally called them again, only to be told that “my application was unsuccessful” – the 2nd Area Manager interview was given the thumbs down, and that they would not be pursuing any positions for me…despite the first Area Manager willing to place me as soon as a position became available.

I was asked if I would like any ‘feedback’ on why I was not successful - of course I would!! – but it’s been another two weeks and I’ve heard nought back. A very disappointing outcome, and a very disappointing way in which Flight Centre have handled my application. I honestly get the feeling that had I not chased them on any news, I would have died waiting. Very unprofessional. It doesn’t take much to make a phone call in the timeframe you promise to.

Right now then #2

Leading up to Christmas I was looking for some extra work to bolster my cash supplies and help pay off my Credit Card debt. I happened upon a potential mini-goldmine doing a 3-day temping gig for Telstra on Dec 24, 25, 26 – that’s right Christmas Eve, Day, and Boxing Day – doing Inbound Call Centre mobile phone activations. At close to $40 per hour, it was simple work and easy, easy money. I would earn close to $1000 after tax! Or so I thought. After having this work guaranteed and booked in for almost a month, Telstra pulled the pin on it on December 23rd – they hadn’t sold enough pre-pay phones and had over-estimated the number of Call Centre staff they would need. I was one of the crew that got cut. Bummer. I was soooo looking forward to that little bonanza.

And finally, #3

I did manage to snaffle a little bit of extra work on New Years Eve, working as a Crowd Marshall in the City, helping to direct foot traffic around the city to the various celebratory locations and fireworks viewing points – a 13 hour shift earning close to $300. I almost wish I hadn’t taken it. At the close of the shift at 2am, with nothing else to do (after trying to contact 4 of my friends to hook up with for NYE drinks), a co-worker invited me to a house party she was attending in St. Kilda.

Kate and I arrived at around 3.30am, stone cold sober. She only knew one other person there – it was a pretty open party – and we sat down with her mate Gareth at the rear of the enormous backyard. It was pretty happening, despite the late hour. There were still at least 40-odd folks dancing around to the music, and everyone was very, very drunk…mostly paraletic in fact. The hour being what it was, there was almost no booze left…except - there was a cask of (very bad – as we would find out later) cask red wine untouched, and we were invited to drink that. It was horrible, but at least we were getting a drink in on New Years Eve.

About an hour and 2-3 polystyrene cups of wine later, we spot Gareth stumbling in the backyard holding a massive wad of tissue paper to his head drenched in blood. He had tripped over and face-planted to the concrete, cracking his head open. Everyone else was like “oh my God, what do we do” – so drunk they couldn’t function. I decided to play Good Samaritan and call the Ambulance and make sure this guy gets help. I’m on the phone to 000 and waiting out the front to flag the ambulance down, but them I’m told “Cancel it – he can’t afford the fee, we’ll take him to hospital in a cab”. The cab arrives, he and Kate and another guy get in and head off. I head back in to the backyard, back to where we were sitting…..AND MY BACKPACK I WAS CARRYING IS GONE!!! MISSING??? STOLEN???? I have no idea. It had my ipod (!!), sunnies, clothes, shoes, a notebook/diary with about 100 numbers and addresses in it, and assorted other valuables and kick-knacks in it. About $800 worth all together. Some f**king prick took my bag while I was helping out a guy - a total stranger no less - in serious trouble, severely injured – a guy I had known for only 2 hours. What a f**king bastard!!!

I was furious and frantic at the same time. I spent the next hour searching around and asking everyone around if they had seen it, but nada. By this stage the party numbers had dwindled quite considerably, and daylight was coming. Even with the help of the light, I had no luck. My bag was gone. When I realised this, I felt demoralized, dejected, deflated and flattened, and purely downright beat. I almost wanted to slit a wrist.

All there was left to do was to go home. Which I did, alone and depressed, along with the last of the New Years revelers and stragglers, and on the train with ½ a dozen arrogant, arsehole Macedonian teenagers – who heckled, harassed and harangued everyone they laid eyes on. Finally, I got home to bed, but then to make matters worse, after I woke up, that 4 or 5 cups of cheap nasty cask red I’d had came back to haunt me with the most severe hangover I’d had in ages, rendering me couch-ridden, vomiting pure stomach bile into the bathroom sink all afternoon

Over the next few days I lodged police reports, tried filing an insurance claim, and attempted to contact a couple of people whose numbers I got from the party to no avail…it was, gone.

So, my unlucky three – missing out on a dream job, missing out on an easy $1000 work, and losing $800 of personal belongings – all in the space of about 10 days. When the last of these happened, I was honestly thinking “what in the world have I done to offend the Gods, Why me???” I honestly have no idea as to why this run of luck has happened to me, it seems I can’t take a frigging trick at the moment. It’s like a kick in the guts, a blow that has really sat me on my arse and left me feeling at a truly low ebb. Here I am trying to get my life back in order, making a go of things to live the kind of life I want to live, working hard, and all this shit happened to me.

I really feel in a bad place right now. Again, I just needed to get this off my chest, so that I can move on and try and put it behind me.

Cheers, Tony

Phoenix

2005-12-27T00:12:00.000+11:00

My original plan for Phoenix was to spend 2, or maximum 3 days there, primarily to catch up with Bryan and Christine. After my first morning there I was contemplating possible just the one day and a night, then moving on, catching another bus north to my next stop at Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon...there just didn’t seem to be a whole lot to do, and everything was soooo spread out, and I didn’t have wheels.

I ended up staying 3nights and getting driven up to Flagstaff. And this was all because of one tiny little detail. While I was wandering about the City, I picked up a local street-press magazine, and noticed an ad for one of my favourite Irish bands, The Frames, playing this coming Tuesday night. I saw these guys live in Vancouver back in March, and they rock, big style. And if I missed these guys, it would be the third band in a week that I wanted to see that I’d miss.

Back in San Francisco, L.A. and San Diego, I missed by just a couple of days each time, Icelandic band Sigur Ros, and part-Aussie act Dead Can Dance (at The Hollywood Bowl, no less). I was so so so close to reconfiguring my entire trip to fit in DCD at The Bowl. For me, seeing my fave bands live is an integral part of who I am ...I couldn’t let this happen three times on this trip.

So mentioned this to Bryan, who basically said “Here’s a proposition for you. Stay here til Wednesday, you’re more than welcome, I’ll go this gig with you on Tuesday, and on Wednesday I’ll drive you up to Flagstaff, coz I’ve never been...and hey we’ll throw in ½ a day at Sedona en route”. Now that is a proposition you can hardly say No to.

Bryan and Christine are two of the most generous people I have met. It still amazes me to this day actually the generosity of people I have met over the years of my traveling, welcoming me into the homes and lives. Bryan and Christine are a perfect example of this. Inviting me into their home, particularly as Christine was heavily pregnant at the time, and acting as taxi and guide, I couldn't have been more thankful.

Arriving at their edge-of-the-desert suburban home, I was truly spun out by the size of the house. having gotten used to the smaller blocks of Ireland, living in a small house in Vancouver, and living out of my rucksack for the majority of recent times, the sheer spacious sprawl of their house befuddled me. I s'pose out here, on the outskirts of Phoenix and with nuthin' but space to play i guess they said 'why not'. The exact same thing i said when the offer a nice cool shower on the chance to wash my clothes came up!!

after a bit of a snooze and freshen up, the subject of 'what to do' came up. Squaw Peak Recreation Area, not a million miles away from Anthem has a number of hiking trails to attack, not least one to the summit of Squaw Peak, some 2608feet high and providing an awesome view over desert mountains and the sprawl of Phoenix city and 'burbs. A hike timed to finish at the peak just before sunset was the order of the day - yet another ideal photo op for me, and a chance to dust of the cobwebs in my muscles, give 'em a bit of a workout.

The view was something I could not have imagined, the sheer amount of space had me jaw-agape and making (quite reasonable) comparisons to home.

A stop off at a Thai restaurant en route home for a totally delicious meal just topped off the night.

With Bryan off to work at the crazy time of 5am, and the heat of the day reaching beyond 100 Fahrenheit, the next day was written off as a chill out that involved little more than a DVD-watching marathon(Team America - World Police being the highlight), with no plans til late afternoon - a desert highway drive to the Desert Botanical Gardens. Another gorgeous desert sunset beckoned. The Gardens are 145 acres, with thousands of arid-land plants and is a beatiful insight to the desert ecosystem, particularly the 20-foot-plus-tall Saguaro Cactus - the stereotypical type you see in Roadrunner cartoons. Stunning.

The sunset from the Gardens, of a 'nature' nature was almost surpassed on the drive home by a sunser of an 'urban' nature, so muc so that I had to stand up thru the sunroof to photograph it for posterity!!

Not wanting to waste another full day lazing about the house (as nice as it, its not why i'm here), I resolved to get up with Bryan at 4am for a drive to his work, where I would then sleep in his car to 7-ish when Public Transport kicked into gear. There is absolutely none in Anthem, so this was the only way i'd be able to get anywhere and utilise my day properly.

There was some touristy stuff that could be done in historic Scottsdale, which was en route to the university 'burb of Tempe.

Scottsdale's Old Town is known for it's early 20th Century buildings (and others built to look old, and is kinda quaint, but is basically home to a lot of upscale galleries and gift stores. There is definitely an artists colony kind of feel to the town, which is only accentuated by the random street art scupltures dotted about the place, like these.

Sitting at the bus stop again, waiting for a ride to Tempe, I was a little disturbed to see this shop sign.

I guess it kinda, unfortunately, backs up the stereotype of American's as gun-lovin' simpleton hicks when the sign advertising a gun store has a picture of a teddy bear holding a gun......shudder to think.

I was quite looking forward to seeing Tempe. It was originally a city in its own right, but over the years Phoenix's suburban sprawl eventually eclipsed Tempe, and it's now considered a large outlying 'burb of Pheonix. The city is home to the 46000-student-strong Arizona State University, and as such is typical of University towns - full of cool bars, restaurants and with a slight hippy/alternative edge. Several excellent record stores too. My Lonely Planet guide had a 'Recommended Music To Drive Thru The Desert To' section, and so it was my objective here to seek some of this music out, with some success I might add - Calexico's 'The Black Light' being prime desert listening, especially as they're from southern Arizonan city Tucson.

Eastside records was my muse here, and the guy behind the counter being the usual knows-everything-under-the-sun-about-music kinda guy that i love talking to.

Lunch was at Desert Greens Cafe, a fantastic natural foods grocery/co-op along the lines of Friends Of The Earth in Collingwood, Melbourne. deee-lish.

Having shopped and lunched, it was time to drink. 'Head on down to Mill Avenue' was the word on the street from a cuppla friendly enquiries, it's Tempe's main drag. I got in touch with Bryan too, who was finishing work at agreed to meet at The Library, a bar themed on, funnily enough, a library, with cute as hell waitresses in way-too-short tartan mini-skirts. A perfect spot for a university. You can tell your folks/mates/lecturers that you're going to the Library to 'study', and technically, you wouldn't be lying!!

Several beers later with Bryan, it was time to head towards the evenings entertainment at the Rhythm Room - my boys from Ireland, The Frames.

As told before, this band are almost bigger than Ben Hur in Ireland, and I had seen them at a comparatively small club in Vancouver. Now, here in Phoenix, I'd see them again in front of an audience of barely 50 people!! Awesome!!!

It was somewhat strange seeing them play with an entirely deserted dance floor in front of them, but credit to the boys, they still gave it their all, held nothing back, and Bryan was an instant convert. The final last few songs of the set finally saw some of the crowd venture forward, which then emboldened a few more, so by the final song, the venue seemed a little more filled. All in all, a great gig, with a good mixture of old songs with the new from Burn The Maps, their latest album.

San Diego - Phoenix

2005-12-26T15:46:00.000+11:00

The overnight bus trip is a necessary evil for budget backpackers. It gets you from A to B and saves you a night’s accommodation fee at the same time.

And so it was with my trip from San Diego to Phoenix, Arizona. I had ruled out hitchhiking out along the I-8 after some advice from locals who know the score. To do that would be to head out into serious desert country, with daytime temperatures in September still hitting 110 Fahrenheit (over 40 celcius). There are loooooong distances between towns and not a whole lotta traffic either. Chances of getting picked up? Slim to marginal.

Okay then. A 9-hour overnighter on Greyhound should be easy enough. God knows I’ve done this plenty of times before, and for much longer time frames. Well, truth be told, I had a very, very restless sleep on this trip. I had a window seat, and therefore no legroom, and the bus was 99% full so couldn’t move to an aisle seat and stretch out. The air-con seemed to only work intermittently. I drifted in and out of travel sleep – the kind of sleep you get which is more of a semi-conscious doze, and I always seem to have very weird half-dreams, almost psychedelic sometimes.

When I did wake properly, it was the heat of the sun rising that did it. And glancing out of the window, I was almost glad I had a window seat, coz watching the sun show its first peek over the horizon, a deep orange glowing ball, and slowly rise up over the barren red earth desert that we were driving thru was just spectacular. This was the same sun that barely 12 hours ago I watched dip into the Pacific Ocean, and now I’m watching it rise out of the desert sands.

Arriving in Phoenix, somewhat behind schedule, I was incredibly strung out, tired, sweaty, and smelly, badly in need of a shower, coffee, and food. It was barely 7am and it was already roasting hot – I’m sure it was already close to 30 degrees (80-ish F). I needed some time to gather my thoughts. I was due to meet and stay with Bryan and Christine, a couple who I met in Dingle, Ireland while they were on honeymoon and I was on my last Irish hurrah. This was December 2004. We had hung out for a coupla days, and then I invited them to my leaving do, at which they duly showed up. We’ve been in semi-regular email touch ever since. But today, Bryan was working until around 2pm, and couldn’t meet or pick me up 'til then. And they lived in Anthem, a suburb a good 35miles north of the City. I needed to figure out what to do for the next 7 hours.

I spent about an hour of that wandering aimlessly around the bus station. There were no shower-hire facilities, the luggage storage compartments were out of order, and the information centre wasn’t yet opened. At least I could get coffee. And while changing into shorts and Tee, fumbling absent-mindedly thru my rucksack, I found a ½ empty pack of cigarettes – must have been from the Aussie Rules night…I vaguely remember getting hammered-drunk and buying a pack, which I do from time to time. I only smoke when I’m very drunk, or, as was the case now, when I’m really strung-out.

So, with coffee and two cigarettes in my system, I feel almost human again, and am finally able to string two thoughts together. A quick read thru the Lonely Planet reveals the not-so-startling fact, that there ain’t a whole lot to do in the downtown Phoenix area. There are a couple of decent museums, but that’s about it. Anything else worth seeing needs a car to drive there, this being one of America’s most sprawling metropolises.

After negotiating to leave my rucksack in the freight office of the bus station (no way was I gonna lug it around the city on foot in 30+ degree heat for 7 hours), I found a local bus that would take me into town.

It’s 9am by this stage. Amazingly to me, for a city almost 3million people, the Downtown core was dead, absolutely dead. I’m talking zero traffic. Maybe its coz it’s Sunday? I don’t know. But I honestly felt like I was walking around a ghost town, or a post-apocalyptic city that had just suffered a nuclear strike. The only signs of life I saw were the homeless bums in the park on Washington Street. It felt very weird. To be wandering amongst modern, steel and glass skyscraper corporate buildings, and to be able to cross 4-lane roads without a single car in sight??? Very strange.

I also now realised I needed to check my email – I didn’t have Bryan’s number written in my book. I only had it on email. Without being able to contact him, there was no way for me to confirm I’d arrived, or a meeting point. And there was nothing open, and even if there was, there wasn’t even anything that looked like it might have an Internet terminal.

Looking at my LP guidebook again, I noticed a HI hostel way out on the edge of Downtown. Only 10 blocks away. I may as well check it out, i've got nothing better to do right now, and it may have a connection, or at least be able to point me in the right direction. Now, as you prolly, know, I’m a fairly adventurous person, willing to take a few risks here and there, but as I’m getting into the neighbourhood where the hostel, I’m feeling a little sketchy. It feels like I’m wandering into 'the Hood'. Bryan was to tell me later that I wasn’t exactly in the safest part of town. What the hell a HI hostel was located there for, I don’t know. Anyways, I get there – and it has a bit of a shanty-shack feel to it, and no, there’s no Internet connection, and no, there ain’t any around here.

I need another coffee. The city seems to be waking up slightly now, a few more people on the road, but still no one on foot…No one walks here, they all drive. I find a café that’s open. Miracle. The chick, very friendly actually, at the café says, “yeah, we’ve got Internet connection, you got a laptop??” “Um...no”. That’s another thing I’ve noticed a lot in the States recently. There is a dearth of Internet café’s, but every Starbucks, Blenz and two-bit independent coffee shops have WiFi. That does me no good tho, or any other budget backpacker around. What backpacker do you know that carries a laptop in their rucksack???

The café chick did mention that if I jumped on a bus for 20minutes I could find a FedEx-Kinko’s, which had an expensive per-minute Net café. And it was right by one of the Museums I was contemplating checking out. Man, all this freakin’ effort for a phone number!!!! I was having a very difficult morning.

Phone number duly found, and contact made with Bryan, I spent about ¾ of an hour in the, apparently, world famous Heard museum, before I realised I now had to get back to the bus station, way out on the other side of Downtown, to meet him. Waiting for a bus on a Sunday morning in Phoenix certainly is a true test of one’s patience. This is one of the most car-centric cities in the most car-centric country in the world. ½ a day here, and I’ve learnt that Public Transport is woeful. I found PT excellent in San Francisco, and serviceable even in Los Angeles, San Diego’s good, but here in Phoenix?...Man, pitiful. I took to walking between stops, just so as I felt like I was actually getting somewhere, and after 40minutes or so I was finally able to get one. But that only took me part of the way, when I had to change and wait for another. The morning trip into town was just as bad, too.

It’s now 1pm. Once again, I walked between stops, keeping a keen eye out so I didn’t miss one flying past me between stops. Back on the right side of Downtown now for the bus station, I wander past an enormous Baseball stadium. Phoenix Vs San Diego. This part of the city is now buzzing, and the traffic has come to life, cops directing people every which way, and drinks and ice-cream vendors out in force. Thank God for icy-cold water!! I had walked about ¾ of the way back out to the bus station, when I finally saw my bus number come up. Sheesh!

I seem to be whingeing a bit here, I know. Not sure if that’s just how the city affected me, or if it was my state-of-mind after a pretty ordinary bus trip. Nevertheless, when Bryan met me, it was a sigh of relief. Good to see the boy again, and there was a lot to catch up on in almost a year’s absence. With a 35mile drive ahead, we had a bit of time.

Ahhhhh Tijuana

2005-12-26T14:39:00.000+11:00

Ahhhhh Tijuana. It's Mexico but its not Mexico. Situated in Mexican territory, right on the border of the USA, and just 5 miles from San Diego, it has a reputation of being a sleazy, dirty and corrupt party town that regularly gets invaded by barely 18-year-old Californian college jocks and frat boys out have a rollicking drunken good time, partying on $1 Corona's and checking out the plentiful gin-joints and bordello's. A place of debauchery and hedonism, a place full of opportunists and con-men, ready to fleece day-tripper tourists of their hard-earned greenback U.S currency.

You get the stamp in the Passport which says you have been to Mexico, but in terms of the cultural experience, this place is pretty far removed from the Mexico you would expect to see further south.

This is the place where I decided to spend my birthday. But, being a little older, wiser and calmer these days, I aimed to enjoy myself - get rollicking drunk sure - but not fall prey or get sucked in by the debased hedonism that most people go there for.

Having met up with Tomas and Hana along for the ride also kept me in check (Czech). These were two very sensible young folks, and traveling on a budget tighter than even mine was. They also had that air of cultured sophistication that I’ve noticed a lot of Eastern Europeans have. I met them in town after my coupla sneaky-pints, and we hopped aboard the Trolley (tram) for the quick trip down to the border.

The U.S./Mexico border is a sight to behold. Thousands of people on foot and in cars happily breezing thru border controls heading south, but queues and delays galore for those wanting to cross over to the USA. Before we knew it, we were in Mexican territory, and realized we hadn’t even had out passports stamped – its not necessary here, but we all wanted it for keepsake and reminders. Now, none of us spoke Spanish, and here literally 20 metres over the border all anyone in authority seemed to speak was Spanish, and not a jot of English. So, trying to find out where we could find an Immigration official who could stamp our passport wasn’t such an easy task. After 20minutes of sign-language and fumbled Spanish we were directed to a man all alone at a tiny little desk in a tiny little office under the footbridge that we crossed to get into Mexico. Passports duly stamped, we then set off for downtown TJ as its fondly known. It was pretty funny really, just how relaxed this whole Mexican border control was. I guess they want Americans in the country to spend their money.

A short little bus ride dropped us off at Avenida de Revolucion (La Revo), and within 30seconds we were accosted by bar touts offering us cheap drinks and cheaper girls. It was everything I had expected.

It was a hot mid-thirty degree day (about 90 Fahrenheit), there were bars by the million, all blaring out music of one description or another, some good, but mostly bad…dirty, grubby streets packed full of food-hawker stalls and trinket sellers, the smell of the street food mixing with the litter-strewn gutters, a heady concoction of chili-sweet-and-sour…and constant attention from little beggar boys and girls – either genuinely homeless, or sent out to accost tourists for money by opportunistic parents – but you could never tell which was which. Basically, the telltale signs that we were now in a 3rd World country.

I had seen much of this before, and was simply soaking it all in. Tomas, and Hana in particular were a little shocked by it all, especially the begging. And then there were the bar touts I had mentioned…“One dollar Corona for you Senor’s…and free Margarita for her!!! (If you can imagine this being said in cheesy, sleazy Mexican accent, it helps set the scene a little).

Hana was getting offered free drinks all along La Revo as an enticement to get all three of us in their bar, but the day was young, and the other thing that TJ is famous for is incredible cheap markets. We wanted to sample a bit of everything, not just get shit-faced from the off. A few hours window-shopping with the occasional purchase, a bit to eat at a cheap taco bar, and then we’d hit the booze.

I’ve gotta say, Tomas and Hana were fantastic at bargaining for price in the markets. Hana was a natural. As always in 3rd World countries, marketeers are opportunists, hoping to make a quick profit from naïve tourists, and often preying on your sympathies.

Czech Republic not exactly being a rich country either, my two companions were not swayed by this…”We are not American, we are Czech, we are poor too” At one stall, they managed to talk down the price of a traditional-style hooded top from US$30 (the opportunist price) down to US$7!!!…The stall owner would still have made maybe a dollar or two profit from this, but was not terribly happy. I wanted one too, but they didn’t have one in my size and colour…with their help, at another stall I found one I wanted and ended up paying US$9 – he would not go any lower. Without Hana at my side, I prolly would’ve got hit for minimum US$15 – still very cheap, mind, but as I say, these folks often do sell these at close to the US$30 mark.

Having decided to avoid the over-priced La Revo food joints, we then found a quaint little side-street café, and ate stupendously delicious chicken burritos for about a dollar each, washed down with a 50 cent Coke. Right, now suitably fed, and stomach lined, it was time to find a bar. Once again, we opted to avoid the main drag, simply by this stage coz we were sick-and-tired of the heckling and touting, and decided we didn’t want to give these guys our money anyway. By this stage it was well after 4pm – we had set this time earlier in the day as our shopping curfew, and besides I was really getting thirsty by now, with my morning pints well and truly worn off. A small market square to the side of La Revo had a number of little café’s to choose from, and we picked one at random. Sitting in the patio with a perfect view of the market action – awesome people watching opportunity, we had hit upon a winner.

We did have plans to perhaps do a bit of a crawl, but in the end stayed here…for about 5 hours. How could you argue with Large Corona bottles at a buck apiece??? Our waiter, Jose, was fantastic, attending to our every need, even when it got busy.

Super-friendly, funny and full of jokes and tales, and when I told him it was my birthday (and actually showed him my Passport to prove it! – they get that claim all the time – “Hey, its my birthday, how about a free drink!!!), it was Royal treatment the whole night.

When it came time to eat again, and we couldn’t choose, he even organized a mini-banquet selection of several menu options at a price that couldn’t be argued with, not even by Hana!

Long into the night we stayed there, well until it came time to leave to make sure we could get the Trolley back to San Diego at least. We watched as the sun disappeared, and the market packed up, we watched as several parties of people came into the café, ate and drank and left, and even as Jose and the other waiters began packing up for the night at our cafe. Several hours drinking, included a number of tequila shots, a meal that filled us up twice over…and the bill????? US$14 each!! I’ll never forget that coz I was quite shocked at how cheap that was. Of course we left a decent tip for our friend Jose, coz, Man that was some birthday drinking session.

It was quite an effort to get back to the bus stop, staggering up La Revo, the 3 of us holding each other up. The Czech’s have quite some reputation for drinking, but Tomas was quite under the weather...his excuse being that he was out of practice, having not drunk in about 3-4 months because he was not old enough to drink in the United States. Fair enough, I guess.

After a long wait for the bus, we finally got back to the border, and had to deal with the queues I mentioned earlier…which were even worse coz it was late at night, and folks wanted to get that same last Trolley back to SD as we were.

Wisely, we decided to pass the time in the queue by taking turns at shopping in the Duty Free stores as we slowly inched pass them. My purchase, for a tidy sum of about US$13 was 500ml Tequila, a 350ml Mescal (with the worm), and a free shot “Tijuana” shot glass. Not bad, I reckon.

Back in the USA, I was feeling rather satisfied with my little expedition south of the border. It was a Birthday adventure well celebrated.

San Diego

2005-12-26T00:17:00.000+11:00

San Diego. Probably the two things this city is famous for are its world-class Zoo, and Sea World…didn’t see either of them - just not enough time. It’s also pretty well-renowned for its lazy, surfer-beach bum culture, of hours and hours sitting in the ocean on a board waiting for that perfect wave, or lazin’ on the beach, the long, wide, silky-smooth picture perfect white sandy beaches, just simply watching the surfers watch out for and catch the waves.

While I never caught any waves myself, I was definitely soaking up the late summer beach culture for the four days while I was there. It was hard not to when my couch-surf hosts Lauren and Isaac lived a mere 30-seconds walk to Dog Beach, tucked in right between funky Ocean Beach and its edgy, boho community and the classier Mission and Pacific beaches.

In short, for a traveler like me, it was a dream location.

Lauren and Isaac were both super-chilled in the typical San Diegan way, altho both were out-of-towners themselves, originally from inland Northern Cali…it seems very easy to slip into the relaxed, laid-back lifestyle of this city. They, their super-friendly, hyperactive dog Coco, and their close neighbours had me feeling at home in no time. When I arrived it was pushing evening time, and so it was beers and $1 fish tacos down at the local. Damn those fish tacos are good.

The little community of Ocean Beach was about as chilled as you could get, its palm tree-lined main drag was full of sweet little independent clothing stores, surf shops, cafes and restaurants (along with the usual Starbucks and Subway type multi’s). This lead down to and abutted a small parkland area, the beach and a long pier – perfect to watch the surfers do their thang, and with a café at the end to chill and have a (expensive) bite to eat.

I was able to borrow a bike from Isaac for the time I was there, and hence did a lot of exploring during the day while he and Lauren were at work. As mentioned Mission and Pacific beaches were just a little up the way, and defo had a slightly more classier (read: expensive) vibe to them, but it was super fun to cruise along the promenade and simply people watch all along the way.

Roller-bladers, bikini babes and beefcake blokes, all bronzed and beautiful, beach volleyball games by the dozen – and this was at 2pm on a Tuesday…don’t these people have jobs to go to???? Apparently not, this is San Diego after all, home of the beach bum culture, altho it beats me how they can afford to live here.

I made it my mission to cycle all the way up to La Jolla (pronounced La Hoy-ah), some twenty kilometres north, a true enclave of the Southern Cali super-rich. The beach breaks in the cover here are meant to be stupendous, and with the hills rising steeply up out of the ocean, it provides for awesome views, and with that a property price tag that is prohibitive to all but the lucky few. I took a little ride thru the neighbourhood, jaw agape at the size and ornate style of the houses and gardens. La Jolla was originally a Spanish Mission town in the early years of California’s development, and the style has very much been in keeping with that Iberian flavour.

I only spent a couple of hours in La Jolla, but in that time manage to find a relatively cheap Mexican bar in the throws of its Happy Hour. Its view from the street-fronting window-seat looking out over the Pacific Ocean was something to behold. A delicious chicken tortilla and 2 or 3 Corona’s as reward for my afternoon’s efforts had me in high spirits, feeling as free and relaxed as I’d ever been. And the good news was that it was mostly downhill all the way back to OB.

Back on Dog Beach, I had a little while to kill before my hosts returned home, and so decided to lay back in the sun on the beach with a good book and watch the surfers surf and the sun set. And, as a very pleasant addition the already mellow vibe, as the sun finally dipped below the horizon and kissed the day goodbye, everybody on the beach clapped and cheered. Ohhhh, so sweet.

Having soaked up the beach culture for a couple of days, I thought I ought to balance that out with a bit of local history and culture. San Diego is by many measures a very young city, and so its Gaslight Quarter, a district about 3 blocks by 6, for the amount of fanfare and hype they give it, didn’t really give off an ‘Old Town’ vibe for me.

I suppose it didn’t help that there was a fair amount of construction and cranes and noise about which somewhat tempered that vibe. Like many cities, it was an area of town that had fallen into disrepair, originally being a rather seedy and notorious strip full of bordellos and gambling dens, and has only recent been given a facelift by The City. I guess its still on-going, but the “Old” still looks very “new”, a kind of Disneyland-ish re-creation of what it must have looked like 150 years ago. The ‘old’ cobblestone footpaths and streetlamps very much look brand new.

Same with the Old Town State Historic Park which is another reconstruction of what “Pueblo De San Diego” looked like under the original Mexican rule back in the 1820-30’s, with huts and large adobe houses laid out around a square, and filled with tourist oriented shops and restaurants. Charming and quaint though, were the free guided tours, led by women and men in period costume, telling the story of the history of the city. As much as you can in 90-minutes, they did serve to give somewhat of a visualization of life in the town back then.

Thursday of that week was my 31st birthday, and I met up with the Czech couple for a day trip down to Tijuana (another entry will cover that adventure), but snuck in a couple of early pints in a Ye Olde English pub beforehand.

While there I met another coupla Aussie blokes who pointed me in the right direction for the other big, momentous event happening that week, the Australian Rules Football Grand Final. I had been searching desperately to find a bar that would be showing the game live, but had come up with nothing. Seems all the publicans either knew nothing of it, or instead were showing the American version of football live at the same time. Turns out there is one Aussie theme pub down on Pacific Beach, which was guaranteed to be showing the game live, 9pm Friday night. Happy Days.

This was a game I didn’t want to miss. The Sydney Swans (formerly South Melbourne), one of the older clubs in the league – and who hadn’t won a Premiership since 1933, were playing one of the new upstarts in the comp, the West Coast Eagles, who had one it twice in only 18 years of being in the league. I wanted to see the Swannies win it, with one of my mates, PB, a die-hard supporter, making it a sentimental vote.

I was also keen to introduce the game I love to my new American friends Lauren and Isaac, and their mates. This wasn’t a total success tho. I got them to the pub, but with it being absolutely packed to the rafters with Aussies and Kiwis and noisy as hell, trying to explain the game play-by-play to 3 or 4 folks who’ve never seen the game before was nigh on impossible. They ended up leaving at ½ time to go to another bar, and then home. I wasn’t missing this for love nor money, and so, with my free ride home gone, I ended up getting a cab.

The Swans won, by 4 points in a thriller, and I got my wish. Gotta say I was pretty disappointed in my Yankee mates ditching out on the game – they hardly gave it a chance, the least they could have done was stay and see the game thru to the end, get a few more drinks at least. I mean, I knew nothing about American Football or Baseball when I got here, but I took it upon myself to get involved and attempt to learn about the game. Several weeks in a row of Monday Night Football with barbeques and beers, in the company of rabid fans certainly helped that along. I now have a passable knowledge of the games, and somewhat enjoy them, altho I will concede that I don’t think they’re essential viewing.

My final evening in San Diego was spent sitting on the roof of Lauren and Isaac’s duplex apartment with their friends, drinking beers and staring out thru the palm trees over the horizon to the second glorious sunset I’d seen in two days.

A pretty satisfactory way to kill a few hours til my 9pm overnight Greyhound bus ride to Phoenix. It was also my final night in California, and my final night on the West Coast until I reached San Francisco again.

Nice note to leave I must say!

How has it come to this?

2005-12-20T22:04:00.000+11:00

How has it come to this?

While I was still living in Canada, planning to come home, a lot of people asked me what I was going to do when I got back to Melbourne.

Truth was, I didn’t really know, although I figured trying to get a career started, hopefully in Travel and Tourism, would be a logical idea. Either that, or go back to University or TAFE to do a course in that field.

One thing I was adamant about tho. I wasn’t going back to working in a dodgy Call Centre environment for some faceless Telco corporation, or anything along those lines. I hated it last time, but I knew it was a means to an end, and so ‘grinned nad bared it’, so to speak. I didn’t want that life again. It’s the fastest way to having your soul destroyed, having it eaten alive, chewed up and spat back out at you, all coalesced into a saliva-coated, gelatinous mess. Job satisfaction level? – A big FAT ZERO

So, it pains me no end to say that, at this point in time, that is exactly where I have ended up. After nearly 2 months of not having anything suitable come up, or at least come thru to fruition, I’ve chucked in the towel, conceded defeat (maybe a little too easily perhaps, but this is then a fair indication of my state of mind).

I've gotten a job (temping, mind) with AAMI Car Insurance, in a Call Centre…Outbound.....Ringing up customers, bugging them about their insurance policies and trying to line up appointments for sales calls for the Home insurance arm of the company. It's a helluva come down here, from free soul-spirit to this, almost hitting rock bottom you might say - I feel like I've sold my soul to the devil now - Goddamn....INSURANCE SALES!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!....that is pretty low....mmmmm, well I guess at least I'm not doing door-to-door Commission Sales......, and Thank God I’m not actually doing the Sales bit! And, well, at least the money isn't too bad...

Two months ago I was free as a bird, taking to the road at a whim, making decisions at the drop of a hat - where will i go next/should i stay another day and having my whole life in my total control - no one else to answer to but ME. Now though, I find myself at the beck-and-call of temp agency Consultants, asking 'how high' when they say 'Jump', floating aimlessly from day to day without direction, just barely treading water, trying not to sink too deeply into depression at the situation I find myself in.

I'm feeling a little sorry for myself at the moment - and I know I shouldn't - and I am trying to keep my head up, but its hard. Like I said in my Xmas email, I know it's a situation that will pass.

Aaaarrrgghhhhhh! I hate feeling like this!! I'm usually such a positive forward-looking guy, but the overall picture isn't helped by the fact that it is Xmas and everything is shutting down.

I guess I just need to get this off my chest, shedding the bad skin so that i can move forward, so you can look forward to more upbeat words from me in the New Year.

Thanks for listening (well, reading)

Tony

Merry Xmas message

2005-12-17T22:01:00.000+11:00

G’day everyone,

Just wanted to drop a short note to you all to wish you Da Best for Christmas and New Year.

It is to you all that I owe a great deal of thanks and love for the time I’ve spent with you during my travels over the past 7 years. There is a reason I've kept in touch with you, and that this email list gets longer and longer all the time. You have been a part of my life, made my life what it is, my experiences all the greater for having you in them.You have all made my day, week, month and years.

Especially big, big thanks to those of you who have extended your hospitality to me, putting me up (putting up with me!) on your couches, floors, spare beds, played tour guide, showing me around your town/city/neighbourhood, shouting me dinner, burning me your favourite cdee's of bands I would otherwise prolly never have heard of. You have given me experiences I could never ever have if I just stuck to what’s in the Lonely Planet and other backpacker paraphernalia. You’ve also saved me a truckload of money! – which has enabled me to stay away on the road longer…and that can only be a good thing!

But alas, there is a time when you do finally run out of money, get tired, bite the bullet, and go home.

And that’s where I find myself now.

And its been hard….very, very hard. Still living with the folks, in my old teenage bedroom, way out in the far far northern Melbourne ‘burbs miles and miles and miles away from anywhere. My friends have all moved out of the neighbourhood I grew up in, and have gotten married with mortgages and careers and have kids or have them on the way.

The sooner I get my own pad the better, but that can’t happen til I get a regular job with a steady income…and that ain’t come yet either.

When I got home, I had two main objectives and a deadline. I wanted to be employed and in my own place by Christmas. That is now exactly one week away, and neither has come to fruition.

But I knew it was gonna be hard, I knew I’d have to drive hard and push thru the periods of depression that I get when I first come home, and I know I will get thru it. It took me over 2 months to feel like a Melbournian again last time i did this. What does get me thru are the emails I get from you guys from time to time, flicking thru the web pages on my flickr.com photo website, listening to the music of awesome bands I’ve discovered and picked up on my travels, and periodically writing up the last of my USA journal – sending me back to that happy place, if only for a short time. There are more of those to come in the coming weeks too.

Although, it is not all doom and gloom. There is a glimmer of light. I have applied for a job at Flight Centre!! – a global-wide travel agency. Wish me luck on that one. If I can't be travelling, I'll be as close to the culture as I can!!

And the other thing that has helped me in my transition back into Melbournian life…is Melbourne itself. This city of mine is amazing. It has changed quite a lot in the last 3 years, metamorphosed into a thriving, bubbling, energetic hub of life, music, sport, arts, and culture (not that it wasn't b4 of course, but now I think it's even better - if a tad more expensive than I remember). I’ve loved rediscovering it again, looking at it thru the eyes of a tourist essentially. My only downfall is that, because I’m no longer on the road, it is no longer my first impulse to grab my camera before I walk out the front door. Without fail, every single time I leave my parents place, I leave my camera at home. I really want to get this city photographed and up on the web so that you all can see it.

Hey, That can be my New Years Resolution.

On that note, I’ll end…was a little longer than I originally planned, but what the hell – I like to write (in case you hadn’t noticed)

So, I hope you’re well, Have a Great Chrissy Crimbo period, and keep writing me.

Cheers,

Tony

LA to San Diego

2005-12-04T19:48:00.000+11:00

G'day,

Sitting in a dank, bleak Greyhound Bus Station on the wrong side of town in L.A. is an interesting sociological experience. It provides the sort of mix of people that could be politely described as the 'underbelly' of modern society.

Someone, an American, once made the allusion to me that "domestic airline travel in America is so darn cheap these days, so cheap that it doesn't make sense not to fly, and therefore if you meet folks that can't afford to fly intercity, and can only afford bus travel, you're really scraping the bottom of the socio-economic barrel". I thought that this was unfair - hey, I'm one of those folks!! The point being that the difference in cost between a flight from say Los Angeles to Phoenix (90minutes) and a bus (10 hours) is so negligible that you must really be struggling to get the cash together to just get the bus.

Los Angeles being the melting pot of cultures that it is, and the bus station being a major transport interchange hub of extended long-distance travel, based on my limited observations, I can certainly reaffirm the above allusion. There really was a heady mix of strung-out looking folks, ne'er-do-wells and hobos, foreign travelers from all points of the globe, and bedraggled punters looking like they really were down to their last cuppla bucks, splashing a pile of nickels and dimes on the cafe counter hoping they have enough for a cup of coffee. And with the dank, grimy waiting rooms, with sparse but harsh fluoro lighting splashing an eerie illumination on the place, it really wasn't a place you wanted to be for longer than was necessary...Maybe 'Da Management' have deliberately made it that way so that people don't hang around for longer than necessary.

On the up side, I did meet a young Czech couple that was in line for the same bus as me. When I'd ducked off the men’s room, I asked them to keep an eye on my bags. They had noticed on my rucksack a sew-on patch from "The Prague Drinking Team", and were interested to know if I had actually been there. An instant conversation and rapport was built up between us. I knew having those sew on patches on my bag would come to some good eventually, for other reasons than mere bragging points!

Tomas and Hana, both 20 years of age, had been on a 3month working holiday Visa, landing jobs as Amusement Park Ride Attendants in New Jersey, and had finished off that part of their USA adventure. They were now on a whistle-stop Greyhound tour of the country, and on their last few days. San Diego and Tijuana were the last stops on the West Coast before they were to endure 3days and nights solid to get back to New Jersey for flights home. I didn’t envy them.

So these guys were good value. In between short bus-quality (i.e.; not very good) snoozes, we chatted the whole four hours all the way to San Diego, comparing notes on our USA shenanigans and swapping advice, as all good travelers do. When the topic of Tijuana came up, we decided hook up and spend the day down there together. The added bonus was that the coming Thursday was my birthday, and I had planned on heading there anyway, even if it was by myself – shit man, I can make my own fun, but having a cuppla drinking buddies just makes it even better. Also, as both Tomas and Hana were under-aged in the U.S., it gave them an opportunity to show off their Czech drinking prowess, something they had been unable to do in the past 3-4 months.

Finally, the bus pulled in to the San Diego bus station – thankfully right in the middle of downtown, rather than in the dodgy back-blocks like in L.A. Time to say Goodbye again, as I had already arranged accommodation via the Couch Surfing network, but I agreed to meet the Czechs on the Thursday morn for a mad rollicking Mexican adventure…I was actually quite excited about the whole adventure.

More on that later.

Los Angeles

2005-12-03T23:41:00.000+11:00

Orright,

Meeting up with Mark Rhomberg was an event some (almost) 7 years in the making. As if meeting up with Dan and Gabe 4 years after my Paris visit in 2001 wasn't enough, I was to top that by seeing a guy i first met on my very first month of my very first serious overseas trip, in Dili, East Timor, of all places in November 1998.

Mark, among other things, is a human rights activist, and was working for the East Timor Action Network, campaigning for East Timorese independence from Indonesia. He was visiting the capital, Dili, and the surrounding areas on a bit of a fact-finding mission, as well as building up a network of contacts, liaising with journalists and the like. I was there as a curious tourist, one of only 3 Westerners I met in 3 and a ½ weeks that wasn’t there as either a journalist or NGO activist. I’d had a little bit to do with the Timorese independence movement in Australia as a rampaging, idealistic University student activist back in Melbourne, but actually visiting the place, and meeting Mark and learning from him, among others, really helped me to understand the issue more clearly. I guess I can be proud that I was involved in a campaign that succeeded, albeit with the sacrifice of many, many Timorese lives.

So anyway, here I was, seven years later, hitting this guy up for accommodation. To be fair, we had kept in regular contact via email over the years, and the offer had been put forward to me (altho I wonder if these people I meet and offer me couch space actually expect to have to come thru with it!! ;-) ). Nevertheless, it was good to see the lad again.

Having somewhere to stay in a city like L.A. is a godsend. Even the cheapest backpacker dorms cost in the region of US$30 per night, and as I was planning 3-4 nights in L.A., this would save me a packet of money. Mark, a high school teacher, lives in an apartment midway between Santa Monica and Brentwood, which you could say is in one of the nicer spots in the city. Three miles from Santa Monica beach, one mile from UCLA. Not too far from the Hollywood stars’ enclave of Bel Air.

Los Angeles. Now, depending on what kind of experience you want from this city, you could spend weeks here, and empty your back balance. Disneyland, Universal, Warner Bros and NBC Studios, Baywatch styled beaches, Hollywood star spotting, clubbing down Sunset Strip, you name it. Or not. This wasn’t what I wanted from L.A. I had 4 days Max here, and a minimal budget. I guess you could say I was in the wrong place if I didn’t want to spend a wad of cash. I reckon I did okay.

Mark’s schedule during my stay was pretty hectic, so most of the time, I was left to me own devices. Day One, I devoted to checking out and hanging in at Santa Monica and Venice Beaches. A 10minute bus ride from Mark’s gaff, and I was there, right in the thick of Santa Monica, dropped off practically at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, the beach, and Santa Monica Pier.

If you ever watch Hollywood cop-based movies, the kind where the young novice is teamed up with the old guy whose retiring tomorrow, and they have a manhunt thru a crowded beach side carnival scene, it’s inevitably filmed here. Santa Monica pier is a relic of times gone by, its quaint 1920’s carousel (featured in flick The Sting) being the sentimental favourite among all of the amusement park rides and sideshow stalls, market vendors and street artists plying their wares. Despite being thronged with tacky tourists with bratty kids, I quite enjoyed strolling along and among the crowds.

This is also the beach where Baywatch was filmed, and yes, it’s true, the lifeguard chicks do all wear those red one-piece swimsuits with accentuated boob jobs bulging out the top, carrying the tiny little floatation devices. And yes, it’s also true, that this is the place where all the ‘beautiful people’ of the city come to show off their tans, pecs, abs and biceps. And no, it’s not true, I am not one of them!

Up top, on the cliffs overlooking the beach is Pacific Palisades. Aside from people watching, the favourite pastime of folks up here, particularly the seniors, is shuffleboard. There’s something like 6 or 8 shuffleboard fields up here – now that’s something I never expected from L.A.!!

Strolling along the beachfront, I slowly made my down to Venice Beach to check out the bustling street market along the Venice Boardwalk. Ignoring all of the tacky tourist trap shop-fronts selling cheap t-shirts and fridge magnets and postcards and the like, the street stalls themselves were a hippy/counterculture paradise on earth.

Loads and loads and loads of artists of all description selling their goods, lots of tie-dye stuff, musicians and performers, tarot readings, activism groups with card tables full of petitions to sign, even a young Aussie Aboriginal busking away on the didgeridoo, the whole bit. And on a 30-degree day with bright blue sky, hundreds of people.

The Lonely Planet describes it as thus: “If aliens landed on Venice’s famous Boardwalk, they’d probably blend right into the human zoo of bikini-clad cyclists, chainsaw-juggling entertainers, wannabe Schwarzenegger’s, a roller-skating Sikh minstrel and zealous ‘meat-is-murder’ activists. This is the place to get your hair braided, skin tattooed or your aura adjusted. It’s a freak show that must be seen to be believed, preferable on hot summer weekends when the scene is at its most surreal…When you require quirk, Venice definitely provides your quota.”

It was great. My kinda scene. Grabbing a cheap slice of pizza to eat, I then sat down at a public outdoor basketball court with a few dozen other folks, and watched a few games of 2-on-2 between super athletic young black and Hispanic kids, catching some serious sun in the process.

A visit to L.A. would not be complete without a Saturday night down on the Sunset Strip, checking out the bars and clubs where the L.A. rock n roll scene is at its peak.

I wanted to check out the Whisky-A-Go-Go where the Doors were the house band in the 60’s, the famous House of Blues, the Roxy, the Troubadour, and of course Johnny Depp-owned The Viper Room, where River Phoenix met his maker many moons ago.

Only problem with all of this, is that this is L.A. right, where dress codes are strictly enforced by big burly bouncers who don’t take any shit, and I’m a poor backpacker with about 4 changes of clothes, none of which would meet the standards required.

I ain’t the pretty young thing they’re looking for at the door. And, two blokes, one in his early 30’s, the other in his late 40’s – not gonna happen. Even then, the queues at the door to get in were quite lengthy, and I hate queues…oh, and the cover charge to gain entry even if you do wait, and pass inspection, well, lets not even go there! So, with Mark as my guide we drove down to The Strip, walked up and down the Strip a few times, took a few happy snap pics, popped into an old 1950’s style diner for a coupla beers, then headed home, in bed by 1am. Well, at least I can say I’ve been there, done that.

Mark was pretty keen to show me some of the lesser known spots of L.A., so early Sunday morning we drove thru the Hollywood Hills to Topanga State Park for a spot of hiking – a nice 5 or 6 mile return trip to the top for a view across Bel Air and looking down to Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean. This I appreciated – there’s nothing like a solid hill walk to dust off the cobwebs and fill your lungs with some fresh morning air (before the L.A. traffic pollution arc-ed up and filled the atmosphere with carbon monoxide of course!)

Afterwards, I was dropped off at the Getty Centre in Westwood while Mark took care of his high-school assignment marking duties.

The Getty Centre is an amazing $1 billion dollar (!) museum of Art, set on a hilltop overlooking the city, set in immaculately landscaped gardens, within awe-inspiring post-modern architectural buildings. It is a legacy of deceased philanthropist John Paul Getty, a gift to the City of Los Angeles, and man what a gift.

I spent a couple of hours wandering the halls and gardens with jaw permanently agape at the displays. My only disappointment was that the Photography Hall was closed, as they were midway thru an exhibition changeover. I could easily have spent many more hours there, and highly recommend visiting it. It’s also free entry.

The strange thing about Los Angeles is that because it is so unbelievably huge and sprawling, it’s actual ‘Downtown’ district is really quite small. I found this hard to believe myself, but the financial district is only a few square blocks in size. L.A. instead has several pockets of activity spread all around the metropolis. For me to catch a bus to Downtown is well over an hour eastbound.

This I did, with the idea in mind of visiting the Museum Of Contemporary Art, where a Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition was on display. This famous young Graffiti artist grew to fame quickly in New York the early 1980’s, worked with Andy Warhol briefly, and was dead of a heroin overdose at age 27 in 1988. Myself always being intrigued by pop culture and sub-cultures, had to see this exhibition.

Most of the works on display were on loan from the Brooklyn Gallery, and were for the first time on display outside of that Gallery. I have to say, I thought it was pretty darn impressive. I didn’t have an enormous personal knowledge of Basquiat, just what I had read in art magazines and saw of him from the late 90’s film of his life, but now I think I could give a reasonable account of his life and work.

The rest of my time in the Downtown district was spent scene-spotting, with the aid of a tourist info book. The Bradbury Building where Harrison Ford, as Deckard, in Blade Runner hunts down the replicant Pris (Darryl Hannah) was my favourite scene-spot.

Another short bus ride, and then my afternoon was spent walking on foot around the Sunset Strip again. This time, mid afternoon, I actually managed to get into the House Of Blues for a beer, just one, mind – no door bitches on yet to scrutinize yer threads, and chill out on the rustic patio overlooking the city. When it came time to pay up, chatting to the bartender, he clocked my accent and gave me the drink on the house. Nice!

It was at this point that I realised I hadn’t even bothered to check out Hollywood yet. Not my kind of scene, but seeing as I’m here, I may as well. Another short bus ride down Sunset Boulevard, and as I’m getting off the bus I turn around I notice the sun just dropping behind the Hollywood Hills.

Ahh, it doesn’t get any more clichéd than this – standing on Sunset Boulevard just at the moment that the sun is doing just that. What a Kodak moment. So then, I stroll up to Hollywood Boulevard to check out what Hollywood wankers have put their names to stars on the footpath. I’ve been told that it actually costs the star $5000 to have their named ‘star-ed’, so basically anyone who is vaguely famous and has a spare Five Grand can do this...such a vanity moment, don’t you think?

Anyway, as I’m moving along the street is suddenly cordoned off, police and barricades are everywhere, and thousands, literally thousands of people gathering on the street. Getting a little closer, I see rows of beaming halogen spotlights and photographers by the dozen, and then a stretch limo cruises by me with some pretty young thing in a sash of cloth masquerading as a dress pops out (no clue as to who it was)...it’s a Hollywood movie premiere I’ve stumbled upon. “Flight Plan” with Jodie Foster. This is kinda funny, and a bit of a spectacle, so I hang around for about 15 minutes, then move on, bored by it all already.

My next goal is to try and get a pic of the classic ‘Hollywood’ sign way up on the hills – still haven’t seen it yet, but it’s dark now, so I pass on the idea, and bus it back to Mark’s. People always say that L.A.’s public transport system is crap, but I’ve used it to good effect the past 3-4 days, and I’ve found it alright. I’ve even used it at night, supposedly the dodgiest time with the dodgiest characters coming out of the woodwork. Granted, I didn’t hit East L.A. or South Central, but It’s all fine and good as far as I’m concerned.

So, with that, and one last night at Mark’s, I’m out of here. The Greyhound Bus station is a bitch to get to. Gotta get the same bus into Downtown as the other day, walk about 10 blocks, then catch another bus to the dodgy industrial district Southside of town. To top things off now, after 3 days of beautiful blue skies, the weather has turned the wrong side of shady, and it’s bucketing down with rain.

Los Angeles, it was short but sweet. Nice place to visit, could never live there tho.

Santa Barbara - L.A.

2005-12-03T21:30:00.000+11:00

Dateline: September 15th, 2005

Hey there,

Man, what a trippy ride this little stretch from SB to L.A. turned out to be.

I'd checked the train and bus schedules to L.A. and they were both hours away, so I decided to give the hitchhike method a go. I'd been incredible successful with this in Washington and Oregon, but had yet to try it in California.

Looking back, I almost wish I had waited for the Bus.

According to Mapquest, it is 96 miles distance, drivable in 1 hr 40 minutes roughly. When I set out it was around 2pm….I eventually got there (Los Angeles) well after nightfall. Here is another Tony Tale, in all its detailed glory, coz this story needs to be told like this…

Following the tried and true hitching technique of hitting a highway on-ramp at the edge of town, I wandered 2 to 3 Kay’s along the beachfront boulevard, sweating in the 30 degree heat with my rucksack and daypack on. Finally, I found a spot that looked promising, got out my bit of cardboard and marker pen to scribble my sign.

True to my form of previous experience, I got picked up within about 20 minutes. It’s a beat-up old late-80’s Toyota. A short geeky looking guy with glasses and a whiny voice and a stocky middle-aged black man, named Michael and David respectively, were my new friends. They were going all the way to L.A., more specifically to San Fernando Valley, whereas I needed to get to Santa Monica, but this was close enough I thought.

Two miles down the highway, and Michael has launched into his life-story. Then he suddenly pulls off the highway at the next exit. Turns out Michael is an Attorney-at-Law and was on his way to meet a client, and just needed to stop in his office for 10 minutes 'to pick up some documents', if that was alright with me…who am I to argue. I’m then left with his car while the two of them disappear into an office block….it’s been over 20minutes with no sign of either of them, and I’m contemplating grabbing my stuff and trying my luck on the highway again, only it’s about a mile down the road, it’s stinking hot, and this is potentially a ride 95% of the way to my destination.

David then appears and makes some apologies. Apparently he needed to print out the documents, not just ‘pick them up’, and the printer’s fucked and he doesn’t know how to fix it, and it’s gonna be another 10minutes, and we’ll be on our way. Okay, fair enough. Another 20minutes, then David reappears – with a bottle of water kindly enough – and says “okay, the printers fixed now, 10minutes and we’re honestly outta here’….Mmmm, we’ll see. I seriously wondering about these two guys now – very, very scattered, and one of them is reputedly a lawyer! I’m also wondering whether, if I had’ve stayed on the highway, if I’d have gotten another ride by now.

Right, so now we’re on our way, after our hour long, supposed 10minute, delay. Half an hour into the ride, and I really wished I had passed up on this ride. The lawyer dude Michael is a pure simpleton, while his mate David, who seems to be the smarter of the two, seems to be in total deference to Michael, agreeing with every simpleton remark being made. I’m trying to keep out of the conversation.

Along the way, Michael’s driving is incredibly erratic. He’s skipping up off ramps to side lanes “to try and beat traffic, honestly we’ll save time this way”, attempting short cuts, and is perpetually changing lanes’, braking late, going up the emergency lane to try and overtake. It’s madness. Ordinarily this wouldn’t bother me, but the guy’s sanity, or lack thereof, kinda does.

Next thing I know, Michael is panicking coz the water gauge is rising and is worried about breaking down on the highway. I’m worried about that too. By this point its seriously afternoon peak-hour traffic, and speeds on the freeway have dropped to about 20miles per hour, and we’re still only ½ way there. So we’re having to treat the car very gently now. It stalls. It won’t restart. I ask why, if he’s an L.A. lawyer, is he driving an old beat up vehicle like this one. Apparently his Beamer is in the mechanics, and this is a loaner. He was supposed to have his Beamer back a week ago, but the mechanic still hasn’t finished the work. I suggest he should change mechanics, especially if the loaner car’s he’s giving out are barely roadworthy themselves. He agrees.

Finally the car restarts, and we’re moving, very gingerly, down the highway again. I can see the smog riddled Los Angeles skyline, a pall of filthy transparent brown hovering above the skyscrapers. Then, on one particularly erratic lane change, a Highway Patrol police car is suddenly behind us, with the megaphone advising us to take the next exit off the freeway. We were getting pulled over!!….what now!! This is all I need. Pulling into a service station, the L.A. cop is all very business-like.

“May I see your drivers license and registration, please, sir”
Michael produces the license, but the car’s a loaner remember, and the rego isn’t in the glovebox where it usually is.

“Are you aware that your rear left brake light is not working?” “No, Officer, I was not, this is a loaner from my mechanic”

“Well, what’s your mechanic doing loaning you an un-roadworthy car?”

This whole conversation went on for 5 minutes, and then the cop started grilling David. David, being a black man, has issues with police, and is being very uncooperative, especially regards identifying himself. I’m sitting in the backseat, just wishing they would cooperate so that we could be on our way, but they want to argue every point in fine detail. Because Michael’s a lawyer right, and he knows the law, and what the cop is requesting, they are not legally obliged to give him, frigging nit-picking stuff. And then it was “Do you have any drugs in the vehicle?”, and I’m hoping and praying that they don’t.

The cop had also questioned Michael about me. “He’s a friend of ours from Australia”. As soon as he heard my accent, I was no longer a concern to him – he didn’t even bother to ask for my ID, even though I had my Passport right there. The only time he referred back to me was when I put my hands in my pockets – “KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!” Fine, hands instantly back in my lap.

During this whole altercation, the cop had gone back to radio in the few details that he had eventually extracted from David, and must have requested some back up, coz another patrol car arrived. Cop #1 was back, interrogating David now. “Excuse me Sir, but do you have any further information for me? There are approximately 25 people fitting your name and description with warrants out for their arrest”. Oh Christ, I’m thinking, I’m gonna end up in a freaking police station now.

Eventually, the matter was sorted, and Cop #1 and Cop #2 left the scene. Only now, our car wouldn’t start, again. They filled the radiator, it still wouldn’t start. And so now, they’re amateur mechanics, discussing the fine details of the engine and what the matter was with it, and disagreeing, and arguing!! “It’s the fuel pump” “No, it’s the spark plug”, “Maybe it’s the alternator”. Christ, I’m stuck in the outskirts of L.A. near “The Valley” with a couple of morons, its almost dark, and its taken almost 3 hours to get here when it should’ve have been 2 at the most, and I’m not even anywhere near my end destination.

Once again, eventually, we got the piece of crap car going, and we head for Michael’s meeting point. My original game plan when these dropped me off was that I would get a bus, or two, in order to get to Santa Monica, but that was when I was expecting to arrive well before dark. At this point tho, I’m contemplating a cab, but it’ll cost me minimum US$50 bucks, more money than it would have cost me to get the bus or train in the first place! David then suggests “Seeing as we’ve put you thru all of this drama, we’ll drop to where you need to go, but first Michael has to meet this client to get those documents signed. This'll take 20minutes tops, I promise”.

Fine. At least then I’ll be there, and I’m not having to deal with the L.A. public transport system at night, which I’ve heard can be sketchy. Especially as I’m carrying around my life on my back! So I sit with David at the car, parked a hundred metres down the street, in the middle of some sketchy part of San Fernando Valley watching the sun disappear behind the artificial horizon created by the smog, while Michael disappears into a el-cheapo looking labyrinthine apartment complex and has his meeting with some paranoid Bulgarian guy “who doesn’t like strangers knowing where he lives”. Okaaaaayy.

Once again, car-starting issues arise, but once again, with some coaxing she gets started. More arguments about the best way to get to Santa Monica, what’s the best freeway to take (and god knows there’s scores to choose from in L.A.), and now it’s fully dark, in Friday night peak hour in L.A., and we’re crawling along still in a panic about the radiator and now the fuel gauge is looking scarily low.

Miracle upon all miracles, at around 9pm, fully 7 hours after I left Santa Barbara, I got dropped off in Santa Monica, at the HI Hostel, where I had arranged to meet Mark. Only we’d got our wires crossed, and he’d said Venice Beach!! Problem was that I was without mobile phone service and was using phone cards at public phone booths, and if I didn’t get thru to anyone, all I could do was leave a message, and if anyone wanted to contact me, all they could do was email me. Anyways, a coupla phone calls later, and my buddy Mark arrived to pick me up. I had been invited to a party he was attending that night, but by this stage it was well and truly winding down, so we headed straight back to his apartment, had a beer and called it a night.

That was seriously one of the oddest afternoons of my life. At no point did I feel in any danger, but I think I’m gonna be a little more selective in my rides when I next take up hitchhiking.

Monterey to Santa Barbara

2005-12-03T16:41:00.000+11:00

Hey,

Checking in to the HI Hostel in Monterey turned out to be a masterstroke.

I was tossing up the ideas of either Greyhound busing it to Los Angeles, or hitchhiking there out of Monterey.

Come breakfast the following morning, my decision was essentially made for me. While taking advantage of the free pancakes and jam and cream, I got talking to a group of four young, early 20’s, lads with very hard to pick accents. They were from Norway. I wish I could remember their names now – I know two of them were typically Scandinavian – Bjorn and Pieter.

Anyway, these lads were on a 3-month road trip around the U.S. and had bought a car on the cheap to do it in. But this wasn’t any ordinary car, this was an old-skool 1978 Lincoln. I’m not a car person, but this car was amazing. It was a typical American car – big, and a helluva gas-guzzler, but man, it was stylin’! It had electric windows, and sunroof, a big ass square-box shaped bonnet with obligatory hood-ornament, cherry-red leather interior, bench seats, and an acre of room inside.

I mean, if you could picture this, my initial impression was that its original 1970’s owner would have been a Stetson hat-wearin’, cigar-chompin’, pot-bellied oil-rich tycoon with big-ass aviator sunglasses, driving his portly wife and two chubby, bratty kids with ice-cream and chocolate smeared lips down to the beach on a blazin’ hot summer’s Sunday. It was a Classic. And these Norwegian boys picked it up for a little more than US$2000!!

A polite enquiry as to whether there was room for one more person to Los Angles, to help split the fuel costs, and I was in. Sweet. This was gonna be fun. Cruisin’ down the Cali coast, mid-summer, in style, with the windows down and cool tunes from the old skool stereo…sure as hell beats the Greyhound!….

Highway 1, as I’ve mentioned is spectacular. It is also very, very curvy, winding around bends, hugging the coastline all the way down to L.A. Just as well we weren’t in a hurry. We re-traced the road I’d taken with Cathy the day before, but with the added bonus of the 17-Mile Drive around Pacific Grove, once again stopping a million times for happy snaps. Bjorn had a camera that was the pretty much the same vintage as the Lincoln, which impressed me beyond belief – I love those old cameras.

Along this stretch of highway sits the hilltop mansion of the infamous media magnate William Randolph Hearst, known as Hearst Castle, upon which the incredible Orson Welles movie epic Citizen Kane was based. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, it was late, late afternoon and was closed. I would have loved to have toured thru that house…it is apparently on such an epic and grand scale as to be beyond belief.

On one of our stops, we checked the map, and quickly came to the conclusion that we had a snowflakes-chance-in-hell on making it to L.A. by nightfall, especially if we stuck to the Highway 1 route. The small university town of San Luis Obispo had been recommended to me by Dan, so we opted to stop in there for the night, checking into the HI hostel.

Another fortuitous turn of events was that we arrived on a Thursday, the night of the famous farmers market street party. Not only that but it was the first week after college reconvened, so the streets were absolutely jammers packed with young students and market stalls and musicians. Great atmosphere on a late summers evening here I gotta tell ya.

Most nights of this trip, I’ve been eating out for dinner, and spending accordingly. Tonight, after seeing the awesome hostel kitchen, I decided to cook, and treat the lads to some of my culinary skills. Spaghetti Bolognese was the universal choice, and my personal fave of my own cooking. Damn I can do helluva job on that meal!!

Next day we pushed off early, with our first planned stop being the plush Santa Barbara. The town that’s famous for its soap opera setting and rich, Mediterranean styled houses decked out with red-tiled roofs and gleaming white stucco, nestled on the Pacific Ocean with tall, elegant palm trees lining the boulevards being cruised along by pretty young things in BMW’s paid for by Daddy, and just dripping, literally dripping with money.

A couple of hours was all I spent here. It’s funny, but I feel really uncomfortable being surrounded by such opulence. It’s as if I feel like I don’t deserve to be here or something – not necessarily that I don’t belong, but that I don’t deserve to be here. I feel much more at ease slumming it in 3rd world countries, or at least places where the wealth is not so blatant and obvious. It’s like there is some injustice being committed with me being here when so many others could never dream of seeing a place like this. San Francisco for example, I felt totally comfortable in, because that place has some character and soul, and I caught elements of realism there, that real people with real struggles lived there. Santa Barbara just seemed like a place where everyone had million-dollar bank accounts.

The Norwegian lads had decided that they’d camp here for the night, while I wanted to push on to Los Angeles where my mate Mark was living. Now there’s an irony for you, given the rant I just gave in the last paragraph, that I was headed for L.A., the land of Hollywood, a place where realism has been suspended for the better part of 100 years.

My journey in getting to Los Angeles was a bit of a fantasy ride in itself, and I guess is quite fitting. More on that next entry.

SF to Monterey

2005-12-03T14:42:00.000+11:00

Hey all,

Having finally left the magnificence of San Francisco and the edgy Oakland, I found myself bus-bound for Monterey, on the central Californian coast, about 4 hours away. More specifically, a small little hideaway town called Carmel-by-the-sea, where Gabe (Dan's big bro) and wife-to-be Cathy, lived.

You'd think I'd be able to manage a 4-hour bus journey without any hassles. Think again. I was on a 'stopping all stations' bus bound for L.A. and our first stop was a short 20 minutes at Santa Cruz. Time enough for me to nick across the road to the Subway fast food joint to grab a sandwich for lunch. Now just as we had pulled into the bus station, another bus had also pulled in, also bound for Los Angeles - this one 'express'. Now, the bus driver did say something about what Bay number we were in, but I had my headphones on and missed that crucial bit of info.

Bet you can see what’s coming from a mile away!!!

Returning from the Subway, I noticed a heap of people boarding an LA bus. I join the queue and sit down. As the bus pulls out of the station and the driver navigates thru the side streets to the main highway, he is welcoming everybody 'On board the Greyhound Express to Los Angeles. EXPRESS!!! HOLY SHIT!! Thankfully the driver had only gone about two blocks, and was able to pull over and let me off. I'm sure it would have been a funny-as-hell site to see me sprinting down a side street, with a 1/2 eaten sub in one hand, CD Walkman cables dangling all about my body, trying to hold up my shorts with the weight of my walkman and wallet in my pockets dragging them down.

Luckily, the other bus was still there, just boarding folks as I arrived back at the station. Phew! No further dramas entailed, and I arrived safely in Monterey, where Gabe picked me up.

It was an unusual time for me to arrive in their life again - one week before their wedding. Slightly stressful I'm sure for a guy who was a brief acquaintance from 4 years ago to lob up needing a crash-palace for a night or two. So i am extremely grateful for them that they could even put me up for one night of the two i was planning to stay in the area.

In the lead up to this trip, whenever I mentioned that I would be staying the Carmel-Monterey area, the unanimous response was "Oooh, wow, you lucky bastard, that's a really, really nice spot". Carmel-by-the-sea is a bit of a yuppie-playground of sorts. The village became a bohemian retreat after a serious earthquake in 1906 forced artists to find a cheaper place to live. Since then, it has become a quintessential example of a self-ordered Californian community, driven by the dreams of a sophisticated upper class. Local by-laws ensure it remains rustic and picturesque - there are no streetlights, sidewalks or mail delivery service (every one has a post office box). Very quaint indeed.

The town of Monterey is situated at the edge of Monterey Bay, the USA’s largest marine sanctuary. It is this richness of marine diversity, along with enormous sardine populations that originally gave this town life back in the 1800’s, fame in the boomtown era of the early-mid 1900’s, and sustains it mainly as a tourist town to this day.

Cannery Row is Monterey’s heart and soul. In a thirty-year period, the sardine industry and its canning operations turned this sleepy little enclave into a hustling and bustling, albeit very smelly, metropolis, peaking in the late 40’s with an annual sardine catch of 250,000 tonnes.

The town really hit national and international fame with famed-author John Steinbeck’s novels ‘Cannery Row’ and sequel ‘Sweet Thursday’, recalling empathetic tales of the drunkards, ne’er do wells, and bums with hearts of gold who lived in the town during this era.

While I was back in San Francisco, I purchased these books with the idea of getting to know the background of the place before I arrived. I was also told that ‘Cannery Row’ in particular was an essential piece of Americana writing, which intimately captured a time and a place in the nations history, heart and soul. That couldn’t be any closer to the truth. While sitting on the beach directly behind Cannery Row, I finished the last few chapters, and could vividly imagine the characters, so well depicted, being a part of this town.

The cannery’s have long since closed down due to over-fishing and population depletion, but the town still thrives on tourists traveling down the Central Californian coast, stopping by to check out the restored and renovated cannery buildings and in particular the Monterey Bay Aquarium, noted to be the 4th most visited tourist site in the state, having some 2 million visitors every year. It is amazing.

Heading south from S.F. to L.A., Monterey is en route to Big Sur, one of the most gorgeous stretches of cliff-top coastal road you could ever imagine. Figuring that as the Greyhound bus takes the inland route, Cathy took some time out of her busy working and wedding planning schedule, and took me on a spectacular drive down Highway 1, stopping several times to satisfy my shutter-bug photographic psychosis. The way this highway hugs the cliffs, there are points where you think that at any minute now the soft earth is going to give way and send you and your vehicle tumbling down to the jagged rocks below. It didn’t (obviously), but with the Californian coast sitting right on the earthquake prone San Andreas Fault line, you can imagine it’s only a matter of time.

As mentioned, Gabe and Cathy’s hospitality could only extend one night, and I checked in to the HI hostel, which turned out to be a rather fortuitous turn of events. But more on that later.

San fran-tastic cisco....and Oakland (part 2)

2005-11-20T17:33:00.000+11:00

G'day again,

After spending nearly 2 months trying to compose my Burning Man write-up, I have finally gotten started on the rest of my West Coast sojourn thru the United States.

I started writing this 2months ago as well, then was trying to put my thoughts together on B-Man. In the end, I had to give up, coz i was just spinning out garbled shite that made no sense whatsoever (some of you may be saying - "so what's so different from what you normally write"!!)

But, anyway, back to San Francisco and Oakland. Post-Burning Man, and arriving back in San Francisco on the Green Tortoise bus at 7am, I was a dirty, dusty, exhausted and emotionally drained wreck. We all were. Getting back to the hostel, I knew I wasn't going to be staying there, but those who were, were told rooms would not be ready until Midday. So you had dozens of dirty, dustry, tired and emotional zombies flopped out in chairs and lounges in the communal area, trying to come to terms with what they had just done, where they had just been, and that they were back in "the real world", a concept that was a mind-fuck in itself.

I was gonna have to wait around anyways until my couchsurfing buddy Brad finished work and could meet me. I was moving on to Dan's place, where I would stay for the remainder of my time in The City. I met Dan in Paris waaaaaaaay back in June of 2001, along with his brother Gabe. We stayed in the same hostel, hung out for a few days, and most memorably, had a picnic of baguettes and salad, and shared a coupla bottles of the cheapest red wine in the corner market - all on the train station platform of Gare du Nord (the Northern Station). And now, 4 years later, I would be staying in his house for a week!

Him and his girlfriend shared a huuuuge house in the Oakland inner city 'burbs (right by the very picturesque Lake Merritt) with 3 others, and both worked full-time, thus leaving me to my own devices during the day. My English friends were to be staying on in The City for a few days also, and so my general daily routine was to wake up early, get a cafe brekky on trendy Lakeside Ave,

then train it in to SF on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), hang out all day and most of the evening, and get one of the last BART's back to Oakland and walk the mile or so back to Dan's.

Pretty hectic really. Our first night back in the 'real world', we decided to treat ourselves to an all-the-trimmings fancy restaurant dinner.

Venue of choice was "The Stinking Rose", a celebrated and well-famous 'Garlic Restaurant'. This place prided itself on their excessively large quantities of garlic they go thru each month - "We proudly serve food with our Garlic". It was pretty bloody good too. Very imaginative and wide-ranging menu. I had the 'Silence of the Lamb Shanks'...'with a Chianti glaze and fa-fa-fa-fa-fave beans' and side serve of garlic mash. Yummo. This place was seriously garlic. They had thousands of cloves in a string draped along the walls and across the ceiling ala christmas decorations....they even had garlic ice-cream on the dessert menu!! I tried it, gave it a shot like i am want to do...but i gotta say I didn't like it!! This place was so good, and the menu so artily designed, that I pilfered one which I plan to frame and hang on the wall.

Next day, it was time to play tourist.

If yer in San Francisco, you can't not go to Alcatraz. We all met up again for the ferry ride across the Bay, to perhaps the most famous prison on the planet, with the Golden Gate Bridge away off in the background.

It was a strangely very chilly day, and with the wind blowing made for a very cold day. I'd left the house in shorts and t-shirt, and had to purchase a hoody-top from one of the tacky toursity shops on the Fisherman's Quay district. Alcatraz was pretty interesting. More interesting than I thought it would be. Given its history and legend, it was fascinating to hear the stories Al Capone and other crims, the escape attempts, the living conditions, and of the ruthless wardens ruling over the inmates with brutal iron fists. It certainly gave you an appreciation of the place not gained from simply watching television doco's on it. Unfortunately, I've had a minor mishap with some of my pics (i lost one of my photo cd-roms), I can't share with you my Alcatraz experience.

Come evening time, another visit to the fabulous Mission district for another meal out, this time Spanish at a tapas bar, Picaro, for a mini-reunion of Burners, swapping photos and stories and gulping down carafe after carafe of that sweetest of Spanish alcoholic refreshments, sangria, mmmm, mmmm, mmmm.

Golden Gate Park and the Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood of San Francisco was where the seeds of the 1960’s Flower Power movement were sown, was where the Human Be-In was, and the Summer of Love in 1967 began, where LSD and free-love and the sounds of psychedelia emanated from, and was where the anti-Vietnam War movement really found its feet and got organized and coalesced into one of the most significant monuments in history to the true power of the people.

Here was a hot-bed of an underground movement of politically agitated students, activists, bohemian hippie-types and protesters. It’s where Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead called home. In short, once again, it was a place that I had to be, to investigate and explore and pay homage.

Of course these days, it’s little more than a tourist mecca, full of funky fashion boutiques, trendy bars and knick-knack shops, but it still retains an edge of bohemia and counter-cultural vibe.

It’s still heavily populated with students, artists, musicians and fringe-dwellers of society, and hence still an incredibly cool place to hang out, window-shop, or flip thru the racks in amazing record stores with a jaw-dropping diversity of music, sit in a café or bar and people-watch. And it’s a great place to get around by bike, despite the massive, steep hills you need to navigate around, which what the English crew and I did for the bulk of that day. I’m sure as a local you’d discover the short cuts and by-passes to avoid this situation, and I’m sure they’d laugh at watching the tourists struggle to pedal in the lowest gear up Haight Street.

It was quite funny commuting between Oakland and SF each day – I was spending so much time at the Green Tortoise Hostel that the staff must honestly have thought I was staying there! So much so, that at the twice-weekly free-feed evening meals the hostel put on for its guests, no one so much as batted an eyelid when I stood in line and was served up a plateful of pesto pasta and salad. I s’pose given that I had spent US$360 on their B-Man tour, I felt slightly entitled to a free meal or two…

Alas, that all came to an end when the English crew reached the end of their American stay and jumped on planes back to London.

Despite staying at Dan’s place, I had hardly seen hide-nor-tail of him and Heather since I’d been there. As I say, they were both working full time, and I was out till all hours soaking up what The City had to offer. The Thursday night tho, Dan’s work were having a social drinks session at a bar in fashionable Nob Hill, to watch one of their workmates play in a band, and I’d gotten an invite to come along. I’m always up for checking out new bars and seeing new bands, so I was there. It was good to get a drinks session in with Dan and meet up with a bunch of new folk, I was feeling kinda bad for not being able to socialize with him.

Next up on my San Franciscan adventure was a visit to University of California Berkeley campus, followed by the ubiquitous bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge, and down into the bayside resort town of Sausalito. It was a big day, bike wise, with a lot of kilometres covered.

I’d rented a bike for a couple of days after the English folk departed, and so cycled out to Berkeley from Oakland, some 45 minutes journey. The city of Berkeley has as it’s unofficial moniker “The People’s Republic of Berkeley”. Apparently this was originally meant as a Communist red-baiting disparagement, but has since been embraced as a rallying cry.

The University there was the radical core of the student-led free speech movements and anti Vietnam War protests of the late 60’s, and is now home to 30,000+ ethnically diverse, politically conscious and active students.

When I turned up there, the school year was just beginning and it was Orientation Week. There were thousands upon thousands of students on campus, all of the various Clubs and Societies had their tables out and reps handing out propaganda trying to entice new recruits to their cause. The main street leading to the campus, Telegraph Avenue, was thronged with young, wide-eyed, eager and excited kids crowding out the cafes, bars and shops.

The street-stall/flea market scene there was amazing as well, with all sorts of wares on sale, predominantly of the sloganeering t-shirts, hippie beads and bangles, and smoking paraphernalia ilk. The campus itself was beautiful, with age-old buildings nestled in behind well-landscaped gardens, spacious and open walkways and grassy lawns dotted with students lazing about, smoking, reading or chatting away. It made me want to be back at Uni again, for a little while at least.

Leaving Berkeley, I trained it out of East Bay and over the Oakland Bay Bridge to Downtown San Fran, and made my way out to Golden Gate Bridge, taking the long way round to take another peek at Haight-Ashbury. I thought I’d figured the city out to a fair degree by now, and hoping to try and avoid the more serious hills, I in fact did the opposite and rode straight in to the hilliest region in the city. I guess I didn’t know it well at all! I had to give up and walk my bike up one hill, and at one point I even had a copper pull up beside me in his cruiser, giving me a friendly slagging and having a chuckle at my efforts.

Now obviously the Golden Gate Bridge is one of those iconic sights, well-known and famous around the world. Built in 1933-37 and over 2 miles long, it is incredibly popular with tourists, and therefore was thronging with people wanting to walk or ride over it. In spite of myself, I got kinda excited about it myself, camera at the ready, trying to get the picture perfect shot. But this bridge must have been photographed literally millions of times. With the tops of the orange-coloured spires enshrouded in the famous SF Bay fog, and overcast grey weather, it provided an eery vista, kind of like you would see in a spooky Hollywood thriller film.

Cycling over it was indeed fun, my bell working overtime with all of the foot traffic in front of me. Over the other side is Marin County and down the hill to Sausalito, a pleasant, little yuppie playground town – a bit expensive, but a good spot for fish & chips and a pint, before catching the ferry back across the Bay to The City.

Now, the main reason I’d been hanging around SF was that I was waiting for the 7th Annual “Power To The Peaceful” Festival, a free peacenik activists’ music festival at Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park, run by Michael Franti from Spearhead.

As I mentioned in my last SF entry, I had put my hand up to volunteer for this event, wanting to be a part of this – not just a spectator – as it had been something I’d been looking forward to for at least 3 years.

The weather had been a tad gloomy the past few days, but this day was beaming with sunshine and blue skies – absolutely picture perfect. Rockin’ up at 10am, I reported to the Volunteers tent, was handed my free, bright orange volunteer T-Shirt and laminate badge, and was given Donation Collector duties, using my vocal chords and good-natured smile to request $1 minimum donations from punters, to cover event costs, as they entered the site. Two hours of that, then I was home-free, the day was mine.

The festival had everything you would expect to see, and the on-stage line-up consisted of a mixture of political activist speakers, outspoken black-power rappers (Saul Williams),

lefty-leaning punk-rock bands (Anti-Flag)

, celebrity speakers (Woody Harrelson)

, and of course, Michael Franti & Spearhead headlining with a 2hour set from 3.30pm.

To top things off, they even had a small section at the front cordoned off for the hearing-impaired and a deaf-sign language interpreter on stage, signing out the speeches and song lyrics to them. Now, that’s all-inclusive if I’ve ever seen it. That’s a perfect example of the kind of attitude and vibe permeating the festival.

The Michael Franti & Spearhead set was, as you would expect, nothing short of excellent. This man seriously has the most uncanny ability to raise the level to euphoria and carnival-party fun to stratospheric heights. The energy he gives out, and then subsequently feeds off the audience is truly phenomenal. He truly enjoys what he does and you can see that as he jumps bare-footed around the stage, dreadlocks flying, like a madman. His lyrics are enfused with a social and political conscious – music with a message – that resonates true and heartfelt, and this is reflected in his ‘one world, one people, everybody equal’ style of engagement with his audience on stage.

Being as big a fan as I am, I was right down the in the front section, boogey-ing away completely in raptures, soaking up the virtually electric energy surging thru the crowd. Several times thru the 2hour set I found myself grinning from ear to ear, and with tears streaming down my face, tears of pure joy and euphoric ecstasy. One girl beside me saw this and just gave me one big, huge hug, sharing in the spirit and vibe of the moment.

Special guest appearances were made by Zap Mama’s Marie Daulne, and rabid high-profile lefty Woody Harrelson who had a few pertinent words to say about George Dubya and the Iraqi War. Damn that guy is funny!! Also, super human-beatbox-er extraodinaire Radio Active hobbled on stage on crutches, victim of a drunk driver hit-and-run, and set the mic alight with his superb oral maneuverings.

After two encores, and the gig finished, Franti did as he always does with every show he plays, and jumped down into the audience to chat with his fans, generously giving hugs, signing autographs and posing for fan-photos. Naturally I was in there, and am now the proud owner of Tony & Franti digi-pic. Happiest guy in the world at that point!

Later that evening from 9pm, there was to be a Power To The Peaceful after-party club gig at a venue called 1015 Folsom, where there would be 4 rooms of music, one of them being a gig area. Spearhead, on top of the 2 hour set they played in the late afternoon, were to be playing another 2 hour set from Midnight to 2am!! The guy is unstoppable!! This gig had a $20 entrance fee, however if you volunteered to help set up the venue prior – free entry. Two guesses what I would be doing!!

Straight from Speedway Meadow to 1015 Folsom, with a pizza slice for dinner en route, a couple of hours of set-up and venue decoration…it was a long, long day. I’d hooked up with and befriended another coupla volunteers there, two cute young gals from San Jose who were as big a Franti fan as I am (No, I’m not the only fruitcake on the planet!!). Another superb set, with several hundred fans reveling in this intimate space with their hero just yards away on stage.

Wow, what a day. Another long-term dream realised – attending and volunteering at the PTTP, meeting Franti, and being an active part of an enormous event in the San Francisco calendar.

Another vital must-see site in San Francisco for me was the Fillmore Theatre in the Haight-Ashbury district. This music hall has been around for decades and has hosted most of the worlds most famous musicians and bands. Everyone from Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, John Lee Hooker and The Grateful Dead to U2, Metallica, Nirvana and The Flaming Lips – and everyone in between have played here. History has been made in this venue, and some nights of musical, magical extravagance have gone down in folklore as some of the most special in time immemorial. I had to see a show here.

The Decemberists were playing two nights as the opening of their new North American tour, and having seen them play at the Summer Camp festival in Bend, Oregon, and having enjoyed their show immensely, I thought ’what better show to see is there this week than this’. Walking in to the venue, the walls are adorned with gig posters of events from the past 40 years that left my jaw dropping with amazement. At each and every show, gig posters are printed in their thousands and handed to patrons upon leaving the event, so I have my very own Fillmore Theatre gig poster, which will be proudly framed and hung on the wall at some point in the near future.

As with the gig in Bend, the band were sensational, their quirky pop sensibilities on show with accordian, mandolin, fiddle and double bass instruments delivering a decidedly different sound. The band are obvious college student faves, with the crowd demographics heavilty leaning to early-20's funky charity-shop clothes wearing types. The vibe was great, and with the band on form in such an awesome venue, I had an amazing night out.

Being in America, the visit would not have been complete without taking a baseball game. It is after all, their Number 1 sport, reputedly. Having mentioned in passing to Dan and Heather that I was interested in catching a game, they immediately suggested that San Francisco is possibly the best city in which to do so. The stadium, SBC Park, has an awesome location, right on the Bay's edge, so much so that any home run that is hit out of the park ends up in the water!! There are guys in dinghies sitting out in the water waiting for such an occurrence to happen, paddling over to souvenir any ball that comes thier way.

Not being a huge fan of the game, I have minimal knowledge of the intricacies involved - and believe me there are a lot, I have since found out - so it was very much a novel experience for me. I simply just wanted to soak up as much Americana, local culture, as I possible could in my short time here. The Sunday afternoon game I saw between the San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs, the 3rd game of the weekend between them, Chicago having won boththe Friday night and Saturday games. San Francisco had to win this one.

Approaching the stadium, scalpers were rife, but with one big difference - they were selling tickets below face value! I couldn't figure that one out. They weren't fakes, either, which my initial thought when asking about the price. Whatever, I couldn't knock back any offeres like that. I was prepared to spend $20 on a ticket, which would have given me an okay-ish seat. Instead, for the $20 i had, I was sold a $38 dollar ticket, which had me seated right in line with 3rd base and Home plate. Pretty darn good.

It was great day out all in all. The weather was fantastic, bright blue skies and a pleasant 27-ish degrees, and a very laid-back, family friendly atmosphere in the stadium. The only down side was that the San Francisco Giants lost, 3-2, thus dashing any faint hopes they still had of making the playoffs, just 2 weeks away from the end of the season.

I'm still not a huge fan of the game, but I do now have a more than passing interest in it, and I can now say I do have a better understanding of it. It also then generated somewhat of an interest in the World Series Playoffs happening later that month, and meant that I could at least participate in a conversation about the game. If I'm asked whether I follow a team, I can nominate the Giants.

The next morning, I was off, on a Greyhound bus, bound for Monterey, to stay with Dan big bro, Gabe and his fiance (now wife) Cathy.

So, that pretty much sums up my time in San Francisco - a time and a place I could never forget. That city, in such a short time, occupied a place deep in my heart so strong and enduring that it ranks up there with the best of my experiences across the globe.

If you ever, ever, ever get the chance or inclination - GO, do it, and don't give it a 2nd thought.

Talk later,

Tony

B I T - Back In Town...Melbourne Town, that is....

2005-10-24T16:10:00.000+10:00

Hey all,

It's been a long time between drinks....and emails.

I'm back in dear old Melbourne now...have been for about 2 weeks now - and that's scary enough in itself, just how quickly that time has gone by. I'd been looking forward to this for a while - once I'd gotten used to the idea of going home that is, but now that i'm here, i'm in a very weird head-space. More on that in a mo.

I've been waaaaay too busy over the past 6 weeks of travelling around the United States to even think about writing this blog, let alone actually put fingers to keyboard. But it was sensational! I had an absolute blast tripping all over California, Arizona and Nevada, spending time with friends and lobbing up on strangers' doorstops to crash on thier couch (those couchsurfing/globalfreeloader websites are a budget travellers dream come true!)

So my next task now, aside from the usual settling down stuff - job/house hunting and getting a local life again - is to put those 6 weeks worth of experiences down on paper, or...up on screen. This will take time. I've been trying to get myself in the 'zone' to do it since i've been back, but with so much else going on, i haven't really felt like it to be honest. But now I kinda do.

It has been very weird to be back here. Very surreal to one day be struttin' 'round San Francisco, U S of A, and the next day to be thrust into the boring, soulless, and bleary Northern suburbs of Melbourne, stuck in the old teenage bedroom of my parents house.

The first two days I didn't leave the house. Refused to go outside. Not because of jetlag or anything like that. I just didn't want to face it. I knew that the moment I walked outside and wandered around suburban Thomastown would be the moment that made it all real. And then when i did, it was, but real in a virtual reality kind of way....like, I recognise these streets and houses, but its like i'm in a hyper-real dream state, like i'm stuck in a computer/video game of my life or something. Very strange I know, but that's how it felt, and it felt like that for another 2 or 3 days after that. I couldn't even sleep in my old bed for about 6 nights!, coz my room was so absolutely full of crap that i'd accumulated over the past 2+ years - on top of the pigsty condition i'd left it in - I had to sleep in my sisters old bedroom!! Even now, 2 weeks down the track, I still feel very, very Out Of Place.

Anyway, keep yer eyes peeled over the coming weeks to intermittent instalments of my USA wanderings.

Til then, keep it real.

Tony

...Ladybird Traffic Jam...

2005-10-09T14:54:00.000+10:00

...Ladybird Traffic Jam...
Originally uploaded by ...Random Images from The Heartland....

one of the cutest pics i've seen in some time.

please visit the owner of this pics flickr blog.

The Burning of The Man

2005-09-15T04:59:00.000+10:00

Hi,

Burning Man Festival 2005, Nevada Desert, USA.

Um...Wow...Goddamn..I really, really, really don't know how I'm going to relate you what I have just been to, and thru!

It was truly a most unique, extreme, intense, emotionally charged event I have EVER been to. Extreme and Intense on every level conceivably imaginable. And it was a 10year dream coming to reality. I first heard about this festival from my mate Mick Long back in 1995. I think he showed me an article from a student Uni newspaper, which, along with the published photos, blew me away. I remember saying "I don't know how, and I don't know when...but I'm gonna go to that party one day". This was it, this the day, the year, the moment.

My brief way of explaining this festival is this: It is an extreme arts and culture and social experiment festival set in some of the harshest conditions our planet can provide. It is an opportunity for people from all walks of life, from the extreme fringes of society to mainstream mums and dads (and kids!), to come to a space where they can let loose from all of their social constraints and be the person they want to be, and express themselves how they want to, without judgment, for an entire week.

This event has been running for 20 years now. Every year, for seven days, there is a gathering of people to a bare, barren, extremely hot and glaringly bright stretch of desert where nothing grows and nothing lives. Every year at a spot where there is nothing, a tent city is built and a population grows to 35-40,000. The nearest town or supplies of any kind is a 90minute drive away, and even then the towns of Gerlach and Empire have populations of around 350. Reno, the casino city, is 3 hours away.

So, for seven days of the year, Black Rock City, as this place becomes known, becomes the 4th largest city in Nevada. Once the festival has finished, everyone packs up, taking out all that they brought in, and leave the site as if there was never a festival, or a city ever existed.
People from the extremities of society, artists of all manner and description mix with folk from the mainstream, exchanging ideas and experiences. It is also a place where a community is built in the way communities should work, and used to work once upon a time.

There is a total non-commercial aspect to the city - there is nothing for sale, you cannot buy or sell wares of any kind (but of course in all communities there is a 'black market'), with the exception of ice, and in the centre camp, a coffee stand. The idea of this is that its a barter and gift community. It harbors all the functions of a real metropolis. It has a Cafe (serving delicious beverages and offering space to relax and to enjoy the work of talented artists and performers), a dressed-up ice sales concession (CampArctica) to keep festival goers, drinks, perishables, and alcohol cool and fresh, DMV (Department of Mutant Vehicles), a Recycling Centre, a Municipal Airport, a daily newspaper and a radio station. It's a communist and socialist dream come true.

This is a small quote from the website: "Burning Man is much more than just a temporary community. It's a city in the desert, dedicated to radical self-reliance, radical self-expression and art. Innovative sculpture, installations, performance, theme camps, art cars and costumes all flower from the playa and spread to our communities and back again. Burning Man is an experiment in temporary community, and one that is radically all-inclusive."

Right, now that I've got that out of the way, and hopefully you've gathered some vague idea of what I'm on about, I’ll try and tell you about the actual event happenings.

I was booked to go to this festival with The Green Tortoise Backpacker Bus Company. Realistically, It was the only way I could partake.

I rocked up to the Hostel at 8pm, and it was buzzing with people getting last minute stuff sorted out. There was to be 180 passengers on 5 buses going out there. The Green Tortoise buses have been kitted out as 'live-aboards' with sitting and eating areas being convertible to sleeping areas for 37 people, altho crammed in like sardines. It was the way it was to be for the overnight drive west thru California and out to the desert. Other than a stop for supplies (read: alcohol), it was non-stop to Black Rock City, arriving at the most perfect time possible, just as the sun was rising over the desert mountain ranged horizon. Welcome to Burning Man!!

As I mentioned, this place is stark and barren. It's also 4000 feet above sea level, so arriving at 6am, it was also baltic cold, about zero to 1 or 2 degrees celcius, zero humidity. This wouldn't last tho. Once the sun had risen just a few degrees above the horizon, the degree of temperature rose dramatically. By 9am, it was over 30 degrees celcius! Beyond this time, it's impossible to sleep in your tent - it's like a freakin' oven! Average temperature? About 40-42 degrees celcius, zero humidity. And that was the average, it got much hotter at times.

The Green Tortoise crew had already been here a few days and set up the enormous shade structure that would be the kitchen area and community space to retreat to in the heat of the day (or if you were having a bad trip), but our first objective was to set up our tents, before it got too hot. Then it was time to make some new friends and go exploring!

But where to start??? If you can picture this, the entire, freakingly enormous, city is built up in a circular clock-like fashion, with 'streets' in spreading out from the centre at 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock etc, right thru to 10 o'clock. Then 'cross-streets' ran in concentric circles, starting with the inner Esplanade, with the Centre Camp, and streets labeled A thru to H formed bands around from 2 thru to 10. Each letter street name had a nickname as follows, which will give you some more idea of the extreme fun, and lunacy of the place, and linked in with this years theme: "Psyche: the Conscious, the Subconscious and the Unconscious"

A: Amnesia
B: Bi-Polar
C: Catharsis
D: Delirium
E: Ego
F: Fetish
G: Gestalt
H: Hysteria

And in order to find your camp, you were directed to set up at a particular address. For instance, the Green Tortoise camp was at the cross streets '6.30 and Bi-Polar' !! We were practically 'inner-city', while the outskirts of town were at 10.00 and Hysteria...

Okay, so before I even got here, I was given some trinkets and necklaces and other odds and sods by my first couch-surf host in Oakland, just so as I'd have something to trade/barter/make friends with in this non-cash gig. He'd been to Burning Man twice before, knew what to expect, and also, his sister was moving house and had to get rid of a lot of her junk. I said I'd be glad to take some stuff along.

So, looking around the camp, I spotted a group of girls getting dressed up for the day in brightly coloured tutus and lots of other frilly stuff. I sauntered up to them, and with a big smile, offered them up my trinkets "Good morning, do you girls need some extra things to decorate yourselves with? Take what you want, its yours". From the U.K., these girls, Fay, Daisy, Nicole, Caroline, Sheba & Sarah and the guys in their campsite, Martin, David, Tom and Simon, became my best friends over the next 6 days - we were practically inseparable.

Day 1 is just a blur now. We started off with a few welcoming beers at 10am, fashioning an esky cooler out of a bag of ice inside several plastic shopping bags. Then, in the heat of the day, decided it was about time to check this place out. Most of the exploration was on foot, not yet having acquired a pushbike - the most useful and effective way to get around such an enormous site. Armed with a water bottle and camera, and with my arm still in a sling, we all set out, seeking out "The Man".

One thing I learnt very quickly here, was the everything took soooo much longer to get so, see and/or do, because there is sooooo much 'stuff' to distract you along the way. Whether it be some drastically outstanding mutant-vehicle-art car or bike, or some woman or man or gender-neutral/indecipherable with some outlandishly over-the-top-but-perfectly-acceptable-here costume, or someone wearing nothing at all - itself a not-uncommon sight - it was a sheer visual-eye-candy-feast for the mind and imagination. Topless female hula-hoopers-with-glitter-and-sequined-faux fur-silver-coloured-knee high-boots, cross-bearing Jesus-in-a-loincloth impersonators, and stilt-walkers-in-giraffe-outfits - the phrase "Anything Goes" doesn't begin to explain. And that was just some of the stuff that's semi-easily explainable in words!!

Away in the distance, we finally saw The Man perched atop an enormous circus tent.....3 stories tall!....

....with a tripped out maze of at least 100 individual rooms with unique artwork/sculptures/installations in each one to look at that you had to negotiate before you could even get to the centre, where a staircase led you to the 2nd level upon which you could look down on all the other folk struggling thru the maze you just struggled thru yourself! the 3rd level offered a stunning vista of the entire Black Rock City. To back down, you could either take the stairs again, or use the shortcut - a fireman's pole!....But then you still had to find your way thru the maze to get back outside......And this was just ONE of the literally thousands of tents/theme camps/bars/clubs set up here.

other highlights of Day1 include:

* The Deep End club: walking around in the late afternoon, I stumbled upon this club at around 9.30 and Catharsis - a thumping deep house-y bass alerted me several blocks away to the daytime-only outdoor dance venue - hundreds of clubbers grooving away to some sexy deep house tunes, some up on high podiums showin' off their booty, just as the sun is on its downward spiral to the horizon.

* The Canadian Kissing Booth: On the Esplanade at around the 8 o'clock address, my eye was caught by the "Canadian" part of the sign. Upon further inspection, i found out two girls and a guy were giving away free kisses to any, all and sundry who wanted a kiss. Sure, why not! "So how does this work then?" I ask, "Is it a little peck on the lips or what?". Cindy, from Calgary, then informs me "We'll take your lead - you start the kiss, and we'll follow" (!!!) Okay, so I start the kiss, open mouth, a little tongue...and then full French....and she's going with me all the way, for a good minute or so before I have to come up for air!! The other girl, Cathy, also from Calgary then says "So, you wanna try me out? And then you'll have to kiss Cindy again and tell us who's better". I can do that! And I did....and for the record, Cindy won out. I had to confirm my results tho of course...just to be sure! The guy there was also giving out kisses, but I had to turn him down - not my type!.

By this time of the day, I had been on the go, all thru the heat of the day, and was beginning to feel it. Despite this being the first night of the festival, once I had eaten dinner, I was calling it quits. No partying for me tonight. I needed a good sleep, and was out like a light 'til the next morning when the hot early morning sun forced me out at 8am.

My couch-surfing buddy from Seattle, Sean, was at the festival also, and, just tooling about on his pushie, found me on the 2nd morning at the Green Tortoise camp. And I had managed to find a loaner bike as well, and figured this was as good a time as any to get back on a bike, despite my arm still being slung. Now I was able to explore far and wide, and we ventured far out into the extremities of the site.....Man, this was even bigger than I originally thought.

The "Dream Catcher" piece was a giant purple coloured head sculpture, half buried in the earth, with an opening in the back, so that you could walk inside, standing fully upright, where at certain times, an elderly gentleman would sit and listen to you talk about your dreams, and interpret them for you.

Further out, was the "Temple Of Tears". Designed in a Japanese, Buddhist style, this was an enormous installation, painted maroon, and was a sweet, quiet place of contemplation and remembrance, where you could commemorate loved ones who had passed away, leave messages for them on the woodwork. This Temple would then, on the final night, be burnt in a celebratory memoriam to all those loved ones, a massive bonfire to send those messages onto the 'other world'. This place was a favourite of mine, as no doubt it was to so many other Burners.

My afternoon was spent checking things out on my own, dropping into various bars, where, for absolutely no exchange of money, I could order whatever I wanted, so long as it was what they had. In one instance, all the bar was serving was chocolate martinis.

Another bizarre installation: way out in the middle of the desert, miles from the hubbub of the main city, a huge aluminium ladder, straight up, 180 feet straight up. No safety net. If you fell you were f***ked. And a queue of about 15 or so people waiting to climb it, just for the hell of it. The view from the top was supposedly amazing. If it wasn't for my arm being in a sling, I would've been up there in a shot.

This is a place, the place, to put yourself into situations or positions you've never been before, or are likely to be again in the future, just to see how you'll cope - to test yourself, your nerves, and your body when at the extremities of your mind (and beyond) of what you've ever thought you would do. That 180foot high ladder is a perfect example of that.

And with those extremes, comes extreme trust and faith in the people around you - complete strangers, but a trust and a faith that is a testament to the people that attended, and the vibe and feeling that place generated in those people, in my experience there, was completely repaid. I felt as though I was completely safe the whole time, and that I would be looked after if something went wrong.

Another extreme here, along with the heat, is the dust and the dirt, and the fact that there are no 'traditional' showers to wash yourself - the best you could do is give yourself a bush shower - a bit of soap and water from a bucket, clean the important bits, and you'd be done. Except, that is, for the water trucks the periodically pass the campsites, spraying water from a tank to keep the dust down on the roads. Whenever these came past, you would see a gaggle of people running behind it soaking themselves, perhaps with a bar of soap in hand, trying to cool down or clean up.

I hadn't bathed in 2-3 days. In fact, I didn't know anyone who had .All I had managed was to brush my teeth twice a day. I was dirty, dusty, kinda smelly, and I was also stinking hot. I saw the truck, and I sprinted after it, dousing myself, shorts and t-shirt and all. It was only afterwards that I thought I should've just stripped off and gone after it naked like most of the other folks. So, dripping wet and thoroughly satisfied, I went back to my tent and changed into my sarong, wearing it around my waist, sans underwear.

Shortly after this, back at camp, I was chilling out, and just thinking about what I would do next. Then, this guy on a bike, with a chariot trailer dressed up with a golden throne cycles into camp, wearing a gold cape and a tiny little cap with the word "TAXI" printed on it. "Anyone call for a cab!!?" he shouts. It was his gimmick that he would cycle from camp to camp and just offer people rides to anywhere they wanted to go - that way he would see parts of the site he wouldn't ordinarily go himself.

No one piped up, so I said "I'll take a ride".
"Where do you wanna go?"
"I don't really know - somewhere I haven't been yet - what do you charge, what do you want in exchange for the ride?"
"I'll tell you what, my fee is this - you need to answer a question, and you have to complete a dare."
"Okay, what's the question?"
"What do you want to get out of this Burning Man Festival?"
I told him "I just want to be a part of, and participate in as many different experiences as I possibly can, that i wouldn't necessarily do in 'the real world'. Now, what's the dare?"
"The dare is, I have a blindfold in my pocket. You have to wear the blindfold while riding in the chariot, and are not allowed to remove it until we get to our destination"
"Okay", throwing caution to the wind, "Let's do it". There must have been about 15-20 of my campmates in the area at the time watching this, and I just waved to them and said "I'll see ya later".

With that, I was whisked away on a 20minute ride, way out into festival grounds, without any clue as to where I would end up. My 'Taxi' took a whole heap of random left and right turns, did a few 'loop-de-loops' and 360degree circles to mix it up a bit, taking me thru several different theme camps and art sites, giving me a full aural kaleidoscope of sounds, and finally pulled up. I was then, still blindfolded, led by the hand thru a huge crowd of people, a band was playing in the background, and then was sat down on a bench. "Stay here a moment. I'll be right back, the dare isn't over yet, so leave the blindfold on". I'm guessing we're at Centre Camp.

Totally going along with the dare I did as I was told. I get talking to two young girls, not more than 8 or 10 who are here with their Grandmother!

"Excuse me mister, are you blind?" they innocently ask.
"Well, I kinda am at the moment!!"

My Taxi comes back about 10 minutes later and hands me an Iced Chai Tea as a 'reward' for my trust and honour in following the dare to the letter. It tastes great! Still wearing the blindfold, I am led back to the chariot and taken on another ride, finally getting dropped off at some chill out tent with mellow jazz playing on the stereo.

"Okay, you can take off the blindfold now"
"Where am I?"
"Honestly, I don't know myself. I just heard this music and thought this is as good a place as any to drop you off! See ya round."

And with that, he wanders into the campsite "Any one holler for a Taxi!!"

Just one example of that trust factor I mentioned earlier on.

I didn't return to the main Green Tortoise camp for the rest of the day, or evening. In fact, I ended up getting home at around 3am!! Only once did I briefly return to my tent, sometime after dark, to get some warmer clothes on, jeans and a sweater. It gets kinda chilly if yer nekkid in the desert after dark! Those folk who saw me being taken away blindfolded kinda told me they thought I must have been kidnapped or something coz they hadn't seen me since, and the following morning at breakfast were full of questions as to what happened to me in the ensuing hours. It was a crazy day and night.

When I was dropped off by the Taxi-dude, I decided to embrace the whole nudity thing and wore my sarong around my neck like a cape. When in Rome, do as the Roman's do and all that. Being miles from camp, I was without wheels, and so was on foot. All I had with me was my water bottle, camera, sandals and sarong-cape. I was in a part of the site I'd never been before, probably about 3 miles away from Green Tortoise.

I was intrigued by the "Camel-topia" camp. Who knows what that is....I didn't see any camels at least... They had a thumping bass dance-electronica sound on the amplifier, and a MC revving everyone up. Within a minute of arriving, I had a cocktail thrust into my hands. It was a Gin and pineapple juice and something else concoction. I hate Gin. Who cares, it was free, so I drank it. They were having a modeling-fashion show. Anyone who wanted to could get up on this makeshift catwalk and model their outfit. The winner would be decided by audience cheer. There was some crazy shit out there. One, incredibly hot, woman announced she had a necklace she wanted to model.....And that was all she was wearing, the necklace, apart from her knee-high boots. I can't remember if she won or not.

Three or four bars (or five???), and many, many hours later, probably close to Midnight, I found myself at a bar called "Blunderland". All lit up in neon lights, it looked like a Mushroom lying on its side, half buried in the earth. You could walk in thru the stem, get your drink, and crawl thru a space into the 'head' of the 'shroom where you would find hundreds of cushions and pillows and duvets, a massage table, and mellow tunes...the perfect chill-out zone, particularly if you were on something a little stronger than just alcohol (I wasn't).

The next bar I hit, well, that was something else!! I don't even recall the name of it now...It must have about 3am, and I'd been wandering by myself, enjoying the moment by moment events I had been thru, having an absolute ball, for well over 12 hours. By this stage I was stupid drunk. But even still, even I was shocked at the next turn of events! But this is Burning Man, a place of extremes, a place where you have to expect the unexpected.

There were 2 bartenders on duty, one male, one female, and maybe 15-20 people in the bar still, happily chatting away, with some nice blues on the stereo.

"Can I have a drink please?" I slur.
"Do you have a cup or glass for your drink?"
"Um, no"
At this point, the female bartender turns down the stereo, and shouts out to everyone in the pub, "Hey folks, this guy doesn't have a glass!!"
Then, all in unison, they all shout "If you don't have a glass, we get to spank your ass!!"
"Um what?"
"Buddy, we're trying to reduce waste here, trying to encourage recycling. If you want a drink but don't have a cup, we'll give you one...but the penalty for being a Bad Burner and not having a cup, is that me and my friend here have to give you a spanking".
Like I said, This is Burning Man, I was embracing whole-heartedly the concept of the extreme nature of the festival, pushing the boundaries....and also, I was stupid drunk, and wanted a drink, so I complied. I stood up on two bar stools, dropped my pants to bare my ass and presented it over the bar....
Next, with the girl on one side, the guy on the other, I had to receive 5 slaps on each cheek - and not some piss-weak slaps, they were full-blown, full-power spanks.

"BAD BURNER!!" The bar crowd shouted - SPANK! "BAD BURNER!!" The bar crowd shouted louder - SPANK! "BAD BURNER!!" The bar crowd shouted even louder - SPANK! "BAD BURNER!!" SPANK! "BAD BURNER!!" SPANK!.

Damn, it hurt. I had a strong tingling sensation on the old derriere, and no doubt it was a shade or two of red as well.

"Now, Sir, here is your cup, we have two spirits on offer with one mixer - Gin or Bacardi Rum, with Cola. Now honestly, I couldn't think of anything worse than those options - I hate both Gin and white rum - I should have asked what they had before i endured the spanking. But I thought, "hey, what the hell, it oughtta take the pain away somewhat. "Rum and Coke thanks".

I stayed for a couple more drinks, taking in the satisfaction in that time in participating in the "BAD BURNER" chorus several times while watching the unsuspecting punter cop a spanking over the bar.

I saw one camp with the theme title "Freaks Beyond Boundaries", and thought "That kinda sums up this party in 3 very succinct words".

Through all this adventure, I'd also been spending quite a bit of time with the English crew, and in particular, Fay. We'd become pretty close, and spent a lot of time getting drunk, and talking, talking, talking about everything under the sun, and exploring the various campsites and installations. The Temple of Tears and Dream Catcher sites were revisited, and emotions, inner most feelings, and topics of the heart were discussed. I'd taken a fancy to her quite a bit by this stage, but was politely declined when I asked her for a kiss. I can't say i wasn't disappointed, but we were pretty close for the duration of the festival. Romantic hopes dashed.

Those you familiar with my bike-activist antics in Vancouver should be familiar with the monthly Critical Mass bike rally. Well, they had it at Burning Man too....with a twist (of course!)

There were two, in fact - Critical Dicks and Critical Tits, the concept basically being to ride the rally naked, or with the Tits, at least topless. The Dicks rally was early on in the festival and attracted about 100 riders. The Critical Tits rally, however, with more of a theme of Female Empowerment, and Celebration of the Body, attracted some 2500 women, and the attention of practically the whole Festival. It was also a prime opportunity to get all costumed up, with body paint being the number one fashion choice.

The English girls I had befriended were taking part, and once they had fully body-painted and decorated themselves, asked me to photograph them on the ride. Here I was being employed to photograph topless women for the afternoon! To be honest tho, by this stage, you get kinda desensitized to the whole 'naked, topless' thing, and it seemed quite a 'normal' thing to do.

It was quite an event, having this many women all riding together from one end of the Esplanade to the other, from 10o'clock to 2o'clock, the whole ride being lined with festival goers clapping and cheering them on, with the whole event taking about an hour. They had an after party also, where they were waited upon hand and foot by male waiters, being hand-fed grapes and the like, generally being treated like Goddesses and Princesses. Afterwards, they were all saying it was one of the most amazing events of their lives.

Amazingly, it was now already Day 4. I remember saying midway thru the first day "Wow, we've got 5 full days ahead of us here, this is gonna be so much fun!"

Some other bizarro sites I spotted on Day4:

* A camp offering "Free Blow Jobs"....below the sign was an air hose to pump your bike tyres!

* "The G-Spot: If you can't find it your not cumming! - Well, there's a little truth to this one...this camp was directly next door to the Green Tortoise, and I hadn't even noticed until Day 4!!

* The "Naked Twister" camp - they soaped up a giant Twister mat, and twice a day they had Naked Twister games. I played once, with 6 other guys and girls, and was 2nd person out. The winner got a free drink, but that was really only a token prize, coz anybody who wanted a drink could get one at the bar.

* In the middle of the Playa (the name given to the huge expanse of desert the Festival site was on) - a lone telephone box, with an old dial-up telephone, with a sign saying "Telephone to God". Pick up the receiver, dial 0 once...one ring then "Hello, God here". Some dude had a hook up to his campsite and pretended to be God on the other end of the line. Classic. I told him he was 'full of shit'.

The last 2 nights of the Festival was when the fun really started tho...as if we weren't havin' a blast already.

This was when the obligatory recreational drug use kicked in. Come on, we come all the way to the desert to the most mad-arse freakfest on the planet - we gotta get at least a little psychedelic!!

Our good man Tom had been doing some asking around and happened upon some disco biscuits and acid tabs. Tonight was gonna be fun. Oh, and did I mention that superstar DJ Paul Oakenfold was on the decks at one of the clubs?? Tonight was gonna be fucking awesome! So, come evening time, everyone got funked up in their best disco frocks, and we all went out together to see what they night would bring us. A few start-up bevvy's in the camp, and then we were good to go. We hooked up with another party crew within the camp, but of course we lost that crew of 10 in about 15 minutes.

The energy tonight was palpable, you could feel it in the air, this was the night before the big night. We were well and truly into the 2nd half of the festival now, so if you hadn't partied yet, now was the time, NOW OR NEVER...well, there was of course tomorrow night....

Out into the night, into the masses of brightly coloured and frocked pretty young things, the massive art-fire structures with Kuwaiti-war levels of fuel being spent in the name of art, spat out of huge monstrous steel dragons and open-jaw like configurations, fire dancers and ravers. Madness. And then I dropped 1/2 a tab of LSD. Then someone bailed on the E they were gonna have, so I took 1/2 of that. Then a little while later I took the other 1/2 acid tab. I was can-dee-flippin'. WOO! I was also kind of co-looking out, along with Daisy, for Fay who was on something for the very first time in her life. This could be a funny night.

Paul Oakenfold was amazing. In fact everything was amazing. Of course it was, I was melted! Our group seemed to disintegrate thru the night, and before I knew it, it was just me, Fay and Daaaaaaaaisy traipsing all over the place, stumbling from bar to another, relying on Daisy's alcohol-detector super-hero wristband, coz of course she was dressed up as Burning Girl!

The next few hours flew by in a fit of continuous, hysterical, uncontrollable, giggling laughter. I haven't laughed so hard or so much at so little in such a long, long, long time. Either the drugs were very, very good, or we were very, very funny. Or maybe both. No, I think it was the drugs...

Several bars later, including one we got kicked out of, coz Daisy was trying to concoct cocktails behind the bar herself (well that's how I figure it from the story they gave me - I was off to the men's at the time), we found ourselves talking to this sweet old, short, heavily-bearded mid-western lumberjack mountain man named Andy who was running a small bar, until practically the break of dawn. Philosophy, religion, Native American traditions were just some of the topics up for discussion at 5am. By which time, it got very, very, very cold. Remember, we were at 4000ft altitude desert. And we were pretty much clear at the opposite end of the site from where our camp was, literally a 2-mile walk. We needed to get back fast - hypothermia ain't funny.

Thankfully, an early morning-cruising Bat Mobile styled art-car stopped and gave us a ride back to camp just as the sun was rising over the surrounding mountain ranges. We would get a maximum of 3 hours sleep before it then got very suddenly too hot to sleep..

Day 5 was pretty much a write off...as you could probably imagine, just chilling out in camp in recovery mode, only one weary 2-hour return journey into the towns of Empire and Gerlach for some supply (beer, munchies) refills was about as strenuous as it got. The stores there were cashing in on the Burning Man phenomenon - t-shirts, calenders, mugs, caps, bumper bar stickers, videos and DVD's, you name it. As the festival itself was non-commercial, this was an ideal moment to souvenir some memorabilia. i am now the proud owner of a DVD and a t-shirt. Another little oddity of the town of Gerlach was the giant statues of Dr Seuss' The Cat in the Hat, and Shrek....I suppose they need something to get the tourists to stop...

Back at the Festival, it was back to lounge-mode for the rest of the afternoon, but then.....

The night of the 5th day.

This was the night of the Burning of The Man. This was the pinnacle and grandstand moment of the whole freaking party. This was the reason we existed for this whole week. If last night electric energy levels were high, then tonight, well you could power Las Vegas with the energy being put out the fine folks of Burning Man tonight.

As the sun went down, the energy levels got higher. 8pm was the appointed Burning time, and by 7pm there was a throng of thousands upon thousands circling The Man, with some 800 fire-dancers, along with dozens of drummers and other entertainers keeping the crowds enthralled with their tricks and moves, the beat from the drums building up in intensity as the hour 8pm descended upon us.

I'd left my camera at camp last night, knowing the night I was going to have, but tonight there was no way I wasn't going to capture this. I'd been waiting 10 years to witness this event, and what the hell, for good measure, I might just take another E tonight and live it up. This was intense. An announcement is made, a hush falls over the crowd, then all of a sudden a succession of showers of fireworks set off at the feet of the Burning Man lights up the night sky, followed by more from the ribcage, the heart and the head AND THE MAN IS ON FIRE. THE BURNING OF THE MAN HAS BEGUN.

What a sight, what a sensational moment. The crowd roars its approval in cheers, whoops, hollers and whistles, and the drummers drum on as the crowd watches, watches and waits, for what seems an eternity, for the man to fall. It takes a good 20 minutes or so - a couple of false alarms as The Man, tilts and teeters and wobbles, but then finally HE FALLS!

More cheering as we watch the largest bonfire I have ever seen burn before my eyes. I'm in raptures, this was AWESOME, AWE-INSPIRING and FUCKING UNBELIEVABLY AMAZING!!!

Our E's have kicked in by now, and there's a certain urgency to hit a club...but first we have to check out the THUNDERDOME to watch a re-enactment of MAD MAX 3 complete with operatic introduction, apocalyptic-industrial soundtrack and last-man-standing rivalry between the two combatants of each round.

En route to the Thunderdome, Dave reveals his genius invention. He has a water bottle backpack filled to the brim with tequila, a container of limes in one pocket and a salt shaker in the other - TEQUILA SLAMMERS anyone!!!! This just gets better and better!!!

Once again, drug and alcohol induced madness sets in, and 1/2 the crowd splinters off into couples, gets lost or disappears. It's down to me, Fay and Caroline this time, altho Fay begins to feel not-quite-right tonight, and Caroline needs some personal time.

So here I am on BURN NIGHT at 2am, pilling off my tits, on my own. WHO GIVES A FUCK
:-) !!

'Lets go exploring' my drug-addled brain says to my weary feet. 'Lets jump on an art-car' my feet reply.. (they seriously did have this conversation by the way!!) And so I did, hopping first onto a giant Pirate Ship...

followed by a converted stretch-bendy-bus, which was doubling tonight as a funky-house dance music groove train.

Back at Centre Camp at around 4am, there was a 60's style acid-psychedelia tinged blues/funk band playing, wiggin' out on extended feedback and effects laced guitar jams....ala Hawkwind and early Pink Floyd - just the perfect soundtrack for where I was at at that point in time, along with the other scores of folk in the centre-camp, and thousands elsewhere.

Finally, weariness got the better of me at around 5am, and stumbling back to camp, I got completely lost for the umpteenth time this week. Other times it didn't matter that I was lost - this time I just wanted my bed, but for the life of me could not find my camp, and when I did it was by pure fluke and accident.

Day 6 - Final Day

One of the most common casualties of Burning Man is people's feet. Just getting around in sandals the whole time, without showers or baths or moisturisers and other common personal body maintenance products to help out, your poor old dirt and dust-covered feet get dry and scaly, and, painfully, cracked. This was commonly known at the camp as "Playa Foot". By the time I noticed this happening, especially around my heels, on about day 4, it was too late. One kind soul of the camp, Alicia, saw my predicament on the final morning, and helpfully pointed that not 30 metres away at the G-Spot camp, was a wading pool in which you could dip your feet in cool, soothing water. HOW COULD I NOT NOTICE THIS BEFORE?!?!?! This was actually typical of what could, and did, happen at Burning Man...

Alicia was another sweet soul of a girl at the camp that I became close to over the week, and as I nursed my poor, sore feet, in the pool, we sat and chatted about life and the way of the world. While this festival is amazing in oh-so-many ways, it is also draining, physically, mentally and emotionally. Tears are not uncommon, and I was glad to be able to be a shoulder to cry on for Alicia that morning.

The Green Tortoise plan was for the camp to disembark the Festival immediately after the final burn - the Burning of the Temple of Tears, due to go off at 8pm that night. So that meant it was pack up time. Everything had to be good-to-go before sunset.

So, this was it? Over already? Wow. It just seemed like yesterday that we arrived...but no, my feet could pay testament to the fact that we had been here 5 full days now.

Tom, Sarah and I went for final afternoon's stroll around the city, hoping to find a chill-out space which, under a pyramid shaped tent was laid out a wide open space of turf-grass...pretty much the only 'green' space in the whole city, where you could lie down, sip a glass of wine or have a beer, and relax to some rare-jazz grooves, or something to that effect. But it had been packed up already. That was the theme of the day. Everywhere we looked, theme tents were de-theming (is that a word???) themselves.

It was very odd not to see The Man standing up presiding over all of the events and activities going on in his midst. It was stranger still just to see how the bonfire of the night before was now a small pile of ashes and wafts of smoke sifting up through the air.

We did happen upon a Tom Jones tent tho, which played nothing but...well, Tom Jones tunes, but its kicker was that the walls were completely lined with panties and bras, many of which were apparently donated by Burner Girls. Indeed, if you were of the female persuasion, it was a condition of entry that for your free drink, you had to donate yer smalls, perhaps even the ones you were wearing at the time!! One last little moment of Burning Man madness and debauchery!

My final afternoon I spent napping on the Green Tortoise bus. I was knackered. There's been a lot partying the past few days for this 30-year old...am I getting old???? A little 1-hour kip turned into 5 hours, and when I awoke, the sun was almost setting for the final time on Burning Man.

As mentioned way back in the piece, the final night was the burning of The Temple of Tears. This was honestly one of the more beautiful art pieces, an enormous Asian style, Buddhist influenced temple made of pinewood and painted a lush maroon-red colour. For the whole week people had been visiting this space and leaving messages, poems, notes and eulogies for loved ones since passed on. So the burning of this would be a very spiritual cathartic moment for all those people, myself included.

While last nights burn was built up as the most celebratory experience ever, with energy levels thru the roof, tonight’s energy was of a calmer nature, but it was still very evident. Once again thousands of people flocked around, and with a fitting sombre choral aria starting proceedings, the fireworks were set off and another amazing burn was under way.

We would have loved to have hung around for ages watching this burn, soaking up the powerful atmosphere of the place and moment, but we had orders. We had to be back at camp by 10pm in order to hit the road back to San Francisco. So, we stayed until the bulk of the temple had collapsed in licks of flame and fire, and slowly ambled back with the crowd to our camp.

I have to admit I was very, very weary by this time. 6 days is probably about enough time to stay here. Despite the length of this blog-entry, and the amount of stuff I got up to and saw, I reckon I probably only saw maybe a maximum of 10-15% of what was out there. It's incredibly difficult to convey just how big this is, but even if i'd spent a month here, and tried to see every little thing, and visit every theme camp on site, I'd still miss stuff. As it was, I had a freaking amazing time, loved every minute of it, but 6 days in one hit was enough, but I would definitely not rule out a return visit.

Back onto the sardines-in-a-can confines of the Green Tortoise bus, I was out like a light again, barely conscious of the 2 or 3 stops we made overnight for piss and gas requirements, and then when I next awoke, we were cruising over the Oakland Bay Bridge, with the early morning fog-enshrouded City beckoning. And that in itself was every bit as surreal a sight at that moment as anything I had seen in the past week.

San fran-tastic cisco....and Oakland (part 1)

2005-09-13T11:54:00.000+10:00

NO PICS IN THIS POST - I'VE LOST ONE OF MY CD-ROMS WITH PICS OF OAKLAND AND SAN FRANCISCO ON THEM. DAMN!

G'day,

Here I sit, literally, in San Francisco California, and metaphorically, on Cloud Nine.

I knew before I got here that I'd have a great time and that I'd love this city. Before I came to the United States, I honestly didn't have that much of an excitement within me to visit, however there were some spots that did excite me. San Francisco was one of them. Much like the Pacific Northwest, there is an palpable energy here, a vibe, a feeling that just draws me in.

I flew in here on August 28th, hung out for 2 days, then skipped out to the sensational "Burning Man" festival out in the Nevada desert (a separate entry will follow exclusively about this mad mad time and event!), and have been back here for a week - since September 5th. I leave tomorrow, finally, after finding it oh-so-difficult to drag myself away from this city.

My arrival in The City was kinda fraught with struggle to begin with. I have accumulated quite a lot of 'stuff', otherwise known as 'crap', since I arrived in Vancouver, but its crap that I can't bear to part with. Hence, I had to purchase a new suitcase to carry it all, and have managed to fill it too.

So, picture this - one large suitcase, full and heavy. one large rucksack, full and heavy. one sports/duffel bag, full and heavy. one Tony with one good arm. Now do the math. All was good getting to and checking stuff in at Vancouver Airport via cab and trolley, as was getting out of SFO Airport onto the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Train into downtown. I had to leave my saviour the airport trolley behind as I got on the train, and so my problems began after getting off at Powell Street station downtown.

The train network is underground in The City, and so getting to street level was problematic, especially as the elevators were out of order. So once again, picture in your mind a crippled Tony, with a suitcase on wheels, balancing the rucksack and duffel bag on top, trying to wangle himself onto an upwards escalator to the mezzanine level. Then, picture the look of distress on my face when seeing the next flight of escalators working only in a downwards rotation, and a flight of stairs to deal with. Thankfully, a young black kid was kind enough to assist me in getting to street level.

From here it got interesting. My game plan for SF was to stay with another couch-surfing contact, Brad and Jacqueline, but they were in Oakland, a small city away across the East Bay, and they had emailed me to say that they were spending the weekend in Seattle and wouldn't be back until late that evening Sunday night. Okay, that's cool, I'll just find my way to the Green Tortoise Backpacker's Hostel, the group I would be heading to Burning Man with, and stash my luggage there until I can get out to Oakland. Easier said than done.

My map indicated that from where I was, the hostel was about 15 blocks away, and looking in that direction, it was all uphill on one of SF's famed steep-as-hell hilly streets. Now, I could have easily got a cab there and problem solved. But, being the beginning of my trip, I didn't want to spend outlandish amounts of cash on a cab in peak hour traffic, and I was being stupidly stubborn - as I can be sometimes. All I needed was to get to the Tourist Info office and find out what bus or tram I needed to get there. It was 2 blocks away, and so I struggled that two blocks in 20minutes, my luggage balancing act coming undone at least twice in that time, only to find that, because it was Sunday, the Tourist Info office closed at 3pm.

I was just about to finally concede and get a cab at this point, when an old, homeless, but well-dressed black guy approached me asking if I needed a hand, in exchange for 'a couple of dollars'. This was the second offer of assistance I'd had in the space of an hour, and was glad to accept. This guy's name was Greg, he was in his 60's, and in his words 'homeless, but I have my dignity', hence his clean-shaven, blazer-wearing appearance. His 'beat' was to hang around the Tourist office and offer help to newly-arrived's like me. So Greg lugs my rucksack on to his back, grabs my sportsbag and motions me to follow him onto a tramcar, and then a bus up the hill, which ran straight into a peak-hour traffic jam, the likes of which I was hoping to avoid in a cab. Better to be stuck in a traffic jam on $1.25 bus than in a meter-ticking-over cab!

Finally hitting the hostel, I paid Greg $5 for his services and collapsed on a sofa in the hostel lounge.

The weather outside was sensational, and so as it was approaching sunset, I decided to take a more relaxed look around the neighbourhood of North Beach. With the San Francisco Bay only 5 blocks down the hill, I decided to grab a slice of pizza and a beer and watch the sunset behind the Oakland Bay Bridge down on the Pier 26. Soaking it all in, I remember thinking "This is it, here I am, welcome to San Francisco Tony!" Yay!!

Brad finally picked me up some time after Midnight at the hostel. I was slumped on a chair, dead to the world asleep when he arrived, absolutely knackered after a long, long day.

So, Brad and Jacqueline live in Oakland, a neighbouring city of SF, good 30 minute drive over the Bay Bridge away. They had kindly offered up their home for 2 nights via the CouchSurfing website I have come to like sooo much. They had travelled themselves around SouthEast Asia, and so we that much in common at least and swapped some pretty cool travel tales.

Oakland has previously had a reputation of being a bit rough, a bit ghetto-ish, mainly because of it's high black and Latino population, but in all appearances to me, it seems to be getting better. Actually I quite liked Oakland. I only had one full day to spend there, but it's small enough in size to be able to cover the key spots on foot, like the Victorian Row, a stretch of 1860's era architecture, and Jack London Square down on the docks. This area was named after the famous author who spent quite a bit of time writing (Sea Wolf and Call Of The Wild) in bars in the area. Although I had personally not heard of him, I felt obliged to have an honorary pint in the 'First and Last Chance Saloon', where sailors had thier first and last chance to have a drink before departing and arriving on the merchant ships that left this port.

From here I wandered thru some of the more 'ghetto' areas of the city, including right by the jail and a series of bail-bond stores and shady looking attorneys' offices where bail-released criminals could get thier bond covered. The most classic business I saw had a hott-ed up sedan painted with the slogan "Bad Boy's Bail Bonds - Because Your Momma Wants You Home" !! I took a pic of this, then skedaddled out of there just in case they didn't like the likes of me snapping pics of thier business!

Lake Merritt, right in down town Oakland, is the cities' visual centrepiece, and as sunset approached I watched as the 'necklace of lights' circling the lake, shine on. Quite romantic really.

Next day tho, I had to part-the-ways with Oakland, Brad and Jacqueline, and cruise around SF for the day before leaving for Burning Man. Spending the day on foot in The City is A LOT OF FUN!! I swear I covered so much ground and did so much stuff. Of course the obligatory ride on the cable car, and running after one, pretending to chase it up the hill, like i've seen done in so many movies was pretty funny, and fun!

There is so much history here too. North Beach was an epicentre of Beat culture from the 1950's, where the likes of Jack Kerouac and William Ginsberg and William S Burroughs hung out. Being the counter-cultural junkie that I am, I just had to go and have a drink at Vesuvio's, and then right next door, the world-famous and seminal bookstore where legendary beat-poetry readings and jazz gigs happened, was The City Lights Bookstore. A purchase had to be made so that later on in my life, I can say I was there. And down the hill is an amazing copper-plated 1905 building which is owned by Francis Ford Coppola. Had to have a drink at the street level cafe there as well. Paying homage, that's what its all about!

A quick jaunt thru Chinatown and a photo stop at "The World's crookedest street", Lombard Street rounded out my downtown visitations, before I jumped on a streetcar all the way out to the Mission district. This is another suburb heaving with history, arts and culture of the hippie-alternative slant, an area busrting at the seams with cool and funkyfied bars, clubs, shops and street art. It's also where one of my favourite bands, Spearhead, have their headquarters. The lead singer Michael Franti heads up the non-profit organisation Power To The Peaceful, who were putting on a free festival in Golden Gate Park on September 10th, this year with the Iraqi war-related slogan "Bring 'Em Home".

This year would be the 7th Annual event for this festival, and I've known about it for about 3 years, and have always wanted to go. And they were looking for volunteers. So while I was in Mission, I popped in to the office and offered my services. It was the least I could do. I am so full of admiration for Franti and what he does, that I just wanted to put something into this festival as well as getting something out of it. Ditto for this trip. My holiday, my life, is not just about me enjoying myself.

So that, along with a 2 or 3 pints at one of the aforementioned funky bars in Mission, nicely rounded out my day. Back to the hostel next, where I was bound for the most amazing festival on the planet (well, that I have been to at least!)

More to come soon,

Tony

(Belated) Goodbye Canada, it's been short but sweet

2005-09-13T07:19:00.000+10:00

Hi again,

Well I've been gone for quite some time now, about 3 weeks, and i'm only just getting round to saying my Goodbyes to Vancouver and Canada.

I arrived in Vancouver on January 28th, and left on August 28th - exactly 7 months of life living in and loving that city.

It's sad that I'm leaving with another 5 months left on my Working Holiday Visa, and its sadder still that my leaving is not exactly of my own choosing. The truth is that I'm damn near broke, and need to get back to Melbourne to start earning some real money and pay off those pesky credit cards. I've done it before, and I'll do it again, but this time I need to do it sooner rather than later. And realistically, Vancouver was not the place to be able to do that. It is an expensive city, with wages much less than I've been used to and getting previously.

Having said that and got it off my chest, I loved Vancouver. Not just for the sheer beauty of it, for being a literal hop,skip and jump from gorgeous mountains with amazing hiking and climbing terrain, that it was surrounded on 3 sides by water, with incredibly beautiful marina and bayside views, and especially not to mention the skifields. Not for the cool bars and nightlife. And not just for the friendly people either. Although, all of those things definitely make Vancouver what it is.

I think the two main reasons I loved Vancouver was for its vitality, its energy, its attitude, particularly and especially in the edgy, counter-cultural scenes - the amazing music scene and bands and clubs that thrive there, and the passion, enthusiasm, and activism that was there. Getting involved with the cycling activist groups there was the best thing I could ever have done. And I would never have quite an ideal opportunity to see sooooo many amazing local and top-level bands in many other cities.

I should pay a special mention also to the friends that I made there, who helped make Vancouver a special place for me. You know who you are, so I won't mention names. I made quite a disparate group of friends - there was the Aussie crew, a good dozen or so who I gelled with, there was the cycling fraternity who made me feel so welcome, and then there those folk who I never saw often enough, who I might get together with for a movie or a drink or a band gig just every so often. I just wish I had more time. I remember when I booked my ticket home, I was saying "Well, I've still got 3 months left, plenty of time to hang out", then it was 2 months, then 6 weeks, then 3, then 1, and now I'm gone.

What else can I say? The whole Pacific Northwest scene in North America suited me to the ground, it's band scene, it's attitude, it's edgy underground culture and society, and Vancouver even more so.

Goodbye Vancouver. I'll miss you. But hopefully it won't be Goodbye forever. If I know myself well at all, it's a fair bet that I'll be back.

Cheers,

Tony

Tofino and Vancouver Island - my last hurrah

2005-08-26T15:17:00.000+10:00

Hi all,

I guess it's been a wee while since I last wrote, and there's been a HELLUVA lot going on recently. You would've heard about my shoulder getting busted up and my arm stuck in a sling. It was with this predicament that I headed off for my final fling with Canada over on Vancouver Island, my 3rd visit to this awesome isle. I was booked on a 4-day backpacking trip with the Moose Travel Network, which encompassed a 20-seater bus driving and ferrying over to Nanaimo, crossing the island to Tofino for 2 nights, then a night in Victoria, and back again to Vancouver.

The 16 passengers were a mixed bunch as usual, a whole swag of Brits, 2 Japanese girls, 2 Kiwi girls, a Dutch bloke, a Portuguese girl, and myself, unusually, the only Australian on the bus - we normally dominate the numbers on these sort of trips! Oh, I shouldn't forget to mention the most popular passneger on the bus - Camel the Moose, a stuffed toy camel that had been our driver, Evan, since his first ever tour. He's there apparently, to make all of our photographs more interesting!! So Day 1 at 8am, we set off. I'd had to abandon my rucksack and opt for the more manageable small duffle bag as my luggage, my shoulder injury only 2 days old and still very sore.

As you'd expect I had to answer a million questions about what happened, and repeat the story a million times over as ever new person I met wanted to know "So, what happened to your arm??" After crossing the Georgia Straight thru the Gulf Islands in brilliant sunshine, albiet with incredibly strong winds, our drive to Tofino took in Little Qualicum Falls - a short but pretty hike to these waterfalls in a 440 hectare Provincial Park, where we also had lunch, and then a swim in Cameron Lake - a deepwater, glacier-fed lake filled with trout. Cameron Lake is very picturesque on calm days when reflections are mirrored in the water. I decided to give my shoulder a little bit of water therapy and joined 1/2 of our group for a swim in the chilly waters, just laying on my back and kicking my feet to move while slowly attempting to move my shoulder with moderate success. A short stop at Long Beach for a stroll along the sand and watch the surfers tackle the waves concluded our sight-seeing for the day before hitting Tofino just before sunset.

Tofino has legendary status amongst the travelling community. Whenever you meet other backpackers and swap travel tales in Canada, the inevitable question, after 'Have you been to Whistler?' is "Have you been to Tofino?". If you answer "No", then you'll get "Oh man, you've gotta go, that place is just awesome!!" I had that in mind when I was considering cancelling my trip when I did my shoulder in. I decided it would be too great a regret to not go, especially as it would be my "Goodbye Canada" trip.

The opportunity to go whale watching in the Juan De Fuca Strait, bear-watching, bathibg in natural hot-springs right beside the ocean shore on a Gulf Island, along with surfing, sea-kayaking, bungy-jumping is what lures the intrepid backpacker to this sleepy coastal town on the wind-swept western side of the Island.

With only one road in and out of town, it is also a fairly remote location that takes some level of dedication to get to. From April to September, Whale-watching is one of the main tourist industries here, as the Pacific Grey and Orca whales make their annual migration from the chilly waters of Alaska down the warmer climes of California. It is also located right beside the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, which encompasses a long and narrow strip of coast that has been battered by the sea for eons. Now obviously I wouldn't be doing any of the more strenuous activities, such as surfing or sea-kayaking, but that wasn't to say I would be entirely hamstrung. I followed a few of the group to Cox's Bay for a surfing session in the foggy early morning, and volunteered to be their official photographer from the shore.

Following that, I embarked on the Whale-watching/Hot Springs Cove double-shot, with some moderate viewing success. Our boat took us out into open ocean water, and eyes were peeled for the tell-tale signs of the plume of spray being shot up into the air, followed by a rise and dive of the body. In 2 hours we managed to spot one grey whale....slightly disappointing, altho there were plenty of sea lions, seals and otters playing about in the water and the rocks at the waters edge to keep us entertained. Some more water therapy for my shoulder came in the form of a gloriously relaxing natural hot-springs bath. a 2 mile boardwalk trek thru old-growth forest led to the waters edge of one of the Gulf Islands. Here, thermal hot springs fell in waterfalls over low cliffs into a series of pools, whose temperatures were regulated by the ebbing tide of the chilly Pacific Ocean waters. Soaking in these pools, and then treating myself to a hot, steamy, waterfall shower did wonders for the shoulder, giving it a tender, supple massage.

That evening back in Tofino, staring out from a pier, we soaked up a visual treat as the sun set behind the sillouette of an outlying island, after which our bellies had a treat of their own - spaghetti bolognese. Two nights and a day was not nearly long enough in Tofino, and it was with regret that we moved on, retracing our steps back towards Nanaimo, before moving along to Victoria. This was the third time I'd visited this city this year, and had seen most of what it had to offer, so I just tagged along with the others and played tour guide a bit.

Another visit to Big Bad John's pub in the evening after a fantastic Caribbean restaurant dinner, and then it was time to hit some clubs...until I saw just how packed they were, and given my shoulder was still slung, called it an early night and left the group to party hard.

Next day it was back to Vancouver, once again taking the extraordinary lengthy and pain-in-the-arse route via Schwarz Bay to Tsawassen, and then Vancouver. I swear to God, getting from Victoria to Vancouver should be a simple matter of a 45 minute ferry direct across the bay, but is in actuality a 4 hour slog.

So, back in Vancouver I said my goodbyes to most of the group, with a few of planning to meet up later that night for a few parting drinks.

Talk soon,

Tony

Leaving Canada end of August - party time!

2005-08-26T15:16:00.000+10:00

Hi Folks,

Well, the time is nigh! I'm leaving Vancouver and Canada this coming Sunday!! As good an excuse as any to hit the pubs this weekend.

So, the plan is:

Hit the Critical Mass monthly bike ride from Vancouver Art Gallery at 5.30pm and hang with that crowd until around 7.30-8pmish, then cruise on down to The Cambie Pub (300 Cambie Street, corner of West Hastings Street) and sit there for the evening. I haven't booked anything specifically, so hopefully we'll be there early enough to secure a table or two.

Then, Saturday afternoon, about 3 or 4-ish, after morning recovery, i'll head back to the same spot and take up where I left off, so that I can catch up with those of you who couldn't make the Friday night escapades.

Saturday evening, my friends Paul is having a house party to welcome and farewell some folks and has kindly suggested we combine the two events. Address is "307 W 19th Avenue" and I'll head there at 9pm and continue on.

I then have to make it to the airport for about 11am on Sunday - which is gonna be interesting, given that i've got a suitcase, a rucksack and a duffle bag, and only one good arm and shoulder!!!

Hopefully you can make any or all of these sessions. my cell number is 604 762 2478. If you could gimme a call and lemme know if and when you'll be coming that'd be great.

See you at the pub!

Cheers,

Tony

Good News/Bad News

2005-08-19T15:14:00.000+10:00

Hi all,

Good News/Bad News. I'm Leaving Vancouver and Canada for the unforseeable future to go home to Australia. It is with mixed emotions that I say this. I have had an awesome time here, and met some amazing people over the past 6 or 7 months.

So, I just wanted to make you awares about my leaving do later this month.

Details aren't totally firm, but the most likely date is Friday August 26th evening, or Saturday August 27th afternoon-evening. Most likely venue will be The Cambie Pub, on Cambie Street, nearHastings/Pender. So keep them free if you can. I'll confirm exact details a little closer to the date.

Maybe I'll make a whole weekend of it! Friday is the Critical Mass monthly bike rally at 5.30-6pm at Vancouver Art Gallery (for those of you unawares of the event), and so I reckon I'd hit the bar at around 7.30-8pm, assuming I could still get a table.

I'm leaving Canada on Sunday August 28th to fly to San Francisco. I'll travel around for 5 weeks, then fly from SF to Melbourne on October 5th.

It'd be great to see as many of you as possible, have a grand ol' piss-up to say Goodbye, or See You Later.

Cheers, c u soon, more later.

Tony

ROAD TRIP!! - Vancouver to Washington & Oregon - part 3

2005-08-12T13:10:00.000+10:00

Hi,

So now, having spent too little time in Eugene, I had my final destination, Bend, on the radar, a short 130 miles east over the Cascade Mountain Range.

My 2.20pm, $1.25 bus took me along Highway 126 all the way out to McKenzie Bridge, some 50 miles. Now that's a bargain!! I'm loving all these super-cheap 'local' buses that take me miles and miles in the direction I'm headed. En route, I had as my theme music on my Discman the most recent Death Cab For Cutie cdee 'Transatlanticism', getting hyped and pumped up for the show the next day. I'm truly getting excited about this gig. The trip so far has gone pretty much 100% according to plan, with no dramas or hiccups to throw me off track. Fingers crossed it stays this way.

Dropped off at the Willamette State Forest Park Ranger Station, I was briefly in the company of hikers, fisherman, kayakers and all sorts of other outdoorsy type people.

This spot is the Gateway to all manner of nature-based sports, a spot I could easily spend endless amounts of time. But instead of registering my presence at the Ranger Station, I walked the opposite way to the highway, made my sign "East - Sisters, Bend", stuck out my thumb, and waited. I was getting to be an old pro at this by now!!

It was another hot day, above 30 degrees Celsius, and was thankful to be picked up within 1/2 an hour by Eric and Crystal, 20-something first year newlyweds on their way to another wedding, by a lake in the forest.

I love hippie weddings!!

Ride Distance - 40 miles

After being dropped off at the Suttle Lake turn-off, I spent just barely 20 minutes waiting before an old 1980's Chrysler convertible pulled over the side of the road. This I call my "Thelma and Louise" incident. Two sisters in their 40's, Emma and Barbara, cruising the country in a convertible pull over to pick up an itinerant hitch-hiker. Now, I ain't no Brad Pitt, but these two girls were no Geena Davis or Susan Sarandon either. That's as close as the Thelma and Louise comparisons get.

Anyhow, these two drove me right (around the!) into Bend, arriving just in time for me to disturb my next host with a phone call right in the middle of making a Spanish Rice dinner. Mmmmmm. Mike and Tamara, a couple in their 30's, live outside of Bend, on a property of 5 acres, with their 10-year-old son Kody, boxer dog, Amigo, 3 chickens....and Lulu the camel! I remember getting an email saying that they'd love to have me stay and help train a camel and was very intrigued. Now, I was face to face with her.

Unfortunately a combination of events prevented me from doing this - Mike's hernia operation the previous week, my short stay, and of course the gig the following day.

They are also avid extreme sports fanatics, and Bend is famed as the perfect location for hiking, biking, skiing, snowboarding, skydiving, kayaking, you name it. So it came as no surprise to me that they have all sorts of toys in their garage, including a homemade penny-farthing bicycle!! This sweet little ride is painted hot-red and is tricked out with flames on the leather seat and fat tyres. If only the crew back in Vancouver could see me now, riding this thing around the front yard!!

The people I meet - I tell ya, it's awesome!!

So, it's now Saturday August 6th, the big day of the gig. I have completed my mission, achieved my objective of getting down here by only thumb and local bus and free beds, and come in at under US$150 expenditure - waaaaaaayy under budget, sooooo, I got some play money!!!

Jon and Tabitha from Portland are coming down to this gig as well, so the plan is to meet them at the gig around 3-4pm, just before it all kicks off. It's another scorching hot 30+ degree day, perfect blue skies with just a touch of a light breeze to take the edge off the heat. Perfect for a festival.

The venue is the Les Schwab Amphitheatre, an outdoor grassed area right by the banks of the Willamette River, a sweet, serene spot, and as we arrive there is a real picnic-y light and easy vibe in the air.

Surveying the crowd, you could tell there was a definite college feel about the place. Lots of grunge-y obscure band tee's over long sleeves, ripped jeans, skate shoes, wacky hairdo's, and a distinct 'green' scent in the air. This is the audience for these bands without a doubt.

The gig wasted no time in taking off, the first band Viva Voce actually starting 5 minutes early! They're a husband and wife 2piece act, and ala Jack and Meg White of The White Stripes produce quite a big sound for two members, altho in quite a sonically different style altogether. This 2 piece are more fuzzy-pop than dirty blues, and in their 30minute set did a very good job of it too. This was the one band on the bill I had never heard of, and was prompted by the set to buy one of the 3 cdee's they'd put out.

Pedro The Lion were next. Another two-piece, I'd seen these guys support Low back in March in Vancouver, and were impressed with them then, and I was impressed with them today. Nothing's changed. They didn't have any merchandise for sale then, and they didn't have any today either. This is Tabitha's favourite band in the world, and as we sat 1/2 way up the back on our rug she was bopping away to her hearts content. Just a shame their set was only 30 minutes as well. I was made to promise I'd send her copies of the pics I took of them. Yes, as per usual I had my camera out, snapping each band, and getting some sweet crowd shots as well. I love people watching!

The band I was most curious about was The Decemberists. Their cdee 'Picaresque' had pretty heavy airplay on KEXP earlier this year, and I came to know the album pretty well. I just wanted to see if they could cut it live on stage. They have quite a big, carnivalesque, dramatic sound which can sometimes fall flat live. This wasn't the case here - they were brilliant! Everything worked a treat - they had the usual guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, and were rounded out nicely with violin, double bass and piano-accordian, giving the band a kind of creole gyspy-ish sort of sound. The boppy, fun aspect was not lost on the crowd, and the audience participation section of the show during "The Mariners Revenge Song" was second to none, and had me up dancing a merry little jig. I even got a crowd round-of-applause!! Fantastic. Cdee purchase #2 right there.

In between bands I noticed a number of hacky-sack games going on. I shouldn't have been surprised. This is pretty much a given at an event like this, as its also a given that I'm gonna join in on a hacky sesh when I see one. I love that shit!! The fact that I'm actually reasonably good at it helps - I'm not very skillful at many things, so when I get good at one, I'll take it!! :-)

Built To Spill were up next. I'd seen this band live just 2 months ago as well, and had to leave early as it was the day before my Juan De Fuca hike. This time I'd get to see them in full. This is a band that had been in and out of my musical radar since the mid 90's, one of those fringe bands that you hear about, and then nothing, so you assumed they'd broken up, only to put out another album when you least expected it. Altho they didn't have any new material to tour on, Built To Spill seem to be a full-time touring band nonetheless. It shows - they know their music, and were tight as hell, their jangly, fuzzy-distorted indie rock sounded as good as ever, especially on thier wig-out extended jam sessions. Their set was on just as the sun was setting as well, and the sounds seemed to fit quite nicely with the scene. Alas, they had no merch for sale either.

Finally, the headline act, Death Cab For Cutie. A long-time staple of the U.S. college indie scene, this band have broken thru to the big time, in no small part due to getting feature airplay on "The O.C." TV show, and their last release "Transatlanticism" being absolutely brilliant. Oh, getting signed to a major label like Atlantic for the first time can't but help either. This band only came to my attention earlier this year, once again KEXP being responsible, but they've been around for 6-7 years and developed a very strong and loyal fanbase on the college circuit.

However, checking out the crowd right down the front this night, I'd say the fanbase for this band has expanded somewhat and would be more the 16-20 year old girlies now, due to the O.C. coverage. Nevertheless, they were brilliant. There is that certain geeky charm about them ala Weezer that appeals, and they write the perfect indie rock-pop tunes. They had a tour DVD on sale, so bought that, as well as a T-Shirt. Like I said earlier, I had play money!!

Okay, so now the gig's over and it's time to go home and altho hyped and excited about what's just passed, the post-gig deflation sets in. When you've been waiting for something for so long, you just don't want it to end, and that's how I felt then on the drive back to Mike and Tam's. Jon and Tabitha also had the invite to stay, so there was a bit of a couchsurfers gathering in the house. It's great when things like this come together so nicely.

The awesome thing about being way out in the middle of nowhere was just how many stars you can see in the sky. All 5 of us stepped out into Mike and Tam's backyard to lie down on the trampoline and star gaze for an hour or so. The Moon wasn't up yet, so there was even more than usual. Trying to spot Mars, which apparently was passing by, proved to be a futility. What a fantastic way to end a fantastic day tho! I went to sleep that night with a smile on my face. Life was good!

August 7th. Time to go home. Tabitha and Jon had a friend in Bend to catch up with for breakfast, so the awesome Westside Bakery was the first port of call. Next stop, Portland and a 1.35pm Greyhound bus, which would get me back to Vancouver at 11pm that night. Midway thru brekky tho, I realised I'd left my phone at the house and we had to kill 20minutes driving out there to get it, which meant leaving it very touch-and-go indeed as to whether I'd make the bus.

Driving thru central Oregon, over the mountain range and thru the forest by the stunning Mount Hood, despite Jon's best efforts, I missed the bus by 20 minutes.

Damn that 20minute detour! From here I had two options: wait 3hours until 5pm for a bus terminating in Seattle, one that stopped in every two-bit town along the way, and then kill another 3 hours in Seattle waiting for the connection to Vancouver; or, sit in Portland until 8.30pm for a direct ride, via Seattle. Either way, I'd get into Vancouver at 5am the next morning.

I opted for option 1. I spent my time in Portland checking out the coolest records shops and bookstores in town. I even found Pedro The Lion and Built To Spill cdee's to purchase, as well as a couple of other local efforts. The Greyhound bus to Seattle was pretty uneventful, altho coming down the I-5 into downtown from the soutside at night provided the immensely pleasing to the eye spectacle of Seattle's skyline with the distinctive Space Needle dominating the vista.

Killing three hours in Seattle wasn't a problem, and the 12.30am bus was on its way before I knew it. Sleep on the bus was rudely disturbed by Customs and Immigration at the border. It's a pain in the butt having to ask all these silly inane questions while your wiping the sleep out of your bloodshot eyes.

5am, August 8th, we pull into Vancouver, and I'm looking forward to getting home - but I don't have my keys! So, I sit around the station for a bit, then take a nap on a bench in the park like a local bum, then at the more reasonable hour of 7am, call my housemate Ceri to let me in the apartment. What a way to finish off the trip. I can't believe it took me 19 hours to get from Bend to Vancouver!!

All in all, I call this trip a spectacular success. Everything went according to plan, with only the extended stretch looking for a ride out of Salem, and this last stretch on the bus being the only minor hiccups. I had an amazing time, being out on the road, sampling a new way of travelling, and meeting loads of new people, making a bunch of new friends along the way, while graciously accepting the kindness and hospitality of the good people of the USA (they do exist!!)

I hope this wasn't too long an entry - it's hard sometimes when so much is going on!

Cheers,

Tony

ROAD TRIP!! - Vancouver to Washington & Oregon - part 2

2005-08-12T10:32:00.000+10:00

Hi,

Next destination, Portland, Oregon - a nice 120mile, 2 1/2 hour drive - if I was to go straight down the I-5. But that would be too easy, and too boring, especially when I had the coastal Highway 101 option.

So this is what I did. For a measly US$1.50, I jumped on the intercity bus to Aberdeen, just 50 miles west of Olympia. I did have an ulterior motive to hit this town as well tho, I must confess. Aberdeen is Kurt Cobain's hometown. It's been described in books about him, that it is a depressing logging and lumber mill town, and a haven for rednecks. I couldn't confirm or deny much of this as I was only there for an hour or so, but I did see a lot of enormous tree logs being carted about on backs of trucks. While riding the 40miles or so out there, I thought it appropriate to stick Nirvana's 'Greatest Hits' cdee into my Discman as theme music for the journey.

What I did see tho was the bridge that Kurt once upon a time lived under, and took a few pics of "The Muddy Banks of the Wishkah" River, before getting on another local bus to a tiny wee town named Cosmopolis.

Here, at around 1pm, I joined up with Highway 101 to recommence the hitching lark. Altho, from here, it wasn't quite such a lark. Being a much less travelled highway, the traffic was very light, and it was some 30-40minutes before I got a ride. But man, what a ride this was!!

Ken was an ageing hippie, mid 50's, driving a huge van with a surfboard in the back. He was also, if he was to be believed, a US Army Drill sergeant for 15 years who served in Vietnam, a lumber mill logger, co-owned a boat that ran medical supplies between Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, lived in Australia for a bit, took surfing photography for magazines, all the while surfing every inch of the West Coast of the States. On this ride, he was driving down the coast to Newport, Oregon to meet up with a dozen of his grandkids to take them on a surfing holiday camp for 2 weeks.

No matter, he was friendly, and entertaining as hell. For every story I had, he had one that was 10 times bigger, better, more dramatic, and funnier. The ride he offered originally was to Seaside, which then extended all the way down to Tillamook. All the while, he offered to stop at several points along the way so that I could take touristy snaps.

I've been advised several times that "if you ever head south, you HAVE to check out the Washington-Oregon coast, it's out of this world beautiful". They're right! If I wasn't heading back inland to Portland, I would have stayed on the ride all the to Newport. As it was I was sad to leave it at Tillamook. A couple of the most memorable bits were:

* Driving over the bridge at the mouth of the Columbia River that separates Washington and Oregon. This is an incredibly wide mouth, leading as it does out to the Pacific Ocean, the bridge spanning some 4.1 miles.

* Stopping at the viewpoints at Cannon Beach and seeing the beach stretch down the coast for miles, with rocky outcrops jutting out of the sea, semi-reminiscent of the Twelve Apostles along the Great Ocean Road back home in Oz.

(I've since been reliably informed, that this particular rock formation below is called "Haystack Rock")

Ride Distance: 150 miles

We were having such fun on this journey that the 3 hours this stretch should take actually took us 5 1/2 hours! And so it was well after 6pm when I got dropped off, still quite a ways away from my end destination. I sat at the edge of town of Tillamook, on the Highway 6 beginning for close to an hour, and was about to concede to the idea of getting a B&B here. "15 minutes more" I said to myself. 10 minutes of that 15 passed when I got my next ride, all the way into Portland.

Jerome was mid 30's, an ex-con, having spent time in jail when he was 'young and stupid, partying hard and thinking little', but these days doing odd construction jobs and looking after his twin 13-year old boy and girl. A bit of a redneck whose furtherest venture from home was to Montana. He was one of those folk who believed that "I have everything I want here in my own backyard, why would I want to leave?"

Ride Distance - 70miles

There was somewhat of a pattern forming here with my rides. They were all kind of down -at-heel, working low-paying blue-collar jobs or somewhere towards the fringe of society. None drove especially nice cars. Another thing was that they all said they'd hitched before at some point in their life. Many said they no longer picked up hitch-hikers, because of 'society these days', but made an exception for me "because there was just something about you that made me stop". I don't know what that something is, but it seems to be working. Maybe, its because I'm a skinny white boy who poses absolutely no threat to them, who knows.

My plan for Portland was 2 nights, not nearly enough for a city like this, one that's up there with Seattle in vibe, attitude, hip and cool culture and amazing music scene. Another Pacific NorthWest city with an edgy, left-leaning, counter-cultural groove. Among other things, Portland is the bike capital of the country, something you may guess is held in pretty high importance in my book. But 2 nights was all that I could manage on this trip.

So, Jerome drops me in Portland at the edge of the University district with the sun rapidly dropping, and I realise that I don't have the phone number of my contacts in Portland on me. They are in an email on my Yahoo account. Okay, so lets find an internet cafe in town. I don't know why, but there seems to be an absolute dearth of net cafe's in Portland. Loads of cafe's that have wi-fi set up for laptops, but no proper net cafe's. I asked 3 different locals for directions to one, all of which were bogus. Finally, it was suggested I check out Powell's Books, one of a number of amazing bookshops in town, got the numbers and met up with Livi, the first of my two Portland hosts, altho by this time it was pushing 10pm, I was knackered and went straight to bed.

I had every intention of spending as much time checking out Portland that evening, and was kinda bummed I didn't get to spend more time hanging with Livi and her gorgeous Dalmation pup, Kelp.

As it was, the next morning we had breakfast and a good chat at a cool newly opened cafe in the east end of town, and then unfortunately had to part ways, Livi to work, and I to my 2nd Portland host. En route to my new temporary home, I got chatting to the bus driver, who got my #1 vote for kind deed of the day by giving me an all-day transit pass for free. Nice!

You know, there is one small thing that sucks about travelling like this, passing thru quickly and meeting new friends in new towns, mid-week - everyone else has to work! These people I meet, that are putting me up in their homes, well, I mean, I know I'm dropping into their daily lives, but I'd just like to spend more time with them, and get to know them somewhat. Case in point being Tabitha and Jon, my 2nd Portland hosts, and two of the nicest people you could meet. I had just enough time to drop my stuff off before Jon had to scoot to work at Starbucks. They wouldn't be home again until 9-10pm.

Thankfully, there's a load to do in Portland, and I made full use of the awesome 30-something degree weather, my free transit pass, as well as walking all over the city. Hawthorne Boulevard is like Commercial Drive in Vancouver, a boho, studenty strip full of bars, cafe's, bookshops, record stores and the like, a street I completely adored.

The Columbia River cuts thru the centre of the city, spanned by 9 bridges, all architecturally different, which provides an interesting vista, and is also lined by pretty, grass-lined esplanades along its banks.

Then there's the cities numerous downtown parks, with numerous small but very interesting museums. As a respite in the heat of the day, I headed to Washington Park where the Japanese Garden is located, a cool retreat of zen-like calm and serenity, replete with waterfalls and bonsai collections.

In short, Portland has everything I could possibly want in a city, from the vibe and attitude to sights and scenery. It's also known as the Rose of Oregon for its beauty. i couldn't agree more. Before I knew it, it was almost 9pm, time to head back, and I'd also realised I hadn't eaten since lunch. Just so happens that Jon & Tabitha live about 30 seconds away from a neat little cafe with an awesome creole spicy spaghetti dish...Mmmmmm.

This trip is moving too quickly. Time to move again! Hop the #12 into town to get another bus to the southside of the city, only to realise after I got off, that I should have stayed on the #12 coz that took me exactly where I needed to go! D'oh! But then I eventually get there, and am told I need one more bus (thankfully free) to get to Wilsonville, where I would recommence the sticking-out-of-the-thumb routine. End Destination, Eugene.

Luck is on my side again. Twenty minutes wait gets me a ride with Anthony and Crystal. As it turns out, I could stay with them all the way thru to Eugene, but I had to stop in Salem, about 1/2 way there, Portland's capital, and home of the Rose of Salem, Rose Barker, another couchsurfing host who i had originally planned to stay with, and also a friend of Tabitha's. I only had 2 hours in Salem, lunching and swapping stories with Rose and two of her friends, also couchsurfers, Manny and Greg.

Sushi lunch done, I was dropped off at South Salem. My luck finally ran out here. 102 degrees on the American Fahrenheit scale (about 38 Celsius), and I got stuck out on the I-5. I waited in one spot for an hour or so without success, noted on my map another on-ramp a mile down the road and decided to hit that. It was worse than the first. I then hit upon a routine of walking a mile, waiting 15 minutes, walking another mile, waiting 15 minutes and so on. About 3 hours in and one guy responded to my waving arms and stuck out thumb. His name was Steve, and all I could get out of him conversation wise was "I can take you as far as Albany", "I work for the military" and "I do maintenance". Up to this point on the trip, I had been asking nicely if I could photograph my rides for a souvenir of sorts, with most folk saying 'Yeah sure!". I was too afraid to ask this guy!

Two more rides in quick succession took me 5 miles down the road to Lebanon, from Tricia - the only single female to pick me up, and two blokes whose names I didn't get, in a ute, who said I could ride in the back all the way into Eugene. This was the most fun ride, screaming down the freeway at 70miles per hour, wind rushing thru my (rapidly thinning) hair, speeding past farmlands with distant mountain ranges silhouetted in the background and the sun approaching the horizon.

Eventually, I hooked up with my Eugene host, Ethan, who took me along to a friends barbecue. Little did I know that Ethan and co were fervent Christians, and while everyone was super friendly, there was always that hardcore religious overtones that flowed thru every conversation that made me feel just a tad uncomfortable. Most of the group were guys and gals in the mid to late-20's, a seemingly normal bunch talking about football and politics and so on, the usual standard BBQ (minus any alcohol whatsoever). Some had played soccer professionally while travelling the world and spreading "The Word", others had worked Tsunami Relief in Indonesia, while spreading "The Word". I didn't quite know how to fit in to conversations, and felt really guilty if I slipped out an expletive. Odd.

At the end of the night, someone suggested a 'prayer circle', and the 20 or so folks at the gathering huddled together as if in a rugby scrum, inviting me in to the circle to offer thanks and prayers and goodwill etc, and to "God Bless our new friend Tony on his travels, and may the Lord look over him and keep him safe wherever he may roam. Amen." or something to that effect. Granted, a nice gesture, by nice people, but I was kinda creeped out by it a bit. I just smiled and said "Thanks".

Getting back to Ethan's gaff, I was confronted by a life-size Jesus painting, with a mirror in place where his face would be. Whoa. Next morning I asked if there was somewhere I could check my email, and was driven to his church where he had an office, and used it there.

Eugene is a neat little college town, altho being out of semester, the place seemed kinda slow.

I had been told of a bus out to the east of town was at 2pm-ish, so I had 3 hours to check the place out. I opted to wander on foot and spent quite a bit of time at the 5th Street Public Market (markets are always good value), then scuttled to Skinner Butte Hill for a view over the whole town, and on the way back down bumped into Eugene's oldest building, built in 1888 - not that old really, I suppose.

With an extra couple of hours I would've liked to have checked out the University of Oregon's Museums of Art and Natural History - whose main claim to fame is owning the world oldest pair of running shoes, dated at 10,000 years old (the things you learn!!).

more to come...

ROAD TRIP!! - Vancouver to Washington & Oregon - part 1

2005-08-12T05:28:00.000+10:00

Hi all,

I've just recently returned from an awesome 8 day road trip down thru the Pacific Northwest states of the USA. The main cities I cruised thru were Seattle, Olympia - Washington, Portland, Eugene and Bend - Oregon.

The purpose and objective of the trip was a mini outdoor music festival called Summer Camp at the Les Schwab Amphitheatre in Bend - a small town of 65000 people in central Oregon state. There were 5 bands, all local to the PacNW - Viva Voce, Pedro The Lion, The Decemberists (Portland), Built To Spill (Boise, Idaho) and headliners Death Cab For Cutie (Bellingham/Seattle).

The secondary purpose of the trip was to road test the ideas of hitch-hiking and couch-surfing - kinda researching the feasibility of it in preparation for my big 5 week adventure to California/Nevada/Arizona in September.

Yeah, hitch-hiking! I wanted to do something different, see the States from a different viewpoint other than the window of a bus, meet new and interesting people, the local, real people of the country (every ride had their own story), and without having to adhere to anyone else's schedule. I only had only one fixed date and place in mind - August 6th in Bend. How I got there and in what time frame would be dictated entirely by the whims of friendly strangers. I know some of you may think its dangerous and risky, but I successfully thumbed it practically the whole 8 days.

Now, couch-surfing - what the hell is that, I hear you ask??? Well, it is this great traveller friendly set-up I recently was told about - kind of like an exchange program, where you can visit like-minded people in various towns and cities, and stay at their place for free!!

There are at least three websites (that I'm aware of) that you can sign up to (for free) and register your interest.

http://www.couchsurfing.com/
http://www.globalfreeloaders.com/
http://www.hospitalityclub.org/

It's basically like a massive database. You do a search for a particular location (say, Seattle) and date/s you plan to visit, and a list of profiles of people offering free accommodation pops up on your screen. You then send an email to as many of these people as you like with your plans and a mini-profile of your own...and wait for the replies! Some say No, Some don't reply at all, and some say "Come on Down!!". I sent out emails to folk in about 25 different cities in 5-6 states, and had 32 replies from 16 cities! The system works!!

Oh, and then there's this awesome hitch-hiking website http://www.digihitch.com/. Set up and run by hitch-hikers with advice, stories and forums for hitch-hikers. This turned out to be very, very useful in my planning. And, in fact, the guy who'd set up the site is also a 'globalfreeloader' and offered me accommodation in Phoenix, Arizona, later this year.

So, anyways, Sunday July 31st was D-Day. Bright and early I was up with my rucksack - 12Kg with just the essentials, my CD walkman, and a cuppla books, and my camera bag. Oh, and US$300 - my budget for 8 days, US$30 per day, plus US$60 emergency cash. I opted to at least get across the border before I embarked on the hitching lark, and so caught a Greyhound bus to Bellingham, the first big town in Washington.

I didn't spend much time here-about as long as it took to walk from the bus station to the I-5 Highway on-ramp (30 minutes). What I did see tho, was very pretty - the suburb of Fairhaven, the toursity area, kinda set up like an early 20th century colonial town.

Now for the first attempt at serious hitch-hiking. In Washington it is illegal to hitch on the Interstate highways, but the on-ramps to the highways are fair game. I had my big piece of cardboard, and scrawled "SOUTH - SEATTLE" and a big smiley face on it, set my rucksack down at a visible spot, took a photo of myself for posterity, and, at just after 11am, stuck out my thumb.

Amazingly, I had someone stop for me after only 15minutes. Two guys, Luke and Jeremy, in their 20's returning from a wedding in Bellingham to the outlying Seattle suburb of Bothall. En route they got a phone call which resulted in "Hey Tony, I can take you all the way to Downtown Seattle dude, I just gotta stop in at home and pick up my sister - we're going shopping at Pike Place Market - do you mind?" "Um, no man, sounds perfect". This was more than perfect in fact!...

In a very nice looking residential neighbourhood in Bothall, I got invited into their home, met lake's sister Michi - a cute as hell 21 year old, mmmm, who made me a tuna salad lunch, complete with local microbrewery beer, and then we were on our way again, down the I-5.

Ride Distance - 90 miles

My first couch-surfing contact was in Seattle, a guy named Sean and his buddy Danny who lived in the University District of town - a sweet spot just minutes from Seattle's famed student-boho-hippy hotspot "The Avenue".

I had arranged for Luke to drop me at an intersection nearby, said my goodbyes and thank-you's, and 5 minutes later was in Sean's car heading back to their place. As it turns out, Sean and Danny don't actually officially live in their house - they are just long-term dossing themselves!! So it was kind of cheeky of them to offer me a bed, but 2 housemates were moving out that weekend so they figured there was room. Who am I to complain.

My time in Seattle would be brief, just overnight, and it was already pushing 3pm, so allowing just enough time for the boys to put back a coupla cones of Seattle's finest green (I abstained - honestly!!) we headed out, in blazing 30+ degree heat, down to Green Lake Park, where an amazing freestyle frisbee competition was in action.

Who knew you could do soooo many tricks with a spinning frisbee!!! Sean and Danny (who, incidentally has the biggest white-boy afro hairdo I have ever seen!!) were avid Football (Soccer) fans and players, and so a quick kickabout was had, long enough to work up an appetite for some Thai food at The Avenue's finest Thai eatery, Thai Tom's - a small but very, very busy little cafe. Yum!!

A little guided tour of the city took in the very photograph friendly Gasworks Park overlooking Lake Washington and a drive over the bridges giving an awesome viewpoint of the city skyline, then it was back to The Ave for ice-cream. What a treat!

Next morning I said my goodbyes and thank-you's again, and headed into town. As you know, I am a huge fan of Seattle, it's music scene, and of course KEXP FM. I simply could not pass up the opportunity to check the place out while I was in town, and perhaps meet some of the DJ's that made my working day so much easier.

While there, I was given a tour of the studio, checked out the DJ booth, and had my pic taken with Midday Show DJ Cheryl Waters. I was also telling them why I was there, and about my road trip, and the station manager gave me a free KEXP T-Shirt, on the proviso that I wore it down the I-5 and at the gig. Awesome! I kept my promise on that one too.

So, then it was back on the road. My hoped for end destination was Olympia, the capital of Washington state, and my next couchsurfing host. The I-5 runs right thru the centre of Seattle, but one piece of advice from digihitch was to get to the outer suburbs before trying to thumb a ride, as it would be much easier than in Downtown. Not knowing exactly how to get out of Seattle, I followed a whole bunch of locals' advice, some good, some bad, and ended up taking 3 different local buses ($3), and about 2 hours, to progressively get further South.

At 1.30pm, I ended up at an I-5 on-ramp midway between SeaTac Airport and Renton, at the SouthCentre Shopping Centre.

Not more than 15minutes of waiting here and I got a ride from Roger, who turned out to be quite the religious fanatic. Not that he was preaching or anything, but all conversation somehow related to God, Jesus or The Church. He was headed to Tacoma, about 1/2 way there.

Ride Distance - 40 miles.

Sat at an on-ramp just southside of Tacoma next. 10 minutes is all it took to get the next ride. Just a short one, mind, as far as Lakewood, with Ned and his 2 small dogs Sam and Koa, who spent the whole 15minute journey facing away from me so their arses were practically in my face the whole time.

Ride Distance - 10 miles.

I was on a roll here. It was not more than 20 minutes before I got picked up by Tony. This guy was interesting. He was a medical first aid instructor, and had a prosthetic limb from the elbow down, with a hook for a hand - in his previous job he was an electricity lineman, and in his words 'I touched the wrong wire'. And when he saw my camera, he also mentioned he used to do professional photography when he had both hands. Tony was able to take me all the way into Olympia, and dropped me off at the local bus station, just shortly before 4pm.

Ride Distance - 25 miles.

Here in Olympia, I called my new host Eli, a computer IT techie guy, who was still at work when I arrived. I got directions to his house, and was told "Someone should be home, but if not, the front door should be unlocked. Go inside and make yourself at home". This is unheard of these days usually, but not in Olympia.Despite it being the state's capital, it's really only a small town of 42000 people, and the area that Eli lived in totally felt like it was in an old-school country town. It has a reputation for hippie-dom and a chilled, relaxed vibe.

It's also Courtney Love's home town, she of Hole fame, and perhaps more famously for being Kurt Cobain's wife. So Olympia had to be another of my stops on my Rock'n'Roll Grunge pilgrimage tour of the United States, after earlier in the year checking out Seattle's finest venues and Jimi Hendrix's memorial.

Once again, I didn't have a whole lotta time to spend in town, and killed 2 hours nicely by walking about the city centre, and visiting the imposing and outstanding dome-topped Capitol Building. It is set upon the top of a bluff overlooking the southern tip of Puget Sound, and has a grand majestic look about it, typical I suppose of all American political buildings built in the early 1900's. I walked in just before closing and the place was practically deserted. So deserted in fact, that when I was done checking it all out and wanted to leave 30minutes later, it was all locked up!! I couldn't get out! Seriously, there was NO ONE around. All the other tourists had gone, and no staff to be seen, not even a janitor.

This was wierd. Here I was, locked up inside among Washington's corridors of power, all on my lonesome. I shouted out "HELLO's" and whistled. I walked up and down the 3 flights of stairs looking around. I even went behind the reception desk to use the phone, but when i hit the 'Security' speed dial, it went to voicemail!! Finally, i checked the enormously large wooden oak doors again, but they wouldn't budge. At last, I noticed a small latch about 8 feet high, and another a ground level, snapped them open, and was able to let myself out...leaving the doors to the states most important and powerful building wide open!!

I walked back to Eli's place still in wonderment at what I had just experienced, and we then arranged to have dinner with two of his housemates, Danner and Eliza, at 'Le Velour', a nice, cheap funky cafe-bar on the hipster 4th Avenue. Then, back at his house, a nice little treat awaited - a hot tub in the backyard, perfect for a unisex skinny dip!

more to come....

Rusl & Jane's amazing all-star all-riding super-duper fab bike wedding

2005-07-24T07:19:00.000+10:00

Hi guys,

I've mentioned more than a couple of times about my bike-activist friends and their crazy-chopper bike contraptions.

Well, last weekend I attended a bike wedding for good friends of mine, Rusl and Jane. The invitees were what could only be described in this community of bike-freaks as an A-list of the who's who of Vancouver's cycling fraternity. As somewhat of an outsider in town, I felt honoured and touched to be have been invited to such an event, and now feel truly welcomed into this circle of amazing people.

Rusl and Jane are an awesome couple, two 20-something cool eccentrics, totally suited to each other, and even more totally committed to community awareness raising bike activism, and this wedding was just a culmination of all of this. It was fantastic. I've never been to an event quite like it.

Along with the regular cycling community there was of course a large contingent of the wedding couples' families, elderly grandparents, aunts and uncles, many of whom i'd guess hadn't seen a bike since their teenage days.

They couldn't possible be expected to ride in the procession themselves, and so in the weeks leading up to the big day several chariots were built for them to be towed along in! There were also plenty of people without bikes at all, so it had been pre-arranged that anyone who happened to have a spare bike or two (or three) would bring them along. In the end, the number of bikes outnumbered the people, despite being 150-odd folk at the wedding.

The day started at Trout Lake Park (right by my house - how convenient!) for a gathering of all the guests, and a blessing of the bikes by the officiating bishop. Rusl and Jane had especially built their own wedding love bike for the day (and their life ahead together) - a contraption of two recumbant bikes welded together, a love seat bench, dual steering, and painted bright pink!! (see the photo link to my slideshow below for a better understanding of this!)

Once all the riders had gathered and passengers seated in their various chariots, we all rode off around the lake in a procession of some 150 people, with tall bikes and choppers in amongst the 'regular' road/mountain & single-speed bikes, whooping, hollering and cheering all the way. I was employed as one of four riders used to tow a chariot for one of the 50-somethings, Kathy, in the party. It then took off into the streets for the 5-kilometre journey down to Burrard View Park, overlooking the Burrard inlet for the actual ceremony. The weather was perfect, it was just the beginning of the summer spell that I wrote about in my last entry, bright blue skies and mid-twenties temperatures.

Jane looked stunning in a body hugging little red dress, and Rusl was resplendant in a 70's style blue top-hat-and-tails suit and bow tie. We all sat down on the grass in a circle formation with a path left thru the middle for the couple to walk down the 'aisle', with a couple of violinists playing the wedding march. It was beautiful.

After some milling about chatting, wedding pics and other formalities, the party then jumped back on the bikes to head back to Trout Lake Park where the reception was being held in the Community Centre. The ride back was a little more difficult as two of the chariot pullers had bailed out, so it was left to me and Lee on our own to pull Kathy along. It was actually slightly more of an uphill journey on the way back too which didn't help.

At one point the only disaster of the ride occurred, and I happened to be the 'victim'. I got distracted, stopped pedalling for just a moment and the chariot caught up to us, bumping against my rear tyre, knocking me off balance. I came of my bike (landing on my feet), but the chariot rode over my back rim, buckling the hell out of it. Some minor on-the-spot adjustments, and we were on the road again. I suppose if yer gonna wreck yer bike, you may as well do it surrounded by a large posse of bike fiends! The rest of the ride was taken at a much slower pace!

Back at the Community Centre, I was promised that as it was a wedding accident, my rim would be fixed or replaced for free. This is one of the things I love about this group of people - the philosophy that the community looks after their own. My previously soured mood was restored.

The reception was something to behold as well - 150 guests from all different walks of life. People had come from everywhere too - all over British Columbia and Alberta, some as far away as San Francisco! The food was a buffet styled mix of catered and 'potluck' - basically, the guests were invited, if they wished, to contribute a dish of their own making. This is such a great idea - it made the choices at the buffet seemingly endless - everything from Salmon to Chinese to Indian and Mexican, soups, and salads galore -a gastronomic delight. Some of the guests were also boutique winemakers and microbrewers, so homemade wine and beer was in plentiful supply.

Then, to top things off, among Jane and Rusl's contacts in the activist community are several members of a latino-salsa-funk band. So, we had a 17 piece band full of brass instruments, bongo drums and the like entertaining us. This was truly an awersome party.

This was a wedding so different and amazing in so many different and amazing ways, i can honestly say I've never had a day quite like it before. What a wonderful day!

Check out this link to see what all the fuss is about!
http://www.dotphoto.com/Go.asp?l=freetoeknee&P=A0E5&AID=2631072&Show=Y

Cheers,

Tony

The Vancouver 'summer', dinking, Canada Day and The Jazz Festival

2005-07-23T11:46:00.000+10:00

hey there,

well, i guess its been about 3 weeks since i last wrote about the camping trek i did. getting slack!!
Before i get into details, i just have to say how disappointed i've been with the Vancouver summer thus far. All through the winter and spring I was hearing all the big hype about how 'awwwesommme' the summer was going to be, temperatures in the high twenties and low-mid thirties almost every day, just perrrfect for all the outdoors activities that everyone gets up into in this fitness-activity (and image) obsessed city - hiking, biking, camping, climbing, kayaking, sailing, etc etc etc. I was to be in my element.

well....all of June was basically crap - barely a day over 20 degrees, overcast and gloomy, with rain forecast on probably 4 days out of 7 in a week. The first 1/2 of July was pretty much the same too. I feel ripped off!! ;-) To be fair tho, the past week or so has been better, the sun has come out and has some decent warmth to it, pushing temps into the mid 20's, and its now looking good. I s'pose I shouldn't complain too much either, given that 1/2 of you reading this are in Britain and Ireland, and what i've described thus far would almost be considered good!! ha ha!

And it has been on its best behaviour when it counted, namely with the International Jazz Festival and Folk Music Festival held in late June/early July and last weekend in July respectively. During the Jazz Fest, my friend Kellie and I spent the bulk of the July 1st Canada Day long weekend cruising various outdoor venues checking out all of the free Jazzy entertainment on offer. Given the occasion and the weather, there were people out in their thousands celebrating thier nations' Day, in fantastic mood, milling about and creating an energetic and relaxed, chilled out vibe.

The famous Granville Island Public Market was particularly popular, people wandering the tightly packed aisles of fruit and veg, cheeses and meats, arts and crafts, and delicious (altho over-priced) food vendor stalls inside, while 3 stages outside entertained those soaking up the sun (in the morning at least - the weather turned a tad nasty mid-afternoon).

David Lam Park the following day was a picture of tranquility, nestled in between the glass-encased high-rise apartment blocks and the False Creek Marina, thousands of folk and thier kids draping picnic blankets over the grass, having a relaxing day out in the hot sun with some cool jazz, rhythm and blues, salsa, reggae and latin bands keeping a very happy vibe indeed.

It was actually quite funny on the Saturday, Kellie and I not knowing exactly what we wanted to do or where we planned to go. Rollerblading around Stanley Park popped up as an idea, with me on bike, but we had to get to Stanley Park to rent blades first-quite some distance away. Then Kellie suggested I 'dink' her down there on my bike!! I haven't done anything like that since I was about 18!! - and neither had she!! After a nervous start we headed out, down the side streets and laneways, with her resting on her butt on the front handlebars, and me doing all the hard work, pedalling and looking over her shoulder to see where we were going, as well as any oncoming traffic! We got as far as David Lam Park when we saw all the Jazz stuff going on, and ditched the blading idea. But man, that was a crazy little flashback to our teenage days, and we got quite a few odd looks from folk as we passed them, seeing 2 people in their late-20's/early 30's larking about like that!

All in all, we had a blast, and Vancouver once again proved it knows how to throw a party.
There was one other Jazz Fest event I went to, at the always-awesome venue, The Commodore Ballroom. I had heard of this Algerian/French superstar called Rachid Taha (www.rachidtaha.artistes.universalmusic.fr) , and saw him live at Womadelaide Music Festival in Adelaide in March2003, and again recently via KEXP FM, and liked what i heard so had to check him out in a live setting.

A punk in attitude and gritty rocker in style, he immediately grabs your attention. He has been around for 15 years or so, and in that time become quite famous as an eclectic artist, popular in his native lands, and has built up a formidable reputation as a man not afraid to speak his mind politically. He sings in Arabic mostly, with some French and uses a wide-ranging fusion of North African sounds of traditional Arabic instruments, while drawing on the western rhythms of alternative rock, hip-hop, reggae, and occasionally edgy techno samples and remixes. The result is a sharp sound halfway between Led Zeppelin and Johnny Cash, where the guitar riffs cut their way wildly through the oriental wreaths of sound. His most recent release includes a cover version of The Clash's 'Rock The Casbah', lyrics translated into Arabic. Interesting, huh!

When he came out on stage though, he honestly looked like he'd taken somewhat of a great deal of the famously narcotic BC bud - incredibly potent strains of locally grown marijuana. He was a mess. I thought he was crap, all over the shop, sweating like a bastard, he could barely stand, let alone sing. Eventually tho, he got it together, and by the end of the gig he had redeemed himself in my eyes. Despite struggling with the language barrier, he still managed to interact with and energise the audience, and at several points throughout the show, had a member of the audience on stage dancing with him, including one particular girl whose ass-shakin', hip-wobblin' belly dance routine brought the house down with audience cheers.

I should also give an honourable mention to the support act too, a West African tribal rhythm band 'Aboubacar Camara and Doundounba', from Guinea, an amazing 8-piece ensemble of players and dancers dressed in full traditional regalia. Man, they drummed and danced up a storm for over an hour themselves, and were a perfect warm-up act, getting the entire 1000-strong audience in to the mood.

The long-weekend for was extended by an extra day, given that I work for a company that deals with US trades, and the Monday was July 4th, Independence Day! Woo-hoo! I Love It!

Cheers, Tony

Melbourne Billboard graffiti

2005-07-13T07:23:00.000+10:00

Billboard graffiti
Originally uploaded by kvalentine.

nice piece of ad-busting!!

the culture-jamming network at it's finest in Melbourne

From an Australian bar receipt

2005-07-13T06:57:00.000+10:00

From an Australian bar receipt
Originally uploaded by Tom Coates.

found this on 'flickr.com'

funny as hell!

2 years...

2005-07-07T12:57:00.000+10:00

Hi all,

Just a quickie.

How could I possibly not notice? I let it slip by completely without recognition! I can't believe that! I did absolutely nothing to celebrate it! (Um, well I did go see War Of The Worlds, but that hardly counts!)

Yesterday was July 5th. That's 2 years to the day since I left home. Woo-Hoo!!

I just had to share.

Cheers,

Tony

juan de fuca marine trail

2005-07-07T12:55:00.000+10:00

hey all,

I was back out to Vancouver Island recently, just 3 weeks after my weekend jaunt to Victoria. This time tho it was for more than just a night and a cuppla days.

About an hour away from Victoria, on the south west coast of the island is a tiny little village called Jordan River. So tiny in fact, all it consists of is a campground and a shack containing a cafe/take away food joint. But, its also the beginning of the Juan De Fuca Marine Trail, a 47Kilometre trek along the beaches, reefs and forests along the coast. Typically, it takes 4 to 5 days to hike this from one end to the other, at Botanical Beach and finally Port Renfrew. We opted to take a little longer to complete it - 7 days and 6 nights, basically taking it easy and giving us ample opportunity to check some of the numerous side-trails, and camp overnight at every site on the trail. Doing it this way, we actually hiked closer to 60km over the 7 days.

Usually when I mention my doing this trek, most people say "Oh, do you mean the West Coast Trail?". Well, no. There are some key differences.

The West Coast Trail is incredibly famous worldwide - it's more expensive, and a lot longer at 75km, as well as being a lot more rugged and difficult further north up the coast, taking somewhere between 7 to 9 days to complete. Also, once you're on that trek, there's no getting off - there are no exit/jumping off points along the way. If you're 5 days in and you break your ankle, it's gotta be a helicopter rescue. I'm serious. Hence its fame.

The Juan De Fuca is kind of like its little brother. Being located just a few kilometres from Highway 14, there are 3 or 4 points where people can park, take a trail down and visit the various beaches on day trips, or opt to do just one or two day hikes, rather than the whole kit and kaboodle.

I would have preferred to do the West Coast Trail, but time and money were factors, and so the cheaper, shorter option prevailed.

Anyway, so I once again hooked up with the Simon Fraser Uni hiking club, and 10 of us (organiser Andrew, his Israeli girlfriend Sigal, French Xavier and Maryse, Korean-Canadian's Nellie and Ellen, me, and Canadian's Caroline, Bryan and Farley - a nice multi-cultural mix) met at the ungodly hour of 7am on a Sunday morning to make the arduous, and pointlessly annoying journey to Victoria (which you'll all know about from my previous email about Victoria). We then picked up our chartered bus to Jordan River, and, in beaming sunshine-y weather, set off along the rocky, boulder strewn Jordan River Beach.

Being away from civilisation for a week meant we needed to be fully self-sufficient, and so as you would expect, we carried in everything - tents, sleeping bags, food (our biggest weight - feeding 10 people for 7 days is heavy business!! - but it does mean our packs would get lighter every day!!...), cooking equipment, water filters, the whole bit. On average, we were carrying about 20-25kilograms (40 Pounds) on our backs each.

Arriving at out first nights camping spot, Mystic Beach, late afternoon. The great thing about the timing of our hike was that it coincided with the longest week of the year in terms of daylight hours, the Summer equinox, and the rising of a Full Moon.

So getting to the campsite around 6-ish there was still plenty of daylight hours left to go exploring. This soft, golden sandy beach defnitely lived up to its name - a secluded cove hemmed in on 3 sides from the forest above by a giant sandstone cliff, with a sweet little waterfall spurting over the edge of the cliff onto the beach at one point - just perfect for an early evening shower! Looking out over the Juan De Fuca Strait, on the horizon were the soft contoured outline of the gorgeous Olympic Mountains in Washington, USA, which were to accoompany us for the entire trek.

The first day we had been drenched in sunshine all day, and as the evening set in with the sun setting against this backdrop and a smattering of cloud reflecting the rays beautifully, we started up a campfire with driftwood gathered on the beach. And then the moon rose, not quite full yet, but bathing us with enough light that rendered our flashlights pointless, and we lay back watching the Northern Hemisphere stars. Bliss. Oh, and our 2nd days hike, and night campsite at Bear Beach was practically a carbon copy. Too Good.

While our campsites were mostly beach locations, quite a lot of the hike was in amongst the various forest environments - lush old growth, new growth, cedar wood, rainforest that seems far too tropical to be Canada, the trail passing by majestic Cedarwood trees left behind by loggers at the turn of the century, up and under, in and out of a giant tree-fernerys, you name it.

And it's even easier to appreciate towering cedar trees when they provide natural bridges and stairways over rugged terrain and steep hillsides. Day 3 was our toughest day, spent clambering up and over at least a dozen mountain ridges several hundred metres high and dives back down into valleys at sea-level, meeting pretty little spring water creeks and streams which were perfect locations for taking breaks and doing a little exploring. It was on this section of the trail that I sustained the only injury of the trek, and a minor one at that. I slipped on one of those cedarwood stairways, covered in moss and damp, landing on my arse, and for a moment struggling like a turtle on its back, with my 25Kg pack weighing me down. When I got up I noticed my bloody hand, and realised i had sliced the webbing between the ring and pinkie fingers on my right hand. Ouch!

Before the trek started we were strongly advised to buy some gaiters to cover our boots, to protect against adverse conditions on thre trail, as well as potential nasties like leeches. Well, luckily no leeches, but the gaiters did come in handy for the thick sloshy mud-pools that made regular appearances on the trail, particularly on days 3 & 4. It definitely 'watch where you step' terrain, one foot wrong, and you'd have it buried 12 inches deep in foul, stenchy goo! If i was 3 years old, i'd love it!! It'd be mud-pie city!! But as it was, we all wanted to avoid that particular experience as much as possible. Sadly, I don't think one of us managed to escaped that fate!

Trekking into the campsite at the rocky Chin Beach, one of the first two hikers in, just as the rain began to fall, finding a site with suitable shelter was item one on the agenda. A snug and cosy spot under some thick scrub would have to do for 3 of the 4 tents we had (the 4th pegged in at another site 50metres further down) - the closest in confines we had camped together so far, after having the luxury of good weather and expansive sandy beaches previously.

Second item on the agenda was collecting and filtering the water for the camp cooking, and seeing as we were at least an hour ahead of the rest of the group, Farley and I got stuck in.

The other nightly duty was that was absolutely necessary was to hang all of our food from a tall tree branch in sacks. Why? One word...bears. At every campsite along the way, there were warning signs saying to do this, because this is a wilderness environment, where bears do frequent, as well as cougars, and other assorted wildlife that would love to nibble thru any ground level foodstuffs, mice, rats, raccoon, you name it. It was a nightly sport trying to toss a rope-tied-to-a-rock over a tall-enough branch, and then pulley-ing it up to a height, then finding something to tie the other end to keep it there.

The weather on the whole was almost perfect. 5 out of the 7 days was bright and sunny, just one day and night of light rain, and one morning of pea-soup thick fog. This was a blessing, becasue as much as its nice to hike in beautiful blue sky and sunshine, having a shroud of mist surround you while hiking along a rocky reef by the sea while the tide is out, or through dense rainforest foliage, gives the scenery a completely different feel, an almost other-worldliness, where you cant see more than 15 feet in front of you. At times, hiking alone at the front or rear of the group, I felt like I was the only person on the face of ther earth. It was amazing.

With the trail meandering up and down the rugged valleys and ridges, there were inevitably sections where it was impossible for a trail to go, beig too steep or dangerous. There was at least five suspension bridges built along the trail to deal with that problem. Those with even slight vertigo will want to keep their eyes firmly fixed ahead since the bridge deck is simply a metal grate that allows you to peer past your feet to the creek bed hundreds of metres below. I have no fear of heights though, and these were somewhat of a thrilling highlight whenever we came across them. Amazingly, and somwehat to our relief, we even had a section of trail that followed an old logging road, and was as flat as a tack for about a mile. Boy, were we thankful for that small mercy!

That didn't last long tho, and one of our main side-trail objectives to a sea-lion grotto followed shortly after, a harrowing and hair-raising scramble through dense scrub, following the peak of a ridge down to the rocky granite cliffs overlooking the strait. Alas, no sea-lions to reward out effort, but a great lunch spot with awesome coastal views were ample compensation.

Day 5 was our lazy day. We only a short 7km hike ahead of us from Sombrio Beach to Little Kuitsche Creek, and so we decided to laze about for a while, chill out, read a book, sunbathe and watch the waves, as well as the surfers braving the conditions to try and catch those waves. It seemed a pointless venture to me, there was a swell of barely than 2-3 feet. It wasn't until almost 4pm that we left the campsite! An obligatory explore of the area was always Xavier's first priority on arrival, and it was here that he discovered a cave at the foot of a rocky cliff at the seas' edge, which demanded further exploration. Only catch tho, was that the tide was halfway in, the water level was waist deep, it was dusk and getting cold and therefore the water was likely to be freezing. Putting all of that out of our minds, Xavier, Bryan, Nellie and I got our swimming gear on and went for it, taking a headlamp along to check out those little nook and crannys. As we presumed, it was bloody freezing! This cave measured about 15 metres or so to the very back, where it was quite dark. Xavier switched on his headlamp and looked about. "I think i see a pair of eyes!!"...yeah right, whatever. The next thing we new, a little river otter, about 2 feet long, came scampering out and did bolt straight for the sea, turning it head once, as if to say "who and what the F**K are you!!". It sure as hell gave us a fright, but a laugh as well, whereas the poor thing must have been scared out its wits, no doubt never seeing anything the likes of us before in its little home! Good story anyways!

One thing I was definitely hoping to see along the trek was heaps of wildlife. To this point, I'd seen a couple of sea lions way out on the rocks and the water otter. Ellen spotted a bear cub once, and other than that, our group had seen nothing other than the birdlife you could hear way above in the trees. No whales either. Not a one. Nada. Disappointing. Along our next section of the trek though, we were supposed to check out another trail to another sea-lion grotto. Alas, there was a sign up saying the trail was closed due to a 'problem juvenile bear' in the area.

These are the kinds of warnings you ignore at your peril, so that idea was dashed. Damn. Down at Parkinson Creek though, Xavier the Explorer, again, spotted a foot-long Garter Snake sunning itself on the river rocks on the banks. These snakes are not poisonous, and amazingly, not only did it not slither off at the first sight of us, but we were able to pick it up and pose for photos with it!! Highlight of the Day.

Our final camp was gorgeous, set in the forested backcountry Payzant Creek. Our final kilometre of trekking that day was incredibly easy, with newly erected boardwalks covering up the worst of the swampy-muddy crap we'd been through before, and then crossed the final bridge into the campground overlooking a beautiful waterfall flowing over a cliff on one side of a ravine, and on the other cliff edge, a series of campsites overlooking the creek and falls surrounded by stands of tall trees, with the canopy of branches and leaves filtering thru sunlight in such pretty shaftfs and shards...My favourite campsite since the first night! it was stunning!!

Our last day started off in a shroud of mist again, and some of us rose early at 6am to get ina quick walk down a side trail to Providence Cove, yet another secluded rocky beach, which, with pea soup fog, was incredibly eerie, but beautiful and peaceful all at once. Thankfully the last day of hiking was the easiest, with a lot more of the boardwalks that we were treated to you the previous afternoon, and along the tidal reef pools for the very last section. With the tide out, we were able to explore the pools and check out the small marine life, the sea urchins and anenomes, starfish and hermit crabs. it was way cool.

The best was yet to come tho! at our very last stop, at Botanical Beach, we were surprised to sea a baby seal bathing in the sun amongst the rocks and seaweed. It was so cool just to sit and watch him (or her) sleepily doze in the sun and occasionally yawn, give us a nonchalant look, and go back to sleep!

This was definitely the highlight of the day, and possibly the trip. It was definitely THE talking point on the bus and ferry back to Vancouver.

Anyway, hope this wasn't too long. I didn't honestly think this email was going to get so epic!

talk soon,

tony

p.s. i know some of you have seen these already, but here's a link to a slideshow of my pics from the trip, so that you can see what i've experienced all for yourself!

http://www.dotphoto.com/Go.asp?l=freetoeknee&P=A0E5&SID=31738&Show=Y

Vindicated!

2005-07-02T12:50:00.000+10:00

Hi,

Well, it's been a little over 2 weeks or so since I sent out the opt in/out email, and I have had not one single opt out, and more than 30 positive replies!, all along the lines of 'love 'em, keep 'em coming tony'.

It's nice to know that people ARE actually interested in my rambling rants and musings on life, and so to those who got back to me, a collective 'Thanks Guys!'

I'm still no closer to figuring out who the culprit of the 'tony is a tosser' email was, but really, who cares. I've had a few of you ask for the email to be fwd-ed on, which I have, and the general response after reading it was 'well, that was actually a pretty lame attempt - I was expecting a so much higher quality level of abuse '. Never a truer word has been written.

Anyway, I threw it out there for all and sundry, and was ready to accpet any further criticisms. That never came, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly good. So, yes, I definitely feel vindicated.

Thanks,

Tony

open email opt in/out

2005-06-14T09:20:00.000+10:00

hey guys,

i recently recieved some pretty negative feedback/criticism from someone on my email list about my journal emails. i currently have 150-odd people on my email list, friends and family from home, and people who i've met travelling who I consider good friends, but i have no idea who this was, because they set up a bogus email address and hurled the abuse at me from there.

this doesn't faze me in the least (its kinda funny actually - especially the lengths they've gone to remain anonymous!), as i've also recieved a fair number of emails from folk saying how much they enjoy my travel tales. but it does bring me to the point where I recognise that maybe not everyone is interested, some may think they're too long, others may not have time to read them. that's fine.

So, i'll say to all of you - if you no longer want to recieve my emails journals, that's fine - email me back, and I'll remove you from my journal list. No hard feelings. This way, two purposes are served - one; my list is trimmed down to those who actually are interested in recieving them, and two; whoever the anonymous abuser is, who obviously doesn't want me to know who they are, can be removed without me knowing absolutely definitively who they are...

To quote someone famous: "speak up now, or forever hold yer peace!!"I look forward to (not) hearing from you ;-)

cheers, tony

bollock naked biking on the World Naked Bike Ride

2005-06-12T12:03:00.000+10:00

Hi,

June in Vancouver is Bike Month.

There are dozens of events happening over the month, celebrating bike culture, and raising awareness of this as a clean, healthy and environmentally friendly alternative to the car culture our society is so engrossed with.

In conjunction with this, last Saturday, June 11th was the day of the World Naked Bike Ride. In dozens of cities around the world, from London to San Francisco, Melbourne to Madrid, and Vancouver, hundreds of men and women disrobed and went for a casual cruise around their city.

DSCF7326
Originally uploaded by freetoeknee.

The legendary, and compulsory, bike lift on the bridge - so popular on Critical Mass rides, but even better when naked!!

The point of this? Well, it's a rather novel way of highlighting and protesting against societies' dependency on car culture, and in a metaphorical way, expresses how naked and unprotected cyclists feel in on-road traffic.

DSCF7333
Originally uploaded by freetoeknee.

....complete with Police Escort!!!

The ride in Vancouver attracted some 80-odd participants, myself included, and probably more than double that in spectators, media, and curious on-lookers. No doubt there was an element of voyeurism in the crowd, but there was nothing overt in that, and no trouble as a result.

DSCF7315
Originally uploaded by freetoeknee.

This isn't nudity for the sake of it, this ride has a message and a purpose too!

The theme of the ride was 'Bare as you dare' and was a clothing-optional event, meaning that you didn't, if you didn't want to, have to be completely textile free. So, in a Carnivale style atmosphere, many people opted in very skimpy, flesh revealing outfits with flourishes of colour in the form of scarves, artful face masks and clown wigs, leopard-print vests among other items, while many of those who did go naked were body-painted up with bright, colorful designs, or political-social slogans, such as 'Oil Free' or 'Using Less, Living More'. There were elements of vaudeville thrown in, with a naked saxophonist blasting out show tunes, and general merriment all round.

DSCF7291
Originally uploaded by freetoeknee.

....and Living More!!

The weather, which earlier in the day threatened to spoil the party, was pleasant enough, overcast and mild, with only the last portion of the ride featuring light drizzle. And with the media crews having being satiated with their 'odd-spot-of-the-day' quotient being filled for the evening's bulletin, we were off onto the streets of Vancouver. The riders had gathered at Sunset Beach, and we then started off by taking in the busy cafe and boutique shop-lined streets of Denman, Robson, Granville, then over the Granville Bridge onto 4th Avenue, back over the Burrard Bridge, finally returning, some 90-minutes later at Sunset Beach, swinging by a weeding party having bridal party pics snapped on the sand, giving thema little something extra to tell thier grandkids about!.

DSCF7301
Originally uploaded by freetoeknee.

...just like "Bike Chik" is doing here.

Needless to say, the reaction we had from the shoppers, cafe-goers, onlookers and pedestrians on the streets was one of surprise, bemusement and laughter, many slightly embarrassed, covering their eyes, but secretly looking through their fingers! The tourists on the double-decker buses got more than they bargained for, a free naked bike-ride show not necessarily on their tour itinerary. Camera shutters were going off left, right and centre. It was great!!

DSCF7322
Originally uploaded by freetoeknee.

See how happy everybody is!!

All in all, this ride was a major success, with a point being made, and hundreds of people, riders and spectators, having an absolute blast of a time in an open, friendly, and totally non-sexual environment.

Tony

zulu & scratch rekkids - a godsend or the most dangerous place on earth?

2005-06-08T10:02:00.000+10:00

Hi there,

the more i live in and learn about vancouver, the more I like it. I already knew it had an amazing community activist vibe, a cool alternative, bohemian cultural scene, and an awesome music sensibility where live music is concerned. Now, in the past few weeks, I have discovered a couple of excellent rekkid stores.

First of all, there's Zulu Records (www.zulurecords.com), on the hip 4th Avenue in Kitsilano. This store not only sells the most interesting array of cdee's, dvd's and vinyl, and doubles as a ticketing outlet for Vancouver's indie music scene, but it also has a cool as feck listening lounge. here you can sit back in comfy lounge chairs set around a funky coffee table, with your headphones on, listening to a potential cdee or vinyl purchase, while reading a book and/or sipping on your coffee bought from the Jitters cafe next door.

Hows that for customer satisfaction! I like it!! So much so that I bought their T-Shirt!! Only 10 bucks!! value plus....

Then there's Scratch Records on Seymour Street in Downtown. For those of you who are familiar with Melbourne, I would rank it as a peer to Au Go Go, Polyester, and Missing Link record stores. It kinda has that punk d.i.y. feel about it, its a place you know you could find that obscure 7" single from that even more obscure band from the back waters of Ontario, and when you asked the staff about it, they would not only know who and what you were talking about, but they'd most likely be wearing that bands t-shirt at the time. Ala early era Au Go Go, this shop also has its own awesome recording label for local indie acts (http://cdn.scratchrecords.com/scratchlabel.cfm) .

It's also in a location that unless you were in the know, or sought it out deliberately, you probably never knew it existed. I sought it out, as i do, and I nearly even walked past it before i noticed the sign hanging over this doorway opening to a hallway, which leads right down to the back of the building. the other giveaway to its location was the blaring Black Flag music that assaults you once you open the front door.

this is on top of the haunt just down the road from me on Commercial Drive that I spotted months ago called Highlife Records. This place is a haven for those into world music and reggae, as well as stocking the usual smattering of local indie releases.

Given my poor attempts at saving moolah at the mo, these discoveries could be rather damaging. I'm doing my darndest to just keep on walking by when i get near these shops, as when i walk in, I invariable end up buying something - either a cdee, gig ticket or some other random paraphernalia.

anyway, i got pretty excited about these and just to let someone (everyone) know.

also, caught up with my mate Sam Perry the other day - he plays bass guitar in Architecture In Helsinki, a Melbourne who made a blink-and-you'll-miss-it, whistle-stop tour thru Vancouver, playing at The Media Club, while on their 5-week American tour....scroll down for a few pics.

cheers,

tony

Victorious Volleyball Victorian in Victoria BC

2005-06-08T09:42:00.000+10:00

Hey there,

I was in Victoria over the weekend - a nice city, very pretty, but a little on the sleepy side...but that's okay - nice and relaxing. I went over with a bunch of 8 Aussie and Kiwi friends on satdee morn, and after spending satur-day and night with them, i took Sunday arvo by myself, leaving my mates to do their own thing, and came back late Sunday night after spending the arvo with a buddy of mine, Mike, and his wife Kristin, who live there.

Victoria, with a smallish population of only 300,000, is on Vancouver Island and is British Columbia's capital city. Despite being only 100Km's away, it takes about 3 1/2 hours to get there, involving a cumbersome bus, ferry, bus transfer. it's all worth it tho, the ferry ride thru the Gulf Islands being especially pretty. I was hoping to catch a peek of the Orca whale pods that play in these waters this time of year, but alas, we had no luck.

The city itself is famed for being Canada's most 'British' city, with a lot its architecture and streetscapes trying to somewhat recreate an Olde English feel. The Parliament Buildings, built in 1893 by a 25 year old architect, in a Gothic style with the pale grey granite stone block structure with dome-topped turret towers and cuppola-roof, set on immaculately groomed lawn and gardens is most successful in this regard. Its setting right on the foreshore marina just adds an extra element of beauty to the scene.

Just a few minutes walk along the marina, the epic-sized 5-star Empress Hotel, with its groomed hedges and creeping vine covered exterior is another fine example of the refined British syle of this city. At any rate, it makes for a pleasant, quiet and leisurely stroll.

Our group had split up and gone in various directions, and I was hanging with Robbo and Jen as we casually took in the city, before heading off to Beacon Hill Park to throw the frisbee around for a while.

The interior of the park, with its Victorian landscape of manicured flowerbeds, graceful trees and lakes and bridged streams, has a life all its own, as do its local fauna residents, especially it seems the goats. Jen had gone off for a walk and spotted a flock of goats in the park, and came back to us, all excitedly wanting to tell us about these goats who could talk, and said 'yee-aaa-hhhhhh' with cheeky grins all the time. But these talking goats also have mystical invisibility powers too apparently, as we could not see them when she took us to the spot. I've gotta say, I have NO idea what kind of flowers she was sniffing in the park. At the very southern end of the park, there is an open vista over the beach, and across the Strait of Juan De Fuca, leading out to the open waters of the Pacific Ocean, with oceanside bluffs where kite enthusiasts, paragliders, sailboarders and radio-controlled airplane buffs all have room to take advantage of the distinctive landscape. Unfortunately, we never made it down that far, having being distracted by a game of local cricket going on at one of the ovals within the park, where a rather tubby Brian Lara look-a-like was tearing the bowlers apart in front of the quaint old-styled clubhouse and scoreboard. Who ever thought Canadians played cricket!! Well, I guess that's one of the things that makes this such a British city.

Eventually, our stomachs tooks charge of our actions and we met the rest of the group for dinner at The Sticky Wicket pub. You've gotta check out this pub - its enormous, has about 8 different bars in there, generally set out with stylish, plush decor, and dark oak wooden bars and staircases leading up and down the various split levels. The style factor is toned down a tad at one bar called Big Bad John's, which is set up like a hick country/western tavern, but with the charming addition of hundreds of pairs of bras and knickers and panties dangling from the low ceiling!!! (not kidding!!)

Also, they have a rooftop bar with 2 full-size beach volleyball courts!! You can rent them by the hour (for $30) so we planned to do that on the Sunday.

One of the lads, Kiwi Steve, was having his birthday this weekend, so the evening meal and bevvy session was bound to be big. And Steve is a big, big lad, some 6 foot 4 tall and over 100Kg's, so i'm not sure if the word 'big' would be enough to cover it. I was relatively restrained tho, well aware of the massive wads of $$$ leaving my wallet in recent times, but still managed a good night at the 3 bars that made our mini pub-crawl, taking in The Sticky Wicket, The Irish Times (where shots of sambuca and tequila - not together - were the order of the day), and finally Steamers, where Mike caught up with us, and a local Victoria band, Machina, was playing in the background. From memory, I thought they were okay, but their peroxide blonde chick bass guitarist was hot hot hot!

Sunday, after a $5 greasy spoon brekky, served up by a surly, bald-headed-and-goateed-and-built-like-a-brick-outhouse cook, was, despite a collective boozy hangover, time for our beach volleyball mini-tourney. I hadn't played this sport in some years, and was decidedly rusty. Teams were randomly selected, and players traded between teams from time to time, and without keeping strict score, i'd say i ended up on the winning side more often than not. After an hour of pretty intense activity tho, we were all beaten - some by injury, others by fatigue, and the rest by their hangovers! Good fun all round nonetheless.

It was at this point that I parted the ways with the lads and ladettes, and slowly strolled the 20minute walk thru the cute suburb of James' Bay to Mike and Kristin's house to chill out, chat and relax, mere blocks away from the beach I'd never made it to the day before. I'd met Mike in Edinburgh on my 26th birthday pub crawl in 2000, and was now hanging out with him for the 2nd time in a month in 2005!! I love it!! A quiet stroll along that beach, a delicious smoked salmon pasta dinner and a DVD (Team America: World Police - incredibly funny, and highly recommended), then all of a sudden it was time to head back.

Being incredibly tired and lazy, I opted to pay the extra $15 for the comfort of the Greyhound bus and ferry ride back, rather than deal with the hassle of changing 3 times, and knowing that I was getting back at close to Midnight, it was an easy decision to make.

On the journey back, I met a Northern Irish girl and a Glaswegian travelling together - and just hearing the accents pricked my ears, and I had to chat to them. She was well impressed that I picked her accent correctly, commenting that she always gets mistaken for every other accent imaginable in the region- English, Scots, Welsh, Republican Irish. These guys were mad...they were doing Canada in 3 weeks!!! - and had taken in Montreal, Quebec City,Toronto, Banff, Whistler, Vancouver and Victoria in that time!!! They were flying everywhere admittedly, but they were travelling on British Pounds so i guess could afford to.

So another busy rapid-fire weekend thoroughly enjoyed.

talk soon, tony

2nd job - soul destroying but worth it

2005-05-30T06:17:00.000+10:00

G'day,

I've bitten the bullet, taken a deep breath and taken the plunge. i've got me a 2nd job. I need the money.

I've taken on probably one of the most soul destroying-make you feel like a piece of doggy-doo jobs on the planet tho. I'm a market researcher. I do telephone surveys. I'm the guy who calls you at dinner time to bug you about your opinion on any lame arse topic that some even more lame-arse company thinks is necessary.

To paraphrase one one my friends, Brenda, yes - "I'm one of THEM!"

At the moment we're ringing people and asking them their opinion on the state of and quality of public transportation in Vancouver. "On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the frequency of service of bus number X" on repeat about a million timed per survey on every little nuance of PT you could think of... I've been doing this for about 3 weeks now, and I couldn't tell you how many times I've been hung up on at the point, "Hi, my name is Tony, I'm calling from Synovate, a professional research company in Vancouver..." BEEP, BEEP BEEP.

Our target is an average 1.15 surveys per hour, and each one takes about 10-15 minutes. Not very high, but I'm lucky to get anywhere near this. Think about it. If I do get the one (and a bit) required surveys every hour, I then spend the next 45-50 minutes having the phone hung up in my ear, getting abused (get a life, mate!), or listening to increasingly weird answer machine messages. All for the princely sum of $8.50 per hour....before tax. THIS AIN'T FUN!

I've been doing this for a month or so now, but thankfully, i'm only on for three 4 hour shifts per week - any more than that and i'd go even more stir crazy than I already am.

But, it will all be worth it come September when I'm loafing about California in the sun, and about $1200 richer than I would be otherwise.

Talk Soon,

Tony

Pictorial - Vancouver Bike Activists Scene in all its Colour and Glory

2005-05-29T08:54:00.000+10:00

Critical Mass celebrates cycling on Burrard Bridge, Vancouver, May 2005

I am cyclist, hear me roar!

Tall Bike madness!

My bike is my art...

Critical Mass is fun!!

say hello to Margarita - that's the bikes name...

getting the kids involved nice and young...

Ahoy, me matey's...it was a Pirate themed ride after all...

Lisa, Leslie and I in Grandview Park, post ride...

Corking the Tai Chi collective...

Critical Mass artwork at the Pedal Play workshop...

Pedal Play workshop...