BigBlog

Hey all,

Sorry for not finishing the blog. but I planned to do it when i arrived home from the trip. Unfortunately as soon as i got home, I had 3 weeks to find new house. I also found out I had to get a new housemate as well becasue while i was away, my existing housemate Cris decided to move in with his GF. I was given notice to move out of my existing place 2 days before i went on this trip.    Grrrrrrrrrr   really good timing there....

Day 2 and we went on an organised tour. The tour was to take in Elephant Rock, some lake, a waterfall, a mission, Frog Rocks, Mushroom Rocks, another mission and a tribe/community that lives in caves.
When we got to Elephant rock I didn't even get my camera out. At a big stretch of the imagination this rock still looked nothing like an elephant. Into the lake, yeah it was ok, but still not photo worthy. Now the waterfall was something special, it was not a massive waterfall, maybe 100ft but it was really nice. Our most lifelike rock structure was found on the way to the waterfall, we named it Choad rock. Not sure what a choad is? Google it and find out if you dare.
Hey nothing against religion if it floats your boat but after seeing church after church for the past 3 weeks, they just didn't excite me anymore regardless of the age or historical significance, the missions were boring. Now on to Frog rocks, well once again I was pretty hard pressed trying to see a frigin frog anywhere in the rock formations. I thought it somewhat comical when I decided to take photos of the French couples on our tour as they were the only frogs I could see.

The train trip through the Copper Canyon takes you high up into the mountains of Mexico and as we got higher, snow started to appear on the ground. When we got to Creel, we had reached an elevation of about 7000ft above sea level. We stayed in Creel for 3 nights as planned a few tours.
The first night we headed to the local pub where we found ourselves halfway through the superbowl. Big deal, we didn't know who was playing, didn't care who was playing and just as importantly, didn't care who won.
We met a crazy dude and we instantly became his friends. This is where I first experienced 70's and 80's music as a way around the Spanish/English language barrier. The lyrics to a known song can be your only bridging element, but it makes you a friend instantly. This guy is talking about Little River Band - I am struggling to remember them let alone anything they sing.

Tickets in hand we borded the train and took note of the train security guards armed with machine guns.

It was pretty cool when my ticket has me seated next to a native indian Mexican and his family. I must have seemed like a giant to him and his family as they were all so small. We decided to go on the ecomomy class train as it stopped at more places and allowed us to experience a more realistic and less touristy Mexico.

Breakfast was bought by hanging out the door at a stop to buy a few tortillas off some lady barking something in Spanish.

The train trip had some amazing scenery as we passed through numerous gorges. The train bairly went about about 30kmh so allowed plenty of time to hang out the doors and get photos. We got off the train after about 8 hours in a town called Creel.

The ferry arrived in Topolobampo just after dark and we got a bus to Los Mochis in preparation for the Copper Canyon train trip the next morning. 5am start tomorrow, and this time we actually got up at 5am.We get a cab to the train station which opened at 6am to sell tickets for the 7am train.

La Paz, 1500km into the country, 8 days into the country I made my official entry into Mexico. With the lack of Mexican officials at the border, I finally approached immigration in La Paz. Luckilly no fines or hassles and I was no longer an illegal alien in Mexico and got issued a visa.

Gus, Adam and I booked a island tour and snorkelling trip but it was unfortunately cancelled on the dahy due to strong winds. We decided to pack up and move on. We got a bus to Pichilingue (the local port just out of La Paz)  to catch a ferry across the Sea of Cortes to Topolobampo. The "5 hour trip" took about 7 hours and our general admission style ticket did not include a specific seat so we made ourselves comfy in the bar amoungst all the truck drivers. The ferry carried freight and passangers and it was a bit scary to think that the bar was full of truck drivers and they were to all get off the boat after 7 hours in a bar and drive their truck again.

Planned a few days in advance when we hit Loreto but unfortunately they came unstuck after a big night on the beers.

We planned on having an early night as we were going to get up at 5am and get a bus to La Paz. There were three beers in the fridge and 3 of us playing cards so i figured it was a coincidence that we couldnt pass up. That beer each lead to another six pack which lead to another six pack. By that stage we heard a few American girls and a guy talking outside our room and we had to check it out. We got chatting and next thing you know, a few more trips to the bottle shop (about 50 metres away) and we ended up at a birthday party of a local lady in her crepe shop and knocked back a few free pina colladas (or however you spell it)

We slept through 2 different alarms at 5am and missed our bus. Oh well La Paz can wait another day.

Caught a bus from San Quintin to Guerro Neegro. (BigPuddle get your act together and allow me to use the word Neegro without 2 E`s.) Herby/Max, can you create a docket to get this updated in the reserved word dictionay?  (it doesn`t allow me to use the word Blgpond either) friggin bastards...

The last 4-5 days have been all pretty similar and almost boring as i have done the same thing each day. Get up have breakfast and catch a bus to the next pissy little town.

Went whale watching in Guerro Neegro which was pretty wicked. You see a whale in Australia and you might be lucky to see a few whales. Whale watching Guerro Negro style involves about 50 - 100 whales and when you are in a boat that is basically a big tinny, they seem twice as big. Not bad considering the whales are 15 metres long  (grey whales) and you are in a pretty small lagoon that the whaes come in to.

Caught up with a pommy dude (Adam) who we met in the hostel in San Diego and he crashed on the floor that night in our hotel room. The three of us caught the bus to Loreto the next morning. Adam is a pretty good bloke and after we talked about the cricket we soon learned that we all had an appreciation of beer and Texas Hold'em poker. Another bonus is that he speaks fluent Spanish which has been a great help. 

Hung around in Ensenada overnight and caught a bus to San Quintin. I guess the highlghts have been the change from eating burgers in the USA to now eating fish tacos in Mexico. It is always fun trying to communicate as well considering i did not know a word of Spanish when i arrived. So far i have learned te following:

hello
thankyou
yes
no
i can count to 5 (thanks to The Offspring song "Pretty fly for a white guy" where they count in the song in Spanish)
taco
water
toilet

hahaha, it is amazing what you can get by with.

I caught the trolley (tram) from San Diego to Tijuana and walked across the border to Mexico. No passport check, no officials just a gate to walk through. I don't believe it will be that easy to get out of here though. I have been told to try and get my passport stamped or to get a visa so that i wont get hassled by the police or military. I guess this can be my goal over the next few days.

Caught a bus from Tijuana down to Ensenada and spent the night there. 5 minutes into the bus trip Gus had a weird experience. He was looking out the side window into a ditch that was alongside the road and saw this person running. Not so weird you say... the person has a 1 piece ladies swimming costume on and a dick hanging out that would not look out of place on a donkey. Yes a bit weird you say??? That's not it. Gus looked a bit further up the torso and noticed that this person also had a massive set of boobs to top it off. hahahahahaha, thank god I didn't see it as I would have probably got the first bus back to the US. I knew something was astray when I saw Gus giggling to himself as he looked out the window. He later told me the story.

Gus and i went in different direction this morning and guess where we met up again later in the day??? a car museum, where else hahaha. I was walking out as he walked in. I went to the San Diego Air and Space Museum and saw the original Apollo 9 module which was a buzz for me as I will not get to any NASA museums while I am over here and i sort of wanted to see some of that stuff. Saw some of the equipment used in Apollo 11 that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin used while collecting moon rocks.

Went to a model train exhibit which was unreal if you like that sort of thing. (trains are in the family and i guess it's in my blood)

Went on board the 1001ft long aircraft carrier USS Midway. This is the longest ever serving US aircraft carrier (was retired mid 90's) Talked with a few of the tour operators who also served on the ship during its 47 years.

Off to Mexico tomorrow so will try and get to an internet cafe there somewhere.

Gotta go have 1 minute left on credit here.

Drove back to San Diego, drove around town a bit and then returned the car. 

A couple of San Diego sights i saw included:
The 1001ft long aircraft carrier USS Midway. This is the longest ever serving US aircraft carrier (47 years and was retired mid 90's)
The San Diego Air and Space Museum which included the Apollo 9 command module and various other bits of NASA equipment from various missions.

San Diego seems to have a great climate and also seems a pretty safe city. Wondering around in a tee shirt in the middle of winter. Yeah that's cool.

Left Vegas and went to the Hoover dam. Damn that thing is big (boom tish) you realise it is even more impressive when it was built in the 1930s.

Headed to the Grand Canyon to see some less common views of the canyon with a covering of snow on its southern walls. Most of the places in the last 4-5 days have had snow everywhere which is quite different to the more commonly seen summer snapshot of an extremely dry and hot place. Went to Monument Valley where they have all the buttes that were so popular in the old western sceneries. We travelled a lot through Navajo and Apache counties which do not sell alcohol so the duty free bottle of rum was heavily abused. In Canyon de Chelly saw some houses that were built in caves in the canyon walls, got harassed by native Indian guys trying to sell rock painting, jewellery and all this other authentic stuff... Jeez they put the hard word on you. I'm gonna hate Asia if I ever go there with pesky little buggers trying to sell me useless pieces of shit in the street.

Vegas is an awesome place but the casino strip is a shit load longer than expected. I think I worked it out to be about 6km long and i walked it three times on day 14. Do they have chiropractors for big toes? I think i need one after walking the strip because my foot hurts. Saw a show while i was there and yes it was a topless titty show but before you go off thinking it was a porno style strip show, it was more a stage show style thing in a theatre and not the seedy show you were expecting me to attend.
Gus left early in the morning to hit the strip on day 14, before I was up and ready to go. I later found out he spent his first day on the piss and figured out how to get free/cheap beer so he basically wrote himself off on day 1 and spent the next day, in bed. He woke on day 2 and had cuts and grazes all over himself and some pretty big dirt stains on his clothing. I comically suggested he may have been hit by a car but he doesn't know exactly how he hurt himself and hasn't ruled out the car story i suggested. I saw an awesome car exhibition which is one of the largest classic car displays in the world. Cool thing is that most of the cars in the display are actually for sale which I guess if i hade of won big in a casino i would have revisited with a wad of cash. I also went to "BODIES...The Exhibition" http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/ (not another titty show) visit the site for more details. Once you got over the gore factor, it was amazing - Matt, I know you would have loved it.

Went to a shark Reef in the Mandalay Bay Casino.
Went to Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat in the Mirage Resort and Casino where i saw white lions, white tigers, snow leopards and dolphins.

Drove the short trip into Death Valley first thing in the morning.
Gus' theory #1 - In this part of the world, when you look at the mountains in the distance, they look like those fake backdrops of mountains you see in old movies. We came to the conclusion that the movie backdrops obviously aren't so fake after all (or alternatively the mountains surrounding Death Valley are just be fake like the ones in the movies...)

There are lots of straight open roads around this part of the States that reach out to the horizon without a bend in sight so the legs of the hire car got a good stretching. After a while we figured we would measure the longest straight bit of road we could find. We got a few that were about 20 miles without a bend but jeeez it gets boring when you are just flying along in a valley and not a corner in sight. The cruise control got a good workout and I think it allowed Gus to sneak in a few microsleeps on the long straights. I have shit loads of photos of everything to date so I will delete about 90% of them and show you the remaining 300 or so.

Made our way to Vegas in the early evening.