In Santa Ynez

Whoever said it was always sunny in Southern California was lying.  We have been gifted with fog, hiding the mountains.  It's not summer here any more, and I should get some more jumpers.

Our apartment is regulation white, with regulation uncomfortable purple couch.  I'm looking forward to the day in a couple of months where I will wake up on Sunday morning, pad out of my bedroom into the living area, look around and feel at home.  I'm looking forward to the day I will be sad to leave and have to pack everything up.  We don't have enough stuff on the walls and the place feels unwelcoming, and slightly pissed off.  

I feel like I've free-fallen out of a plane into the middle of someone else's life.  This is called culture shock.  It's the shock part I'm really feeling, the bit where you hit the ground and realise that everything is new.  You don't understand these people.  They barely speak English.  They go to the gym.  They don't walk.  They told us about this in orientation, some kind of "cultural rollercoaster" or "cultural iceberg" or whatever, instead of telling us useful stuff, like how to get to Trader Joe's.  

Our part of the artificial village of Santa Ynez is inhabited by transfer students and internationals.  Maybe this makes us more likely to bond.  I don't know.  My two roommates are both transfers from community colleges in other parts of California.  We were meant to have a fourth but she didn't show and they haven't given us another.  We went out to dinner with the other families in our building, and got to know each other, possibly so now if someone is being loud we can tell them off nicely.  None of this sounds very interesting.  I'm scared out of my mind, for no reason.  Classes start day after tomorrow.  It'll be nice to feel useful.

I'm going to have to get myself a bike.  I've been convinced by the bike paths that are better maintained than the person paths, and the odd lack of pavements in Isla Vista.  They just suddenly disappear!  And you're walking on grass!  Or in the road!  People here ride big solid beach cruisers, like the SUV of the bicycle world, the girls in pastel shades of pink or yellow or green with baskets and flowers printed on the seat.  There seem to be a huge amount of sororities and fraternities, which I find endlessly fascinating, with their crazy Greek symbols and mysterious 'RUSH' signs.  Right now, I just feel lost.

Going north, new home

The last days in Ensenada seemed to pass like some kind of dream. No, I'm serious. Probably didn't help that I didn't want to eat (because my appetite was all wonky) and couldn't sleep all that well (probably due to apprehension about all the stuff that was going to happen in the next couple of days). But it seemed vaguely unreal, like the calm before the storm. Drinking beer at all kinds of day. Sitting in the common room with a motley bunch of people that didn't have anything in common except the room. Stef, my German traveling buddy and speaker of Spanish, depressed about returning home after a year of freedom in New Zealand. Peter, one of those American exports you find living in Mexico, middle aged, long hair, possible alcoholic, talks a lot and loudly. Teresa, from Florida, twice my age, pleasantly ignorant and slightly disapproving. Carlos, entrepreneur, great photographer, owner of African relics, takes me to the bus stop at 4.30am. Me, whoever I am, curious about the future, white girl, turning browner every day. Like God or whoever had picked a random bunch of people out of a hat and put them in a small Mexican city.

A Mexican city with the best fish tacos, like, ever.  I broke my six-year seafood drought for these things.  God, they were good.  Everything in Ensenada was located with relation to this fish taco stand.  As in: 'You go to the fish taco place, and turn to the right, and walk two blocks.' I think it was pretty much the centre of the universe for four days.   

We were in Mexico for Independence Day and the show of pride this induces. On the street corner there are pyramids of white, red and green flags for sale, along with horns and windmills and hats. The festivities had fireworks and traditional music and fudge. And horchata, better than in California by far (sorry, guys). And dancing, the women with huge white skirts and the men with knives and bottles of tequila on their heads.  

But all good things come to an end. So yesterday I got on a bus at 5am. Ironically, considering what you might think about Mexican time-keeping, that was the only bus I caught that day that wasn't late. Don't even talk to me about Greyhound anymore. I didn't get to where I am now, Santa Barbara, until 7pm, a journey that really is only about 6 or 7 hours direct. Crossing the border wasn't a nightmare, exactly, but certainly got my heart racing; I had to get to LA by a certain time to get a certain bus to SB, etc. The border guards were all friendly as hell, but fast, no. At the processing office one was playing on his computer with Microsoft Paint. I've no idea what he was trying to draw. They just seemed to be totally unconcerned with maintaining the reputation of US border control as hungry pitbulls with a license to search and detain. Oh, and for the record, no one searched my bags; I am content with my cheap Mexican mescal. In a plastic bottle. It's meant to taste like lighter fluid.

Strolling around trying to find buses with a pack that must be a third of my body weight wore me out big time. I think I have muscles on my legs that weren't there before; well, they hurt, so they must be there. I just passed out last night, with my clothes on; tried to wake up at 11pm to call my mum, and put the alarm on. I woke up when it went off, and I swear I got up a couple of minutes later; when I looked at the time it was 3am.

Soon I'll write properly about Santa Barbara and Isla Vista, the community where all the UCSB students live. After twenty-four hours, I'm reserving judgement, although right now it's living up to its raucous reputation with gusto. The parties are loud, and when I went downstairs to spy, I found the front fence being used as a backdrop for what looked like an impromptu photo shoot for an adult magazine. It is, however, as I heard, beautiful here. On the orientation today, I saw the swimming pools, and the bike lanes, and the monolithic light brown buildings that all look kind of the same. I think life as a student could be pretty perfect here, easy, relaxed. At this early stage I think it's the people I've yet to meet who will make the difference. Otherwise I'll be stuck in this perfect paradise with the characters from The Rules of Attraction.

[That's a book by Bret Easton Ellis which I read back in NZ. It's written a while ago but is a really good portrayal of the tedium of sin and the monotonous life of a modern indulgent college student. Depressing as hell. What I heard about UCSB put it back in my mind, and I've got to say, I haven't had any reason to forget it so far. Harsh first impressions? What I thrive on. So maybe I should say I'm attempting to reserve judgement.]

Palm trees and plastic bottles

I'm now starting to feel like I don't really want to leave Mexico. Mexico's great. It's dusty and dirty and loud. It's everything I'm expecting Santa Barbara not to be.

We spent two days in Santa Rosalia. As most Mexican people will tell you, two days is a long time to spend in Santa Rosalia. There's not much to really do. Mainly we hung out on the front porch of the Hotel Del Real, reading, playing ukulele. The ukulele seemed to impress passersby, including a policeman who was at work checking car registrations. He told Stefanie that most cars didn't have one, and there wasn't really a lot he could do to make them have one, except ask nicely. He was also upset that he didn't get to carry a gun.

One of the most exciting things we saw in S.R. was a plaque on the building housing the 'Thrifty' ice cream shop. It explained how, in some long ago year, the Police Chief of Santa Rosalia had arrested William Somebody, a U.S. citizen wanted on ten charges of murder. Maybe this was what our policeman had dreamed about when he signed up for the force. 

We took a night bus to Ensenada. Twice they stopped the bus at military checkpoints, and made everybody get off the bus and open their luggage. They have sun-faded photos up of some of the drug shipments they've found. I have to say, people say horrible things about the corruption in Mexican officials, but we've had nothing but friendliness. Maybe it's because we're female. Actually, Mexico is a lot less scary than I'd planned. Although men in Loreto had a weird habit of lurking down dark streets. They didn't rob us or anything. They just seemed to be hanging out, looking sketchy.

So we got to Ensenada about 7.30am. We were unsure where to stay; got to the only backpackers hostel and the door was opened by an Australian guy with no pants on, scratching his head and yawning at the hour of day. 'You've come to the right place,' he said. We're certainly having a nice time here, hanging around, drinking coffee, talking to the owner, Carlos, a soft-spoken dreamy Mexican guy who seems to know at least four languages. There aren't many others staying here (read any, apart from Peter, from North Carolina). In fact, Carlos is out at the moment. He left us in charge, with strict instructions not to open the door to anyone. Hopefully he'll be back before anyone wants to get a room.

Ensenada's an interesting place. Lots of cruise ships stop here, so along the waterfront is this touristy stretch of souvenirs and restaurants, and bars that were already getting started when we went down at 11am. But you go one street away from this, and the tourists just disappear. I'm immensely thankful to Stef for speaking Spanish; not only is it sometimes essential, it's allowed us to connect with Mexican people.

Last night, on our way back from wearing out our shoes all over the city, we heard the opening strains of John Lennon's 'Imagine', as sung by a young band of Mexican teenagers (you have not lived until you've sung 'do, do, do do do' as the sun sets over Ensenada). Intrigued, we returned, to find another band playing amidst food tents and dancing. We had a feeling this might be connected to Mexican Independence Day, coming up on Tuesday, but were still a bit confused. Even more so when I was given a free pina colada, and free food. Were these people religious? I started to think this was just the Mexican way, but my thoughts about the inherent goodness of all of humanity were interrupted when the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place: the speeches, the signs for something called PAN, the words action, national and political. We had walked in on a fiesta for the political party currently in government. We got out of there.

Today we finally got to a beach. The beach was sandy. Very sandy. There is still sand on me after a shower. Sand... Oh, sand...

Oh, the humidity!

So it´s definitely been raining. The last thing I expected. The clouds are still out there, hanging around... Oh no, please go away before we need to get to the bus stop! Please!

The temperature´s a little more bearable up here. Mulege is absolutely full of palm trees, and it´s by a river, and it´s quite cute but quite small. They had a flash flood a couple of weeks ago, so down by the river there are dead cars and fallen streetlights.

There´s not a heck of a lot to do. Our hotel room is beautiful, it has bright colours and carved wooden headrests. I took a 40min walk to the beach, and all I found was a lot of stones. It could have been a beach in England (then when I double-checked the guidebook, found that it was polluted and not recommended for swimming). I keep spying these gorgeous beaches from the bus, all white sand and turquoise water, but am realising that it takes a car to get to them. I was so unhappy at this thought that I wrote a song about it.

We did take a tour up to a cave painting site in the hills, a rare tourist luxury. The landscape was incredible, the hills all red and rocky with sunlight playing off them, the cacti huge and towering above the trees, all green from the recent rain. Hiking up to the cave (slash wall, there was minimal concave action going on there) there were frogs dancing all over the place. I guess they don´t get many feet tramping on them. We were shown a cave where the native people apparently used to live; I never really believed that anyone would want to settle down in a big dark hole in a rock, but this one looked quite comfortable and spacious. The painting itself was pretty exciting (although I´ve always thought they look like they´ve been done by a wayward child with a crayon). There were deer and turtles and stuff. Most interesting were the small white handprints; little signatures, marks from a long time ago, with the same mentality as graffiti. I was here, I existed, this is me, this is my mark.

Slowly cooking

So when I left Wellington in winter, damp, cold, windy and more cold, I promised never to complain about the heat, and wished it to be hot, hot, hot.

Now is when I break my word, and bring out the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for."

Loreto, about three quarters of the way down the peninsula of Baja California (that´s the big sticky-out bit on the side of Mexico), is currently thirty degrees celsius. It´s 9.15 am. It reaches thirty eight degrees during the day. My traveling companion (who, fortunately, speaks Spanish pretty well) and I have been huddling inside the air conditioned motel room (painted a bright shade of orange) too afraid to go outside. Today we´re catching the bus and going north, hoping to find a beach and cooler air.

It´s beautiful here, though. Distant mountains provide a backdrop for palm trees and low-slung buildings. The mission was built sometime in the 1600s or something. Too bad the most comfortable place is the supermarket. They´re having a fiesta to celebrate the town´s anniversary, which is pretty cool, and they´ve got a few flags up. The music doesn´t start til after 11pm, and oddly enough there doesn´t seem to be any dancing.

Finding my way across the border and to the bus station in Tijuana turned out to be pretty much as hard, and not harder, than I´d thought. On my way out of San Diego in the tram I felt like I had stage-fright. But when you get into those kind of chaotic situations, something innate kicks in and gets you into a bus with a guitar playing mistrel, into a taxi when you get off the bus too early. You kind of go on auto-pilot, and somehow welcome the fact that you don´t have to pretend anymore; I feel like I spend a lot of energy in the US pretending like I´m not a tourist, trying not to make mistakes. But backpacking is fueled on mistakes. You put a certain amount in one end, with a certain amount of money, and see where you get to.

The roads here are a shock after the four-lane freeways in the US. The main road down Baja is two lanes, both seem incredibly narrow, with no shoulder at all. Our driver on the (nineteen hour!) bus ride down here took the bends at quite a speed, and smoked out the window. The sun rose on rolling barren hills filled with scrub land and the most awesome cacti. Wow! The men wear Texas-like cowboy hats and have short legs. The signs on shops are hand-painted. Compared to Egypt, this is easy living; hardly any harrassment from shop-keepers, and if there is any from men I can´t understand it so it´s easy to ignore. I think we´re in a rich part of the country. There are no homeless people, in comparison to San Diego where there are three to a corner. All the children are really cute, I want to steal one, and the beer is cheap.

Wide streets and shadows

Is it getting hotter? I think it's been getting hotter. The midday sun is to be avoided at all costs and the heat beams up from the pavement, warming my feet from the inside out. No wonder people don't walk much here.

I'm still hanging out in San Diego and am staying with a friend I met in Egypt for a couple of nights. This is great. There is a dog named Norm and lots of stringed instruments. We watched The Daily Show and the speech of the Republican nominee for vice-president, Sarah Palin. We made nasty comments about her and felt slightly better.

It is nice to see the city outside of downtown. It makes me feel less like a tourist. San Diego is actually America's 6th largest city, or something, but it's spread out. So the center has big shiny buildings and impressive fountains but feels sleepy. They also have a park, Balboa Park, which is kind of like heaven, in that it is very pretty and has lots of plants and water features. I think when they coined the phrase 'a walk in the park' they were probably talking about Balboa Park, not somewhere like Golden Gate Park where you are enveloped by drug pushers and fog, or Central Park in NY where you risk your life and limbs (I hear). The Zoo is also in this most marvelous park (and they have a kauri tree - odd) but I have been too lazy to go. And if I went by myself I would just start talking to the animals and then people might look at me funny; actually, maybe not, this is America. Everybody talks to themselves.

Tomorrow I have to go to Mexico. One thing about San Diego that I did not pick up from Veronica Mars is that Tijuana is right next to it, kind of squashed up against the border like a rotten tomato. So all I have to do is catch a tram to the border, walk across, find the bus station and fight off anyone who tries to steal my kidneys. I read that Tijuana has become more dangerous recently because rival narcotics gangs keep shooting each other. Ha! Fun!

America is kind of great but a little hard to get used to. The paper is a different size. I'm not kidding! They don't have A4! And the light switches go the other way. But the hardest thing is the driving on the right side of the road. Everywhere I walk, I have to mutter, 'Left, then right. Left, then right.' It sort of feels like waking up one day where the world is almost normal, but just a little bit wrong. Maybe like being schizophrenic. Or having your brain tapped by aliens.

Slightly insane in San Diego

Where I'm waiting, waiting, for what feels like days. Nothing to do, lots to worry about. Trying to meet up with a friend who lives here and is currently on vacation. This city is sleepy. No one to really talk to, and I get very annoyed with my own company after a while. However, I can hardly complain; I'm on holiday...