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Month 2:  San Francisco --> Maui --> San Diego

This e-mail is the second mailing of 2 years worth of monthly mailings. It's been more than a month since the last mailing, which may become a trend, but here it is finally.

I've continued my travels from San Francisco, and took a bit more time in the US than expected. But it was good that I did, because I really got to experience places like Maui, San Francisco, and San Diego instead of just speeding through. Since my last mailing I spent another week in San Francisco where I had an amazing time. I feel strongly about "Frisco" and would say that if I ever move back to the US, it will be to this cultural Mecca instead of the east coast. This is most surprising because I had every intention of moving to the west coast after university, but decided Boston was a better choice after visiting many west coast cities like Frisco in 2001. After I got away from the touristy areas, and got to know the locals' city, I'm confident that it is the right US city for me. The art scene is flourishing, the technology industry, cutting edge, the living standard, healthy, the political beliefs, liberal, and as long as you can manage to survive the financial burden of living in the most expensive place in the US, it's really a dream city. I spent my second week taking long walks through the streets and parks, and along the coast line; meeting some locals, and travelers; and taking care of some business (like registering to vote). See the pictures here.

I got a great deal on my flight to Maui for $99 each way (thanks to Sierra, my SF hostess), so I felt like luck was on my side. The service on North American Airlines was superb, and landing in Maui felt like I was really starting my trip - being 3,000 miles and 3 time zones off the coast of California.

Ah, Maui! The weather in Hawaii may be a little different than you think. Yes it's about 78 degrees and sunny year round. But it was never even 80 in the 2 weeks I spent there, and only reached the 60s at night. They aren't the steamy tropical islands that the Caribbean can be. Usually the only showers in Hawaii pass through within 10 minutes, but during the February there is a little more rain. For my first week, there was no rain, and the sun was pretty strong. At the end of the week they had "the worst storm in 5 years". The island braced itself for what we in New England would consider a nice summer rain storm. It lasted... oooo... a WHOLE day! Ha! The following 4 days were, regrettably, cloudy with occasional drizzle. But if this is as bad as it gets, it's no wonder New Englanders think it's as close as you can get to paradise on Earth.


Hiking Haleakala crater with a group from my hostel

The people I met while at the hostels were a HUGE part of the experience. I may say this many times in the next 2 years, but hostels are SO great! You meet the most interesting people. With some you have a great conversation, and never see again. Others you stay in touch with and meet up with later in your journey. But when traveling alone, if you can meet a few people to spend your vacation with and share your experiences with, it's a great thing! This could NEVER happen at a hotel. In Maui I met my group of friends for the next week on the very first day at about 10,000 feet. A group of about 20 of us drove to the top of Haleakala volcano and spent 7 hours hiking 12 miles through the crater. It was so beautiful! The south side of the crater looks especially like the recent pictures of Mars. Able to fit all of Manhattan Island in its crater, you can imagine it takes a long time to get through. The little 20-foot hills that you see from the crater edge turn into 1000-foot mountains when you get up close. About 3 hours of hiking into the sandy crater, the valley turns to sharp lava rock as you hike north. It goes through a few more phases before turning lush with greenery. Eventually, once we were all exhausted, we had a 3 mile climb straight up the steepest part of the crater edge. It was a painfully tiring stretch, but even more beautiful than anything we had seen. We looked down on the clouds rolling into the green valley and could see far beyond through the lava fields to the desert in the south. We ended the hike 2000 feet below our starting point, and drove up just in time to see the sunset from the top. The pictures are very telling.

We had all been burned fairly badly at the 10,000 foot altitude with no protection from the clouds below, so the following beach day was even more welcome when we saw it was a partly cloudy day. We went to Makena on the south west coast, which has the fantastic Big Beach and Little Beach. The area is remote, so it's sufficiently absent of tourists. Most locals know it well for the famous clothing-optional Little Beach that you have to climb over a lava cliff to get to. We started the day by seeing a huge humpback whale very close to shore as it jumped in the water. As it turns out, I was there at the height of whale season (February)! The rest of the day was just volleyball matches, eating our picnic lunches, and lounging with new friends.

The next day we hiked the cloud forest on the west side of the island in the much older mountains. The whole hike was accented with swinging bridges, waterfalls, and swimming holes. It was a relaxing hike, though - unlike the strenuous volcano hike.


Mariana, me, "Mango", and Rob at the Banana Bungalow Hostel

On another day we drove to Hana. If we had driven ourselves, it would have been a very scary experience, as the 40 mile road is on a cliff with over 600 tight turns (twistiest road in the world), and 56 bridges. Luckily we had a driver that was very familiar with every turn, and had no problem maneuvering past the other crazy drivers on even the tightest 180 degree cliff-side turns. We stopped at a few food and product stands that occasionally dotted the road. Then we hiked up past the "7 sacred pools" through a breathtaking bamboo forest, to a huge three hundred foot waterfall. It was a perfect hike, punctuated with a stroll through a guava orchard where we gorged ourselves on the succulent pulp. We also had time to see the black and red sand beaches that everyone talks about. The black sand was like black jewels, and was more beautiful than I imagined. The red sand was really just kind of a brown sand, and had a fair amount of sharp lava rock mixed in. Apparently Big Island has green-sand beaches!

And so went 2 weeks of Maui. I embraced the "island time" and friendly ways, hitch-hiking my way around the island and living off seafood and fresh fruit; taking in a whale watch here, and a beach day there; partying through the "devastating storm" with the rest of the wet hostellers at a free hostel BBQ & keg party. Please look at the pictures, as it really was 2 weeks PACKED with experiences. In the end I had to press on, sadly, but little did I know how much better things could get.

I found myself back in San Francisco where I really wanted to stay again. I discovered some more neighborhoods, and played the ukulele I purchased in Maui, for Sierra (yes, it DOUBLED my baggage, but I had wanted to buy a guitar, and this is 1/10th the size...). After a few days I bussed down to San Diego for a day before heading to VEGAS (yeah baby, yeah!). This stop in San Diego was good because when I returned from Las Vegas, I had a good sense of the place.

Now, Las Vegas, as many who know me would imagine, has never been a "must see." I don't gamble (shut up Melanie...), and think places where vices fuel the economy are unhealthy. However, that said, I LOVED VEGAS! I arrived at 4AM and hit "The Strip" for 23 hours straight! I had brought an article about the various casinos so I knew the casino themes, and some great free things to do. The Strip is much longer and larger than I would have imagined. I didn't see all the casinos, but I think I saw the most important ones, and took in a Cirque du Soleil show in 23 hours. This is simply WALKING THROUGH the casinos! I didn't stop to gamble, or anything! So, as you can imagine, this is a big place!


The Strip at 4AM

When I was ready to go to the hostel it was 3AM the next morning. I got there, and saw that there was a Grand Canyon tour leaving that morning at 8AM. I felt I had seen The Strip and still had 2 days left, so slept for 4 hours before getting up and going on a great day trip. Again, the day-trippers became good friends (go hostels!) as we visited the Hoover Dam, Joshua Tree Forest, and the west side of the Grand Canyon. The Hoover Dam is... well, a big dam. When I get the pictures up you'll see, but it's not much more meaningful to see it in person. The stories about its construction, however, were pretty interesting. It was built during the Depression, so men came from all over the country for the jobs that paid proportionally well for the time ($1800/yr to $3600/yr - more than a doctor!), but worked in 130 degree temperature and lived in squalor because the company that hired them knew they had no other options at that time of depression. We continued into the Mojave Desert, which I've always found fascinating, and on to the Hualapai Indian reservation. To get to the reservation you need an invitation, and to brace yourself for a serious 14 mile off-roading experience through the Joshua Tree Forest. On the way there, our tour guide was a bit too confident for our stomachs - the road was non-existent, and the off-roading was more like sitting on a jackhammer than in a van. But we made it to the canyon edge and quickly forgot about our stomachs. Now, we only spent about 2 or 3 hours wandering the canyon edge, but to be frank, I don't think seeing the Grand Canyon from the top is enough. We all thought it was beautiful, but there seemed to be a general consensus that the experience had been spoiled by all the images we'd seen before. This is a place, after all, that has been seen on post cards, in movies, in music videos, at photography exhibits and books, online - everywhere! And unfortunately it just didn't look that much different in person. So, my suggestion to others is to spend more than just a day there, and hike down into the canyon to make the experience your own. That said, none of us were disappointed in anything that day - except maybe the traffic on the way back, which was the result of a plane crash-landing on our highway.

Later that night those of us who weren't exhausted decided to go out for dinner and a walk on The Strip. Good times were had, and as usual, friendships were made. (Tip for those of you going to Vegas - avoid the dangerous downtown at night. Ahem... the taxis wouldn't pick us up - even with 4 girls!) The next day I wandered around with my new friend Minh, before my 11PM bus to San Diego. We finished the day with the buffet at the Flamingo (starting with 3 plates-full of delicious shrimp), and a free pirate show at Treasure Island (the 3rd time I'd seen it)! Yeah!

That was the last Greyhound bus I'd take in the US. I had been using Greyhound for most of my travels within the US, and it's worth noting the Greyhound bus experience as a whole. This service, like Amtrak, has no competition in the US. As such, it is a pretty dirty, unfriendly, unreliable service. But if I have not mentioned it before, the clientele would hardly notice this. I have taken Greyhound and other services (go Fungwa!!!) in New England for years. It's slow, and uncomfortable as usual, but the people on the bus look... well, like you or me. That is to say normal people use this form of public transportation in the north east. Everywhere else in the US, however, you feel as though you could just as well be on a prison transport bus - these people are the misfits, alcoholics, homeless, and general undesirables of society. I can't say why this is, but I would guess that many of them have had their licenses taken away, are too poor to own a car, or there is something else that has kept them from driving in a car-crazy America. Needless to say, the stations feel unsafe, and all you can hope for on the bus is that you won't have to sit next to the woman with vomit on her shirt, or the knife-toting guy that wants to stay up all night to talk about how "those fuckers" took his 6 inch knife before he got on the bus, but they didn't find the other two he had in his bag. Once you do find a seat you'd be smart to affect a twitch or something so as to ward off all the weirdoes from wanting to sit with you. The ride itself is a great slice of Americana, from the views of ranches and deserts, to the rest stops at McDonalds and Burger King (probably more interesting for those of us who don't eat there regularly anyway). Of course, you'd be safer and more comfortable to find some mates to drive with in a car, but the bus is almost a welcome part of the American experience. After all, your mates aren't likely to share disturbing stories of the war in Iraq, like a returned soldier started doing at 3 in the morning while passing through Texas on my bus.


Hotel Del from Some Like It Hot

I spent the next 2 weeks in San Diego. The city seems to be a model city for urban planning. The old has been perfectly integrated with the new, and it's one of the cleanest cities in the US. Similarly, the USA Hostel was a model hostel, so more of my time was spent there in the social-friendly atmosphere than I usually would spend in a hostel. I got out plenty, and visited the various neighborhoods of San Diego like the surfer town of Mission Beach, the California-hippie Pacific Beach, and the rich La Jolla. The Top Gun bar (Kansas City BBQ) and Some Like it Hot hotel (Hotel Del Coronado) were must-sees of course. And Balboa park was a great place to get lost for a day. I met some fun Parisian exchange students (Alex, Isabelle, and Soizic) and we went with some other hostellers to Tijuana for a day trip.

Tijuana was very interesting. I've heard that its border town nature makes it just like the US, and keeps you from experiencing the real Mexico. This is mostly true, but not entirely. I think most people cross the border without the real desire to see extreme poverty, violence, and disparity. So when they see the casino, and street lined with familiar dance clubs, bars, strip clubs, and souvenir shops, they are relieved to be seeing familiar things. Sure there are Mexican flags, sombreros, and plenty of Mexicana to remind you you're in Mexico, but everyone knows this is the Amexico, and they're fine with that. The hostel guy, Adam, who "took" us, for instance, had never been anywhere but that main street (not even ONE street over in any direction!), even though he'd been there dozens of times, and even had a girlfriend from there!

Well, obviously I wasn't going to settle for Amexico, so I wanted to go further down the street. Not surprisingly (though it seemed very surprising at the time) only 4 blocks down that main tourist drag, Adam proclaimed that that was the farthest he'd ever been. To his credit, it wasn't long before we were in increasingly deteriorating neighborhood, and we were starting to feel uncomfortably like gringo and gringa targets. As a group it was a bad idea to continue, and many were feeling very uncool about the area, so they turned back and I was on my own. What I saw for the next hour was (I would argue) the very real Mexican underbelly. The shanty towns, and slums in the hills above Tijuana were far worse than those I remember in Honduras. Roads had washed away into houses. Cliffs had collapsed with houses on them, but the residents were still using the structure. There was a bleeding dog in the street that had been shot, but was still alive (and ready to attack!). A 4 year old boy shot at me point-blank with a sling shot. People seemed to go inside when they saw me (which is never a promising reaction), and though the dogs ignored the few Mexican pedestrians, they tried their hardest to take a chunk out of me (even from the rooftops, where many of them were kept)! I think the hillside shanty towns with houses made of corrugated metal and dirt floors were the most shocking part. My fear is far less memorable one month later, but the neighborhood images are as vivid as if I was there yesterday. I met up with the group later and had some bad (but cheap!) drinks and disastrously un-authentic Mexican food along the tourist street, at which point I threw in my hat, and went to join the one and a half hour line to the US border (the Mexican border had no check-point and no line - just a bridge you walk over).


Isabelle, Soizic, Adam, and Alex

The next couple days I spent some time hanging out with the Parisian girls in new neighborhoods, but for the most part I spent a good chunk of time changing all my travel plans. You see, after San Diego I was supposed to head down through Central America, South America, and then westward. However, I had spent so much more time in the US that by the time I was ready to head into Mexico, I assessed my schedule, and it turned out I would be arriving in the Southern Hemisphere for winter... doesn't sound too bad, and it isn't, but then at my planned pace, I'd also be arriving in the Northern Hem for winter - which is way bad (look at my packing list to see that my clothes are NOT adequate). So after much deliberation, I decided to completely change my whole 2 year planned route (oh yeah, the plan has also gone from 1 year to most definitely 2 years), and go the opposite direction. Oy!

(Continued in next mailing...)

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