Long Beach – San Diego: The Last Leg of Alta California 11th - 18th November

On Sunday morning, we met up with Liliana (a friend we met through Madrid’s Bravobike bicycle touring company) and her boyfriend, Richie, for a very lively and tasty brunch at George’s Greek Cafe, where we also enjoyed the waitress, Bubu’s, entertaining banter.

Leaving LA behind us, our route followed a good bike path through several beach towns south, which made cycling very enjoyable. Even more encouraging was the quantity of amiable and enthusiastic people we met on the way: Californians are very friendly indeed and many took a great interest in our journey. However, a couple of portions of our route took us onto the road, and unfortunately we experienced two incidences of hostility, the first in the form of two girls who were too stupid to work out why we were in front of them waiting at a red traffic light which resulted in lots of swearing and shouting on their part, and the other in the form of a muesli bar thrown with great force out of a car window which managed to hit Paul’s elbow and Naomi’s hip. We shrugged our shoulders and carried on over increasingly rolling hills, eventually finding ourselves at our destination, Laguna Beach, a very wealthy town indeed by the look of some of the neighbourhoods and shops that we saw.

Our hosts, Jane and Dick, had warned us of a big 3 kilometre hill up to their house, something that didn’t deter us. However, after getting up the not too difficult first kilometre of it, a small SUV whizzed passed and parked up in front of us. Out came a man who said, ‘You must be Paul and Naomi!’, and of course Dick had come to give us a lift up the hill. We were tempted to carry on cycling but, after a brief millisecond of weighing up our options, decided to accept the kind offer – it was, after all, rapidly getting dark. After jamming the bikes and luggage in as far as they could go, we chugged our way up the hill and realised why he had come to collect us – the road was very very steep indeed! Jane and Dick’s very kind hospitality included lots of drinks to quench our thirst, and an excellent dinner of steak, potatoes and salad. Jane also very kindly took us to the very top of the hill the following morning so that we could see the views, not only of the Pacific Ocean and Laguna Beach, but of the towns further inland too.

After negotiating the very steep hill back down to Highway 1, we made our way through more of the beach towns of Orange County and then the massive marine base of Camp Pendleton, where Naomi got stung by some unidentified insect, possibly a new secret military weapon, but more likely a bee, as it left its sting and the attached venom sack in her shoulder. After watching the sun set from the beach at Oceanside we made our way to Carlsbad to find a bed for the night. We only had a short distance to cover the following day, so while Paul enjoyed another well-deserved lie in, Naomi went off for another legwax, this time at the hands of Tammy, and even got a goody bag to take away with her.

Yet more beaches and seaside towns took us towards San Diego and finally led us to a big hill (the first in a while) up to La Jolla mesa, and after having to negotiate the rush hour traffic of the suburbs, and getting rather lost in the labyrinth of university housing, we arrived at Jesus and Alison’s flat. We spent two rather guilty days enjoying their excellent hospitality (their two boys, Mariano and Temoc kindly gave up their bunk bed for us) and getting lots of advice about Mexico.

The following day we made our way into San Diego, via even more beach suburbs. We were particularly impressed with Pacific Beach, which boasted an impressive travel shop (where we stocked up on ‘necessities’ for Mexico) and a cafe serving delicious sandwiches (called 976). Despite the short distance, our dawdling made us late for our arrival at Sandi and Chris’ stunning penthouse apartment. Sandi immediately made us feel at home and we enjoyed two lovely days in their company. This included lots of tasty food (definitely not vegan!), a visit to the world famous San Diego zoo and some wonderful views of the city, its surrounding inlets and peninsulas and the lights of Tijuana in Mexico from their flat, located in one of the taller buildings in downtown San Diego.

Our originally planned two days in San Diego quickly turned into four while we procrastinated about our next move. We were somewhat nervous about entering Mexico, having heard numerous scare stories about bad drivers and worse roads, not to mention news reports about armed robberies, killings and kidnappings. Because we were two weeks behind schedule, and most scare stories tended to be about the northern Baja we decided that heading South of the tourist strip from Tijuana to El Rosario was the best plan. We took a day trip into Tijuana to get a feel for the place, and to enquire about buses to central Baja and their policies in regard to carrying bikes. On entering Tijuana, despite its terrible reputation, we realised that it really wasn’t as dodgy as many liked to make out (well not to walk round anyway), enjoyed a delicious torta (sandwich), refused lots of invitations into people’s shops and pharmacies (it’s a hotspot destination for Americans to buy prescription drugs without a prescription) and were delighted to find that Mexican loos were cleaner than expected (in fact cleaner than Spanish ones!). However, one problem did arise at the bus station where we were informed adamantly that the bikes wouldn’t get on the bus unless they were boxed. So back to San Diego we went, wondering how we were going to get round this new obstacle, and of course needing another whole day and night in San Diego to figure it out.

We’d found accommodation at the Hotel Occidental, and were disappointed to discover that we were paying $80 for ‘European-style’ accommodation (this is a euphemism for shared bathrooms in the States) which was actually more of a hostel than anything else. Shared bathrooms wouldn’t be an issue if it wasn’t for the fact that they are usually unisex, and women have to therefore tolerate the residues left by some of the standing sex when they spend their pennies. So from our boxy room, Paul found an internet site (www.hotwire.com) where you can book a room in a hotel in a certain area of town, but without knowing which one it is. They do inform you, however, how many stars the hotel has – in this case it was three and a half for $70. We were delighted to discover we were going to stay at the Sheraton for $110 less than the usual quoted rate, and therefore headed off eagerly to get our money’s worth. Of course we couldn’t check in until 3pm, so we went off to kill time around town. While we were inspecting a mini-model of San Diego through the window of the Visitors’ Centre, we were aware of, but not paying much attention to, a group of rather well-dressed people hanging around a statue. Naomi got into conversation with a photographer nearby, at which point it was discovered that the statue was of Pete Wilson (an ex-California governer) and that the man himself was also present. As this was not an opportunity to be missed, we asked if it would be possible to have a photo taken with Pete Wilson, his statue and our humble selves. After all, how often does one get a chance to take a photo of a man and his statue! And how often does Pete Wilson get a chance to have his photo taken with a couple who have cycled from Alaska to San Diego?

So our last day in the States was quite an exciting one indeed, although not without its ironies - from the not very clean toilet in our bathroom at the Sheraton, it was evident that the previous occupants were of the standing sex.

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