San Francisco and Yosemite

Well, at least I got here! At one point it looked as if the Greyhound bus would never leave Los Angeles - no-one in the terminal seemed to know what was happening. There were no buses for ages and then they all turned up at once! Luckily an American guy did some asking around and we eventually found the right bus. Finally got into San Francisco at about 8:00am and quickly made my way to the hostel. Was going to try and catch up on some sleep and then get a shower but my bed wasn't available yet so I ended up heading straight into the city. It is actually quite easy to get around here, especially once you figure out the one way systems (and hence don't wander around for ages looking for the bus stop - doh!). There are also the cable cars which are not the same as any cable cars I had seen before. They are basically street cars / trams (although you can't call them trolleys - they don't like that around here!) which are pulled along by cables which run under the roadway (and not overhead like the ones I'm used to). They get very busy because of their age (and hence photo opportunities) and are not particularly fast but you have to go on them at least once. I used one to get upto Fisherman's Wharf in the afternoon and then decided it would be quite good to take a walk over to the Golden Gate Bridge. About 4 miles later it didn't seem like such a good idea, especially as I still had to cross the bridge (and get back). Managed to do that whilst it was still light (and hadn't gotten too cold - the city is a lot cooler than you would expect - apparently Mark Twain wrote the the coldest winter he ever endured was the summer he spent in San Francisco). I then jumped onto the bus that I was expecting to take me back downtown. It was a very scenic route with no landmarks that I recognised - not surprising as it was the bus to the university in the southern outskirts! Apparently the bus stop at the bridge serves for both directions - I'll check the destination sign on the side of the bus next time, rather than just the route number on the front! Unsurprisingly I didn't do much else after that as I still had to get back to the hostel to sort myself out.

Saturday started slowly - more days seem to be starting slowly at the moment, must be due to constantly trying to do stuff - you don't get a weekend off with this travelling lark ;-) Took a walk back to Fisherman's Wharf to book a trip to Alcatraz, expecting to do this on the Sunday as it is normally booked out. However, travelling alone sometimes has it's advantages and hence got the last space on one of the afternoon tours. You probably all know about Alcatraz so I won't bore you here. Suffice to say that the tour (especially the audio tour) is well worth doing.

Sunday was spent doing a lot of hillwalking (kind of unavoidable in San Francisco to be honest). So took a look at Lombard Street, an incredibly twisty road due to the steepness of the hill slope. Cars have to be parked at 90 degrees to the slope here to prevent them rolling away! Then it was over to the Coit Tower which a bit like the end of a fire hose. The hill here overlooks most of the city and you can go up the tower itself if you want to get even better views (but you have to pay for them). I used the steps to get back down to the waterfront (there are still streets on these hill sides but no roads). I wandered along to waterfront to the ball park but there wasn't a game on so I took the streetcar over to Ocean Beach. This is meant to be a bit of a retreat for the locals but it looks a bit run down now, although it probably didn't help that the weather was overcast.

Monday was the day to meet up with the Green Tortoise tour of Yosemite but that wasn't until later in the evening. So I did some more aimless wandering around, basically chilling out. I did go and see the sea-lions at Fisherman's Wharf, having forgotten to do that when I was previously there. They're all wild and had turned up at the wharf following the earthquake in Loma Prieta in 1989 (actually arrived at K-Dock on Pier 39 in 1990) and have never left - in fact the group is growing in size. Spent an hour or so just watching them sunning themselves, with the males competing for the best sun spots. Met up with the Yosemite group at about 8:30pm, standing around the back of the Greyhound station, with everyone saying 'Is this the right place' as it had nothing to indicate it was the pick up point. Can't remember the names of everyone in the group but please step forward and take a bow: Jess, Leah, Manus, Emily, Chris (Kiwi), Carly, Siou-Yu. First stop on the first night was at a supermarket to stock up on the essentials: nibbles and more importantly, beer - and lots of it! There wasn't much to see on the first night's journey so we just concentrated on making an impact on the beer mountain.

Tuesday saw us arrive in Yosemite, going past El Capitan on the way to our first hike. If El Capitan sounds familiar, you've been playing too many videogames (it's one of the tracks in Gran Turismo 4)! The first hike wasn't too stressing, up to Vernal and Nevada falls. The falls weren't as impressive as they could have been due to it being the middle of summer, but at least they were still flowing (most of the falls having already dried up). We didn't actually realise until later, however, that we had taken the harder route up and the easier route down - maybe we should have taken that as an omen, but more on that later. The next stop was meant to be to see the sunset but we got caught in a downpour, which meant we spent the next 4-5 hours driving around Calfornia and in and out of Nevada in order to find somewhere to camp for the night. Still the campfire and singing (some better than others - Jess and Kiwi being the stand-outs) made up for it.

Wednesday was effectively the 'wet' day. The morning was spent in Mono Lake. I was about to say swimming but you can't actually do that as it is full of salt and minerals (a bit like the Dead Sea) so you spend most of your time floating amongst the tiny green shrimp, not quite freezing but not far off! By the time you get out and dry off in the sun everyone looks a bit like a zombie due to the salt. Not having a shower nearby we made do with a shower off the bus - a window is opened outwards and a couple of people pour a bucket of water over it! Lunch was spent in Mammouth, after we had managed to drag the girls away from the chocolate shop that is! The final stop for the day was at a hot springs. Now for most people this would conjure up an image of highly commercialised purpose-built pools with an entrance price to match. But this being a Green Tortoise trip there's none of that! The hot springs are basically on the side of a river so you get hot and cold running water - normally when you're least expecting it! Add in more beer and melon taken from a bowl that was left to float from person to person and a good time was had by all. All that was left to do was to head to the next camping spot and make a dent on the next batch of beer (collected in Mammouth)!

Now remember I mentioned about taking to hard route up a trail, well we did it again on Lembert Dome. We were told that it was quite an easy trek up to the top and there were great views of the surrounding areas once you got there. So we started heading around to dome looking for the trail. A few of the group started clambering straight up but that didn't look like the right path so the rest of us (separately to begin with) carried on looking for this easy path up. After a while we met up having not yet found the trail but we did find what looked like a fairly straightforward route up the dome so we headed off up it. After a while of climbing we finally had to admit that it wasn't a route up but it did have a very nasty looking slide to the bottom! Luckily we came across one of the Japanese members of the group and followed him down. However his definition of a simple way down kind of got lost in translation - in order to get down safely we basically had to wedge our backsides into a crevice in the rock (no double entendres intended!) in order to stop slipping down. How were we to know that the path was on the other side of the dome! That was followed by a cold dip in a lake before heading off to see the giant sequoias in Tuolumne Grove. The day was rounded off with karaoke (I did a very bad version of Satisfaction - not helped by the fact that the other 3 guys chickened out!) and very drunken journey home (well we had to finish off the beer!), topped off with the latch on top of bus blowing off, which effectively gave us a very cold air conditioning unit!

Friday was spent recovering from the hangover before heading back to the Green Tortoise hostel for a free meal and a night out in San Francisco with some of group. The only downer (apart from the fact that not all of the group could make it) was the fact that everything closed at 2:00am, just as we were getting started!

Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon

Well I finally convinced the Greyhound driver to let me on the early bus to Las Vegas at SLC - I didn't fancy waiting another 10 hours for the next one! He was basically just standing around but I was trying to get on less than 15 mintues before departure time - another one of those strange rules that I keep coming across. Had to take my backpack onto the bus itself though - not very comfortable when someone sat next to me with the pack jammed in between the seats (too big for the overhead or under seat spaces). Not helped when the person in front decided to recline his seat back! Got into Las Vegas mid-afternoon and took a stroll down the Fremont Street Experience (the original gambling / strip-club centre for the city)to the hostel. Used the rest of the day to catch up on the basic chores (email, laundry, etc.) as I was expecting to stay in Vegas until the Saturday in order to catch the Green Tortoise 'Hostel Hopper'.

The next day (Tuesday) was spent on a day tour to the Hoover Dam (quite impressive but not so much as the locals seemed to think), the Joshua Tree National Forest (lots of Joshua trees and not a lot else) and then the West (North) Rim of the Grand Canyon. The West Rim is a lot less commercialised than the South Rim (i.e. it hasn't got a MacDonalds!) and is actually owned by the Hualapai tribe. However, I suspect it won't stay that way for long as they are already starting construction of a 'glass skywalk' over the canyon. This and the other developments planned for the area will probably ruin this view of the canyon, which at the moment is pretty spectacular. It may not be as deep as the Colca Canyon that I saw in Peru but the vertical drops make it seem so much more impressive. Unfortunately by the time we had had lunch we only really had 30 mintues to look around. That was basically the problem with the whole day - a lot of time spent travelling and very little time spent in the places we were visiting. If I was to do it again I would probably look into staying overnight in the area and doing a 'Rim to River / Top to Bottom' hike. I was going to do a tour of the Bryce and Zion National Parks but the amount of travelling involved in this tour pretty much put me off and hence I decided to reduce the time I would spend in Vegas and head off to San Francisco earlier than expected.

Before heading off though I spent a whole day on the Strip so that I could get a day and night time view of it. It has to be said that it looks pretty impressive as well as pretty tacky - Blackpool on steriods! Most things are set up for viewing at night though, such as the battle at Treasure Island and the 'volcano eruptions' at The Mirage. I had a quick go on the slots but can't really see the attration and definately couldn't bring myself to spend all day pumping coins into them like some people were doing. Still the food was good but not quite as cheap as I think it used to be - I think the casinos have cottoned onto the fact that people were trying to have a low-cost holiday at their expense!

My bus on Thursday wasn't until the afternoon, so I spent the morning in Fremont Street. You can basically tell that most of the money is now spent in the Strip as the casinos here, whilst that run down, are a lot less lavish.

At the end of it all though I'm quite glad I went to Vegas but I'm also glad that I didn't spend as long there as I originally intended. There were a few things more I could have done but unless you are a gambler it gets quite boring after a couple of days.

Amtrak through the Rockies to Salt Lake City

On the Saturday morning I caught the Amtrak train over the Rockies to Salt Lake City. It is meant to be one of the most scenic train journeys in the world. What they don't talk you it that it is also one of the slowest! Thankfully the seats were a major relevance compared to bus seats. Each seat was almost as wide as a pair of bus seats, with space to stretch your legs. And I had a pair of seats to myself! Putting the armrest up almost gave enough space to sleep on properly - but not quite!

Having said that the first half of the journey was very spectacular as we wound our ways around the mountains sides, with the speed of movement giving plenty of time to take in the view as well. Unfortunately the train did not stop at any stations long enough to get out and wander around, basically just enough time for the smokers to get a quick cigarette break in. I would have liked to get out at Glenwood Springs (a location for hot springs) for a few hours but not for an entire day.

Unfortunately the second half of the journey (primarily through Utah) was far less dramatic. Whilst there were some rock formations, it was primarily desert so I tried to catch up of some sleep, not very successfully, but at least it was better than nothing. We eventually got into Salt Lake City (SLC) after midnight, about an hour or so behind schedule. Not so much of a problem normally, but the area around the Amtrak and Greyhound stations in SLC appear to close down at about 11:30pm. Meant a long walk to the hostel, especially as I wasn't totally sure where it was! Still I found it after about 45 minutes or so, the blocks in SLC are so much bigger than any I had come across to date.

The next day was spent just wandering around the Mormon Temple area. Very impressive but you do wonder where all the money comes from. Apart from that there wasn't a great deal to do in SLC, especially on a Sunday, so I decided to pick up some food and cook for a change. Nothing too spectacular but it made a change to has something fairly basic. I had also brought sufficient fresh food for the next few days (veggies, meat and cheese) but by the time I came to collect that in the morning, it had all been taken. So much for labelling your food so no-one uses it by accident. Not that it could be too much of a case of mistaken identity as I had made up some rolls for the journey to Las Vegas. This was the first time I had had anything taken, although I don't know if I had been lucky up to that point. If nothing else it put a real downer on SLC, not that it was high on my list of places to visit again anyway. Still, it's Las Vegas next!

(ASIDE: In some of the hostels I stayed at later, they had a rule that if anyone was caught taking someone else's food, they would be ejected immediately and would lose their deposit).

Denver, Boulder and back to Denver

Well the arrival in Denver was a blast of fresh air after New Orleans. The original plan was to travel from New Orleans to Austin and then onto Denver. The evacuation to Dallas kind of changed that as I would have had to backtrack to go to Austin (aside: we were originally going to be evacuated to Baton Rouge, Louisiana or Houston, Texas and so the original plan would have still worked and I was actually going to head to Austin with one the guys from New Orleans but Dallas changed all that). After flying into Denver (I couldn't face another 18-hour Greyhound) and catching the bus into the centre, I could hear what sounded like a jazz festival. This wasn't so much of a surprise after the previous festivals that I had been through since being ion the States. However, carrying on it turned out that this was not just any old festival but 'A Taste of Colorado'. Basically it is a combination of festival and funfair back home, so there was a variety of music stages, fairground rides and a whole assortment of food stalls. I can't think of anything that could have been more different from the scenes in New Orleans. In some ways it was good to see so many people enjoying themselves but in others all I could think about were the friends that had departed in Dallas.

The next day, which happened to be Labor Day (US spelling!), was very quiet with most of the public buildings closed. I spent most of my time replacing the stuff that I had had to give up in New Orleans. I also used my time to email everyone back home to tell them my story (most of which is now the previous post in this blog). Writing that email was a little emotional but I couldn't really show that I did it whilst sitting in a cafe / bar and would probably have got some very wierd looks. I also used the time to pick up some books to replace those that I had already read. Because they were cheap I picked up some classics: 'War of the Worlds' - just seen the recent film, 'A Picture of Dorian Gray' - just seen 'A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' and was wondering what the background to the Dorian Gray character was, and 'Frankenstein' - having just read a book on science and gene therapy. Will probably do a bit of review of these as I read them.

On the Tuesday I headed up to Boulder - a whole $3.75 from Denver! Boulder is a university town and very laid back. The aim was to use this as a base for walking in the mountains (which were meant to be just a few blocks down from the hostel but were just a little further - major understatement - call that a 30 minute walk and you would be closer to the truth!). Having said that the first day was spent mostly in the library responding to the flood of emails that I got as a result of send out the New Orleans email - thanks you guys, you don't know how much I appreciated those mails, especially the ones which said that it had made you change your mind about the whole situation. Whilst we were in New Orleans we had said that we would do all we could to let people know about the good things that we saw in New Orleans and I hoped I did my little bit. I also rememebered that my cousin worked on a local newspaper back home and she used the basic text of the email in her story as well.

Well the next 2 days were spent hiking, the first up to (almost) Green Mountain and then next up to Royal Arch. There's not really a lot to say about them other than the solitude (the first time in a few days / weeks when I could hear nothing but nature). The other wierd thing was reading the warning signs about ticks, mountains lions and bears. I had just got out of a hurricane and now wild creatures wanted a go! Luckily (or otherwise), the wildest creature I saw was a very inquisitive squirrel (he did pose quite well for the camera though)!

On the Friday I headed back to Denver, with the intention of a quiet night before catching the train over the Rockies. However, I had forgotten about the Oktoberfest that was taking place in Larimer Square that night. Having been to a few in Germany I had to see one in the US. To be honest it was a bit quiet - probably something to do with having to buy coupons for the beer first!

New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina

Well a few people said that taking the year off to go travelling would change me, I just didn't expect the change to be so quick.

For those of you you are not aware of the route that I have been travelling, I arrived in New York on 15 August for a few days. I then moved onto Philadelphia, St. Louis and Memphis for a few days each before arriving in New Orleans on Friday 26 August. What I wasn't aware of at the time (having not seen the news, or been informed by Greyhound or the Hostel management) was that Hurricane Katrina was also planning on a visit. I only found this out on the Saturday afternoon, whilst having a coffee in one of the hotels just outside of the French Quarter. However, by that time all transportation out of New Orleans had been cancelled, leaving only the people with private cars able to evacuate.

With a group of others at the hostel, we decided (after advice - finally - from the hostel management) to try an sit out the storm in the hostel. However, after seeing the news in a local bar (just about the only place where we could still get food) we decided that the hurricane was going to be stronger that we felt the hostel buildings could stand and hence we headed off to the Superdome. Little did we know that the storm was going to be the least of our worries.

After several hours queueing up to get in and having to hand across any potential weapons (which included items from my first aid and sewing kits and my knife/fork/spoon), we settled in for what we hoped was a day or two. Later that evening I had my first experience of MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat, otherwise known as Meals Rejected by Ethiopians). In reality they're not that bad!

There were a couple of anxious moments during the storns (the roof leaking, a couple of holes appearing, the shutters getting blown off and then being moved into the corridor areas as a precaution in case the roof had been damaged sufficiently to leave it vulnerable to collapse). However, all in all, the first hours / days were relatively benign.

However, by Monday night / Tuesday morning, with the influx of more survivors which basically tripled the population in the dome (we think there were 8000 people in the dome on Sunday, rising to about 25000 by Tuesday), things started to deteriorate. The drains had already stopped working and hence the toilets were in a very bad state, overflowing and with an incredible stench (not helped by the fact that there was no lighting in them, and that some people seemed to be just using the floor to relieve themselves). Incredibly, some people still 'camped' out on the corridor areas just outside the toilets, it being some of the only free floor space.

By Tuesday, the food and water situation was also beginning to worsen. Luckily, within our group, we had been conserving rations anyway (and we had brought some food in with us). However, the water was really a problem with the heat and the fact that by Tuesday the daily ration had been reduced to 1 litre per person (anyone who has seen the Sphere handbook will known that the internationally agreed minimum standard is at least 2 litres per day).

Also by Tuesday, the international elements of the dome were slowly being consolidated into a single area (although still within the general dome population). This was done so that if our embassies wanted to get in touch with us we would be easy to find. It also meant that we started getting some clear information from the National Guard, regarding the situation both within the dome and outside. It was via this that we started to hear about the first of the rapes (of a little girl) and of a suicide. The posture of the military was also noticeably changing - at first no weapons were held, then shoulder-slung behind them, shoulder-slung in front of them and then, by Tuesday evening (when we could hear the first looting of a soft drinks machine) the weapons were held in the ready position. Considering this, the news that the generators were expected to fail (and hence leave us in darkness) late on that night was not good news and hence we tried to organise ourselves in a smaller area, with the men and the larger backpacks being used as an outer perimeter.

By Wednesday, rumours started to spread that the food had run out and the tension in the dome really started to deteriorate. Luckily by early afternoon, we had been moved to the nearby Arena which was also serving as a Medical Area. This was a source of great relief. It also gave us to chance to help out with the evacuation of the sick and infirm (chatting to them to keep them calm, helping them with food and keeping them cool by acting as a giant human air conditioning unit, fanning them with whatever came to hand - cardboard, fast food signs, etc.). The situation within the dome had deteriorated to the point that the miltary had moved out and held a security perimeter outside the dome itself (a Guardsman was brought in later that night with a gunshot wound). A ray of light however, was the sight of a young boy helping in the Medical Area, this being more incredible when you realise that he had lost his entire family.

On Thursday we were 'smuggled' to a 'safe area', which was the basement floor of a large hotel. What we didn't know, at first at least, was that this was still only a few hundred yards from the dome.

Finally, on Friday morning we were evacuated from New Orleans to Dallas, Texas. The sight of the volunteers who welcomed us at the state border with hot food, cold drinks, fruit (the thought of which had been one of many food fantasies over the course of the previous few days), first aid, clothes and clean (!) toilets was extremely emotional and many of our group were moved to tears.

Saturday was spent in a hotel in Dallas (provided by the British Embassy - amongst others), starting the recovery process through discussions with members of the American Red Cross, and the embassy staffs arranging transportation either back home or to our next destinations. Whilst everyone was happy to be moving on, the breaking up of the group was probably almost the most difficult thin that we all had to endure. I finally got to Denver, Colorado, yesterday (Sunday) and it is from there that I am writing this.

If you don't mind me preaching for a few moments I want to leave you with a couple of messages. Whilst the situations in New Orleans and the dome were very bad, the vast majority of the people are good people trying to get though a very stressing period. The vast majority of the people helping us (the National Guard, the medical staffs, etc.) were doing so knowing that they didn't have a home to go back to (and in some cases not knowing for definate that their families were safe. Also the international group (including me) have in the wider scheme of things only lost a few days of our lifes. For the people of New Orleans (which had a very large minority living in poverty), they have lost their homes, their jobs and, for some, friends and family. This is not something that the city is going to recover from in weeks, it is going to take months, if not years. Anything that you can do to help, either through direct donations or by arranging events, would be very much appreciated.