The Streets of San Francisco.

I've managed to make quite a bit of progress in a couple of areas over the past few days.

The hilly streets of San Francisco are an ideal place to do a bit of hill walking training, as I now have less than a month until my Colorado "7 peaks" challenge. The other morning I found myself at the dual summits of Twin Peaks, which I imagine on a clearer day would give spectacular views over the whole city. However, since I have been here the peaks have always been hidden in cloud, and the other morning was no different. Despite being warm when I set off, it was cold and windy on the summit, and I didn't pause there for long.

This morning I took another walk around some of the steeper streets nearby. I am quite fascinated by both the geography and architecture of the city. It is so different to Perth for example, where everything is flat and open, and houses are often single story dwellings with large gardens. Here everything is packed in close together, and is thin and tall, built on amazingly inclined streets, so that in some areas no two houses are on the same level.

Yesterday I went back to Bridge Storage, just north of the city, where my RV has been stored for the past six months. It was parked in a different location to where I had left it, and I was encouraged that it had obviously been started and driven at least once in the time I had been away.

I checked all around, and the tyres looked okay, all still being fully inflated. I put the key in the ignition, and the battery meter showed plenty of power. A couple of cranks and the engine fired and ran smoothly without any trouble. The brakes were a little bit seized, but soon freed, and after running the engine for a brief while, I checked the oil and water. All looked good.

I went and questioned three different RV repair places about fixing the damage I had done to the waste water tanks and pipes last year. The most encouraging was a guy called Mike at the last place I visited, who was more optimistic about being able to repair the damage, rather than replacing everything with new stuff.



So I hurried back to the storage place, collected the RV and dropped it off with Mike just before he closed for the day. I'm now waiting for a final quote, and if all works out well, I will be able to use the toilet and wash dishes when I am at Bonneville Salt Flats, without water just pouring out onto the ground from the broken tanks. What luxury!

Birthday weekend in San Francisco.

On the last day in Cancun, I went again to a favourite food stall that I had discovered earlier, where for less than $3 you could have a couple of fantastic tacos and a huge gless of orchata, a delicious type of milk drink made with long grain rice, and sprinkled with cinnamon.

By the time I got to the airport, carrying my two rucsacs, I was incedibly hot, and planned on getting changed before flying. However, two backpackers, Mindy and Lisa, asked to borrow a corkscrew, and impressed that I had one, convinced me to sit outside and share their bottle of wine with them before the flight.

The wine certainly helped the first flight go by easily, and I did manage to find time to get changed, so that I wouldn't offend my fellow travellers too much.

A delayed second flight meant I arrived later than expected in San Francisco, and I just managed to catch the last train into the city. Susan, who looked after me last time I was here, met me at the station, and has a place I can stay, her circumstances having changed recently.

And so I woke the next day to celebrate my birthday in sunny San Francisco, including a wonderful Indian meal that evening. The entertaining highlight of the whole birthday weekend was a visit to the Solano County Fair, something Susan was very keen to show me.

It reminded me very much of the Perth Royal Show back in Australia, very much country products and livestock based, with fairground rides and other entertainments. But the most stiking differences were the big sign at the entrance banning gang colours, and the huge groups of Hispanic youths roaming the fairground aisles - you don't see too much of that in Perth at the Royal Show!



The highlight of the day for me was the splash dogs event, in which very excited dogs jumped quite amazing distances into a huge pool of water. I also got to hold a pretty big snake, and a scorpion too.

Susan was most excited about seeing a small kangaroo in the petting zoo, and about the pig racing! The pigs were funny, and in the first race I had picked yellow, on the inside track, but as you can see in the photo, he got a very slow start. However, in race 2 the inside line proved successful, and I had backed a winner, and claimed a small ribbon as my prize!

There was more entertainment from chinese acrobats, and and we found a Mexican food stall for dinner without too much dificulty, but the prices were way higher than in Cancun!



And so after a weekend off, it's now time to start to get myself organised for the next part of the trip, and today I rang Scotty from Bridge Storage, where my RV is stored. I plan to go down tomorrow to take a look over it, and see if it will start. I need to get some repairs done to the water tanks too, where I broke a couple of important parts off when crossing rough ground near the Grand Canyon last year. I am really looking forward to getting back on the road again.

Goal 52 - 7th Wonder - Chichen Itza.

I flew from Tampa down to Cancun on Tuesday, and made my way to the hostel that I had booked, managing to check in just before lunch time. I got settled in and read about two pages of my book before I fell asleep. I woke at 7pm, having slept deeply for about 6 hours. Over the past few days I have been battling jetlag, and have not been sleeping too well, but I felt great when I woke up in the evening.

I didn't get much of a chance to have a look around Cancun, but did go out for some dinner, then slept again. I think I was pretty run down.

In the morning I went to the reception of the nearby Soberanis Hotel, where I was picked up for my tour of Chichen Itza. This goal was the last one added to my list of 100, after another of my goals became impossible when the business shut down. More details here and here. Chichen Itza is one of the New 7 Wonders of the World, and is now the third one that I have seen, having been to both the Colosseum in Rome, and Petra in Jordan before. Four more to go, all of which are on my 100goals list.

We gathered several others from other hotels, and eventually set off on the two-hour drive to Chichen Itza. We stopped for a while for a period of enforced tourist shopping, but the racks of tacky Mexican souvenirs soon drove me out onto the main road for a look around.



We arrived at Chichen Itza itself at around 1pm, and were issued tickets, and with slight dismay I found myself as part of a large tourist group, following a flag-waving guide. However, the historical background was very interesting, and after a while we were set loose to explore on our own.

The first thing that you see as you enter, after running the gauntlet of enthusiastic local vendors, is the spectacular central pyramid. But that is only one part of the whole place. Between 600 and 1200 AD this place, whose name means "at the mouth of the Itza (a family name) well", was a thriving Mayan city of an estimated 50,000 citizens.

There are many structures, including a huge games arena called the ball court, where a game which resulted in sacrificial beheadings of the losers (or possibly winners) was played. There is a huge area made up of a thousand pillars, which was a covered marketplace, and many other buildings, thought to include an observatory, nunnery, church, and much more.

Also fascinating was the deep Sacred Cenote, a deep limestone sinkhole, where it is thought that all sorts of sacrifices, including human ones, were made. All sorts of artifacts and human remains have been found in the water there.

Once away from the tour groups it was easy to wander away from the crowds, and is often the case in these places, if you are prepared to do a little extra walking, you can find yourself totally alone. I wandered through quiet remains with nothing but the sounds of the jungle around me, and it was easy to imagine how it might have been when the Mayans lived and thrived here.




But it is the central pyramid that drew mw back to the more crowded areas. It is a beautiful building, but even more so when the extraordinary geometrical and astronomical principles built into the design are explained. There is an incredible precision to the design that means that on the equinoxes, the sun lights the structure with an almost unbelievable accuracy to produce the effect of a snake descending the side of the pyramid.

Time passed quickly, and I headed back to the tour bus for the next part of the trip. We were taken to another cenote nearby, and had time to go swimming in the cool fresh water of the amazing limestone sinkhole. Trees grew around the edge with huge long roots trailing down to the water. Small black catfish swam around in the clear water, and people jumped and swam.

I took some pictures, and then went to jump off the high walkway. I soon wished I hadn't! Something hurt my left foot as I hit the water, and as I climbed out, I discovered that my big toe was bleeding quite badly, and something black was buried in the underside of it. It is quite painful to stand on, and all I can think is that I landed on a fish as I plunged into the water. I thought at first I might have broken my toe, but it is alot less painful today. However, I will certainly have to remove the suspected fish spine that is still in there! Ouch!



At the evening sound and light presentation, the equinox sunlight effect of the descending snake is reproduced artificially, and really must be quite something to see for real. How did they manage to build so precisely? Absolutely fascinating.



What a fantastic place to see, and well-deserving of it's place as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. I have one day left now in Cancun, which I will spend hobbling around the downtown area exploring, before I fly back to the States and try to convince them to let me back in again.

40 years later!

On the Sunday afternoon after my return from the underwater hotel, Cari took me to meet her brother Richard and his wife Ivette. Richard and I got on pretty well, and have similar interests and outlooks on many things. One of his passions is helping out with a private collection of big cats and other exotics near where he lives, and he is currently working on trying to get them relocated to better facilities.

Before long we were in his car, heading out there to take a look. They are beautiful creatures, but I found it a little sad to see them in such restricted living conditions. Richard feels the same, and although he will be sorry to see them leave, he is committed to finding beter quarters for them all. What a priviledge to stroke a tiger, a bear, play with a very fiesty bobcat, and hold an alligator!



And so today, 20th July 2009, I had been excited to find out, is the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong first setting foot on the moon. And with a free day in Florida, what better place to visit than the Kennedy Space Center?

They were celebrating the big day with a huge "Moon Pie", around which there was a very excited crowd. We eventually managed to get a piece each, and President Kennedy himself seemed to be the ideal guy to eat it with!



The tour of the space center was interesting, but it was a busy day, and Florida is the land of the endless queue (or line, as it is called here!) You have to queue to get on the tour bus, queue again to see the exhibitions, again to get back on the bus, and so it goes on. But it was all worth it when we finally arrived at the Saturn 5 building. The Saturn 5 is the rocket that powered the Apollo missions, and it is absolutely awesome! Huge just does not describe how impossibly big it is. Very impressive indeed!



My quick visit to Florida is now over, and as always, I feel I could have spent so much longer here, as there is so much to see and do. But I must be moving on, and am excited to be heading to Mexico in the morning, to visit one of the seven new wonders of the world. Once again huge thanks to Cari, for being an incredible Florida guide and host. I hope I can get back this way again soon.

Goal 51 - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.

Well, it wasn't quite 20,000 leagues, more like 20 feet under the sea, but it was still a boyhood dream come true.

Nancy gave me a quick tour around Fort Lauderdale yesterday morning, and then dropped me off to collect my car. It took me a couple of hours to drive down to Key Largo, where I soon found Jules' Undersea Lodge, just off the main highway. After some brief paperwork, I was ready to go, and geared up with scuba equipment. No wetsuit would be required, as the water was almost as warm as bathwater.

My instructor/hotel guide Jason showed me the surface control room and explained the communication systems with the lodge below. He put the belongings I would need down below into a small waterproof case, and we entered the lagoon.



I spent twenty minutes or so exploring the area, while Jason prepared the hotel, and unpacked my gear down there. Eventually I made my way through the rather murky water to the hotel itself, and swimming below it, came up into the wet room via the moon-pool entrance. It was a very atmospheric moment, something I had imagined doing for such a long time.



After Jason gave me a quick tour, he left me alone and I was free to explore, rather like an excited child! The place was great, an odd mixture of old, practical functionality, and modern comfort.



It was originally built as a research station, and was used as such between 1972 and 1975, and then in the early 80s was converted to it's current use. Just under the veneer of comfortable hotel, in many of the cupboards I looked in there are valves and pipes and pumps all humming and buzzing away.



I made myself comfortable, and at 6pm Jason brought dinner down, again in a watertight case, and made the final preparations in the microwave in the small kitchen. It was all quite a bizarre experience. He then left, and I started watching an entertainingiy terrible underwater movie called "Leviathan", where the inhabitants of an underwater mining base are troubled with alien issues.

Once dinner had settled, I geared up and went for a dive in the lagoon. Once again it was wonderful to exit throught the moon-pool and already be at a depth of 20 feet. I spent some time examining the hotel itself, fascinated by the structure. It is quite impressively big outside, compared to the smaller space inside, but was built with all sorts of ballast tanks, so it could originally be floated into place, then the tanks flooded to sink it into position, much like a submarine. It is quite an extraordinary feat of engineering.



Later, when it went dark, I went out for a second dive in the now very gloomy and eerie lagoon. Jason had told me that a couple of nurse sharks sometimes came in at night to sleep under one of the piers, but I couldn't find them. I followed a lobster around the seabed for a while, and got pretty dis-orientated, and then made my way back "home".

I slept really well, and woke in the morning just as the large bedroom porthole window was beginning to lighten. I helped myself to breakfast and coffee in the small but well organised kitchen, and Jason gave me a call to come and collect me.

I had been living under the sea for around 18 hours, and as I surfaced, I wished it could have been much longer. It was so atmospheric, and so unique.

Many thanks to Jason and Debbie at Jules' Lodge for such a greta experience, and thanks also to my surface support crew members Cari and Nancy for helping make this long-held dream come true.

Returning to America.

I had a long journey from Gibraltar, flying in the evening to Gatwick airport in London, where my brother Martin, and Rachel, came to meet me and drop off my larger rucksac, which I hadn't needed for my trip to Spain.

They suggested we head to a nearby pub for a few beers, which sounded like a great idea to me. They had also brought along an emergency food parcel for me, having read my latest blogs about how my Euro-finances were thin, and they had imagined me living on one baguette and water for the last couple of days. I was very grateful.

Eventually they headed for home, dropping me back off at the airport again, where I looked for a bench to sleep on. There were alot of others overnighting at Gatwick, so eventually I settled for a bit of floor space in a quiet corner, and slept surprisingly well for a few hours.

Although my flight to Florida was not scheduled to take off until after 9am, the ticket I had indicated that check-in was required before 6.15am, so by 5.30 I had checked my big bag, and gone through security. I think such early check-in was suggested because I was on a holiday charter flight, and many others were families, and people who had obviously never flown before. It had been cheaper for me to book a Florida fly-drive holiday than a single, one way flight to Florida was going to cost me, so I happily accepted the early check-in.

The nine-hour flight dragged, and I slept lightly on and off, but eventually it was over and I arrived at Sanford near Orlando. At border control I was taken to a small interview room, and began once again the process of trying to explain why I didn't have a job, why I had entered the States several times over the past year, how I had a US bank account, and a US address associated with that. Where would I be staying, and who with, they wanted to know? My answers: in an underwater hotel, and with strangers who had contacted me via the internet did not help my cause! Eventually, after looking at my website the agents seemed to believe I was neither a terrorist, or planning to stay in America longer than I should, and I got my passport stamped again.

Cari lives in Tampa, and had been in touch with me for some time via email, and had offered to join me for the road trip part of my Florida journey. She had come across to Orlando to meet me at the airport, and had been patiently waiting in the oppresive heat, with a welcome sign. It is the first time I have ever been met at an airport by someone with a sign for me!

I joined the queue for car rental, and added Cari as a second driver, upgrading to a slightly larger model. I was offered the choice of any car from the mid-size row. I was tempted by an economical (and boring) Toyota, but just behind that was an orange estate car that attracted me. I still have no idea what it is, but I had to choose that one - it looked so much more like a Florida road trip vehicle.

First stop was for coffee at a 7-eleven, and on to the luxurious hotel Cari had booked for the evening. I soon had both bags unpacked and spread everywhere - I had some serious re-organising to do after two chaotic weeks in Spain. We had a few drinks and a meal, but by 10pm I was exhausted, it being the equivalent of 4am to me by then, and I headed for my room. I was wide awake at 3.30am, and again at 6am, as my body tries to adjust to the 6-hour change in timezone.



The next morning Cari had treated me to a fantastically relaxing Swedish massage at the luxurious spa at the hotel resort, and and afterward we headed to SeaWorld, where the big new rollorcoaster ride Manta was the attraction for the morning. Unfortunately it was having "technical difficulties", but we enjoyed a couple of the shows, and the awesome Kraken rollercoaster.



A couple of hours on the road took us to Fort Lauderdale, where Cari went to stay with her family, and I found Nancy's apartment. Nancy is Linda's mum. Linda very kindly looked after me in New Jersey when I was first in America back in October last year, and her mum was very kind to offer me support on my way down through Florida. I had a wonderful evening with her and her cousin Arlene, and friends Tom and Kathy.

Also living with Nancy is the highly amusing combination of both the fattest and thinnest cats I have ever seen - Sergio (fat) and Buster (thin)!



So today I am up early again, wide awake by 5.30am this morning. I am really looking forward to goal 51, and will be sleeping underwater this evening if all goes to plan.

Many thanks to Cari, who has been the perfect Florida hostess, and also to Nancy and friends for a wonderfully warm welcome back to the States.