Rambling around in the Golden State

Fog feeling like lifting

Last campsite in Mexico outside of Tecate

Breaking the law

Moon waiting to shine, last camp in Mexico

The $4,100,000,000 border wall in Tecate, taken from Tecate on the Mexico side

Road signs of a post-car military state future, Camp Pendleton

I was observed in this pleasant Orange County neighborhood

I was not observed sleeping on this Orange County beach at moonset/sunrise

The first question they asked was, "are you lost?" I guess two years of wandering around with limited aims gives me a dimness of appearance and the moment that I finally set foot in my own country, I must appear perpetually "lost". But aren't we all? Does anyone really know what they want or where they are for that matter? Yes, I am in a border station at a little used border with nothing on the other side in San Diego County. Yes, actually, I am very lost. Anyway, here's my passport, don't even look at the passport cover that says "Uzbekistan: Citizen's Passport" and let me right in. That's what happened in Tecate as I crossed the border through the oh so intimidating border fence. Seeing the fence was sad. It's a pathetic flimsy thing, with holes in it and horizontal ridges for hand and foot holds. Easily climbed, it seems like more of a symbolic divide than any practical border security device. On the Mexican side are lots of ads for car dealerships or supermarkets. On the US side there's nothing.

Then I was in San Diego County. There was the border security building with a Payless Shoe Source and a Payless Kids along with some loans offices and credit card offers all in Spanish. After descending through beautiful mountains east of San Diego I rode clean through the city and north along the coast to Encinitas, where I stayed with the friendly Art Minas. I spent two nights in Encinitas, and spent lots of money on IPA and cheeseburgers with bacon. There I rested, and watched surfers ripping it up, and if anyone can tell me why the board doesn't sink when they stand on the nose, that would be great. Then I left for a big traverse of the Camp Pendleton Marine Base and Orange County.

Camp Pendleton was a dream. There's a long section of highway (101) that they closed to cars after a new, bigger highway (5) was built. So now it's a four-lane bike highway with signs everywhere saying "tank crossing" and cool stuff like that. The whole ride is through beautiful hills and coast. It pops you out right in San Clemente, Orange County.

In Orange County I got my first "FUCKING IDIOT!!!" yelled at me from a Ford F-150 as I was riding in the bike lane through downtown Laguna Beach. I laughed and signalled a thumbs up. Finding camping in Orange County was a lesson in people not being reasonable. At first I tried to camp at Crystal Cove State Park. I pulled up to the kiosk and mentioned I'd like to camp:

-Did you want a walk-in site or a beachfront site?

-Umm, are the prices the same?

-The walk-in sites are $25 and the beach sites have full hook-ups and are $50.

I mentioned I was on a bike and didn't have anything to hook up, was it still $25 for the cheapest site?

-Oh. Yeah.

I kept riding. I can't remember the last time I paid $25 for accommodation, and to pitch a tent? Where are we, Laguna Beach or something? There were two more campsites within riding distance for the day, at Huntington Beach then a little further at Bolsa Chica State Park. At Huntington Beach I went to the kiosk and mentioned I'd like to camp:

-Sorry, you can only camp here if you're camping in an RV.

So I kept riding, continuing to Bolsa Chica State Park, and pulled up the kiosk and mentioned I'd like to camp:

-Sorry, you can only camp here if you're camping in an RV.

-But, it says here on the state park guide that there are campsites here!

-Nope, only for RVs, there's bike-in camping in Malibu...

-But that's a 7 hour ride from here! Can't I just put up my tent somewhere? All I need is a small space for it. I'm leaving at dawn, I'm just passing through and won't come here again unless I've got an RV.

-Sorry, you can't camp here unless you're in an RV.

This continued for a while, the sun was getting lower and lower and I was at the end of my energy. I asked if I could just pitch my tent in the park headquarters, or on the beach. They hid behind the steel curtain of liability, and said there was a big beach a few minutes' ride north in Sunset Beach which they didn't usually patrol. I could probably get away with illegally camping there for the night if I got out early enough. I said that sounded fine, but instead of sneaking around I'd much prefer to camp with their permission at their beach, but they were having none of this. They said if something happened to me while camped on State Park property they'd be liable. I didn't bring up the fact the this state employee had counseled me to illegally camp somewhere else, so what if something happened to me there? Wouldn't she still be liable? I'll let the law buffs sort that one out, but this is what I did in the end. Actually, I turned to the strategy of first going to a cafe and hoping to meet locals who could provide a space for a tent, but the people at Woody's Diner in Sunset Beach were engrossed in one of the stupidest conversations I've ever heard: The waitress was complaining about how she had worked at this crappy diner for 4.5 years and she still didn't get seniority over less-tenured employees because her junior coworkers had children and got flexible hours which allowed them to raise their children. Well, she protested, I have the same problem! I have two dogs that are really expensive and take a lot of time and attention! They're the same as children, so I shouldn't have to take the shitty hours that these girls don't want just because they have kids! I pointed my wheels west, and rode to the beach, where I had a restless illegal sleep under the bright full moon. Every time I woke up with the strong moon in my eyes I thought it was a searchlight waiting to throw me in the Orange County vagrancy ward. Luckily and perhaps due to my incredible skill at sneaky sleeping, this didn't happen and I woke up and ate my cereal and rode off to Los Angeles.

This is where I am now. I am staying with family friends in a house I have stayed in plenty of times before, having come down here every summer in my childhood. The familiarity is warm and refreshing. Los Angeles is a much more pleasant city than I had remembered. Riding through it from Long Beach to the middle was a breeze. I followed the LA River/shopping cart cemetery until it ended, then wide, bike-friendly streets the rest of the way. The city is full of palm, lemon, and fig trees and the air is clean. I even took the metro, which was incredibly convenient and cost $1.50!

So there you go. America! What a place. Paranoia (see photos of neighborhood watch, see border wall), diversity, and the NFL draft (see 49ers defense). Cheeseburgers with bacon! From here I'll cruise up through Malibu and Zuma Beach, and other legendary Southern California places that have had TV shows based on their lifestyles. Then I'll be home, I'll find a job, get married, have kids and live a happy life with a mortgage, guns, and health insurance. Back in the USA!

Sentenced to Headwinds and Nostalgia in Baja California

I made it through Baja California. I took these pictures all from campsites, except the one of me riding. That was taken from the road. The stretch from Mulegé to Ensenada was mostly desert, with a small oasis town in the middle. That's the one with the palm tree and the river.

From Mulegé I spent ten days straight riding through the deserts and salt flats here. Every day I had a nasty headwind that started usually around 8:00am and finished around midnight. It seemed like no matter which direction I turned, the wind was blowing in my face. Even during a climb where the road snaked around and I was actually heading southeast, the wind somehow managed to eddy and cyclone around in the mountain's elbow and slam me in the face. I woke up before dawn every day, just so I could get the two hours' riding before 8 when things were calm, and I would think, "maybe they won't blow today," but everyd day I was slammed.

So I am happy to be here in Ensenada, a day's ride from the border. I am a wreck. I nearly cried yesterday on my way in (maybe I did) thinking that once I cross the border, I'm really on my way home. No more tortas, no more elotes, no more licuados, no more pesos, no more Spanish. At some moments I'm excited to be seeing familiar faces and people that I love, and the next moments I have an empty stomach, feel weak, and am terrified of returning to the United States. It's hard thinking that my Spanish is as good as it will ever be, and I hope this is not the case. I guess that's up to me.

In Ensenada I have tried to do for the last times the things I have really enjoyed in Mexico. I got a haircut and a shave this afternoon. I've now had five haircuts in the past two years at real barbershops, and every time I get a cut I get a shave. It all started in Azerbaijan, and it has become somewhat of a thing to do in a foreign city with not much else to do. Generally they've been the same. In Azerbaijan the guy refused payment until I insisted. In China I was offered hooch and cigarettes to share with the barber after he had finished. The haircut I got today lasted about an hour and a half and included two sessions of about five minutes each where the barber put a hot towel to my face, covering my entire face up to the tip of my nose. She also put two treatments of shaving cream on, after having washed off the first with the hot towel. I bought a wallet, a tire, and gas for my stove, these all being cheaper here than in the US. I've had four orders of tacos and two tortas in the last 12 hours, which is about twice as I normally eat. I just can't bare to pass a fine looking taco stand and leave it untouched. I might be back, but then I might not. Mexico seems so close, but then again everything seems close when you're there. I remember Jaco and I discussing whether or not we should hurry into China because they were closing the border. This meant that we would miss out on the three weeks in Kyrgyzstan we had planned. We ultimately did go straight to China, and in the end we decided that Kyrgyzstan wasn't that difficult to get to. This was around the same time that we would look at globes and remark that we were exactly 180° around the world from Berkeley, or basically as far away as we could possibly be.

I haven't read this over, and I'm not going to. As I said, I'm a wreck, sorry for the lack of photos, my camera ran out of batteries about three days from Ensenada. This is a shame, because for the first time this trip someone actually asked me to take a picture of him. His name was Roberto Alvarez, and he writes songs and sells mole oaxaqueña and carnitas about 30km south of Ensenada on the side of the road. He used to live in the US, in California, going to high-end seafood restaurants and teaching their staff how to cook seafood. That is until he got sick of being treated like a second class citizen (actually, his word was slave) and came back to Mexico. We played music together for an hour. This is Mexico on a bicycle, and I highly recommend it.

Knife Find and the Dangers of Cortez

There is a town in Western China that is famous for its knives. It's on the legendary Southern Tier of the Silk Road, which sounds 1000 times more glamorous than it is. Passing through Yengisar on a bicycle it is impossible not to stop at a knifery, and in a stroke of uncharacteristic souvenir accumulation I bought a knife in Yengisar. It was one of two souvenirs that I bought on the whole trip, the other being a Tibetan wall hanging of a legendary warrior driving his horse hard across the plain. This hangs in my parents' house awaiting reclamation. Of the knife's whereabouts, I know not.

It was a small knife, used mainly for paring, though I like to think it was made for taking negotiations up a notch in Chinese deal rooms lit by naked light bulbs. It had Chinese lettering on one side, and Uighur on the other, which my friend was able to read. It said, "Yengisar". Its handle was brass with small red green and yellow circular inlays. It was heavier than it looked. That's why I bought it. It felt solid.

There is a town in Western Australia that is famous for its thieves. It's called Margaret River. I left my knife on a picnic table there and left briefly to wash vegetables. When I came back my Yengisar knife was gone. Things come and go, this is a reality, and it's best not to get too attached to anything. I really liked the knife.

Thus began my year in the knife wilderness. I wandered from a crappy Australian knife from "Kathmandu", which is synonymous with horrible Australian outdoor store, to knives I found in dumpsters. I just needed something that looked cool and could slice a tomato and fit in my handlebar bag. If I could dangle it from my belt, huge bonus. The best I got was a hand-me-down Leatherman which was great.

When I arrived in Mexico, what with all the great leather and general cowboy apparel there, I thought finding a solid replacement knife would be easy. I went to market after market in town after town foolishly looking for a decent blade. All I could find though were loose switchblades, really expensive hunting knives, or cheap folding knives with plastic handles. I stuck with my Leatherman and generally forgot the whole ordeal. Sometimes, it's better to forget.

Then I came upon the hamlet of San Agustin.

Calling San Agustin a hamlet is overstating things. It's a taqueria connected to a ranch, which makes it an oasis in the desert that is Mexico Ruta 1 between La Paz and Ciudad Insurgentes. This is in Baja California Sur, where things get real. This is the first time in Mexico I've had to pack several days' worth of water and food. This is the first time I've really had to wild camp. So when a taqueria popped up after days of not seeing anything, like any reasonable person I stopped.

It was early, so I had coffee and chilaquiles. This made me hyperalert, and I started wandering around until I came across a display case that was taller than me. It was full of knives and saddles. They were beautiful. They had metal handles with bone inlays. They all had leather sheathes. Some even had ornamentation on the blades! By God what an oasis! After a year in the wilderness here I am delivered! Using the technique of taking deep breaths I calmed myself and bought a knife. It has some floral ornamentation on the blade which is curved and a metal handle with a bone or antler inlay. When I picked it up the man said, "ranchero". If he didn't have me at that he then told me that a guy makes these knives in the mountains yonder. I pulled out a wad of cash I don't even know how much and gave it to him and tried to regain my senses. Next thing I knew I was paring tomatoes at sundown on a ridge overlooking a great valley of cactus, holding a beautiful knife in my hand trying not to fall asleep before I cooked dinner.

I wish I had had the knife when I encountered my newest archenemy: the stingray.

Yesterday I was heading in on day six of my six day haul through Southern Baja California's Sierre la Gigante, driving hard against the wind as the road clung to the Sea of Cortez. I came across an hamubrgueseria and stopped in for a hamburguesa that I had been told were the best hamburgers in Baja. So I stopped and ate then went for a swim, a snorkel even, to see what I could see in the sea. I saw what I saw, which were a few tropical fish and lots of seaweed, and got out of the water. Not so fast! On my last step I was shot in the right Achilles by the venomous and dangerous barb of none other than Sting Ray. I threw a few punches then plunged my foot into really really really hot water. I did this for about an hour, and set off to ride to Mulege, the town where I am now and where I had planned a rest day. I made about 15km to the next village, and collapsed in a heap of pain under a palapa at Playa El Coyote, which is insanely beautiful and anyone driving down the Cortez Coast should camp there. I unfortunately lay there moaning until the pain subsided enough for me to hobble to the taqueria and ask for more hot water. They did not oblige. They did way better. They instead got on marine radio and radioed an ambulance, which happened to be across the street. I hobbled across the street and collapsed in a heap of pain. I got treatment there, which consisted of drawing out the remaining venom and some blood with a cool vacuum thing, and waiting around. The ambulance was free of charge, and is run by Patsi and Les who are volunteers who go around Baja California helping locals and foreigners with whatever ails them. After about an hour there, I felt a million times better, and set off into the now raging headwind for Mulege. Despite the odds, I made it and now I'm fine.

I'm only a couple weeks now from crossing the border into the US, which is crazy. I'm taking my time but I'm moving right along. I had two nights in a row camping on the Sea of Cortez, a few meters from the beach. Some of these photos here are taken from my tent, one's where I had lunch and they're all typical Baja California.