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‹ Previous (05/05/2010) MONTH Next (2010-07-04)› ‹ Previous (2010-06-01 - US) COUNTRY Next (2010-06-15 - US)› Spain Orís (see on map) 10/06/2010:
After being touring almost non-stop for 4 years, much of Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asia, with Alexandra, we have been held six months at home, too long for a restless ass who wanted to continue taking the pulse to the world. Anyway, that was necessary, for Alexandra, with a Romanian passport, had trouble getting U.S. visas, the country where we wanted to start our American journey. So, the first step was to get married, something not so simple between two people of different nationalities. Finally, we obtained the necessary permits and we were married February 20 surrounded by friends and family. Few weeks later Alexandra had to fly to Romania to record the wedding and then request a new passport stating her residence in Spain. Thus, once received the passport three weeks later, finally we got an appointment to the U.S. embassy in Madrid. We arrived in mid-May, Alexandra full of nerves and I of papers, which were useless, because without verifying anything we where announced that we were granted a tourist visa valid for 10 years. It was not easy to repress the joy, but also didn’t lose time celebrating it, and the same day we got a plane ticket to California for the June 10, just one day after the date that I planned to present my first travel book. I would have preferred to have started before the next two years traveling around America, but I was good to past six months settled for another kind of journey, a journey inside the memory that has allowed me to write without haste the "Story of the first year of a long journey, taking the pulse of the world. Europe." Recently published in Catalan, this book tells transparently the thoughts and feelings of a novice traveler, amusing or irritating events that make him maturate, the contrasts between different countries and regions visited in Europe, the dreams and illusions of people knew on the way and interesting political and philosophical views reflected in the interviews of the project: "Taking the pulse to the world." This book, with a foreword by Toni Arbončs and illustrated with 20 pages of photographs, will be presented on Wednesday June 9 at 8 pm in the library "la Tralla" in Vic. During the presentation, I will also make an assessment of the last 4 years traveling in Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asia, while projecting photographs of the adventure. Finally, I introduce the final part of the journey through America, which I will travel with my wife Alexandra for two years from north to south, without autocaravan, that was sold when we arrived home. Then we’ll go to dinner in Vic all who have signed up in advance. You can buy the book for 18Euros in catalane bookstores or in Globetour Shop: "Story of the first year of a long journey taking the pulse to the world. Europe. Soon I hope to publish the book in Spanish. US Los Ángeles, CA (see on map) 15/06/2010:
- Hello! My name is Clarissa – we stop staring at the window of the airplane and a girl with a cheerful smile continues the presentation. – I am flying to Los Angeles, "you too? The anonymous passenger made the gesture of sitting in the empty seat next to Alexandra, as we both answered - yes - very surprised by this introduction. After the girl realized she had the wrong line, but no matter, because soon she became friends with another woman with whom she was speaking for the entire trip. Instead, together with Alexandra , we tried to sleep all the way to have minimal jetlag possible, but in my dreams I also kept wondering "American society is as open as this girl?". Judging from the few days in this new country I would say that americans are quite open, however, what most surprised us so far has been the diversity of the society. These first five days we have been hosted by a family from Argentina that has treated us great, apart from helping us find a second hand van to move across the continent. One of the vans that we saw turned out to be a young man who came from Iran, which was very happy when we explained to him that we had visited his country and its people and we had marveled. After the boy explained that in the United States had never felt discriminated, in contrast to Europe where he had lived for nine months in France. Listening to that comment I thought the U.S. had had to face the problem of multi-cultural and multi-racial long time ago, while in Europe, the problem was much more recent with the immigration of the recent years. Dismissing the Iranian's van, the next day I decided to go watch another van of a Mexican man who lived in another part of town. It took me three hours to arrive, having to take a bus, a subway and a train and it continued to amaze me the diversity of the population: an introverted Asian who shared a seat with a black man who never stopped talking with a chant that seemed to imitate a Rap song, a girl with mini skirt next to a decent man reading a book of Arabic characters, or a thick woman wrapped in a sari from India occupying the seat of a skinny mustached Latino. These images were very similar to those of the vehicle registration office, where I had to record the Chevy Astro van purchased for $ 2,000 from the Mexican guy. There, sitting waiting in line for three hours, an old woman of white skin and very white hair gave me conversation and provided a very different view of diversity, expressing concern at the increasing number of immigrants, and the the fact that many resources are diverted towards this. In any case, soon, my concern was second, because the mulatto man behind the counter informed me that I had to pay $ 400 to put the van in my name, because the Mexican who had bought it had failed to pay the registration of the vehicle for the last two years. We finally have the desired van that would allow us to move freely around the United States and Canada and have a place to sleep if necessary. The pity was that the search of the car did not allow me enough peace of mind to enjoy the wonderful hospitality of Sebastian, who had just returned from a motorcycle trip around South America where he traveled for six months. Sebastian and his family lived in the San Fernando Valley, a very broad area of family houses inhabited by one-third of the population of Los Angeles. It was a recurring feature throughout the city: Nearly all the houses were one story (perhaps a latent fear of earthquakes) and surrounded by a garden of lawns cut without walls that led to the quiet street where almost no one walks. In fact, at such horizontal land-the only way to get around Los Angeles and its environs is by private car (public transportation is scarce and slow with such long distances). So, we had to rely on the offers of Sebastian, who took us to Downtown one night, one of the few areas of Los Angeles where several small skyscrapers rise. The next day he took us to the beach in Malibu, where we met David, a friend of a friend, who invited us to a birthday party in a nice house anchored to a beautiful private beach. The party was good, but we felt a little out of place, with the guests dispersed in small groups open but they did not show much interest in our presence. 21/06/2010:
Knowing that we ought to be more than a week in Los Angeles, finding and buying a car and then visiting the city, we decided to find another host for not abusing the hospitality of Sebastian and his family, which already had helped us a lot. Thus, six days after we arrived we loaded the pretty Chevy Astro Van with our backpacks and headed to the famous Hollywood neighbourhood, where we hoped to meet Jordan, who turned out to be another fabulous host. Jordan ran the oldest restaurant in Hollywood Boulevard, Musso & Frank Grill, where he invited us numerous evenings to eat delicious meals or drink delicious martinis while talking with him. Jordan was very interested to know our travel experience, because very soon he had planned to hand over the restaurant to his cousin in order to travel for the rest of his life. Of course, all the stories and anecdotes that we explained opened his passion to travel, especially to Africa, where he decided to stay maybe a year, instead of a few months. The situation of the house of Jordan, was unbeatable, two blocks from Hollywood Boulevard, where we walked several evenings, hunting for the golden names of the celebrities that had their names written on the famous Walk of Fame of Hollywood . Although Hollywood Boulevard had an atmosphere not too glamorous, it was fun (especially for Alexandra) to walk through places with names as famous as the Kodak Theatre, or Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills and Bell Air to Malibu beach or Mulholland drive. And because of that we had the car and we had bought a GPS, also drove to the beaches of Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Palos Verdes and Long Beach. Of the four of them, the atmosphere of Venice was the one we loved, full of black (or African-Americans according to the currently accepted terminology), Latinos and Caucasian, all strolling, sunbathing on the beach or sweating playing basketball. More than once it made us smile the behaviour of African-Americans, with an expressive, uninhibited joy that seemed copied from an American comedy film. While Alexandra was going shopping with some friends the other night I enjoyed good views of the city from the observatory Griffith and the next day from the skyscrapers of Downtown. Among the many existing attractions, I entered the modern Catholic cathedral where a guide explained to a group that the cathedral was the largest in United States, surpassing by two foot length the St. Patrick in New York. The cathedral’s mausoleum, occupies the entire basement, where any Christian can be buried paying no less than one million dollars and for sure that would be enough to pay for all the sexual abuse lawsuits in which is immersed the American Catholic church (the guide mentioned that a small niche of a square inch is worth $ 300,000). One of the evenings we visited Jordan in the restaurant, he invited us to sit at a table where some of his friends, as well as a screenplay writer, the guitarist John Fogerty and a singer of a Californian group. The evening was very entertaining; we were interest in their lives and they were passionate about our trip. Later, as we explained our planned itinerary of nine months in the United States and Canada, Jordan said we wanted to spend too much time possibly because of differences within the country were not as pronounced and that a road trip was appropriate in America, knowing the continent through the window of a vehicle. I told him that probably was right, that perhaps there were too many months, but on the other hand, we wanted to know not only beautiful scenery but also we wanted to plunge into the world's biggest cultures. Till now we know the different European cultures, African, Islamic and Asian but still we needed to immerse ourselves into the Anglo-Saxon culture, partly because we could not reach Australia. Moreover, experiencing and visiting friends in the U.S. was proving fabulous, and 8 or 9 months did not seem excessive to continue discovering the country. After dinner, Jordan remained in the restaurant while we returned home accompanied by a friend who was a relief counsellor in hospitals (helped the relatives of a deceased), a work in which was important to have religious beliefs. Then he sparked my fascination with religion, explaining that he was an open-minded Christian and even liked learning about other beliefs and had done a course of Zen meditation. I asked him why he believed in God and he tried to show me it was because of the wonderful world we lived in, but I also believed that the universe was exciting and did not need to place a God behind it. The next day Jordan was interested in the religious views of his friend, with whom had never exchanged opinions. After Jordan explained that he had observed long ago that travellers tend to be atheists, according to him, because atheists do not believe in another life after death and the need to experience more, taking more risks to be happy. I was in complete agreement with his opinion, adding that travelling makes you open your mind, makes you discover new religions and beliefs and makes you realize that the subject is absurd and that some dogmas are simply cultural. The last day before leaving, Jordan took us to a forest picnic next to the Hollywood Bowl, a stunning modern amphitheatre with a capacity for 18,000 spectators, where that night was playing various African groups. After drinking a bottle of wine and outside became almost dark, we took the leftovers and we went down the forest to reach half crouched some toilets in the theatre, where we ran to feel fully protected from other spectators. Then we sat on a bench and enjoyed an exciting spectacle of music while we emptied another half bottle of wine. At one point, watching people dancing frantically around, I imagined that I was in Europe or even Africa, but the flags near the stage, I returned to reality: the typical American, the other with a bear above the words "Republic of California. " I asked Jordan asked why they felt their country a republic, but he shrugged and then explained that California was the best state in the country, its people friendly, because it has sea and beach, snow in the mountains, deserts, forests, .. . I still could not compare with any other state, but what was true, we felt wonderful here. San Diego, CA (see on map) 24/06/2010:
We left Los Angeles after the lunch with Jordan. We programmed the GPS to San Diego, but we had no intention of reaching it that same afternoon or evening. Before that we visited the Crystal Cathedral, a huge modern church all-glass lifted by one of the many U.S. Protestant sects. Then, flying from that monstrosity, we stopped at the long beach of Huntington, which had a dock or catwalk that jutted one or two hundred meters to the middle of the sea, under which several surfers were trying to ride on a wave. We stayed a good time watching the experienced surfers, arriving late to the quiet village of Laguna Beach, where we had to find a deserted alley to park the car and spend the night. It was a relaxed night, but Alexandra was a bit paranoid, stating that the police would imprison us both to sleep in the street, and every now and then told me not to move too much because it activated the car alarm we had not gotten off. However, I slept and the next day we visited the lovely town of Laguna Beach, a secluded beach with cliffs. Then ,we went to the Mission San Juan Campistrano, but because of the excessive entry ($ 9 per person) we did not go inside, but it seemed worth it, as its basilica where we were able to enter. Finally we arrived in San Diego, where Pep (my brother in law brother) and his wife Anna expected us. The reception was wonderful and we felt as we are back at home for a few days, which gave us the opportunity to relax but also to visit the city during a busy day. Without doubt, the most interesting was the coast of La Joya neighbourhood, bordered by mansions on the land, but completely wild in the sea side, with numerous seals that swam gracefully or resting on clustered colonies. I also liked the old city of San Diego, a small splinter group of old houses trying to imitate the people of San Diego, shortly after the first explorers arrived. Some old photographs and paintings of free museums, I loved the isolation of the first settlers and the emptiness of the valley that today was oversaturated with people. Finally, with less energy and time I visited Balboa Park and the vibrant Gaslamp Quarter. It was also nice to share the night with Pep and Anna, when he returned from the university where he was doing a doctorate in linguistics and Ana some classes to be a teacher of yoga. Pep and Ana told us their one year experience in the U.S. and the small differences that it had with Europe, for example, they had to travel long distances to go shopping, to the gym, college, or anywhere. With just two weeks we had also found many small differences in cultures, but none of substance. I had the impression that the United States and Europe could be compared culturally to twins who were separated and isolated for a long time: the basis of their culture and education was the same, but details like the landscape could be very different . For example, in the United States you can drive from 16 years (18 in Europe), you can not buy alcohol until age 21 (18 in Europe), in almost every state is completely prohibited prostitution (alegal in Europe ), the vast majority of cars powered by automatic gear change (I'm enjoying it quite a lot with this new drive system), telephone companies charge for incoming calls and SMS (in Spain this would be unthinkable). All these have been small differences that we detected in only 14 days, but surely there were many more to discover along the way, but none that compare recent common origins of both cultures.
After spending two weeks in two major cities of the U.S. west coast, the next two or three weeks we wanted to spend visiting the National Parks of California, Arizona and Utah. For this reason we put the central city of Las Vegas as `base camp` of our explorations. Surely we did well, because after spending two days driving with temperatures near and above 40 ş C (on the coast we never went above 30 ° C), we needed a night and morning to recharge the batteries, including those of our computers and cameras. However, the natural parks we visited on the way they deserved more than our suffocation. Departing from San Diego, we crossed the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, a mountainous area that appeared to have burned years ago, but kept quite attractive. Then we crossed the arid desert of Anza Borrego, which was occupied in parts by small towns and installed mobile homes that appeared to be there for years. We loved how there were people living in this furnace, but the conditions which seemed to live in were much better than those of the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa. Africans are living a truly desperate situation because they had to subsist on the resources provided by the desert, unlike those Americans who, cooled with air conditioning, import everything, including water, in the cities. Towards the end of the afternoon we entered the Joshua Tree National Park and camped in a parking lot in front of lush palm trees that had lived centuries ago and later indigenous prospectors. The next day, just woken up to the sunrise, we made a walk of an hour and a half behind the palm desert, following a path through the sand, rocks and desert plants to an abandoned gold mine, which was excavated in the bedrock. At the back we stopped at the park information center, where we paid $ 80 between the two for a card that would allow us to go for a year to all U.S. national parks without paying anything more. And finally, take the road of the park, find the first Joshua tree. We thought it would be the only Joshua Tree Park and Alexandra almost convinces me to stop to photograph that solitary specimen, but a few miles later we began to find more, many in some areas were virtually Joshua Tree forest. But the visual spectacle did not end here, because we had the park also reserved large tracts of cactus, interesting rocky hills, natural water reservoirs, peaks with great views, ... I would have stayed all day walking and driving different ways and small roads of the park, but we had to get to Vegas before dark and so mid-afternoon we left.
On the way to Las Vegas we were surprised to find a great salt lake and, on the historic Route 66, a tree lying dry and full of shoes hanging from its branches. We commented on this image to Justin, the great host who hosted us that night and told me that this tree was known and was called the shoes tree (The Tree of shoes), but when searching for information online, we found that there were many other tree shoes all over the world, a curious thing. Justin told us the story of Las Vegas, a city in the middle of the desert, but also a place where water had always been, where once had been inhabited by natives or Indians. Since the arrival of the colonizers, Las Vegas became an obligatory stopping point for caravans that went from East to West. But the city's importance grew after 1930, when construction of the dam near Hobbes brought many workers, who were encouraged by low taxes and legal gambling. And the last great transformation began in 1950 when the mobster Bugsy Malone built a luxury casino in the city, a bet that everyone felt a loss, but eventually triumphed. This was how the city was becoming a center of gambling, entertainment and fun in general throughout the United States. I asked Justin if his teenage years had been special because he grew up in Las Vegas and he said no, but he was too used to having anything close on the weekends or open at night in Las Vegas and you could go to lunch or shopping at any time. Then he added that it was difficult to get used to accept that in other cities, the bars close early, but you still feel thirst and money in your pocket. Talking about travel, Justin said that Americans are generally very innocent and they can easily generate cultural misunderstandings, they are used to travel the country, large but not significant cultural changes, unlike the rest of the world, which is very diverse and with multiple borders every few miles. Finally, Justin mentioned that the U.S. has no history like Europe and that the most interesting things to visit are the parks and not the cities, which do not have the attraction of Europe. Thus, as we had planned and as being advised by Justin the next week we started visiting some of the interesting natural parks of Utah and Arizona. And really the Parks that we visited fascinated us. We visited many places, sleeping in the road, showers with water bottles hidden in the woods, feeling the heat from time to time (finally we had to put gas in the air conditioning of the Chevy van), other times enjoying the cool temperatures and fast wind ... It was an intense week, but I would have prolongued it, visiting places that were pointed as side things on paper or by visiting the most remote National Parks, by car or on foot. But Alexandra is feeling bad and tired with the heat or the discomfort of sleeping in the car, eating uncooked foods or take a shower with bottles of water and was pushing me to leave faster. On the other hand, and I do not want to lose the traditional celebrations of July 4 in a major city like Las Vegas. So on Saturday night, after having enjoyed visually some of the most fantastic places on earth, we again drove to Las Vegas where we had intended to return to recharge our batteries for the next visits.
We were surprised by the cool weather of this Natural Park in the desert that raises on a rock mass, creating landscapes that we could remember from Switzerland. Bryce Canyon National Park (see on map) 29/06/2010:
One of the parks that fascinated us most, especially the walk I did below the rocky forest of needles that inhabited the canyon. Grand Canyon National Park, North Rim (see on map) 30/06/2010:
Visiting these fantastic views I wondered which part of the biological or cultural evolutionary cause was the cause in humans of such fascination for the great works and monuments of nature. Coyote Buttes, the wave (see on map) 02/07/2010:
Definitely one of the most fascinating places visited. A little gem hidden among red mountains that brings us geology psychotropic dreams. A paradise for photographers. Grand Canyon National Park, South Rim (see on map) 03/07/2010:
Tired of so many visitings, the South Rim of the Grand Canyon surprised us less that the North Rim, especially because that day was a Saturday and there was so many people that we could not take any of the public buses to the most isolated areas of the park. ‹ Previous (05/05/2010) MONTH Next (2010-07-04)› ‹ Previous (2010-06-01 - US) COUNTRY Next (2010-06-15 - US)› |
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