In and out

I arrived in Las Vegas by plane. A nice flight, played doom 3D on the seat screen (Virgin airlines are years ahead of their time with in-flight entertainment).

Jan the german guy found me in the airport after some searching. We went off to buy food for camping, and find out where to stay the night before going to grand canyon. After much criss-crossing around town and a burger meal at In and out burger joint, which wasn't at all so fast as it sounds, we finally got on the move at 6 in the evening. We decided to stay at a camping ground not too far from the canyon.

In the night I woke up with stomach pains and threw up until morning. I guess In and Out burgers were true to their name after all. Grand canyon was beautiful, but I was too weak to go with Jan on a day hike. I just walked along the rim where the road was paved and tried to eat some. Tomorrow were going to Zion national park, I think I might be able to do a hike then.

Next stop: Zion

After staying in San Francisco for 5 days, I'm left with mixed impressions. Most people are reserved but occasionally there was spontaneous gestures of kindness. I was offered a free meal after talking with a restaurant owner one evening out. The day after while browsing in a shop and mistaking one of the other customers for a salesclerk, he asked me where I come from and proceeded to offer me a free ride to San jose nearby. He is the driver of the train that goes that way. I didn't take him up on it but with a little more time to spare it would have been fun. I also got invited to a wedding.

Today I went to a carnival in the latino area of the city, Mission. It was fun to watch but the locals watching along the roadside looked a bit grumpy, maybe it was too early in the morning. I took pictures but the computers at the hostel are playing tricks on me, might put some up later. Edit: Lazy as I am here's one pic.

Next up is Las Vegas. Flying out tomorrow and meeting up right away with a German backpacker, who I found is doing the same trip through craigslist.com. So it will be another rideshare to Zion national park in Utah, and Grand Canyon in Nevada.

Liftoff: Stage one burning

Left Vancouver on Monday after hugs and goodbyes to my roommates on Sunday night. I managed to get a rideshare with Mark from North Vancouver, and in Seattle we picked up two musicians; Halla and Coby who were going to a buddhist retreat in northern California. After an uneventful day of driving Halla told us he knew a nice place to camp in southern Oregon. It was just close enough to get to before dusk. The place turned out to be a camp inhabited by radical fairies, as they called themselves. They had been celebrating Beltain, the pagan first of May, and were still hanging around. Some of them live in the camp around the year.

It was a pleasant surprise to have such an interesting first stop. I expected to sleep by the roadside with trucks racing by, airbrakes roaring, just like some of the stops on my last trip. Instead we all had a nice evening talking mostly about things going on in the states. Out of courtesy I didn't take any pictures of the people, as we were only staying overnight and they have a pretty closed community.

After sleeping under the night sky, since I don't have a tent, we moved on south. A few hours into the drive the car suddenly shrunk with us inside. We were driving through a redwood forest with ancient huge trees. They get so large that people in the logging communities of the 30's used the stubs as dancing floors. Some hours later Coby and Halla got off at their retreat, and we continued all the way to San Francisco, arriving after 10 in the evening. As I'm writing this it's my first day here, and I'm thinking about going to see Alcatraz. So far so good.

Ready steady...

In a few days it's a go. I FINALLY got my travel plan done and my plane tickets purchased. A lot of the trip is gonna go by land though, so nothing's too strictly laid down. Right now it's rougly looking like this:

San Francisco, California
Las Vegas, Nevada
Acapulco, Mexico
San Jose, Costa Rica
Lima, Peru
La Paz, Bolivia

Then Europe and home to Finland. The whole thing will take about 2 1/2 months. Surprisingly I'm not very excited yet, which I think is because of all the thinking and planning the last 10 days. Making fast decisions isn't really my cup of tea.

Anyways I got all the stuff I need, backpack, malaria meds and meds for treating violent diarrhea, along with clothes, mosquito net and some other stuff. I don't want to list stuff that sounds boring... Water treatment tabs, machete and satellite radio, scuba gear and an inflatable raft with outboard engine. Ok...

At the moment I'm looking for rideshares for the trip down to San Francisco. I hope I find one before the weekend, and get started.