Sofa So good...

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Well, 3 years on nearly and here I am back in Creel...in fact back in the same interneto place altho´staying much more salubriously this time...at the Best Western...seppo crap that the others insisted on for telephone connections for the lappos etc...but after the last few days I wasbn´t complaining about a bit of lux as in ury....
Had a big one a the Beachfire restaurant in San Clemente on the last night in the US..bit of a reunion and farewell for Pulled down the freeway as usual at 140 plus kmh...with full weight (us and bike about 430 kgs each) altho´fairly impressive mchines when you stand next to them, on the freeway amongst the monster trucks etc we realise our intense vulnerability.....and looking down at some passing car ...I mean passing us at 150 ks you see a young woman calmly in deep conversation on the cell phone, in the other hand an icecream or coffee...faaarck...lemme out of here.
There´s a classic road sign I wanted to photo but couldn´t.its a yellow diamond standard background, the picture has a man, woman and child running...I was told its depicting illegal immigrants (is this where that expression came from?) anyway the chunky little Dad character is bent over, head down like running into a strong headwind, he´s pulling wifey by the hand, her hair streaming back, she´s got the nipper by the hand and he´s almost airborne as the three of them scurry across....fantastic visual!!...but, I mean, if you did see that in front of you on the road at 140 kmh what the fcuk can you do?...dob them in maybe? there´s certainly lots of phone numbers posted everywhere for people to dob in anything suss....didn´t see any fridge magnets tho´.
The US runs out very quickly. About a mile from the border everything stops. No more billboards, fast food outlets, not even any rundown shop fronts...nada....just sort of scrubby bush and a few trees...incredible after te everpresent sensory overload from the rest of the country´s roadsides.
Interesting side point - I´m amazed at the shabbiness of a lot of LA and California in general..just loads and loads of really rundown, crappy shop fronts, houses all sorts of buildings, signs ...don´t know why its got to me, maybe I thought it should all be new and gleamo..but its soo tawdry...except for the gigantic shopping centres..they´re mainly new and shiny, maybe thats the only place where anything new happens now. And such a car culture, Benno, eat your heart out! every sort of sick type of vehicle and all so big, just so they can cart around all the bloody toys...talk about consume!..and show it off!...but by and large fairly friendly, naive and brainfried. In some conversations about our destinations I was reduced to just walking away...trying to explain that Tierra del Fuega was at the bottom of >South America, not a town in the south of California...not many peole in the states understand anything outside the borders of the US...even vets that had fought overseas had very little idea of where in the world they had been...or more the worry, even cared!

Anyway, thru the border...imediate culture shock..everything in espanol..no english...co'plicated directions and instructions, its getting hotter in all the gear, just where is this office to get the temporary vehicle importation certificate, you mean out into the trffice and somewhere over there?...so out into the traffic, round the round about, spotted a sign...signal the others, 3 big bikes amongst streams of old, dented banged up cars and smoking trucks all going in different directions, bulk confusion, spot another sign, turn down a side street, few circles betweeen the trucks, spot the sign at the end of te street..whoo hoo got there....but this is just the start...which office, which queue, who is doing what...then we finfd Eduardo....sooo cool and friendly, helps with forms and after encouraging him to make further phone calls e gets permission to give us 90 days instead of the normal 30....then its just hanging in the queue, filling the form, going to get copies, back in the queue, pay the money...then sudenly the bit of paper, the little sticker for the windscreen!!...we´ve actually done it!!...ok now let´s get out of Tijuana..
Crikey dot com, Tijuana is all its cracked down to be....filthy, dusty, hot, sweaty, we ride along the big fence, topped with the razor wire, glimpses over into the badlands between the borders, its a lot hillier than I´d thought, in fact quite maountainous, covered in shitty shanty town shacks, roads with no signs, traffic pressing, hot as hell in all the gear again, ...a few wrong turns but then we work out the right route and fleee..
I was thinking its no wonder Tijuana, in fact all of north Mexico is so dirty and unkempt, all the cleaners and gardeners are over the border working in the US.
We take the freeway or at least the tollway...at least only 2.50 bux...altho´a bit of a cockup as we were supposed to go thru 1 at a time but Ted slipped thru with Grant...bells and sirens went off, flashing lights,, holy shit batman, toll guy rolls his eyes up an starts the dismantling-the-emergency-signal process...sort of like trying to abort a saturn 5 mission 2 secs before ignition......we zoom along the freeway, another 140 plus ride...there´s a dividing barrier same as in Oz with the flared base, about a metere hig, but this one is topped by 2 metres of cyclone mesh however every mile or so its been pulled back so eople can cross!!...in your nightmares mate...but we come around a curve and here´s 2 guys struggling like crazy )and you can understand why, this is a major freeway, cars hurtling past) and they are manhandling a wheelbarrow thru the hole in the wire!...anyway, we get thru...then things lighten up...few hold ups in the little towns but in general cruising on really well made and laid out roads...welcome to the Baja...
We made it to the skirts of Ensenada which was to have been our stop and crashed at a motel...went into town a bit later, everything gearing up for the 4th July weekend, buk seppos and reminiscent of Bali ad the football yobbos.
Sat 2 july..day2...
dicked around Ensenada...very quiet in the morning after all the partying...couldn´t find a atm so just left...fabulous winding roads, similar in parts to Fllinders ranges, up into the high country, big mobs of desert..more like the gibber plains around Woomera just a shimmering haze off to the horizon, not even power lines, no nothing...huge mountains off in the very distance and soetimes we´d be back into them crossing over sharp ranges that I never dreamed woiuld be in the Baja. It even snows down here sometimes!, hard to believe coz its still darn hot.
Most drivers are very courteous and safe, we are travelling well with stops from time to time for a break and for Ted to take some shots...he has the heaviest load so G and I usually fang off ahead then wait.
Stopped to watch some paysanos picking soe sort of veges in the fields, bussed in, there must have been 50 or so picking from between plastic lined rows, wind blocks >I think, don´t know what the crop was.
Off to one side there was a huge covered area like a giant tent, soe plastic sheeting over a mass of tent poles, maybe 2 kilometres along the road and 1 to 2 hundred metres deep...strawberries I think, but on a scale hard to comprehend....miss a few scheduled stops...like this was our introduction to the Mexican map system!...I suspect that many small towns bribe the map makers to put their town´s name in big print...or even put it in at all!!...or the cartographers all put in their home towns...there is very little correlation between the size of font on the map and the actuality...so some ¨towns¨where we planned to get gas, or stay, just weren´t there...or we´d see a Petromex sign ahead and think yippee, a servo..but there´d just be the ruinas of a forer gas station...like the modern equivalent of Palenque, and no doubt you could sift thru the detritus and expose the lifestyles of generations of auto travellers...luckily at one we were in desperate need of there were 3 guys sitting around a 44 and syphoned off gerrycan fulls for each of us...and charged to match the fortuity of their location!
Did I tell you how hot it was!...I know youse in Melbourne don´t want to know...shit the times up more soon...

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