Posted by: J | December 7, 2010

Green Bellies

I have to say, other than remembering a few mentions in my Spanish History module at University, I didn’t really know much about Guatemala before we came here. So far, it has proven to be a wonderful country.

Once over the border from Belize we visited Tikal, one of the largest pre-Colombian Mayan temple complexes and a stunning UNESCO World Heritage Site. We were lucky enough to score the most amazing tour guide, Luis who was just the most wonderful man. He was like the Muhammad Ali of the tour guide world. Whilst quickly articulating his inner-most thoughts on the Mayan culture, its history, its people, its amazing scientific basis and so on he would at the same time be listening out for howler monkeys, calling out to them mimicking their cries, whilst also pointing out gum trees, bee hives, all-spice leaves and toucans, and then from time to time he would also simultaneously hold his arm out to stop you falling over a large tree root or rock. He flitted about the ruins of Tikal like he made them. He was incredible. Will has his email address to keep in touch, so if anyone ever visits Tikal definitely ask us for his email.

After Tikal we caught a taxi bus along to Flores, where we ended up staying for a couple of nights because it was so tranquil and pretty. Beautiful Flores, set on Lake Peten Itza and essentially an island linked only to the mainland by a two-lane bridge, reminds you a bit of an Italian town, or it also made us think of Luang Prabang in Laos. Brightly painted houses, fairy lights, warmth gusting through the cobbled streets, low-key bars looking out over the water. We took a walk on our second day through Santa Elena to the Caves of Actun Kan. The small torch they gave us with a tiny reach of about 1ft wasn’t really much help as we braved the dark, slippery, rocky caverns. We were the only people in there (we think). I did wonder at times whether some random funny man might jump out at us and freak the living bejeezus out of us. But, the dark alone was enough to do that. And the long electric cables left running through wet, dripping caves seemed ready to spark themselves into life, and us out of one.

After leaving Flores we caught a 12 hour bus journey to Guatemala City – possibly the most intimidating place at night we have been to on our travels. Bars on every window (literally – I counted three windows in the whole of the inner city as we passed through which didn’t have bars on), men with guns on street corners (which is quite normal in gun-loving Guatemala), graffiti, rubbish, locked gates and entranceways and any corner shop that was still open at night had bars right the way across – customers have to peek through the iron to be served. We didn’t stay long in Guat City, choosing instead to head out 45 minutes to beautiful, cobbledy street Antigua.

Here we are now. Will is very happy here. Antiguans are known as panza verde (green belly) because they eat so many avocados. Will is also now known as green belly. We are staying in a gorgeous little 16th Century boutique hotel that we happened to stumble into late last night, Posada El Antono. We thought we had got the currency conversion wrong when we were told it would cost us only $30 with breakfast. It is just beautiful (and we have a lovely roaring open fire in our room) and should really be at least five times that price.

Reds – excellent bar where we happened to bump into some kiwis we had met in Caye Caulker in Belize, and 5 very alcoholic cocktails and big plate of nachos for the equivalent of about £13 made us very happy.

Cafe Condesa – brilliant cafe/restaurant in the heart of the town. Delicious coffee and yummy hibiscus flower punch. And a brilliant story about how one of the Counts who used to live in the house once made an unexpected return from a voyage and found his wife doing the horizontal tango with the butler. Rumour had it that the butler was buried alive by the angry Count. All this seemed like folklore. Until 1976 when the earthquake struck and workers found a skeleton buried upright within the pantry wall!

We went horse riding this afternoon up into the hills looking back down on Antigua and across to the three surrounding volcanoes. Stunning views and lots of fun. Although our horses weren’t the happiest and healthiest in the world. Forgot to check out the state of the poor horsies before we booked up the ride. Should always do that in poorer countries. Doh.

Am now trying to convince Will to come to a salsa dancing lesson with me. He’s a bit worried that the Latino dance instructor men (who our masseuse lady Deet says are all VERY attractive) might want to dance with me whilst leaving his bad British anti-rhythms on the sidelines. I think it will be a great laugh but have yet to twist his arm (figuratively and actually).

Check out Mexican band Moderatto and their Christmassy song “Jingle Bells” in Spanish. Complete with David Bowie wannabe and semi-clad buttock slapping girls in Santa costumes. Certainly brightened up our morning yesterday when it came on in a cafe we were at. Happy Christmas!!

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Posted by: J | December 4, 2010

Belizean Pub Quiz

Belize is beautiful, and we will definitely be going back. We finished up, after taking the bus through Belmopan (capital city of Belize – good quiz question that…) in the western jungle area around San Ignacio (also called Cayo).

Some other interesting things I didn’t know about Belize…

  • The film Mosquito Coast was filmed here. Which I believe was a very good film. Although I was about 8 when I saw it. So maybe it wasn’t.
  • Belize is teeny weeny, about the size of Wales (180 miles by 68 miles).
  • The country’s black howler monkeys are amongst the ten loudest animals in the world
  • Shoreline water temperatures average between 79 – 83F. Another great reason why we love Belize.
  • Belize houses the only jaguar reserve in the world. Jaguars are the world’s third largest pussy cat.
  • Gibnut is a popular dish in Belize. It is jungle rat. We didn’t try it, what with being veggies (pescetarians!) now. But to be honest, I don’t think I’d have had a go even if I wasn’t.
  • About 2/3 of Belize’s original forests are still in tact.
  • Madonna’s La Isla Bonita is supposedly about Ambergris Caye in Belize.
  • The national motto of Belize is “under the shade I flourish” which has its roots (geddit?!) in the economy historically being linked to the forestry industry.
  • Belize is the only Central American country with English as its national language, sort of (Hey, how yu di do? = Hey, How are you?, Weh di gwan? = What’s happening?, irie = very good, tek kyer = take care / goodbye).
  • The lobster in Belize is delicious and has become our staple food.
  • Soursop juice is a delicious fruit juice served in Belize. It is touted as a possible miracle cure for cancer. And it tastes lovely.

So, hopefully you now know something more about Belize too. The other thing to know is that the Belizean people are definitely up there as being some of the most friendly people in the world. Walking along the main street (which is more often than not a 1-2 metre wide path or dusty track) in any town will undoubtedly mean you bump into people who constantly call out “morning”, “hello”, “how are you?”, etc. with even more enthusiasm than keen walkers on the Sussex Downs.

 

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Posted by: willmorey | December 3, 2010

Raw Potatoes and Lost Symbols

This morning we had a lovely bus ride down from Placencia to San Ignacio near the border with Guatemala. We had one of those lovely food purchasing experiences I mentioned in my last post. We had a good rate of success though with only one strange purchase. We managed to purchase a bag of roughly chopped raw potato. We were told it was a sweet and delicious fruit. It wasn’t; it was raw potato.

It’s been raining most of the day so we have spent the day drinking coffee and eating.

Jo has been struggling to understand the Belize accented English a few times which has made for some great conversations with the locals. Earlier today a young man invited us to view his art to which Jo replied in her very best English accent “no thanks we have just eaten” and then strode off like Barbara Woodhouse when she had finished dealing with a particularly naughty Jack Russell.

I have to own up to listening to The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown audiobook. It’s great for the long cramped bus journeys when you want to drift off for a while. Dan really does know hot to bleed a formula dry. I would swear he has just done a find and replace on some of the key words, phrases and symbols from his earlier books. Mildly entertaining though in a fast food fiction kind of a way.

Tomorrow we are heading off amongst the jungle canopies tomorrow to see the Mayan ruins at Tikal.

Rain rain go away and come again another day.

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Posted by: willmorey | December 2, 2010

Boobies, Cons and Buses

So I thought I really ought to post something as Jo’s nagging has become almost unbearable. She keeps placing her hand on her forehead and saying things like, “…but our readers; we must post, or what will they do…” Well, to paraphrase Humph, “I am sure Mrs Trellis from North Wales will survive.” But anyway, for the sake of peace and quiet, here is my post.

Firstly, on the subject of Humph, whenever I miss home a bit I go to my Ipod and listen to a bit of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue and its just like being back at home, 6.30 in the evening, waiting for dinner to be cooked. I also discovered a very good page of Humph quotes the other day all about the antics of Samantha and Lionel Blair. I have to remind myself that these went out on Radio 4 mid week at 6.30 in the evening. One of my favourites is “Samantha’s just started keeping bees and already has three dozen or so. She says she’s got an expert handler coming round to give a demonstration. He’ll carefully take out her 38 bees and soon have them flying round his head.” And his Lionel Blair lines are also works of comedy genius: “In the original, the ever energetic Lionel Blair would mime the titles of TV shows against a strict time limit, and who can fail to remember the occasion he scored double points by using both hands in different actions to finish off One Man & His Dog in under thirty seconds!”

So moving on from Humph to Boobies. A few days ago we were lucky enough to find a deserted island near the Blue Hole off Caye Caulker. We crept out through the woods and followed a trail to find a great place to peer through the undergrowth and see what we could find. It was amazing. We got to see some of the finest Boobies in all of Belize and thanks to our hide we were able to gawp until our heart was content and even take lots of pictures. Amazingly enough this is one of the few places in the world where you can see Red Boobies, a rare local bird.

So onto cons. Our low cost airlines in Europe may be pretty bad but Sleazy Jet and RyanAir are a joy in comparison to the cheap airlines in the USA. We looked at flights in the US and saw loads of amazing deals and planned our trip accordingly, planning to book our tickets nearer the time. It’s only when you book you realise what a total con airlines like Spirit are.

So you book the ticket and then work through the countless pages of required information and then at the very end it tells you about the taxes you need to pay. Not just one tax or two or even three or four but a whopping and wallet hurting 12 different taxes:

  • APHIS User Fee
  • Immigration User Fee
  • International Service Recovery Fee
  • NI Security Fee
  • NI Terminal Fee
  • NI-IVA
  • NI-Tourism Fee
  • Passenger Facility Fee
  • Passenger Usage Fee
  • September 11th Security Fee
  • US Customs Fee
  • US-International Departure Tax

These taxes typically add up to more than the ticket cost. Con.

So finally on to Bus Travel and our trip down from Mexico into Belize. There is something beautiful about Bus travel in a new country which I look back on now as the highlight of so many countries we have travelled through. You meet lovely people who share their food, be it an offer of betel to chew and spit red in Burma or a recently barbecued cold goats head on a mountain top in Albania, buses always deliver surprises. You are typically ball crampingly uncomfortable the entire time and spend a large amount of your time pretty unsure whats going on and wondering when you are going to get to your destination. The main highlight of the trip is usually when you pull into some dusty forgotten town and a small group of smiling elderly ladies and children board your bus with the most random collection of gourmet tidbits for you to try. The challenge is to quickly choose the most edible of these tidbits before they have to scarper off the bus before the it pulls away.  The best tactic seems to be to just buy as broad a selection as possible and hope that you get a 1 in four hit rate of edible morsels. Anyway I love bus travel and my memory is permanently etched with so many crazy journeys I would swap for any all inclusive two week holiday in Sandy Beach, Nowhereville.

Belize really is beautiful and a joy to travel through. Lazy beaches, hammocks, cheap lobster and lovely smiling people who are always up for a chat. Tomorrow we are off to Guatemala to see the Mayan ruins at Tikal.

Anyway to end as I began with a little bit of Humph. “As the vanquished charwoman of time begins to Shake n’ Vac the shagpile of eternity, I notice that we have just run out of time.”

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Posted in Belize

Posted by: J | November 29, 2010

Beautiful Belize

We are now in Belize. Pork Belize*. Which is just GORGEOUS. Beautiful white sands, stunning warm turquoise waters, reggae music, rum punch, the most friendly and chilled out people you could wish to hang around with, and amazing diving.

Yesterday I dived the famous Blue Hole. Incredible stalagmites and stalactites 40 metres underwater. It was all so dark and cold, but amazing. All the plankton flying past made me feel like i was hurtling through space. Massive reef sharks darting around beneath. Just amazing. And then two more fishy-filled dives later on in the day. Just beautiful.

We are currently hanging out on the very cool, very warm island of Caye Caulker (pronounced “Key Corker” in a Cockney accent). Very beautiful. Staying at the lovely Jeremiah’s where we have a beachfront room with 3 windows on 3 sides, for $40 Belize a night (about US $20). We’ve had lobster fresh from the sea for the last two nights running. At US$15 a go for a full lobster meal with drinks and dessert it would be wrong not to. We are definitely now fully fledged pescetarians!

* For some reason, whenever I think of Belize I always think of “pork bellies” – Trading Places. What a great film. Randolph Duke.

 

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Posted by: J | November 29, 2010

Moral Maze

Imagine a bottle of sun cream, Panama Jack’s let’s say. Maybe SPF30. Imagine it’s pretty small, and was ridiculously expensive to buy… I don’t know, let’s say it was US$28. But that was the cheapest available sun cream you could find. Imagine a husband and wife go to the beach one day in a beautifully hot place, perhaps in Mexico for example. Let’s say Cancun; that’s a nice place. So Cancun. Imagine halfway through the day on the beach the wife does what sunbathing females across the world, across the decades, typically do when they’re sunbathing and are turning over to lie on their front to brown their back and let’s say this particular wife asks this particular husband to please rub some sun cream into her back. The husband kindly massages the cream into her back whilst she’s face down, head in the towel, and she relaxes and, as people who are face down sunbathing in the heat are prone to do, falls asleep. Eyes closed.

Now imagine the same scene a couple of hours later. Our wife is just stirring, waking up to the bright sun. Our husband is still lying on the beach finishing up his book. Then together they decide to leave the beach (it’s been pretty hectic). They get up, and gather their things. The wife gathers up her bits and bobs, her book, her sunglasses, her random bits of clothing she’s haphazardly flung about the beach. The husband takes his book and his towel. And happily they walk back from the beach together.

Now imagine it’s the following day. The husband and wife have left their hotel and are sitting comfortably on a bus on their way to downtown to start their onwards journey. I don’t know, let’s say for the sake of argument they’re off to Belize. That’s a lovely place. So they’re happily riding along, gazing out the windows watching the world go by. Then, all of a sudden the wife gets a strange feeling. She thinks they may have forgotten something. She racks her brain to think what it could be and realizes she hasn’t seen the sun cream that morning.

“Gill*,” she says. “Did you pick up the sun cream from the beach yesterday?”

“No Lo*. Did you?”

“No.”

And it dawns on the couple that the sun cream, the expensive US$28 sun cream, let’s just be totally clear here – the twenty eight dollar sun cream – the most expensive sun cream ever bought anywhere in the world ever**, was left behind on the beach the day before.

So, the question is this… Whose responsibility was it to look after the sun cream after the husband rubbed it into the wife’s back? The wife, face down, asleep on the towel, relaxing or the husband, upright, mobile and able to actually SEE where he puts the sun cream that he is holding?

Discuss.

* To protect identities, names in this scenario may have been changed.

** Well, maybe Liz Hurley buys more expensive sun cream. But it can’t be that much more. I mean, really. Twenty-eight dollars. Twenty-eight!

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Posted by: J | November 26, 2010

Cons, Kindles and Cops

From a cold and damp San Francisco, via Dallas (and a delicious delivery Dominos Pizza to our Motel 6 room) to Mexicococococo. We are in one of the most touristy places we have been on all our travels so far, Cancun. But we’re just happy to be in the sun under the palm trees, sipping cocktails and dipping into turquoise waters. Our trip from ‘Cisco was interesting, not just because we got completely conned by American Airlines into stumping up extra dollaroonies.

Cue rant – Basically we booked our flight online to Cancun the morning of the day we flew. When we arrived at check-in we were told that our payment had not been processed yet, even though our ticket status read “purchased” and we had received full confirmation emails with ticket reference no. Apparently the busy bees in the background at AA had not yet got round to actually processing our transaction. Of course not. No, because we used an international credit card. How stupid of us. I mean, it’s not like a huge tranche of American Airline customers might, just might, be from other countries other than the good ole’ US of A. Apparently it takes a while longer to process international cards, often takes over 24 hours, so we were asked to pay again at check-in for our flights. Bizarre. Especially as they couldn’t completely guarantee that the first transaction wouldn’t also go through and therefore be charged twice. First of all surly ‘Jennifer’ behind the desk tried to charge us the new cheapest ticket price, which was considerably higher than that which we had paid (or thought we had paid) five hours earlier. When we argued that we weren’t going to pay that amount, and couldn’t she chase the payment people within AA to figure out how to process our payment she pulled her finger out. A little bit. We were asked to wait 20 minutes to see if our original transaction would get processed. 20 minutes later and it wasn’t. We waited some more. Still nothing. So, with the flight just about to board, and not having yet got through security, we figure we’re going to have to sort this somehow and pay up now for the tickets or not get on the flight. We end up agreeing with them to pay the original amount, and I even check that we would only be paying the exact figure of the original amount and am told yes, no problem, but the cheeky chappy behind the desk (Jennifer has by now gone off for lunch) “Otto” throws in an extra $60 ‘administration charge’ for us having bought our tickets at the check-in. Even though we were forced into purchasing the tickets there because their own stupid f**king systems couldn’t process our transaction in good time. We only just spot the extra charge as we’re signing. The cheek. Had to just do it and then run through security. Ended up telling our little palaver of a story to the lovely AA woman at the boarding gate who immediately said that was unacceptable and now we’re trying to get our $60 back from AA (they can only send us an American cheque in American dollars – so now I guess it’s our problem again to work out a way to cash this… anyone got any ideas??!!) Rant over.

Our trip from ‘Cisco was also interesting because we met the most amazing woman on the flight from Dallas. She looked a bit like a cross between Jack Nicholson and Jack Bauer’s wife in 24, wore a Magnum-esque Hawaiian shirt, blacked out glasses (for the whole flight) and she had her cat with her under the seat in front (apparently that’s okay between the US and Mexico – but I have to admit, I did wonder how little kitty was coping with it all, and not least how little kitty was coping without a cat litter tray). Definitely an eccentric (the woman, not the cat – although the cat did look slightly demonic, which I guess could be classed as eccentric). She couldn’t work her Kindle (again, the woman, not the cat – that would just be too cool, a cat with a Kindle), bless her, so Will and I stepped in to help her out with it. Both of us told her – I’d say at least four times – that all she needed to do was turn in on and it was already loaded with the books and should work fine, but she really couldn’t accept that the Kindle was turned on when the green light wasn’t showing. She’d go through the motions, switch the ‘on’ button to ‘on’ and we would all see the screen come on and list her books on the home page. Will, or I, or sometimes both Will and I at the same time, would then excitedly say “hey, there you go, it’s working…” only to be met with, “No, no… it’s still not working. The green light isn’t on anymore so it can’t be on”. Then she would mess about with the ‘on’ switch again, turning the whole thing off. We went through this routine several times, before I eventually wrestled the device from her and did it all myself to get to her book. She was in absolute awe and for a moment turned in to Bryn from Gavin & Stacey heaping praise on my technical prowess. She loved us, and loved preaching democratic politics to us so much that she invited us to go and visit her in Playa del Carmen further south so she can preach at us some more. Sadly I don’t think we’ll have time to stop in.

Cancun is warm and sultry. The cocktails are good (free tequila all night the other night at the excellent Calypso’s) and the water is a huge warm turquoise bath.

We have seen a heck of a lot of police about the place though. And I’m talking a HECK of a lot. More than in Burma even. The other day we counted 27 police in a minute and a half whilst sitting at a restaurant. And we’ve seen hundreds more walking around or driving up and down the roads, each one carrying a massive machine gun. We started to wonder what on earth needed so much protection (had my mother called up and organised for extra security around us?) Now, I wouldn’t normally highlight this fact to my poor mum, particularly as Mexico is the only country that she really wasn’t too comfortable about Will and me visiting*, and given Hillary Clinton’s recent comments comparing Mexico to Colombia 20 years ago, but it turns out that all this police presence is in fact just gearing up for next week’s UN climate summit which takes place in Cancun. So, whilst I am slightly disappointed that all this extra police presence isn’t just for Will’s and my protection, it’s good to know it’s not the norm. That said, there is a real issue in Mexico, which even in touristy Cancun you can feel. Right now they should be gearing up for the high season, but things are dramatically slow here with very few tourists. Americans are being advised not to visit, and have been told by Mexican authorities that their safety cannot be guaranteed and then yesterday the Mexican PM came out and said that he could not guarantee the safety of Mexican tourists who travel around the country at night!! Anyways, all of this is an aside because tomorrow we travel down to Belize (in the daytime) so mum, you can relax… As we will (blissful white sand beaches, and the second largest barrier reef in the world… I cannot wait!!)

* I also love the fact that my mum is herself coming to Mexico next year on a cruise…

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Posted by: J | November 18, 2010

The Mission…

The Mission is where we are now living.

The Mission is a Frisco neighbourhood named after the sixth Alta California Mission, Mission San Francisco de Asis. Spanish missionaries arrived here during the late eighteenth century, the punks arrived in the 70s – 80, and the late 90s and noughties saw the arrival of gentrified young urban professionals. There are still many Mexican and Latin American immigrants, so tacos aplenty.

The Mission is famous for its amazing murals, initiated by the Chicano Art Mural Movement of the 1970s.

The Mission is to try to do yoga here everyday.

The Mission is to try not to eat too many burritos.

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Posted by: J | November 17, 2010

I Lost My Heart in San Francisco

A flower in my hair and a visit to the mesmerising Alcatraz where I could live out my Papillon imaginations, a brisk walk (very brisk – I needed the loo!) across the amazing Golden Gate Bridge, hanging out in City Lights and other bookstores across the city (although we still have managed to read a page of a novel since we have been in the US – we’ve been having too much fun [did listen to Tony Blair's biography in the car - very interesting]), a small but very lovely shopping expedition to Zara (beautiful LBD – I couldn’t resist), lots of cheap beer and wine in lots of Beatnik bars including the brilliant Specs, delicious daily mooncakes in Chinatown, a Hawaiian smoothie on Pier 39 (Hawaiian I think because it had a cheap paper umbrella in it), some lovely vegetarian fare, and a wonderful stay in a brilliant hostel (The Green Tortoise – staying in their more secluded overspill house with awesome views of the Bridge. Not the Golden Gate Bridge, but the still beautifully lit up at night Bay Bridge)… all of this later, and we’ve decided not to take our flights to Panama but to stay put in this beautiful city to soak up some more of the atmosphere.

We love it here. The city is so varied and the people are so friendly. That said, there is a huge homelessness problem here. And I mean, huge. It’s like being in London or Brighton 15 years ago. But worse. But, the homeless people seem to have a real sense of community amongst them, looking out for each other and having a laugh. We have had some hilarious interactions with some really lovely and very entrepreneurial homeless people (“a note for a note” from a harmonica playing disabled guy, street directions from another guy who saw that Will was lost, and my personal favourite – a guy who, seeing all the tourist attraction guys dressed up in top hats and slicked head to toe in silver body paint doing their robotic statue routines, grabbed himself a beer crate and a polystyrene coffee cup, stood on the crate, held out the cup and posed with the biggest inane grin on his face. For hours. It was genius. I saw him earlier on in the day and caught the moment when he had the lightbulb of the idea and was putting his props together, and then when I wandered back again a few hours later he was still there, still posing, and happily he had a few dollars in his cup.

We’re leaving the Green Tortoise now to go and live for a week in a business start-up incubator (as you do). More of that laters… x

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Posted by: J | November 15, 2010

Our ‘Frisco Day

9am ish – Came to with a slight head thing going on. That would be the $2 beers and generously mixed mojitos last night at the iconic Enrico’s a couple of doors away. Lay about for a while, bleary-eyed taking in the morning light. Hit the shower. Ugh, couldn’t figure out how to get hot water for about 10 minutes (that’s hostel living for you).

9.50am – Cream cheese bagel breakfast (for free – yay) at the hostel (The Green Tortoise – very friendly and good value). Drink mint tea out of a cup with no handle (again, hostel living). Planned the day with maps and guides and SF books.

10.15am – Visited the brilliant $5 entry Beat Museum to learn more about Kerouac, Ginsberg, Brautigan and all those krazy katz. Worth every cent. I have to admit, I’m not the biggest Kerouac fan in the world but this museum was brilliant from start to finish. And they have tons of first edition Brautigans on sale which makes us very happy.

11.30am – Wander down through Chinatown (Will and I can never go to Chinatown anywhere without saying the infamous line, “I’m gonna take you down, take you down to Chinatown” to each other. I’ve just googled this phrase to see which film it came from and where on earth we picked it up. Turns out it’s not from a movie but is a generic old phrase used to suggest one is going to beat up another person. Or, it’s second meaning is “to offer another an evening of heroin and gay sex”. Hmmmmm.) The Chinatown in SF is the best ever. It has amazing shops and restaurants, beautiful lights, musicians playing in the street and just has a really strong energy about it. And, we got to eat delicious mooncake at The Eastern Bakery where President Bill Clinton likes to get his mooncakes (well, alright, he went here once in 1996. But if it’s good enough for him…)

11.45am – Union Square shopping (well, window shopping). Drooled over 7 For All Mankind jeans. Got chatting to the very camp and very lovely shop assistant who expressed a love for my bag. Asked me where it was from. H&M I replied, do you have that here? He went on to profess his undying love for all things European, Topshop, H&M et al. Told him we felt the same way about all things US (well, lots of things US) and we had an extremely in-depth debate about my new love Urban Outfitters. He hates it. I love it. We agreed to disagree and I left. Without any 7 For All Mankind jeans. (Reach for tissue…)

12.30pm – Delicious vegetarian sushi lunch at Sushi Raw. $9.99 for the most immense amount of avocado rolls, sweet potato rolls, tofu teriyaki, rice, miso soup and free edamame and free green tea. Yum.

1.30pm – 3.00pm ish – Took in the weird and wonderful world of Haight/Ashbury, the famous peace-lovin’ district. Hung out at Ben and Jerry’s on the corner taking pics, but after stuffing ourselves full of sushi couldn’t quite manage to wolf down Jerry Garcia ice-cream. Next time.  Checked out amazing vintage shops and gawked at cool taxidermy boutiques (even vegetarians can appreciate the humour of a buffalo toe ashtray and a deer hoof bedside lamp).

Out of time (Twilight Zone…) Here’s where it all gets a bit trippy. I don’t think we dropped any LSD or mushrooms, but given what happened next we could have done. Maybe our avocado rolls were spiked…? We wander down into Golden Gate Park. A 15 year-old kid jumps out of the hedge and offers us “nuggets”. Nuggets? No idea. No thank you. We’re thinking No.2s…?!!* Hippies, bums, drop-outs everywhere. Pervading smell of weed everywhere. Stumble into a man dressed in a giant pink fluff babygro. Another with ridiculously large afro hair. It’s a fancy dress Kickball Tournament of course (seriously cool game, we need to start this in England). Hula hoopers hula hooping. Drummers drumming. Pennies from Heaven. A glitter fairy throwing pennies from heaven out of her kids pram. It’s like the Stone Circle at Glastonbury but right next to a Lawn Tennis Club. We’re stumbling about taking it all in. And then I cannot believe my eyes. There’s a rabbit. A white rabbit. I’m sure it’s a giant white rabbit. Like no rabbit I have ever seen. “Will, is it just me, or please tell me you see that giant rabbit?” Yes, he does. We go over. And sure enough, there is a giant white rabbit thumping about in the woods. 15lbs of white rabbity rabbitness. I want one. It is the coolest thing EVER.

* I feel so old and out of touch now. I’ve just had to google “nuggets” and it’s marijuana. I am so old and boring…!

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