As I write this, I am already deep into the gang-infested Mexico, more specifically in Merida, which is actually a very nice and peaceful part of Mexico…
Three weeks in the land of the free and home of the brave have passed. It has been a kind of America-light, the West Coast is the part that mostly resembles Canada and Northern Europe, so the cultural shock didn’t really hit me. A few interesting episodes came up though: first, an arrest on my bus between Salem, Oregon, and Sacramento, California. Two patrol cars pull up next to the bus and make it stop, thereafter two officers with guns drawn enter the bus telling everybody to get out. Outside we are met by two other officers also pointing their firearms at us rather aggressively. Apparently the bad guy is on the bus, but realizing he’s outnumbered and outgunned, gives himself without any struggle.
More police action followed after I had spend a few days in San Francisco. Six police cars pull up in front of the house across the street from where I am staying and a dozen cops storms the house. A few ambulances arrive at the scene as well, even though I don’t hear any shots fired. The word on the street afterward was that they had cleaned out a drug nest, a hangout, or a laboratory. But all that is just rumors…
Most of my time in the US was spent sightseeing and relaxing as any good traveler would have done, but that is rather boring stuff to tell you, so I’ll leave that out. But just to inform you guys, I visited Seattle, Salem, Monmouth, Sacramento, San Francisco and L.A., with the highlight being San Fran by far! I’m inviting everybody over there when I get rich enough!
After my stay in San Fran. I decided that U.S. buses were too expensive and too shitty, and with trains not really being an option between San Fran and L.A. the most interesting way to get there would be hitchhiking. So a made a primitive sign saying ’South’ on one side and ’L.A.’ on the other and stuck out my thumb. 5th car passing me in San Fran picked me up; an old hippie named Paul in an even older pick up truck. He only drove me down to Fremont but had plenty of time to praise the long lost art of hitchhiking on the way. Next, a Chinese family picked me up, spending their time praising suburban America for being so nice and peaceful, not really understanding why I wanted to go to L.A. as the place is noisy, dangerous, and filled with Latin-Americans. I then decided not to tell them about going to Central America after L.A., as that would have been a bad idea.
The Chinese family dropped me off in the middle of nowhere because they had to make a turn from the highway outside San Jose. This gave me the change of hitching a ride with a California farmer, and an old school one, chewing on his straw and trash-talking literally everyone most of the way. To bring you a little inside in his mind, people he disliked ranged from: the ’spoiled kids in L.A.’ to ’lazy spics n' Niggers’ to ’fat white trash’ everywhere else in the US and ’damn hippies in San Francisco’. I have forgotten a few of his other insults, but this list should give you the idea. The only decent people in his mind seemed to be farmers, but not the ’hillbillies’ and ’stupid cowboys’ from back East. No, the only good ones were farmers from California!
I still don’t know why he picked me up and if he was lying when he claimed to have voted for more Democrats than Republicans the few times he actually bothered. Luckily the ride was over quick as he was only going to Salinas! (Please Google Map these places yourselves)
Last ride I got went all the way to L.A. with a weed smoking; Christian-rock-listening trucker in his big American rig. He picked me up and offered to drive me all the way down there. He didn’t bother to pull the truck over when he lit his pipe, which was about ten times doing those 5 hours of driving, he just leaned forward supporting the steering wheel with his elbows and kept on driving. But he did turn off the radio as a ’non-believing Scandinavian shouldn’t have to listen to all that divine bullshit'.
Apparently he liked the music better than the message it was playing… Just to top it off he bought me dinner at a trucker cafe outside L.A. Surprisingly we made it all the way through his cloud of weed and I stayed alive hitchhiking in the US of A.
If you ever do go to California, try the hitchhiking business! It’ll save you a ton of money and you’ll meet all the crazy locals not spending all their time in the big metropolises of the West Coast. It even got me free beers when I arrived at my hostel in L.A. because they were impressed with me being a ’real backpacker’, hitchhiking my way down the coast.
Finally, a big shout-out to Hanna, Caro, Jerome, Eric, Eduardo, Steven and his crew, Claudia, Alexi, Isky, Zen, Lalou, Marius, the gang at USA Hostel, LA and Danny & Tommy for making my US trip a little bit more unforgettable.
Oh yeah, don’t make fun of the hat! I’m getting mad props for it everywhere…
Look forward to the next entry on Mexico and Belize!
USA
