LA to San Francisco

25/07/13 to 28/07/13 - Our flight from Bogota landed in Houston, Texas and we got a good view of the oil fields on the descent. After a 4 hour wait in the airport (and getting stuck into our first hamburger) we took off again and touched down early in the evening at L.A. International Airport. We went directly to our hotel where we would relax and try to learn another new language, American English. We woke up early in the morning to enjoy the heated pool of our hotel (where we met our first god-fearing nutter) and collected our rental car (you must say ‘rental car’ as if you say ‘car hire’ they give you a blank look). We had to wait for a long time before getting our ‘compact’ car. This was in fact a massive family saloon, very comfortable with a big boot and cruise control.

Next we needed some gear to camp with and went to Walmart (owners of Asda) who are known for some cheap deals on this sort of equipment. Them we were off driving along one of the most scenic roads of the USA, the route No.1, which goes from LA to San Francisco.

We passed through the iconic Malibu beach, which is where Baywatch was set. Dave soon imagined he was ‘the Hoff’ running on the beach in slow motion to help Pammy with a rescue. We found a nice campground on the beach and had to put up our new tent in the dark.



The day after, we drove past Santa Barbara and stopped at a visitor centre to learn what there was to do along the route to San Francisco. The old man there was nice even though he told us he didn’t know how to read a map upside down (surely the most important skill for this job). He asked if we had heard of the 17 Mile Drive and we said “No” (with a small smile). Then he asked if we knew about Pebble Beach and once again we said “No”(with a bigger smile). The guy seemed to think we were a bit thick and finally asked us: “Have you heard of a guy named Clint Eastwood?” At this time our faces suddenly creased up and it took us 3 seconds to realise that he wasn’t joking. As well as being one of the most famous people in the world, we also learned that Clint was joint owner of the Pebble Beach Company: a tiny resort and village/community of rich people, based near the sea and including the famous Pebble Beach golf club. This village was very nice with different points of interest, such as Cypress trees and lots of elephant seals very close to the shore on many of the beaches.

We later found a free yet good place to pitch our tent, once again near the sea, in the mountains on Nacimiento Road, above a sea of clouds which had rolled in off the Californian coast… just magical.



The whole journey was very scenic and reminded us a lot of the Great Ocean Road, not just because of the look and feel of the road, but also the weather. We had never imagined California could be so cold in the middle of summer, but it was cool and cloudy. Luckily there was no rain and it would give us a break from the heat before we went off into the desert in a few days time.