Land of the free and home of the shopping cart dweller

Coming in to Los Angeles is a familiar script nowadays. This may be the seventh or eighth time descending from pristine blue altitude towards a thick blanket of grime that reminds me of a daytime pub atmosphere before the ban – topped by a pall of tobacco smoke. This one is pierced all over by tall skinny palm trees and as we get closer to the ground, blotches of turquoise back yard pools highlight the homes of the affluent. Eight lane freeways snake through repeating patterns of industrial and residential sprawl before tailing off in the distance to places like San Diego, Pasadena, Burbank and east towards Texas. That vast expanse of desert encountered just a few short months ago.

This arrival is as easy as any. The border paranoia seems worse from the outside – though I know it is not this easy for everyone. Through and out the other side in less than 30 minutes to wait for the blue super shuttle back to the stamping ground of H Santa Monica, surely one of the best hostels in the best locations on the planet. If it had a pool it would be perfect.

But who needs a pool with the ocean just a block away? The backdrop of affluence seems to have cranked up another gear since a year or two ago. The contrast of the shopping cart dwellers on the esplanade at the warm edge of the continent has not shifted, yet is another degree removed by the move at the other end of the spectrum.

The haze over the city is as bad as I have seen – maybe worse. The mountains at the north end of the beach are barely visible. The air seems unusually hard to breathe, but life goes on in all its glory.

The pier is really crowded – seems I have landed in a holiday weekend for labour day. All the beautiful people are out in force. A busker with no name sounding like Jimi Hendrix – about the same age had Hendrix survived the excesses of the 70s s,d and r and r culture which sadly of course he did not. Two CDs for $20 and a photo later I have some good souvenirs and he is one happy busker.

A leisurely stroll along to Venice Beach brings back many familiar sights.

Back to the pier I started from, I play voyeur to a photographer and a wet Asian model as the light fades far enough into late afternoon to allow pictures to be taken without washing out. Its better light than NZ and Australia with the hole in the ozone layer that afflicts that part of the world. better, but not much, and that is no accolade.

A young couple make me smile – they have never seen a sail boat as big as one cruising past the pier and insist take a picture. The Viaduct Basin and the Waitemata Harbour back home in NZ peppered with floating palaces would surely be a treat for their gorgeous hispanic eyes.

San Antonio

An hour or so south of Austin on I35 is the historic town of San Antonio. Right slap bang in the middle of that is the Alamo, a cool hat shop and an antiques/collectibles mall where I acquired the second of three pairs of cowboy boots. Acquiring them is easy – anything that fits on my small almost square extremities and isn't baby pink or vomit yellow will do just fine. Getting them home in my modest sized suitcase along with all the other wise and foolish purchases will be the fun part.

More on the social stuff later – first a piece of history. In brief, Spanish colonization started around 1718, when Franciscans constructed a mission, San Antonio de Valero, in what was originally a Coahuiltecan Indian village. The aim was to convert and educate the locals, and create an economic base for the settlement. More settlers arrived over the next few years and four more missions (all still standing) were built along the river. The original mission converted to military use and was known as The Alamo. The territory on which it stood became part of Mexico following a battle for independence from Spain.

The Alamo is now a central city monument at the site of the 1836 battle and thirteen day siege involving the Republic of Mexico against American settlers fighting for independence along with Tejanos (Mexicans living in Texas). Although the Mexicans won this gory battle and seized the mission, they were later defeated at the battle of San Jacinto and the independent Texas forces won the war. Texas became part of the United States in 1845. The Alamo is a haunting place at night, like many other historic battle grounds. Wikipedia has more information for interested readers.

The surrounding area is a little less daunting with the usual shops, bars, parks an attractive riverside walk and hotels, some with longer history than others. Horse drawn carriages decked with fairy lights offer tourists a leisurely way to browse the central area. A couple of real historic buildings grace the centre, though many more provide further evidence of the chain company mania that seems to have spread everywhere across the country like a highly contagious rash.

A bit away from the centre are some highlights of our two day pit stop in a slightly seedy but cheap and mostly acceptable motel. (The nut case screaming 'I am the redeemer', banging on random doors at 2am and causing the pool to be closed for fumigation the following days was not a permanent fixture!)

A great dinner venue is the fabulous Leaning Liberty Bar. A repurposed whore house I'm told, with unique features like heritage recipes on the menu, an upstairs veranda and downstairs windows that look ready to topple over into the street. Ain't nothin' straight about this old weather board and sheet iron baby – even if the business is nowadays.

Then there's Casbeers, what seems to be a typical Texas style watering hole (down to earth, slightly dingy, stuffed animal heads on the walls...) with cheap, basic, excellent food, good beer and live local blues to satisfy the most discerning 'chasin' the blues' tourist.

Carrying on down the 'friends of friends' hospitality route, our local guide is John, a Wall St Journal reporter turned school teacher. Methinks the man must either be mad or have a heart. Maybe even a little of both.

He and Tom are certainly amusing - vis this transcript for the above photo:

John: Once you buy a couch you can never be free [with pathos]
Tom: Fear of furniture is what I call that [with empathy].

Waving at Mexico

Moving on from TorC, as it is known locally, is a leisurely affair. Getting up at sunrise to walk while its still cool or take pictures before its too bright seems less appealing on the third day of the holiday. Maybe because its Monday morning. Lazing horizontal watching the light change is the activity of choice first thing today. Maybe the bone dissolving massage booked in for yesterday morning by TandS is something like a reason. After an hour and a half on the table, I literally was putty in Andre's hands. His fluent, French accented English conversation can only have helped. Dreamy! After the third attempt, even my 'computer knotted' shoulders gave in and turned to putty too. Tried not to reinstate them getting used to the eeePC and into the swing of writing up the trip. I am not taking notes or recording ideas marked 'significant' and know I am losing a few good ones, so need to keep up to the task.

Its after 11am when we finally get away after breakfast back at the slightly new age-y cafe. The road south runs through more of the by now familiar, near desert landscape. Its beautiful in its own way though I am pleased to be traveling through in the flame painted Volvo at 75 mph with a tap-refillable water bottle rather than following the traditional horseback trails. Its a long long road and there ain't much in the way of shade. I imagine its a long way down before you hit water.

After a couple of hours we reach the southern edge of New Mexico where it borders with Mexico and Texas. There is both visible and sensed difference as we cross into Texas and drive on through the sprawling modern border town of El Paso. Mexico is just a stone throw away across the Rio Grande. The visual impression is of dust settled on rows of brightly coloured single storey houses like replicated lines of crowded and crooked teeth. The land is flat this side of the river and hilly over there. The low rise urban sprawl of Juarez stretches as far as the eye can see until it fades out at the foot of a mountain range on the distant horizon. This side, the expanse is multi-level bill board edged highways, flyovers and concrete commercial sprawl. The start of everything being big in Texas.

Tom used to live in El Paso, and was keen to retrace old ground and offer another adventure by crossing over to Mexico for lunch. All local advice pointed to this being every bit as hazardous, if not more so, as the crossings made by Billy and Boyd in the fictionalized world of 'The Crossing.' This border has always had its troubles, right now they are pretty serious with drug gang 'wars', people trafficking and sickeningly regular shootings, sometimes of innocent bystanders. Stacy is not keen and by the sixth newspaper report of seemingly random shootings in half as many days, the idea is put to rest. No point in living dangerously for lunch when excellent and affordable Mexican food is on offer at every second corner on 'the safe side.' So I give a silent wave to Mexico before it fades out of sight.

Today's pitstop is at Papa's Pantry Restaurant in a small town named Van Horn, where a man called Ran Horn runs a veritable Alladin's cave of a second hand & collectibles store. The unique feature of Ran Horn's stock is an extensive collection of faut Van Gogh art works produced by the man himself. Its sorely tempting to buy one, because they are truly wonderful works, but the stacked in the back room collection with no where to hang at home puts the idea on hold. That and the trip budget, not that these are really expensive.

The budget has run so far to a few op shop treasures, but nothing much else apart from lots of good food and the odd bottle of Texan wine. Another unknown region's Shiraz scores a instant hit on the vineyard front and prices are very reasonable (U$7.99.) But back to Papa's where we were at the start of this paragraph, the 'Tes Leches' challenge begins.

Walking into the novel

A work mate lent me Cormac McCarthy's 'The Crossing' because it is set in the area of the US I was about to visit. A canned sardine space on the economy flight from Auckland thus expanded out into the vast empty plains of the New Mexico / Texas / Mexican border. I followed sixteen year old Billy and his captured pregnant she wolf on their ultimately fruitless journey towards the mountains. Accompanied him on every hazardous step of the lone trek back to a destroyed home, and on again into Mexico with brother Boyd to hunt down their father's killer. People that fed and looked after the near starving brothers along the way without needing to be asked were the ancestors of the self same people I was about to meet.

The arrival queue at LAX was long-ish and kept being shifted so that no matter where I started, I ended up at the back of a line. This was for efficiency, I learned, as another flight was due in right behind us and immigration get nervous if people get to mix with others they didn't arrive with. No big dramas though. Signs on the front of the immigration desks advise newcomers and workers alike that this is the face of America. Its pretty friendly if my fairly limited experience is anything to go by. The conversation is light as my fingers are digitally printed and my eye similarly scanned. The Scottish accent scores yet another hit, as I learn the large (do they come in any other size?) middle aged officer's ancestors hail from Oban. I happen to have been there with my nearly eighty year old parents less than six months back, so the 'welcome to the United States' is even a little warmer and more personal than usual. I have heard of more troubled experiences at these borders but only second hand so far.

The transfer to domestic for the flight on to Albuquerque is equally hassle free and I hook up with Gary, Ian and Lorraine in terminal 7 where we splash out on local beer and cocktails even though it's still only 11am in New Zealand! We soon split up again as they head off to Las Vegas and Flagstaff. I am glad of the direct flight to New Mexico where there used to be a minimum of one stop over and a few more hours of the journey.

I touch down to find Tom in the bookstore and Stacy driving round the block. The car with bikes strapped on top is to high to get into the car park. A quick getaway has us at the Owl Cafe at San Antonio, NM well before 8.30 last orders for green chile cheeseburgers. The Owl is like a movie set western bar, and there really is a guy in blue jeans, cowboy boots and spurs sitting astride a wooden bar stool. The barista is a chatty Latina, and relics of the past life of this small south western town are posted all over the walls. An instant and welcome shift to local culture is complete after the hour plus drive on down to Truth or Consequences where the promised soak in a horse trough awaits. The detail I have yet to fill in is the hot geothermal spring water pumped up into the trough in the back yard of the borrowed cabin where we will stay for the first two nights. That and the balmy, full moonlit night.

So less than 24 hours out of Auckland, I have switched worlds. Stepped back, it appears, a hundred or so years to where sheriffs may no longer mosey around on horses but still wear Stetsons and boots. Single storey adobe buildings line two parallel main streets. Just a few others cross at right angles. Hills behind the town look copied from one of many painted deserts around the area and a murky, narrow river meanders through. Kids loll around the dusty riverside in beat up utes and tourists wander in 90 degree heat with nothing much to do. We finally spot a place that looks likely to serve up a cold beer to round off the day. A large extended family from El Paso tells there is no bar and insist on us sharing their beer and stories. The hospitality and the language tell I have walked into the pages of the novel.