STAGE 17

LOS ANGELES- Tijuana - San Diego etc.

The trip to San Diego was uneventful... in fact we arrived half an hour early so we had a half hour wait before we could continue on our way. The driver from San Diego to Tijuana was something else! I was sitting right behind him and his eyes were everywhere but on the road. He kept looking at the scenery behind him!! He talked to himself.... I was just glad Mum couldn't see him from where she was sitting or she would have said something to him. I was really nervous. We arrived at a little town just before the border where someone was demanding to know if we owned any of the suitcases stored below. I knew nothing about them! I kept waiting for us to be asked for our passports but it never happened.

We crossed the border without any question. I found this hard to believe. Anyway we arrived at the Greyhound Station in Tijuana... VERY SEEDY LOOKING... Mum wanted to leave there and then but I said we had come all this way... we should at least have a look. Well, outside the Greyhound Station was even worse! How we went from a clean little town 5 minutes the other side of the border to this place of filth and decay was beyond me. The buildings looked like they'd collapse in the next strong gust of wind... Street sellers were thrusting everything from jewellery to knives in our faces begging us to buy. The further we walked the more scared I became... we headed back to the bus station!! Half an hour was enough and we didn't buy a thing.

We rounded up the driver and asked if we could get back to San Diego... we didn't like THIS place. He laughed and said he'd organise it with the next driver. Thank the Lord!!

This driver made our ticket look as though we'd got off in San Diegi in the first place so that we didn't have to pay extra to get back to L.A. He took us on a quick tour of the other parts of Tijuana.... the passengers at the back opf the bus were confused because this wasn't the normal route the bus should take. However they settled when we headed to the border. It was different this time... coming back into the US. What took 2 minutes on the way down took 45 minutes on the way back. I didn't care... we were outta there!!

The driver was really chatty all the way to San Diego. So that helped pass the time. We spent the rest of the day at the Zoo. It wasn't much different to how I remember it from 30 years ago. At least it was clean and we felt safe.

We arrived back at the hotel at 10pm.. exhausted.... had a late snack...not a real successful day!

Wednesday 31st January

We decided to go to the museum at the Tar Pits in L.A. We'd seen it on the way past in the tour bus. So we got a local bus and asked to be told when we were to get off. Got chatting to one of the passengers and he assured us he knew where we were going and he told us where to get off. WRONG PLACE!! We were miles from the museum. So we had to wait for another bus.

Finally arrived and found it really interesting. Jared enjoyed it immensely... more his type of museum.

These replicas of mammoths were outside and looked so real.

so did this one inside the museum... it moved :-)

This gives you some idea of the size of these creatures, that's Mum standing behind it.

When we were finished there we decided to go into L.A. to check out the stores. It took forever on the bus... stopped at every stop. That was a dead loss... everything is in 'Areas" or "Districts" for example.... Jewellery district; fashion district and the one we ended up at was a "Crummy" district!!!! We were bored to tears and our feet hurt. We couldn't wait to get back to the hotel... we did purchase another suitcase though :-)

The day wasn't totally incident free... I had another altercation with Jared on the bus into the city BUT I won't go into THAT. I think he was looking forward to the end of this holiday :-)

We packed our bags, had dinner and went to bed... we didn't have to check out until 12 noon so we could sleep in.

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