San Diego, USA

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Landed in LA on Monday night and spent yesterday trying to find a good place to stay and get over my jet lag, managed to do both.

This morning I woke and booked my tickets to go to the Grand Canyon and whilst I was on the Amtrak website I decided to book some tickets to go to San Diego.

San Diego has never been high on my list of places to go, but I did however have a really good day and was really impressed with the city. Not as big as I expected, small enough to get a nice feel of in a day.

So what did I see?

I saw a city that's neat and tidy and got it's self in order, it seems to respect it's people (though I did see slot of homeless). It's laid back and has a chilled out tempo to it.

It's proud to be American but yet has a massive Mexican influence.

It also has quite a somber side to it, as a US Naval port alot of men left this city to go fight in overseas conflicts. This city pays it's respects to these people at every chance it gets.

With all this I was quite surprised to see a bit of a seedy side to the city with sex shops and hard liquor stores. Which is probably a throw back to the old wild west gold rush days. You also seem to have a counter religious culture " End of the World Stuff" to try and ward this evil out the city. If that don't work you can always get a bail bond!

If you ever get the chance to go, the waterfront is good, Tacos are good and the Gaslamp quarter is definitely a good place to spend some time.

Just a few final things, I got back to Union Station in LA for past 9:30pm and was dreading getting on the metro to travel back to my accommodation in Holywood. Three things shocked me. Firstly as I went to pay for my ticket a completely random person came running over to give me a ticket they had finished with, really did surprise me and left me almost unable to say thank you.

Secondly someone farted on the train and it amused me greatly to see everyone scout out the guilty party.

Thirdly and the thing that surprised me the most is how safe I felt, a mix of youngsters and business men + the odd Mexican , but not the homies and rappers I was expecting. In reflection I would rather be on this metro than riding on the Liverpool underground full of drunks and yobbos anyday...this really shocked me!

Don't know why, wasn't like i was heading straight outa Compton!

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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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I arrived in Rio on Saturday at around mid day. I then spent almost 24 hours quite ill. I won't go into detail but with the help of some Brazilian drugs I managed to overcome my illness which probably picked up by eating something dodgy in Santiago. As soon as I felt better I thankfully therefore managed to salvage a few hours walking round the city without being caught short and even managed to squeeze in a quick trip up Sugar Loaf Mountain.

Unfortunately my time in Rio was short and when I got back to the hostel I apprehensively packed my bags ready to leave and later set off on my walk through the streets of Rio in the dead of night (about 2:30 AM).

My walk took me through some dodgy areas and even past the foot of a road leading towards a favela. Thankfully the drugs still seemed to be working as I now needed them more than ever.

At one point a homeless guy approached me and I resorted to deliberately talking to him in English and asking about Taxis and Airports, it seemed to stop him from stealing my bag of gadgets.

When I finally hailed a taxi my tactic was to handed over a wedge of cash and asked for "international" which is code for the Airport. The drive was mental, he insisted on a high speed dash across town, I think he probably misunderstood my nervousness for urgency. The driver drove like he was drunk and the car smelt of spirits. Despite my fears I made it in one piece and he even shook my hand and wished me bon voyage, which was nice.

Sadly because it was dark and probably dangerous I didn't get any photos in the night but I did take a few during the day whilst I visited Sugar Loaf Mountain.

The first few photos are taken from my hostel and the other few on my way up Sugar Loaf.

Next stop is America!

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Santiago, Chile

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Had a week in Santiago and found it to be a really nice surprise. I wasn't expecting much and as a consequence as it exceeded my expectations. It was quite a packed few days including a day trip to a volcano and a trip into the Andes . Add to that the company of some great people and I look forward to one day going back, hopefully sooner rather than later!

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