Mexico
Los Angeles continued | USA | Aartsknokardije

Our tour started in Los Angeles, the city of angels.  Two of the angels choose me to join them in their little adventure. 

From there on our road led to the Mexican border.  If we would have looked closer to the trees, we would have noticed the fruit in the trees were not grenade apples.  But we were too excited about this new exotic country to notice anything.  We should have been warned though, by the thousands of signboards saying "Attention !  Five more exits before entering Mexico !" "Take your insurance for Mexico HERE !".  We even ignored the one that said "Last chance to avoid Mexico" and queued for the borderline.  We were still unaware of the dangers that awaited us.

We barely passed the border, or we had to pull over to our right.  Seems that you need extra insurance for this wild country.  We should have realized something then but...  we were still careless.  Mark was immediately abducted by a cheerful Mexican guy and he didn't really seemed to mind.
Maxime felt hot and I opened my door.  Ooops !  What a mistake !  An enthousiastic NE-NO NE-NO attacked thru our ears our brains and stayed there for about five minutes.  Maxime jumped out of the car and hurried away from the noise.  There I was, abandoned by my angels !  Fortunately there was a corrupt Mexican nearby who switched off the alarm by way of his handy alarm-switch-off machine.

Mark came back with car keys and insurance papers and we were ready for the adventure.  Fearless we went on - slalomming between slums and seaside. 

My angels really wanted nothing but the best for me.  They booked a room in an excellent ship.  It was one of the biggest ships I had ever seen and I've been told it was unsinkable !  I was really touched by their thoughtfullness ! 

The boat company was not yet open...  we were so early we had to go in via the back door and wake up the captain !

We went to the boat and checked in right away.  Of course we roamed around the ship for a while to take pictures.  You know how we are !!

Maxime and I sunbathing but suffering a bit from the bad chairs...  well, it can't all be perfect hah

Moi in the entertainment room - in front of me you see a small version of our boatel.

We just couldn't resist...

We got worried when we were seated and the waiter asked if we would order or wait for our third man.  He had only one hand and one leg and he wore a red bandana to hide he had a situation with his left eye.  We got a shock.  Where was Mark ??? 

There he was !  One of those freaky waiters had chained him in one of the lower compartments.  With the axe we tried to break his chains but it wasn't easy.  They were really very strong and perhaps we didn't really look very well what we were hitting...  Anyway, when Mark was freed the water was already upto our knees.

It was absolute terror !  Maxime found no other way out then to jump into the Pacific... 

Mark held my hand for several hours but finally he had to let go of me...

Ah, and now I remember the name of the boat...  Titanic, that was it !

To our great relief we were saved by a young lad who came saling by with his great ship, the Santa Maria.  Thanks, Christopher !

on the Santa Maria

Anyway, we had a big problem : no more hotel !  We rang the tourism board and they advised us one of the hotels in Rosarito.  It was only a few miles away and on the way we stopped to buy pot but we didn't look around for long as it was alreaedy getting dark.  The road to Rosarito was very jammed by party gals and girls and we praised ourselves for having made reservations. 

The police was preparing for the night.  They made a really good impression on us !  It looked as if they really were concerned about security.  All the police cars were roofless and the cops were just standing on the back seat with their kalashnikovs ready to use.  We felt very safe !!  Besides that they were blocking a few streets with green/black ribbons and we wondered why they didn't do it in our country too ! 

Soon we found our hotel.  As we thought it was already full and a lot of young people were drinking ; the early birds already were drunk.  Again we were impressed by the sense of security there in Mexico.  There were no less then four security guards who were drugged (probably to keep them happy).  We got a paper bracelet and a key to our room.  We thought the bracelet was for the swimming pool.  We ran up the stairs to discover our newly checked-in rooms. 

*surprise*  It was already inhabited by aboriginals !  We could see it were aboriginals because they were drinking corona, eating nachos and watching football. 

We went back to the reception and we explained that we wanted to withdraw from the roomsharing part of the agreement.  The maîtresse d'hôtel stayed stiffheaded but I winked at the hotelowner and he reimboursed almost the whole amount and let us go.

Our worst nightmare came true in Mexico !  Fortunately this was only a dream - we escaped  :-)

We got in the car and drove northwards.  We thought we drove north because we didn't see the sun ahead of us.  It was a strong clue, but we were not sure because we didn't see any signposts saying "San Diego" or "The Ustated Nites" or "Outta here".  In fact there were no signposts at all.  It's a sort of strategy of the Mexicans : keep the tourists inside for as long as possible. 

We drove around and around.  And around and around.  And suddenly we saw long queues !  This could only mean one thing : the exit !  While we were waiting to go out, people were selling ice cream, lemon, eggs and children.  We were strong enough to resist.  Finally it was our turn.

The officer knocked on the window and Maxime let it down.  He put his head in the car.  "What have you done here ?"  "Visiting hotels."  While asking questions he looked at our face as if he was trying to find out which one of us was lying.
"Did you buy anything ?"  "Pot."  "What !?!"  "A pot of clay, relax !"  "Where are you going to ?"  "Los Angeles."  "Los Angeles ?!?"  It was obvious that he was a bit deaf.  Well, it was our luck : he let us thru and...  up we were !  To LA LA LAND !!