Golden Gaters

It was 8:00am and my watch alarm was bleeping ferociously at me. Strange though, no apparent hangover. Well that’s a good start to the day, and surely it wouldn’t hit me later on. Today we would be exploring the west and north of the city, including the infamous Golden Gate bridge. In order to get to the bridge we would be heading west towards Golden Gate park (very aptly named) and because it seemed like quite a distance we thought we should pay the $2 bus fare to get there. James wanted to get off sooner than the park to get an picture at a supposedly iconic place (I had no idea what it was) called Haight Ashbury – the centre of the hippy movement back in the sixties. And sure enough, there was a hippy sitting on the floor trying to flog all manner of tat that he had made with organic natural (probably nicked) materials. Now I’m all for the free love and happy, hippy vibes but does that mean you can’t take a shower? Take a dip in the lake at Golden Gate park every now and again! Anyway, we walked the rest of the way to the park and had a wander, all the while veering north so that we could head towards the bridge.

The center of the Hippy Universe

After about half an hour or so in the park we needed to get our bearings as the map we were using was not getting us anywhere. It turn out that we had done a massive loop and had been heading wildly out of the way rather than heading on course, possibly due to me stopping to feed some Canada Geese (that scared the life out of James when one flapped its wings vaguely in his direction) or possibly due to James’s compass indicating the wrong direction....again. But we managed to get back on course and made it to the hilly streets that would lead to the Golden Gate bridge. It was at this point that the hangover kicked in. When I say “hangover” it was more lack of sleep than anything else, but whatever it was the only way I was gonna get through it was with a can of Mountain Dew from the conveniently-placed Chinese convenience store. They didn’t have any Mountain Dew so I had to settle for a big (20oz) can of Arizona Tea Mucho Mango instead, which certainly took the edge off.

A curious gopher

We had to stop by a small playground for James to have a “refreshment break” and thought it would be a good time to have lunch. I’ve just realised how that last sentence sounds, and I can assure you that there were actual restrooms available and he didn’t just cock his leg by a set of swings like a dog. Whilst sitting on a nearby bench we noticed a small furry critter burrowing away at our feet. The little fella was apparently a gofer, and seemed a bit like a cross between a mole and a squirrel. Satisfied after another round of peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches (the jelly/jello/jam had been snaffled from Mel’s Drive Thru) we marched on. And again we got lost. As we walked past the golf club (?!) and about 6 dog-walkers, each with about 8 dogs, we finally found a sign that was pointing us in the right direction. Or so we thought. For it was actually a mountain-bike trail and weaved through the hills on a surface of dry bark and timber chips until it finally opened out into a clearing. Said clearing had 8 large pipes jutting out from the ground in a kind of Super Mario style, and each was locked inside a small cage. To this day we do not know what this place was used for. Ritual sacrifice? People coming from far and wide to see real life pipes, which have to be kept behind bars? Answers on a postcard please...

Another sign and another direction for us to go in, but at least we had found a tennis ball to hoof along the small track to keep our spirits up. And then, we rounded a corner and we could see the bridge. It was far away and sometimes disappeared behind the thick fog that would come rolling into the bay, but at least we knew we were on the right track. Eventually we made it there, and what a feat of engineering! It was blowing a gale and there were people everywhere but it was such a magnificent sight that all that didn’t matter. The view of San Fran from the bridge was astounding and we managed about half-way across the bridge before we were forced to turn back due to the wind, the cold, and tiredness! But, as the Romans used to say – veni vidi vici. The trip back to the bus stop took us via the beach, but was much longer than we had anticipated. You see, the map we were using had been truncated and was not to scale. Imagine that the map has three vertical folds and you join push the two outer ones together so the middle one falls down – that is essentially what our map showed us. So we had to trek for miles to get to the bus, and once on board I assumed the Churchill nodding dog position, very nearly smashing my head on the back of my seat. We arrived back at the hostel weary and bleary-eyed (myself at least, I don’t know about James) and I jumped onto my bunk and went straight to sleep whilst James put another wash on and got some food. We briefly tried to search for accommodation in San Diego but the wi-fi was being very poor. And anyway, we were going to head downstairs soon as 9:30pm was approaching, but we would be one level up, in the lounge area as we were needing a quite one that night.

The amazing Golden Gate Bridge

I forgot to mention that the previous night we had not seen any sign of another bunkmate, or at least not until I woke up in the morning. He was a young German lad, but he was already collecting his belongings as he was moving into another room, as someone else had booked in for Monday night. We bade him farewell and said we would see him in the club that night. When we returned from the Golden Gate bridge we saw 3 large bags in the room that hadn’t been there when we left. This must be our new bunkmate. He bounded into the room and introduced himself just as we were heading downstairs. He was Marshall, from Vietnam, and was (as James aptly described him) a little firecracker. We headed downstairs and took our place in the lounge area hoping for better wi-fi so that we would have somewhere to sleep when we got to San Diego, but our luck was not in. In addition to that, our friends Simon and Lars joined us, along with their poker-loving roommate, so we had to attempt to navigate a host of websites whilst at the same time keeping in conversation and not wanting to come across as rude. The days (and previous nights) exertion was catching up with me so I made my apologies and headed for bed. James stayed up for a while later, supping at the last can of Tactical Budweiser and planning his next refreshment break before bed. We would be checking out in the morning, but that didn’t mean we wouldn’t have a big day ahead of us.