Another recommended place for us to visit was the Aerial tramway (or in more layman’s terms a cable car) in Palm Springs. Although this was located very near Joshua Tree National Park we couldn’t fit both in in one day; instead we made a separate trip one afternoon to see what all the fuss was about.
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A day driving around The Joshua Tree National Park
We took a few day trips out of LA, one of which was to the Joshua Tree National Park which was recommended to us due to stunning views of the deserts; this is a point where the Mojave & Colorado deserts meet and there are two distinct ecosystems. The Park is located 175 Km or so from LA and took us 2.5hrs to drive to. The park covers over 800,000 acres so it is pretty darn big; our issue was where to start!
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A Day in San Francisco – Our Golden Gate Adventures
What would be the first thing to head for when spending a day in San Francisco? The bridge, of course! We woke up and left a little later than scheduled due to the long drive the day before, but within the hour, we were approaching one of the most famous structures in the world!
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Driving The Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco – an Awesome Road Trip!
Epic! This was one of our best ever drives. Beautiful scenery, be that forest, mountain or the Pacific Ocean, everywhere you look!
Whilst in California it would be rude not to visit San Francisco; the issue was however that we were based in LA which is a good 6-7 drive away and our plans for moving on from Los Angeles go in a different direction. We decided to take a couple of days away from LA and drive the Pacific Coast road, also known as California 1, which has been highly recommended by a lot of people we have spoken to. Hotel booked for 2 nights thanks to the kindness of Nigel’s colleagues due to a parting gift voucher, we started our rather long but completely awesome journey.
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Sport in Los Angeles – our experiences
In 2028 the LA Memorial Coliseum will become the first stadium to have hosted the Olympic Games 3 times, having previously been the venue for the greatest sports show on the planet in 1932 and 1984.
Perhaps it deserves this accolade because Los Angeles is a sports mad city, a heaven on earth with teams at the highest level representing the city in each of the Big 5 sports in the country: American Football, or ‘catch’ as it should be called, Soccer, or football as it should be called, basketball, baseball and hockey, or ice hockey as it should be called 😊
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Visiting Hollywood & Beverly Hills
What’s the first place anyone thinks of to visit when they go to Los Angeles? Probably the first place we headed to – ‘THE’ sign. I had Googled the best spot to view the Hollywood sign from, and the answer it gave was Griffith Park. We went to that park, but could not see the sign from where we had parked, illegally as it turned out. In the UK, a no-parking spot is indicated by double yellow lines next to the kerb; in the USA, they simply paint the kerb red. Carol had discovered this in a quick chat with a local in the park. “Don’t worry”, he said, “It’s only a $100 fine.”
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Arriving in Los Angeles – California
Looking at moving on options from Ecuador it seemed the natural progression from there was the US. Whilst we would have liked to have spent a lot more time in South America as per our original pre-covid plans we weighed up the options, risks (re covid rates, entry requirements and what was open) and the US would not only allow us in, their rates of Covid had dropped considerably and their vaccine programme was well underway. We decided our first US stop would be Los Angeles.
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Guayaquil, Ecuador. Where to visit on a stopover.
You can’t fly directly to the Galápagos Islands, but you have a choice of 2 cities in Ecuador, which will get you there on an internal flight: Guayaquil and Quito. Even if you choose Quito, your plane will still stop in Guayaquil on its way. We chose Guayaquil (pronounced wirekeel) for a couple of reasons; the first being that flights were slightly cheaper, and the second because at the time of our visit. There were reports of hospital overcrowding due to COVID-19 and higher cases in Quito. From reading reviews, Quito is the more interesting of the two places, at 2,850 metres altitude, we had some fun in Guayaquil, so felt it warranted a post of its own. We spent a total of 4 nights there, both before and after visiting the islands
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Galápagos Islands on a Budget – Isabela
Yay, we saw a penguin! Actually we saw 4. Not looking too dissimilar to a duck in all honesty, and too far away to get a good photo, but I am confident we will have other opportunities. We made it to Isabela, the largest of the Galápagos Islands, and it straddles the equator. Puerto Villamil is south of the equator, but the same breed of penguin also inhabits the north of the island, and are the only wild and free penguins to be found in the entire northern hemisphere.
We saw them as we reached the harbour, and were a very welcome sight after another 2 hour boat ride in rough seas, which saw a few passengers fall victim to mal-de-mer, including one young man who was the most nervous traveller I have ever seen, throwing his hands up in the air and covering his head with every large wave we hit. Every single one. We hit many big waves. On this occasion I am very happy to report Carol was fine 😊 The 50 centavos she had spent on a packet of anti-seasickness tablets appears to be money well spent.
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Galápagos Islands on a Budget – Santa Cruz
We left our home with the Ruiz family in San Cristóbal at 6.30am when a taxi they had kindly arranged for us came and took us to the ferry port. The fare of $1. 50 was excellent value and saved us from carrying our bags for too far. A 2-hour ferry trip to Santa Cruz followed. We had been advised that the early morning crossings were on much calmer waters than the late afternoon ones, and that may well be true, but it doesn’t mean Carol enjoyed the trip any. The seats were plastic and hard and the trip was bumpy and rocky. Gratefully on terra firma we attempted to find our Airbnb for the next 10 days.
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