On the last day in Cancun, I went again to a favourite food stall that I had discovered earlier, where for less than $3 you could have a couple of fantastic tacos and a huge gless of orchata, a delicious type of milk drink made with long grain rice, and sprinkled with cinnamon.
By the time I got to the airport, carrying my two rucsacs, I was incedibly hot, and planned on getting changed before flying. However, two backpackers, Mindy and Lisa, asked to borrow a corkscrew, and impressed that I had one, convinced me to sit outside and share their bottle of wine with them before the flight.
The wine certainly helped the first flight go by easily, and I did manage to find time to get changed, so that I wouldn’t offend my fellow travellers too much.
A delayed second flight meant I arrived later than expected in San Francisco, and I just managed to catch the last train into the city. Susan, who looked after me last time I was here, met me at the station, and has a place I can stay, her circumstances having changed recently.
And so I woke the next day to celebrate my birthday in sunny San Francisco, including a wonderful Indian meal that evening. The entertaining highlight of the whole birthday weekend was a visit to the Solano County Fair, something Susan was very keen to show me.
It reminded me very much of the Perth Royal Show back in Australia, very much country products and livestock based, with fairground rides and other entertainments. But the most stiking differences were the big sign at the entrance banning gang colours, and the huge groups of Hispanic youths roaming the fairground aisles – you don’t see too much of that in Perth at the Royal Show!
The highlight of the day for me was the splash dogs event, in which very excited dogs jumped quite amazing distances into a huge pool of water. I also got to hold a pretty big snake, and a scorpion too.
Susan was most excited about seeing a small kangaroo in the petting zoo, and about the pig racing! The pigs were funny, and in the first race I had picked yellow, on the inside track, but as you can see in the photo, he got a very slow start. However, in race 2 the inside line proved successful, and I had backed a winner, and claimed a small ribbon as my prize!
There was more entertainment from chinese acrobats, and and we found a Mexican food stall for dinner without too much dificulty, but the prices were way higher than in Cancun!
And so after a weekend off, it’s now time to start to get myself organised for the next part of the trip, and today I rang Scotty from Bridge Storage, where my RV is stored. I plan to go down tomorrow to take a look over it, and see if it will start. I need to get some repairs done to the water tanks too, where I broke a couple of important parts off when crossing rough ground near the Grand Canyon last year. I am really looking forward to getting back on the road again.