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Nicky and Ben's Travels
We arrived late to Monterey, so we decided to get a late dinner in Denny's (the nearest resturante to us). I had a chocolate milk shake (which was more like ice cream- yum) and then struggled to eat my dinner. The next morning we decided to explore Monterey. This town was a really sweet fishing village and had an excellent museum, we were highly enthusiastic as it was free for admission and showed imports that were taxed there.
Unfortunately, the resturantes all served fish meals (which wasn't very appertizing for breakfast), so yes you've guessed it, we ended up in Denny's again for breakfast( cheap and huge). I had a full sausage breakfast complete with eggs, which consisted of 3 different types of sausage and 3 pancakes. I couldn't even look at the pan cakes let alone eat them so I saved them for the drive along the Big Sur. Ben managed to eat all of his but then felt sickly full for the rest of the day.
The drive from Monterey to Cambria, along the Big Sur was amazing. You drive in and our of clouds, along the coast. We spotted some dolphins and as they were swimming in the same direction, we followed them in the car and occassionally got out to look at them and take their photos (unfortunately the dolphins look tiny in the photos though).
There are eagles flying above your head all the time, again we tried with the photos but all you have is a black spot in the sky.
We then spotted some seals, and realised that there were many elephant seals (I can't say they are cute, but they are amazing and you can get really close to them). I sat on a log to look at the seals and a furry animal sits next to me (no not Ben), I think it was a goffer, you may be able to identify it by the pictures, it looks like a squirrel but it dosen't have a bushy tail.
And then, you won't beleive this, but I saw Zebras in the field next to us. We have photos of this to prove it. How bizarre?!?
Cambria is such a cute village. It felt very "new aged...., hippy like. A quaint little village, with groups of people playing on bongos, and little antique shops with rainbows painted on the wall.
We met another couple there from Kentucky. It was so nice meeting another couple from a different part of the world, yet with very simular interests, and at simular ages to ourselves. I learnt quite a bit about the american lifestyle, and had a really enjoyable evening.
The next day we carried on down the coast to Santa Barbara. The hostel was supposed to be two blocks from the beach, but annoyingly, it was about 5 blocks away and the check in was 2 blocks away from the beach. I was looking out for Tom Cruise, Katey Holmes and Oprah Winfrey, but they obviously didn't get the message that I was around. (They all have houses there)
Ben's turn...
OK, it was all going too well! We got up the next morning and went back to the main hostel building for breakfast and coffee before heading off to LA, we looked at the map and decided that we would drive down to Malibu, via a lake that we saw on the map. If anyone has been to Lake Casitas, let us know what it is like because we missed the turn off (if it is really nice, lie!). We arrived in Malibu about 11 am and decided that we would enjoy a few hours on the beach, our first beachy day since leaving the UK. It was a perfect, Californian beach with the life guards and towers, white sand and surfers on the waves. At about 2 we decided that we would head down to LA because we needed to get the hire car back at 5pm. As I changed into my shoes and slung the flip flops into the boot I noticed the front pocket of Nicky's rucksack was open, which seemed odd and for some reason I looked inside and something felt wrong it took my brain a few seconds to register. s***! The previous night we took a sensible precation before leaving the apartment we locked all the windows and as a final security precaution, we slid the passports, tickets, driving licences, insurance documents and Nicky's credit card under the TV cabinet.
I opened the passenger door and said just one word "passports". The same look as I must have had for that few seconds of registering passed accross Nicky's face. "s***!"
We jumped in the car and started driving whilst Nicky furiously studied the map for the fastest option, both praying they had either not been found or at least found by honest people. We stopped for fuel and my lunch of cookies and Nicky's of crisps boosted our energy for our journey back to Santa Barbara. We made it in record time (well actually faster than record time, but don't tell anyone!) At the hostel there was no parking so whilst I turned the car around, Nicky rushed into the hostel and explained the situation. Well the hostel couldn't have been more useless if they tried, the people who were in afer us had checked in and there was no other key, all they could suggest was that we went back to the room and knocked on the door. Surprisingly, on a sunny afternoon 6 blocks from the beach no-one was in the small hot room! I left Nicky sitting outside the room, whilst I went back to the reception. The girl behind the desk was again totally useless, untill I suggested the cleaner might have a key! Off she wandered and about 5 minutes later reappeared with an irish girl who couldn't have been more helpful and came with me to the room let us in and our passports were exactly where we left them. WooHoo!
With the time approaching 4pm and the car due back at 5 I knew we wouldn't make it, but the hire place was open until 6 with luck and a bit of misinterpretation of the speed limit we might just make it. Twenty minutes later we hit the first traffic jam.
Well, eventually we made it to Santa Monica at about 5.50 and with my strong directional intuition, we got totally lost with me insisting that if we carried going this direction we would eventually get there. We were infact going totally the wrong way. So a stop and ask the cyclist later we were back on track and arrived at the car hire place at 6.11.
The shop was closed and the sign on the door indicated that the nearest drop off was LAX airport. Suddenly I spotted movement and knocked on the door, with great reluctance, the door was opened and we were told that if we went to the posh hotel at the end of the street, we could return it there. We plodded into the hotel in shorts and t-shirts, backpacks on our shoulders and looking totally out of place. It turned out that we had gone through the wrong entrance and the new guy on the desk had no idea about returning hire cars. Several minutes later everything started to make sense and we finally got rid of the car.
Judging by the map it was only a short walk to the hostel, we now know takes 15 to 20 minutes on the bus and took us over an hour to walk. Eventually we arrived at our hostel ate and fell asleep.
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