The first drive with my new cargo van was the Panamericana, the U.S. Highway No. 1. I drove along the beautiful coast between Los Angeles and
San Francisco.
The van did well although it has already a mileage of 350.000 km’s. I took a rest at the sand dunes; the ones shown in the film “Pirates of the Carribean”. I could watch the elephant seals fighting and enjoyed the cruise, but found the coastal drives in Australia and New Zealand easily comparable.
On my way to SF I got a call from Erica. She is the sister of Jorge, who couchsurfed last year at my place in Germany, she told me that Jorge was visiting his mom in Peru, however he was happy to provide me with his loft in the middle of San Francisco. So I parked my car outside SF and stayed the weekend at his place. The neighborhood was unmistakable the gay quarter in San Francisco, every 2nd house had a rainbow flag, the shops sold toys for bedrooms and brownies formed like a penis. I appreciated this as part of the really nice and different flair of San Francisco. The town is not too big (700.000 inhabitants) and the townscape offers a lot of interesting things. You can drive up the hills with the old fashioned cable
car, drive along endless long bridges connecting the districts of SF. My longest bridge drive was along the bay bridge, which is a two deck bridge with approx. 275.000 vehicles per day.
If you visit San Francisco „The Rock“ is a must for everyone. So I took the ferry to cross the water and learned how many people were imprisoned in Alcatraz, how many people died at the rebellion when they took 5 jailors as hostages, why the food was always very good and how 3 prisoners escaped from Alcatraz after they drilled for more than one year with spoons and forks the thick wall behind the ventilation grid.
They hide their escape by modeling a head in wax to impose the jailors. They disappeared forever and were never found again. Some people believe that they drowned on their wet way from Alcatraz to the continental shelf of SF, but we
think the ones who invested one year of planning, drilling and modeling to complete a successful escape those are clever enough to plan safe water crossing too. In the sixties the prison remained shut forever because of the high costs, but the most famous prisoner, Al Capone, was already dead, a result of syphilis.
On our way to SF we got a call from Erica. She is the sister of Jorge, who couchsurfed last year at our place in Germany, she told us that Jorge was visiting his mom in Peru, however he provided us his loft in the middle of San Francisco. So we parked our car outside SF and stayed the weekend at his place. The neighborhood was unmistakable the gay quarter in San Francisco, every 2nd house had a rainbow flag, the shops sold toys for bedrooms and brownies formed like a penis. We appreciated this as part of the really nice and different flair of San Francisco. The town is not too big (700.000 inhabitants) and the townscape offers a lot of interesting things. You can drive up the hills with the old fashioned cable car, drive along endless long bridges connecting the districts of SF. Our longest bridge drive was along the bay bridge, which is a two deck bridge carries 275.000 vehicles per day.
If you visit San Francisco „The Rock“is a must for everyone. So we took the ferry to cross the water and learned how many people were imprisoned in Alcatraz, how many people died at the rebellion when they took 5 jailors as hostages, why the food always was very good and how 3 prisoners escaped from Alcatraz after they drilled for more than one year with spoons and forks the thick wall behind the ventilation grid. They hide their escape by modeling a head in wax to impose the jailors. They disappeared forever and were never found again. Some people believe that they drowned on their wet way from Alcatraz to the continental shelf of SF, but we think the ones who invested one year of planning, drilling and modeling to complete a successful escape those are clever enough to plan safe water crossing too. In the sixties the prison remained shut forever because of the high costs, but the most famous prisoner, Al Capone, was already dead, a result of syphilis.