El Paso + pictures galore

Back at the hotel and we have mixed feelings about the day. But more about that later - here's a quick recap of yesterday.

As we made our way into the heart of Texas, the landscape changed slowly. From the bushy, relatively green southeast and coastal areas, the ground turned more and more dry. The road from San Antonio to our destination for the night, Fort Stockton, took us across plateaus and arid semi-deserts:


There were very few towns along the way, but here and there you saw a farm, all with the classic windmill:

Some of the fields appeared to be rich in oil, and oil pumps were scattered across the plateaus:

Fort Stockton itself was pretty much a street with some shops, fast food restaurants and motels. It appeared to be there simply because people need to sleep somewhere between San Antonio and El Paso. We went to Wal-Mart for the first time and were shocked at the lack of fresh foods. There was no fresh fruit or vegetables, no freezer section, no meat... You get the idea. Some eggs and milk were stored in a fridge next to the exit, along with some soft drinks and beer. And this was the biggest supermarket they had, aisles and aisles of clothes, vacuum cleaners and tinned food...

So, today we reached El Paso and I think we might have just hit our first real disappointment. The first mistake we made was obviously trying to walk around in Mexico in 40C/105F. Still, we got a pretty good impression of the differences between the two countries. By now, we've learnt that all larger cities have areas where you can't walk around with a camera bag without getting pestered by people trying to sell you things. Mexico was no exception, and a lot worse as well. Like most Swedes, we're allergic to anyone trying to offer you anything ("what do you mean it's cheaper with a meal deal, I asked for a burger AND a drink AND fries... I don't care if it's a meal deal, I don't want it! This must be some kind of trick!") so we walked along in the heat, trying to find the Juárez market. Juárez is the city on the Mexican side of the border, by the way. The Mexican half of this strange twin city has a population of 1.6 million - more than twice as much as that of El Paso. By the time we realized that a taxi WOULD have been worth it, we felt too tired to even think about started haggling at some market place and headed back across the border.

Here's a typical example of a Juárez building - in total disrepair but still open for business in parts.


After what has become our daily siesta, we read about the night-life in El Paso and headed down into what we thought would be a sprawling, glittering downtown, full of music and dancing and cheap souvenir shops. Well, this is pretty much what downtown El Paso looks like after 6pm:


Only missing the tumbleweed...

We wouldn't have thought it possible after the last day's baking hot sun in a cloudless sky, but in a matter of minutes after this photo was taken, a thunderstorm hit the area, and I think it's still going now, some 4 or 5 hours later. The change in the weather happened so fast it was uncanny. What had been some white, fluffy clouds on the horizon turned into a dark blanket, covering the city. We saw some dramatic flashes from the safety of the car and were hit by a strange rain - single, huge drops of water that sounded almost like hail on the windshield. The temperature dropped from 41 to 22 in ten minutes!

So, we had not seen much of Mexico, El Paso was a disappointment and we hadn't eaten since breakfast. Our last flicker of hope was a restaurant near the hotel which was rumoured to be good. Luckily enough, this turned out to be true and pretty much saved the day from being a complete failure. In a cozy, Mexican-inspired atmosphere, we ate so much tacos, enchiladas, rice and beans that we're still wondering if breakfast tomorrow is even possible. So to anyone heading out to El Paso - sod downtown, go to the Bandidos - Carlos and Mikey's! It was so good, and so cheap. Here's the place, in the rain, dark and thunder:

As a bonus, I'd like to include a small section which I'll name "Only in America":

1. A drive-thru ATM (bankomat). I think the motto here is 'if you can't do it in the car, it ain't worth doing'. There are also drive-thru pharmacies and other weird drive-thrus, but I thought this one really took the money.


2. A horse motel. OK, so if you're not driving a pick-up the size of five normal cars, you're probably riding your horse to the motel. Yeah, that makes sense.


3. A guy on some educatuional channel teaching maths with a flamingo on his head. What!? This was on at around 10pm in the evening, so it's not really directed at kids. There was nothing else strange about the program, they had another presenter who looked perfectly normal. The flamingo was never mentioned.

Tomorrow we're off through the south end of New Mexico and into Arizona. If at all possible, it will get hotter there. I'm gonna get myself a hat tomorrow, and possibly a pair of cowboy boots, at Tony Lama's famous shop just outside town.

Until next time!

Day 16 - El Paso, Texas

Just a quick note to say we survived Mexico! Crossing the border was not hard at all, and getting back was only a little difficult ;)

Just kidding, the border patrol police were a relaxed bunch of guys and seeing our sunburnt caucasian skins didn't even look too closely at the passport. We made the mistake of walking over the border in the early afternoon, when the sun was at it's hottest. There was barely any shade and with me still not having a hat (I'm buying one NOW, this very evening) I was on the border of getting sunstroke (värmeslag). We only spent just over an hour on the Mexican side before returning to the air conditioned room with a Vanja whose face looked like she just ate a whole jar of Mexican chilis.

I might eat some in a moment actually - we're just off downtown to grab something to eat, and hopefully we'll find a good 'across the border'-restaurant this side of the border ;)

More here later, including pics of the rundown city of Juárez.

Day 14 - San Antonio, Texas

Howdy folks!

Another sizzling day here in Texas. We saw temperatures of 41C/105F in the afternoon hours. You can get badly burnt just leaning against the car! Let's not get ahead of ourselves though. Have a look at this slice (or chunk, more like) of authentic, home made cherry pie! This and coffee for breakfast actually saw us through the day without lunch. It was massive!


We arrived in San Antonio at midday after a light day of driving - only three hours. It's allegedly the most beautiful and picturesque city in Texas, and so far we're inclined to agree. This was the site of the famous last stand of the Alamo, in the last days of the war between Texas and Mexico. Once again, Texas had in fact already won the war several days before the battle took place. I mean WTF nabs get teh internets already. Slowpokes. We actually went there during the day (when the shrine was open) but this night picture of the famous façade was better than the daytime pictures I got.


We spent the afternoon at the hotel. It was too hot to do anything but lounge around by the pool, plus we had some laundry to catch up on. Our room is now filled with half-dried clothes because the spin cycle didn't work properly. Oh well, one minor inconvenience in an otherwise very convenient trip ;)

We'd had a tip from an old Texan who we met in Florida that the boat rides around the San Antonio riverwalk were well worth the money. Well, he was right. After some lovely pasta at an Italian place (we're really trying to stay away from the fast food now by the way) we hopped on a tour around this famous part of town. It's the very heart of San Antonio - a horse-shoe shaped canal lined with restaurants and clubs. Not as commercial or tacky as in other places either. We had an awesome tour guide whose name I can't remember. Even though there were few actual sights, he managed to make us all laugh at even the smallest anecdotes about the local hotels. Half the fun was his Texan accent! Here's a night shot of the river:


Although I post pictures virtually every day, they're only a fraction of everything I photograph. Every night we go through the day's collection of pictures and throw out the worst of the lot, and keep the rest sorted neatly by date. At some point in a very distant future I will have cropped and optimized the ones I want to share and put them in albums on facebook. Here's a sample of the randomness that doesn't usually make it to the blog, the Hilton hotel balconies:


Tomorrow we're off on our first leg of two on the trip to El Paso. We'll be driving around 300 miles (480 kilometers) and as far as we know, there's not a whole lot to see on the way! We'll see if we have some pictures to share tomorrow :)

Day 13 - on the road, into Texas

Another night, another roadside motel! Today has been all about driving. We went through most of Louisiana and crossed into Texas in the afternoon. The first city we hit was Houston, about an hour's drive into the state. In terms of roads, all of Americas big cities are absolutely crazy. Houston was no exception. There are two ring roads, a number of toll roads which are only open on weekdays (so not today, it being Sunday) and a gazillion junctions and bypasses linking all of these. Houston is roughly 35 miles (or about 50 kilometers) across from east to west and most of those 35 miles look something like this:


There's always roads running above you, beneath you and on either side. The road you're on is always branching off and you have to keep track of your road number and make sure you follow it. Exits can be either to the left or the right and the signs are not always 100% clear or visible. The only good thing about all of this is that you never have meeting traffic anywhere near you, or even on the same level. We took a small wrong turn (or rather, didn't turn when we should have) but because of the criss-crossing of roads, we were back on track pretty fast.

Once you're safely out on the other side of the city, you have six lanes going all the way through the suburbs:
In Sweden we're lucky to get a total of six lanes counting both directions! Bear in mind, this is only one of the roads going west out of the city :)

Oh, another cool thing! We saw new, exciting highs in the temperature here in Texas. We finally broke a magical barrier and joined the 100 club. That's right, 100 degrees Fahrenheit:


And for those counting in Celsius, 100 Fahrenheit translates as 38 degrees!


It actually went up to 103/39 a few minutes later, but only for a short time. We'll report back when we see 40 and above ;) And on this topic, YES we're happy with our air conditioning. AC is more like oxygen or water to Americans. It's not a commodity, it's a must. By now, we've really learned to appreciate that.

Not much else to say today. We spent about an hour in the swimming pool to fight off the heat before sunset and dinner at Tony's - a real American diner. We're planning breakfast there as well. Cherry pie and a cup of Joe, anyone?

PS.
List of things we miss:
-THE CATS! We saw a stray today, a skinny, miserable thing and my heart nearly broke. I had to console myself with the thought that we saved two cats from that life.
-Swedish tapwater. The water here is undrinkable. We've learnt to order our drinks with no ice, because even though the sodas are made with spring water, the ice is usually not...
-Our bed. Motel beds are very hit and miss. Tonight seems more hit than miss, fortunately!
-Real food. Getting hold of anything that's not fast food at a decent price is pretty hard. I have a strange craving for salads, fresh fruit, dark bread, brown rice... You get the idea.

Other than that, we're having a blast :)