I have to return my rental car today, so I take a last opportunity to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, driving onwards through Sausalito, a fishing village turned quaint tourist stop that looks out onto San Francisco Bay, then on to Muir Beach overlooking the Pacific. At the latter, I find a small wildlife reserve having some maintenance work carried out by a team of volunteers from Deloitte, the accounting firm. From here, I take a walk up the hill at the side of the beach to get a view over to the ocean front of SF. On the hill on the opposite side of the beach is some of what I imagine is some of the most expensive real estate in the San Francisco area, countryside beach front properties just a half hour’s drive from the city (though much longer in rush hour I guess).
My last journey for the car is the inevitable drive down Lombard Street, the so called ‘crookedest street in the world’, constructed to counter the slope of the street. There is a continuous procession down this road, which must be a pain for the residents, but at least the necessarily slow pace of the traffic means there is little chance of a serious accident. There is also a gathering of tourists taking pictures at the bottom of the road, probably family members of the people driving down.
After dropping my car at the airport, I journey back to the city on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport). This is clean, quick and modern, much as you would expect from what is essentially an airport shuttle that has been extended to cover most of the city centre. I get off at Embarcadero Plaza opposite the ferry piers. There are a handful of market stalls and a tent with Bravo Channel TV cameras filing a demonstration by some TV chefs. One of the stalls is selling tie-dye shirts, and I couldn’t resist a fetching purple and blue, green and black and whatever number. On the edge of the square is a conceptualist water fountain sculpture, all square blocks raised at impossible looking angles, with a path through the fountains where lots of people are taking angular pictures.
Back at the hostel, I meet up with a group of people who are part of my tour group. One, Christina, is a pretty looking twenty two year old from Toronto and another is Neil, a tall ginger Scot who I later learn is just seventeen. When everyone is on the bus, we find that only four of the thirty passengers are from the US, though a number of the foreigners do live in the country.
We walk down as a group to where the Green Tortoise bus is parked near the bus station. Approaching the bus, I see a man who looks not unlike Earl from ‘My Name is Earl’. This, I soon learn, is Charlie, 56 years old, thrice married Vietnam veteran, guitarist, singer and songwriter and, for the past three weeks, a driver for Green Tortoise tours.
The other driver is Jimmy, a bit of a San Francisco cliché – an ‘environmentally aware’ Grateful Dead fan – basically a hippy with sideburns. He is a Green Tortoise veteran as opposed to a Vietnam vet, and will be our chief organiser, with Charlie being our chief entertainer.
The bus is more comfortable than the truck that took me from London to Malaysia. This is overlanding of sorts, but without the ruggedness. The bus has been kitted out for sleeping on, with all the benches and seats converting to bed space, and upper shelves that serve as bunks. Space is still at a premium though, so I couldn’t call it luxury, but all things are relative.
Charlie and Jimmy will be driving all night past Lake Tahoe onto the Ruby Mountains in Nevada. I spend the evening drinking beer and getting to know some of my fellow passengers. The last two to bed down are me and Quan, a Vietnamese Australian from Melbourne.
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