By Mark
Before we parted ways with Tolga and Caglar we pulled out our maps of Sth America and showed the guys some good places to visit and roads to take when they start heading south. As we mention to most people we also told these guys: learn as much Spanish as you can. The more you can communicate with the locals the better your trip will be. Sadly having a deadline for one of the first times on the entire trip we could not hang around any longer in Death Valley. We parted ways with the boys and headed west for the Pacific Coast and San Francisco.
After leaving late in the day we found ourselves riding through some beautiful and quiet back roads of California headed due west. We had plans to stay at Miracle Hot springs and when we arrived we found all the campgrounds were closed for winter already. Being so late in the day we were not going to start riding into the night to find another place so we set up camp all the same down by the river. The following morning after another cold night's camping we went looking for the hot springs but we worked out how the place got it's name, it would be a Miracle if you could actually find the hot springs!
We wanted to hit the coast and make our way up the famous Pacific Coast Hwy 1 and spend a night camping up in Big Sur but we under-estimated the distance and hit the coast later in the afternoon than expected, we also learnt that the whole sth coast was expected to get hit with high winds and torrential rain. We opted to spend a night in a motel room as there is nothing we hate more than waking up to the sound of rain and then having to try and pack up a tent in it. That night we kept a close eye on what the weather was expected to do over the coming days and it was not looking good for our visit to San Francisco, the bay area was to be hit the hardest. Apparently this was going to be the worst storm to hit Caifornia in years. The following morning we contacted our next host Nicole and she informed us it was not looking like a good day to be on the bike so we bunkered down one more day in the motel room.
The following morning it was still raining when we got up but luckily by the time we jumped on the bikes it had stopped. We headed north up the coastline and after only being on the bikes for no more than 15 minutes we pulled up on the side of the road to check out an incredible sight of Elephant Seals all hanging out on a patch of beach by the road side and some were swimming in a fresh water hole. It was fantastic to be so up close and personal with the fascinating creatures. We have seen them before on our trip down in Argentina but we never had the opportunity to get as close as we did here. They were so curious of us which made for many great photos. We both had to drag ourselves away from them as we had a big day ahead of us and we still did not even know if we would have problems with road closures from the storm the previous day.
Another 15 minutes later we came across our first road closure; we ignored it and rode on around the barrier, to back track now would have seen us arriving at night in San Fran. We rode slowly to check out the scenario but the roads had been cleared from the previous night's land slides already, they had just not got back to move the signs so we continued on. The road was built for a bike, in places it hugs to the edge of the mountain-side twisting and turning along the rough coast line with everything of beautiful green pastures, rocky coastline and then into the tall forests of the Big Sur. By this stage the rain returned and we had to just keep motoring on through. After another road closure or two we had finally passed the best of what the Highway 1 had to offer. We made our way up to San Jose stopping briefly at the loacl BMW dealer to pick up a part for my younger brother;s next motorcycle project. They were quite surprised at how far we had come on our little Suzukis and suggested the 1200 GS, I just laughed at the guy and told him never in a million years would I buy such a bike! He was not too impressed but I told him it is just not needed, such a large bike.
We arrived in San Francisco to a cold, grey afternoon and our host Nicole was home to welcome us. This was to be our first female ADV rider host and we were looking forward to get to know her. It turned out she was an awesome chick and we sat chatting all evening having a few drinks and eating some nice Indian food and planned what to do over the next few days. Nicole assured us that we could stay as long as we wanted but as we had that stupid deadline for shipping the bikes we really only had time to spend a few days there. Saturday morning Nicole's friend Robin came over with her car and she and Nicole were our tour guides driving us around town, starting at the local pub where they made some great local beers where we got to sample each one for free before deciding which one we wanted. Not a good way to start the day as I just had to pee constantly for the rest of the day. As we were staying in Alameda we had to cross the Oakland Bay Bridge to get to San Fran, we thought being a Saturday afternoon it would not be too busy but the traffic was absolutely heaving. It took us a long time to cross the city and head over to the Golden Gate Bridge to get the obligatory photos but it was all worth it when we saw the iconic bridge. It really is a beautiful structure and its red colour stands out like a stark contrast to the surroundings. It was late afternoon by the time we left Golden Gate and the mercury was already dropping fast, thankfully we were being chauffeured around in a car and not on our bikes!
We headed back to check out the city and the centre was overrun with Uni students dressed up as Santa for the yearly "Santa Con". They must have started early as it was only just after six and there were already a few who could not keep the pace and had emptied their stomachs onto the sidewalks to keep on going. We also came across an old homeless woman taking a sh*t on the street which was something I could have done without seeing. With all the drunk santas out in the street, most places were super crowded so the girls took us to China Town for a look around, stopping at a couple of bars before heading back over the bay to Alameda for one more stop at another pub, Lucky 13. This was my kind of bar; good beer and good music all spent in great company with Nicole and Robin who were keeping us entertained with their hilarious banter like were they a comic duo..
We were in two minds if we should have left the following day as it was sunny and dry and would have made for a great ride back down the coast. But since we had not really had a chance to see much of the city we decided to stay and headed into the city again, this time by ourselves. We took the ferry across the bay into town and then proceeded to see as much of the city as we could. We jumped on the first tram we could and headed up the hill from where there are many spots to take in the sights over the entire city before walking on down to the old hippy area of Haight Ashbury, a real hippy scene back in the sixties, it is now home to all sorts of people and has a pretty laid back feel and relaxed laws as there was many a person smoking up and openly selling weed on the street. This is also the first place we came across where you can get your Medical Marijuana card, the laws on the possession of weed in America are changing rapidly and is very different from state to state so I will not go into details here, although I will say that it seemed to be very tolerated in this little part of California, although at the moment it is only marijuana for medical use that is legal. In other states like Colorado, Washington and Oregon marijuana has been fully legalized to include recreational use and people say that California will probably follow in the next few years.
After spending a little time here we took off to Alamo Square, one of the most photographed areas in all of San Fran and admired the view over the city. Again not having enough time up our sleeve we were on a mission to get over to the other side of the city to check out other places. Having a deadline to get on the ferry back to Alameda we power-walked our way around the city, visiting windy Lombard Street which was indeed very windy but also very touristy and when we got there after walking for miles it was a bit like: OK, it's windy. Now let's go. We finishing the day on one of the traditional trams. While we are queuing up to board a tram, an older Asian man blatantly jumps the queue and board the already full tram together with his wife and child. Surprisingly nobody in the line says a thing so not being one to stand for it I pipe up! Hey hey hey, what do you think you are doing?! This guy actually thought he could just jump the line. I said What do you think we are all doing here in line? Man, just get off and get back to the end of the line! He was not too impressed and pretended not to get the whole idea of a queue, he was like I don't understand?! but he got off all the same. I was met with a few thank you's from the surrounding people who were all too polite to stand up to the queue jumper. Well, not me!
After our tram ride through the city we ran for the last ferry where Nicole picked us up. For her very warm welcome into her home and for hospitality I cooked up a big feed of Mexican to say thanks. We sat up late chatting before retiring to bed. We awoke the following day to rain once again, another wet day and another wet ride for us, on our second last day of the trip. Awesome! San Francisco is definitely a place with a very cool vibe that we would both like to go back to...in the summer.
After leaving late in the day we found ourselves riding through some beautiful and quiet back roads of California headed due west. We had plans to stay at Miracle Hot springs and when we arrived we found all the campgrounds were closed for winter already. Being so late in the day we were not going to start riding into the night to find another place so we set up camp all the same down by the river. The following morning after another cold night's camping we went looking for the hot springs but we worked out how the place got it's name, it would be a Miracle if you could actually find the hot springs!
We wanted to hit the coast and make our way up the famous Pacific Coast Hwy 1 and spend a night camping up in Big Sur but we under-estimated the distance and hit the coast later in the afternoon than expected, we also learnt that the whole sth coast was expected to get hit with high winds and torrential rain. We opted to spend a night in a motel room as there is nothing we hate more than waking up to the sound of rain and then having to try and pack up a tent in it. That night we kept a close eye on what the weather was expected to do over the coming days and it was not looking good for our visit to San Francisco, the bay area was to be hit the hardest. Apparently this was going to be the worst storm to hit Caifornia in years. The following morning we contacted our next host Nicole and she informed us it was not looking like a good day to be on the bike so we bunkered down one more day in the motel room.
The following morning it was still raining when we got up but luckily by the time we jumped on the bikes it had stopped. We headed north up the coastline and after only being on the bikes for no more than 15 minutes we pulled up on the side of the road to check out an incredible sight of Elephant Seals all hanging out on a patch of beach by the road side and some were swimming in a fresh water hole. It was fantastic to be so up close and personal with the fascinating creatures. We have seen them before on our trip down in Argentina but we never had the opportunity to get as close as we did here. They were so curious of us which made for many great photos. We both had to drag ourselves away from them as we had a big day ahead of us and we still did not even know if we would have problems with road closures from the storm the previous day.
Another 15 minutes later we came across our first road closure; we ignored it and rode on around the barrier, to back track now would have seen us arriving at night in San Fran. We rode slowly to check out the scenario but the roads had been cleared from the previous night's land slides already, they had just not got back to move the signs so we continued on. The road was built for a bike, in places it hugs to the edge of the mountain-side twisting and turning along the rough coast line with everything of beautiful green pastures, rocky coastline and then into the tall forests of the Big Sur. By this stage the rain returned and we had to just keep motoring on through. After another road closure or two we had finally passed the best of what the Highway 1 had to offer. We made our way up to San Jose stopping briefly at the loacl BMW dealer to pick up a part for my younger brother;s next motorcycle project. They were quite surprised at how far we had come on our little Suzukis and suggested the 1200 GS, I just laughed at the guy and told him never in a million years would I buy such a bike! He was not too impressed but I told him it is just not needed, such a large bike.
We arrived in San Francisco to a cold, grey afternoon and our host Nicole was home to welcome us. This was to be our first female ADV rider host and we were looking forward to get to know her. It turned out she was an awesome chick and we sat chatting all evening having a few drinks and eating some nice Indian food and planned what to do over the next few days. Nicole assured us that we could stay as long as we wanted but as we had that stupid deadline for shipping the bikes we really only had time to spend a few days there. Saturday morning Nicole's friend Robin came over with her car and she and Nicole were our tour guides driving us around town, starting at the local pub where they made some great local beers where we got to sample each one for free before deciding which one we wanted. Not a good way to start the day as I just had to pee constantly for the rest of the day. As we were staying in Alameda we had to cross the Oakland Bay Bridge to get to San Fran, we thought being a Saturday afternoon it would not be too busy but the traffic was absolutely heaving. It took us a long time to cross the city and head over to the Golden Gate Bridge to get the obligatory photos but it was all worth it when we saw the iconic bridge. It really is a beautiful structure and its red colour stands out like a stark contrast to the surroundings. It was late afternoon by the time we left Golden Gate and the mercury was already dropping fast, thankfully we were being chauffeured around in a car and not on our bikes!
We headed back to check out the city and the centre was overrun with Uni students dressed up as Santa for the yearly "Santa Con". They must have started early as it was only just after six and there were already a few who could not keep the pace and had emptied their stomachs onto the sidewalks to keep on going. We also came across an old homeless woman taking a sh*t on the street which was something I could have done without seeing. With all the drunk santas out in the street, most places were super crowded so the girls took us to China Town for a look around, stopping at a couple of bars before heading back over the bay to Alameda for one more stop at another pub, Lucky 13. This was my kind of bar; good beer and good music all spent in great company with Nicole and Robin who were keeping us entertained with their hilarious banter like were they a comic duo..
We were in two minds if we should have left the following day as it was sunny and dry and would have made for a great ride back down the coast. But since we had not really had a chance to see much of the city we decided to stay and headed into the city again, this time by ourselves. We took the ferry across the bay into town and then proceeded to see as much of the city as we could. We jumped on the first tram we could and headed up the hill from where there are many spots to take in the sights over the entire city before walking on down to the old hippy area of Haight Ashbury, a real hippy scene back in the sixties, it is now home to all sorts of people and has a pretty laid back feel and relaxed laws as there was many a person smoking up and openly selling weed on the street. This is also the first place we came across where you can get your Medical Marijuana card, the laws on the possession of weed in America are changing rapidly and is very different from state to state so I will not go into details here, although I will say that it seemed to be very tolerated in this little part of California, although at the moment it is only marijuana for medical use that is legal. In other states like Colorado, Washington and Oregon marijuana has been fully legalized to include recreational use and people say that California will probably follow in the next few years.
After spending a little time here we took off to Alamo Square, one of the most photographed areas in all of San Fran and admired the view over the city. Again not having enough time up our sleeve we were on a mission to get over to the other side of the city to check out other places. Having a deadline to get on the ferry back to Alameda we power-walked our way around the city, visiting windy Lombard Street which was indeed very windy but also very touristy and when we got there after walking for miles it was a bit like: OK, it's windy. Now let's go. We finishing the day on one of the traditional trams. While we are queuing up to board a tram, an older Asian man blatantly jumps the queue and board the already full tram together with his wife and child. Surprisingly nobody in the line says a thing so not being one to stand for it I pipe up! Hey hey hey, what do you think you are doing?! This guy actually thought he could just jump the line. I said What do you think we are all doing here in line? Man, just get off and get back to the end of the line! He was not too impressed and pretended not to get the whole idea of a queue, he was like I don't understand?! but he got off all the same. I was met with a few thank you's from the surrounding people who were all too polite to stand up to the queue jumper. Well, not me!
After our tram ride through the city we ran for the last ferry where Nicole picked us up. For her very warm welcome into her home and for hospitality I cooked up a big feed of Mexican to say thanks. We sat up late chatting before retiring to bed. We awoke the following day to rain once again, another wet day and another wet ride for us, on our second last day of the trip. Awesome! San Francisco is definitely a place with a very cool vibe that we would both like to go back to...in the summer.
Miracle Hot Springs...apparently
Newspaper stands
The article about the storm that was hitting the coast named The Pineapple Express
Driving north on the Pacific Coast Highway
The group of Elephant Seals lounging in the sun
Think this big guy was the leader of the harem, just compare him to the size of the other seals around him
There were a few biffs happening too
Curious little seal with big eyes
Hanging out in San Francisco with Nicole and her friend Robin
Golden Gate Bridge
Santa Con taking over the streets of SF
China Town
On the ferry from Oakland to San Francisco
The Oakland Bay Bridge
Had to get a photo in of the silly little postie vans they use to deliver the mail here in the US, look just like Postman Pat's car
Haight Ashbury, hippie mecca of the sixties
Something we started seeing a lot
Very colourful houses in this area of SF
Alamo Square, the famous row of terraced houses with the SF skyline in the background
Retro tram still running
The streets here are very steep!
Windy Lombard Street on a 27 degree angle with 8 hairpin turns
On the tram!
Oncoming tram seen from aboard our tram
Hanging on for dear life
