Last day in Los Angeles today. We checked out of our hotel and headed west,
with the aim of seeing some of the mountains and coastline to the northwest of
LA city. We drove out to Ventura (on the
Ventura Highway, now referred to as a Freeway).
Weather was fabulous – beautiful cloudless sky, temperatures very mild,
with perhaps even a hint of cool in the air (but not chilly).
The town of Ventura was not very exciting, although the
mountains and valleys in the region were quite spectacular. Some of the distant peaks even had a dusting
of snow on them. Must be fresh, given
the hot temperatures earlier in the week.
The redeeming feature of Ventura was the river(?)/port outlet to the sea
and the beach at that location. Quite
spectacular beach lined with houses, all receiving the salty spray from the
waves. They must have some fantastic
maintenance schedules! The inlet even
had frolicking sea lions!
Heading south from Ventura towards Malibu was spectacular,
although a lot of the coastline was developed, with houses even being built out
over the ocean on stilts. The
mountains/hills were very reminiscent of those in northern Chile, although with
a bit more vegetation here and definitely more people around. Perhaps the Chilean versions are a bit
bigger, but not by too much.
The coastal development around Malibu features, by the look
of it, many of the rich and/or famous in the area. Some of the houses were enormous AND
incredible-looking, while some were just plain ugly. They were built on some incredible eyries, as
well as the slopes. It almost seems as
if people choose the most difficult slopes and build there. Or perhaps the original owners of the land
sold off their worst pieces?
Because of the lovely day, there were thousands upon
thousands of people out and about.
Almost all of the available parking spaces along the roadside were
taken, people were out surfing, hiking, biking and so on. Lots of motorbikes were zooming around,
fancy/fast cars were at it. It was an
entertaining drive!
Back into Santa Monica, we drove around a little, looked at
the Santa Monica pier from a distance and decided not to go anywhere near it
given the likely crowds. We stopped for
a late bit to eat on the Main St. We
found a whole heap of vegan-type restaurants, as well as the occasional one
serving real food (very long queue, so we left). Ultimately we found, of all things, an
Australian Pie shop. They weren’t really
Australian, and certainly cost a heap more, but we liked the idea. I had a vegetable pie, served on top of
mashed sweet potato, with a half-serve of mashed peas on top, topped with
mushroom sauce. Very delicious and disappeared
rapidly.
Afterwards, we drove around ?Hollywood? (the Avenue of Stars
was boring), then went to Beverly Hills and drove around some residential areas
(some spectacular houses, some fairly ordinary ones) and a few commercial
streets, including Rodeo Drive. I played
“spot the supercar” and had a right old time.
The highlight was the Bentley covered in what looked like black suede,
although the Maserati’s, Lamborghini’s, Ferrari’s, McLarens, Rolls’, etc etc
were good fun too. Our Chrysler
certainly didn’t cut the mustard…
Then it was off to the airport. Trying to refuel before dropping the car back
was a bit of a saga but eventually completed, only to discover two ‘gas
stations’ right next to the Thrifty depot.
Oh well…
Checking in at Copa Airlines was a splendid reminder of
Latin American ‘efficiency’ and something to prepare my mind for over the
coming weeks. There were perhaps 25
people in front of us. Most of them had
long, chatty conversations with the check-in staff and it was all very slow, taking
nearly an hour for our turn. Eventually
we were done and we passed through security – another long and tedious
process. Despite signs clearly saying it
was NOT necessary to remove shoes to pass through security, we were then told
to take them off and pass them through the x-ray machine while we passed
through the full body nudie scanner.
Hooray!
We’re
now waiting for the plane, scheduled to leave at 10.43PM, arriving into Panama
tomorrow morning at 8.04AM. The flight
promises to be interesting…
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