Greyhound Down!

Starbucks, Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles

Having smugly anticipated pushing out a good few ZZZZ’s once my newly found travelling companions had hopped off the Greyhound ‘wagon’ at Phoenix in the middle of the night, I was slightly disappointed when it broke down at 1AM in the middle of the California desert.  The fact we were still there at the side of the road 9 hours later was even more of a let down...

I was the only white on the bus and the other 40 odd passengers were mostly ‘African American’, Hispanics with a couple of ‘Native Americans’ for good measure, and the general behaviour reminded me of watching the Jerry Springer show.  The driver was a very strong willed, fat, black lady, who I certainly didn’t envy as she got the wrath of the passengers, particularly a 19 yr old single ‘mom’ who was screaming about her ‘mutha-fuckin’ baby, which was in itself an interesting choice of terminology.  However, it did cross my mind that, aside from the demographics and vocab, the total self absorption and lack of empathy was not totally different to some of the utterly vile clients I’ve had to endure as they’ve attempted to buy/ sell property in London- particularly the ‘trophy’ wives of rich banker/ lawyer types. 

About 7AM, as it got light, there was a bit of concern as there was no water left and there was the ever present diabetic needing sugar so, as much out of boredom as anything else, 3 of us went for a wander up the Highway to see if there was any life there.  We’d broken down midway between Phoenix and LA, 3 hrs from either, and while there was literally nothing in 50 miles in either direction (which I don’t think is possible in the UK), we were only 2 miles from ‘Desert Center’ which is the only ‘gas’ station and cafe in the area.  As the 3 of us, a black guy, a Mexican and me, walked off the Highway and across the car park to the diner we were laughing that it felt like something out of a Clint Eastwood film- and said we should send 1 guy in and watch to see if he came out through the window!

In the cafe there were just a few old, poor looking whites but they were friendly enough, as we had a spot of breakfast and then bought a load of food and water for the others.  While inside I spotted a familiar looking helicopter in a photo on the wall and learned that an episode of the 80’s classic ‘Airwolf’ had been filmed there- well cool!  Once we got back to the bus everyone was quite pleased to see us, and we waited for our ‘rescue’, after it had started to get pretty hot.  It was hot enough for the black single mom to actually endear herself to me with the observation that her baby was ‘Sweatin’ like a runaway slave!’.  No doubt if she was white, that would result in a jail sentence.

The new bus eventually arrived about 10AM and we then had to move all the kit from the one bus to the other.  A couple of young Mexican guys thought they were going to sit on the new bus while everyone else moved the kit- but I wasn’t having any of that, and after some gentle words of encouragement from me they got off the bus and started carrying bags.  

Once we eventually got going again, the first bit of civilization I saw in California was the edge of Palm Springs.  There was a vast wind farm which stretched in every direction and it struck me that the yanks didn’t seem quite as environmentally unfriendly as you might be lead to believe by the British media.  I remembered there was a little hysteria when President Bush didn’t sign the Kyoto agreement because, while he was committed to not harming the environment, he wasn’t prepared to sacrifice American jobs and, unlike plenty of other signatories, he wouldn’t sign something that he had no intention of adhering to. 

When I hear people talking about ‘Climate Change’ (previously referred to as ‘Global Warming’, until the hippies and Al Gore realised it gets colder than average some years as well), I’m generally quite sceptical and cynical.  All the raving lefties who have liked to bash rich people/ America for years (Ken Livingstone springs to mind) have now got a convenient new outlet.  If you say you’re going to make rich people in Notting Hill pay £25 a day for owning a Range Rover it can appear to be a little bit old fashioned, chip on shoulder, class war, but if you say it’s to save the environment it suddenly can sound noble.

Without incident we then got to the LA Greyhound Depot about 3 hrs later and as we went past 1 of the big storm drains that Arnie raced down in one of the Terminator films, and turned into the bus depot I was actually pretty relieved that it was early afternoon rather than 3AM!  A German couple I’d met in Miami had told me a hostel to stay in just off Hollywood Blvd so I got a cab up here, and as we turned into the street I was confronted by a huge rainbow on the ‘LA Gay and Lesbian Center’, and I suddenly thought ‘Who says the Germans don’t have a sense of humour?’.  However, having decided that I'd stay there anyway as I'd paid for a night, I looked across the road and saw the USA Hostel, and I checked in- apparently everyone arriving here has the same initial pause for thought.