America
- SPAM
The first thing we really noticed about America, apart from the incredibly anal manner with which they handle immigration, was how nice everyone was in California. Indeed, it bordered on the nauseous. First things first we guess. Anal retentiveness.
On the plane, there was a 10 minute film detailing how to fill in your immigration form correctly, the dangers of incorrectly filling it in (a great deal of emphasis was placed on this, we assumed spontaneous and just execution), the colour of pen you had to use, where to get replacement copies and so on. Pretty simple stuff. They played this film at least a dozen times. It was incredibly disappointing how easy it was to fill in.
That's neither here nor there.
We got through customs with some heart
stopping moments with potential execution due to an incorrect form.
Evidently it's quite OK to scribble out things, rewrite stuff (with the
wrong coloured pen) and make no effort to hide the fact that you are flicking
through the Lonely Planet and scribbling down the first motel that was
listed in the LA area for the address of the place you are staying for
the majority of your stay. No matter what they tell you in that film,
it's OK to be Australian in America.
After getting through this part of
the airport we approached an Info desk to get some, logically enough, some
info. We wanted prices and times of buses to Ventura, where we are
now working. These people behind the counter all but drove us to
Ventura themselves. We got the times and prices, made our way to
the bus and were assaulted by the cheeriest bus driver in the world.
This
pattern of Nice People has been going on since we arrived (except that
woman at Yosemite that accused Leigh of throwing things at her young sons...
Which was a completely founded accusation because he was.. But they
were throwing stones at those cute little Squirrels... They started
it...).
Anyhoo, we camped for a bit, tried
to get used to the fact that when you went to a bakery (such as the Matala
Bakery) the people serving you wouldn't glare at you and say nasty things.
Interestingly enough, however, the shop attendants in a non-English speaking
country had an easier time understanding us.. Guess we just can't
pick up American. We met up with
the people from the US Fish and Wildlife
Service, Condor Recovery Program and discussed what we were going to be
doing. They had nothing for us for four or five days so we decided
to hire a car.
It is important to realise when travelling in America a few things about the art of goods and services. When you ask for a price in this country, you get one price, but not all the costs. It was a harsh moment when we realised how things work. For example, in Australia we are blissfully unaware of sales tax. We all know it's there, but it's like the giant mole on the face of a friend that is never discussed. It's sooooo obvious that it's there, but after a while you convince yourself that it's not, and you can get on with your life. In America, not so. When you buy, say, a packet of tic tacs and get the price, you think 20 cents is a reasonable price, it says it right on the sign - 20 cents. When you get to the cash register you are asked for 27 cents. This is not a big deal. 7.5% is not much. But every time you buy something they go HA! TAX! If you buy beer, it's 7.5% sales tax, then 3.8% CRV and then a couple of cents for good measure as a fee for having to ask for your ID - which everyone under the age of 97 has to produce.
Likewise when we hired a car, things were not as they seemed. In America a Compact car is bloody big. Four doors, a big engine and lot's of room for petrol. But when we asked and they said it was $34 a day, we thought - "Cool".
Then we asked, what sort of insurance
is that?
"Oh no, full insurance (for foreigners)
is an extra $18 a day"
How much is Tax?
"Oh duh, 7.5%"
Free Mileage?
"No"
Oh come on..
"OK, unlimited miles."
This goes on for a while until you
realise that the car that was going to cost a very reasonable $136
for four days, is going to actually cost $327.98. If we didn't get
unlimited miles it would have cost an extra $250 (we ended up doing 1645.3
miles). Eh, what the heck, we had to do something and you can only
squander your money once!
So off we went on our big Californian
journey. It was slightly tainted when we recalled that we spent AUS$400
on a car and got to keep it in Germany, and here it was setting us back
AUS$470 and we had to give the damned thing back... Oh well.
We
packed our stuff in and headed north up the coast toward Big Sur National
Park where we saw the coastal Redwoods. Did some walks in the woods.
We kept driving towards San Francisco, but never got there, and early
the next morning arrived at Yosemite National Park. Have you seen
the pictures? Wow! We did some walks. Then we drove off and
went to Sequoia National parks and saw the big trees, the biggest living
organisms known. Some of
these
trees were 5,000 years old. Absolutely massive. Then we drove
East to Death Valley. It was pretty dead. Glad we had Air-conditioning.
Then we drove back to Ventura and returned the car. That is an oversimplified
version, but you get the idea. We drove to different National Parks,
saw plants, animals and strange people, and then stopped. It was
brilliant.
Then we started work.
This time we're working for the United
States Fish and Wildlife Service, Condor Recovery Program. In the 80s there
was about 7 Condors left in the wild, and only one breeding pair.
The controversial decision was eventually made to capture all the birds
and put them in a zoo. For 5 or 6 years there were no Condors in
wild, but after a captive breeding program they started releasing them
again. There are now about 50 in the wild, 20 in the area where we
are. The birds are only young (between 3 and 6 years old) and need
to be monitored. They have radio transmitters and tags and all that
stuff. So basically what we have been doing is cruising around in
a big Yank Tank with field gear seeing where these birds are, flushing
them off rooves of houses in one little mountain community and occasionally,
under cover of darkness, dragging a couple of dead calves out into a meadow
for the birds to feed on.
We're
out in the field with other staff people and help out by taking the signals
and telling them which direction they are, they do the same and we know
where they are. Condors like being high, so they stick in the mountains
and follow the ridges for easy flying, so as a result we are working in
absolutely spectacular scenery. It is great fun.
In our first couple of days in the
field we helped capture some birds, so that blood samples
could be taken, the birds weighed and some transmitters replaced.
This was for one bird in particular because it had a broken toe.
So we've been lucky, we saw them up close and REAL personal. These
birds have a wingspan of around 9 or 10 feet, and have very large beaks
for ripping flesh. Kind of scary to see them up close and quite pissed
off. Since
then
we've had them soaring just over head and perched on rocks near us and
we continue to get good close looks, but not the same as the first introduction.
We needed three people to hold the bird while the work was being done.
They are so strong it's incredible.
We've put some photos of Condors
in. We took these photos with a digital camera through a scope,
so you'll have to forgive the quality,
but you can see why we think they're cute. We're still taking a whole
heap of photos. It's going to be quite an impressive collection of
rolls that we can retrieve when we get back
(Mother and Father Pilkington are being wonderful and sticking each roll
we send back in the fridge... They must have 50 or 60 rolls in there now.
That's around 2,160 photographs..... Ooh ahhh, never thought about
that...) We also put in a short movie for
you to watch, you can download it and check it out.
So
that is what we've been doing in the USA. Chasing birds, forking
out heaps of cash for rental cars, seeing some amasing pieces of land and
talking with the most cheerful, polite people we've met to date, and some
interesting ones as well. One of our new friends (an old Dinky Dye
Cowboy) went to a party with Jim Morrison and 40 other people in the mountains
once
(Was there some jealousy from us?
Ayuh!), Bonanza was filmed on his grandfathers property and an assortment
of other little titbits.
We're not sure if these claims about
the Californian people is entirely accurate, but it sure seemed like it
after Greece. Don't get us wrong, Greek people were wonderful, but
the odd person that was a bit nasty or morose, was A LOT NASTY AND MOROSE.
Of course in the same sense, the odd person here that is a little bit "chipper",
is A LOT CHIPPER. You simply
want to poke their eye out just to
bring the tone down a little.
Well, we're done with America.
Next stop Fiji.
Us.