Monday 17th April
In the end, Tucson ended up as just being a bit of a rest stop on our journey. Which was a good thing in a way, as we'd had numerous late arrivals and early starts since leaving New Zealand and we'd struggled to find the time to make up for the lack of rest. We were still up pretty early, in order to make the rescheduled departure of our train from Tucson station. We were down at reception at 7 on the dot to check out but also made the most of the free continental breakfast that was on offer from the hotel. I had a bagel, Charlotte had some cereal and we both wolfed down a rather decadent and messy chocolate iced doughnut, or should I put donut considering we are in America? No, doughnut is fine. We left about 7:20 and walked to the downtown Amtrak station, which took us about 15 minutes. We were surprised to find the train was already waiting at the station but wasn't due to leave until about quarter past 8. We checked our luggage in and were told we could board at our convenience. We headed straight for it, as we were hoping to be able to sit together considering we weren't due to arrive in San Antonio early the next morning. The conductor at the door gave us 2 seats together and it was clear we should never have worried about sitting together. The train wasn't dead but the clientele was slightly more touristy than the train we'd caught from Fullerton to Flagstaff a few days before, which had had more locals on board. This meant that everybody wasn't sprawled over every seat available and taking up 2 seats when there was only one traveller.We read the timetables that we'd picked up in flagstaff and found out the train had had a long stop in Tucson, which explained why it was waiting for us at the station so early. We had a decent view from our window, except for the curtain of the person in front was pushed as far back as possible, which cut off the view slightly. I was going to moan at them and push it forward but refrained and it was lucky I didn’t, the reason of which I will explain later. As we rolled out of Tucson on time, Charlotte and I decided to shift ourselves to the observation car, which was the carriage just in front of ours. The observation car seats were set out differently to the coach ones, so that they were looking straight out of the wider windows at the scenery. We placed ourselves on a 2 seater, in the hope that we would pass through the illusive Saguaro national park and see some of Wile.E.Coyote’s nemeses. By which I mean Saguaro cacti and not roadrunner. We didn't see forests and forests but we did see the occasional few as we made our way through the baron Arizona desert. We sat in the observation car for around an hour, until we reached our first halt at the town of Benson, Arizona. Once there, we were pretty confident we were out of Saguaro cacti country, so returned to our designated coach seats to wile away the hours. We spent some time reading and watching the world go by but were pulled to attention when an announcement came over the tannoy that if we looked out the right hand window to the south, we would see the sign marking the border between the state of Arizona, that we were leaving and our new state of New Mexico. We just caught a glimpse of the sign as we trundled past and only because it had the incredibly bright New Mexico State flag plastered on it. The scenery of New Mexico was much the same as Arizona had been. We were in an incredibly flat plain, that was border by steep red mountains in every direction and was populated only by fry looking trees, bush and cacti, only not Saguaros. With a new state, came a new timezone from Pacific time at -8 to mountain time at -7. We only made 2 stops whilst in New Mexico, at equally barren looking towns who's names didn't register. After about 4 hours in New Mexico, we started rolling in to the suburbs of El Paso, which is located in what would be our third state of the day, and a pretty big one at that, Texas. El Paso is about as close you can get to Mexico, without actually settling for out of America. It is a proper border town and right across the border, which we could see out of our right windows (we think we could see the fence but give it a few years if President Trump gets his was, I'm sure the wall will be more obvious), is El Paso’s sister city of Ciudad Juarez. Juarez is notorious for its high crime rate due to the presence of drug cartels. Murder on the streets is a daily occurrence and for that reason El Paso is also a bit notorious for being a dodgy area. On the other hand, it is also the front line for combating the cartels in drug trafficking. I'm not saying we witnessed drug cartels in action but we were about to witness who we assumed were either the EPPD (El Paso police department) or DEA (Drug enforcement agency), go to work. There was a short layover in El Paso, so Charlotte and I decided to get off to stretch our legs and grab some fresh air. After getting off though, we decided it would probably best if one of us stayed behind to keep an eye on our bags, just incase. Charlotte hopped back on and I wandered up the platform with my camera and phone, in a slightly desperate attempt to find some wifi and find out if Brighton had won. There were a few unusual characters on the platform and when I got to the gates that gave access to the main train station building, I gave up, just incase I wouldn't be readmitted to the platform with out my ticket. I was pleased to get back on the train, as it was stifling outside, so the air condition was refreshing. I sat back in my seat just in time to witness two interestingly dressed guys enter our carriage. Charlotte was immediately on edge, as they stood out like sore thumbs. One had an LA Lakers (basketball team) t-shirt on, which seemed odd, considering we were probably into San Antonio Spurs territory by now. The other had a t-shirt on with a big USA flag emblazoned on it. Just before this, now I remember, a conductor had brought a plainly dressed chap to the seats directly in front of us and had pointed out the occupants luggage to him. The conductor left and the man pulled it out, so it was leaning on the edge of the baggage rack and gave it a healthy sniff. He returned it, then disappeared behind us. Then the 2 “tourists” entered and spoke to a couple of people near the front of the carriage in English first and then in fluent Spanish. They then started conversing to one another in Spanish and said something along the lines of “they went down there” and, like the sniffing man, moved on behind us. After about 5 minutes, sniffer came back with the lady who had been sitting in front of us but we hadn't seen for probably 2 hours before we stopped in El Paso. Ol' sniffer searched the ladies bags on the seat in front of us and said something like “is that all you've got?”, and “how long have you known this man?”, to which she replied “on and off for 10 rs”. He took her back outside and after another 5 minutes or so, she returned, grabbed all of her luggage and left the train. A couple of other nosy parkers across the aisle from us kept us in the loop and told us that the man she had been travelling with and was also sat directly in front of us had been arrested. It was all good drama. The couple across seemed to think that there had been undercover officer on the train and had been tracking them since they got on the train, probably back in Los Angeles the previous night. It said a lot about the area but was also incredibly reassuring just how quick and efficient they had been in dealing with whatever problem had arisen. It left the 2 seats in front of us free, which meant I could now move the curtain to allow for a better view and not put my life in danger from a drug dealer or whatever he was. Resisting the urge to say anything earlier seemed like a very good idea. We departed El Paso late for what they told us was because there was a freight train in the way but it might have had something to do with the small situation. After El Paso, with Texas came another timezone, so we were now a paltry 6 hours behind the UK. Again, the scenery didn't change a great deal, only it was significantly flatter and a few orchards were starting to crop up, only we couldn't tell what was growing and could only guess it was some sort of citrus fruit, nut or olives. It was a long ride from El Paso to our next stop in Alpine. 3 hours to be exact and we were awarded with a bit of a stop to allow everyone to stretch their legs. Charlotte and I didn't bother in the end but our nosey neighbour did and she couldn't wait to let us know when she got back on that the police had removed another 5 people from the train during our stop in Alpine. Clearly, the El Paso police didn't get everybody in their search. Once we left Alpine, it was late and time to catch some sleep before our early arrival at San Antonio the next morning. At least we tried our best to catch some sleep but the lady 2 seats behind playing unnecessarily loud religious music wasn't helping the situation and once she shut up, the baby behind decided to start crying, so it was all a bit of a struggle.
Tuesday 18th April
We awoke at about quarter past 4, just as the conductor was walking along the aisle telling those departing that San Antonio was coming up in around 20 minutes. When the train slowed, we grabbed our belongings and disembarked when the train finally came to a full stop. As it was pitch black outside, we killed a couple of hours by waiting in the train waiting room before heading out at around 7am to walk to our hotel. As with Tucson, we'd had to splash the cash in San Antonio, as there had been no hostel in the town. The hotel was about a half an hour walk from the station and it was pretty easy, being almost down one straight road. We weren’t getting our hopes up about checking in anytime soon but were very pleasantly surprised when we were given our key and pointed in the direction of our room. To be able to have a shower after a 20 hour train ride was a huge boost, so we freshened up and headed down to help ourselves to the buffet breakfast. Once we were full, we got our things together in the room and headed out into San Antonio. We had to admit, San Antonio was one of the places we knew least about when we were doing our planning but were surprised to find out that the Alamo was located right in the downtown area. That was our first destination and was only about 15 minutes away from our hotel. Not only was it good that it was centrally located, it was a bonus that it was free to enter, which always goes down well with us. We entered through a gate and wander round the grounds of the Alamo. Our knowledge of the Alamo was as thin as our knowledge has been of San Antonio but I did drag up from somewhere that it had been the location of a famous battle during Texas’ battle for Independence from Mexico. When we got round to reading the boards inside what used to be the barracks, we found out that this was true, as well as other things like that Davy Crockett was involved, obviously Texas won that was for Independence and that it eventually joined the Union of states before being split into a number of new states such as Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. The main display was within those barracks, so once we were out, we wandered around the gardens, briefly through the gift shop and finished off with the church. The Alamo was originally a mission to educate the American Indians after their conversion to Christianity. The church was the iconic building of the Alamo however, there wasn't a huge amount to see inside and mainly consisted of lists of names of who was involved in the various battles that revolved around the Alamo. After the Alamo, we wandered around the town for a short while, picking up a pin badge along the way. Afterwards, we returned to our hotel for a short rest and a lunch stop before heading across the road to have a look around the market square. The square consisted of a number of restaurants as well as an indoor Mexican market that sold various touristy items such as sombreros, Mexican wrestling masks, pottery and numerous cowboy hats. We weren't really after anything but thought we'd best have a look around. After the market square, we ventured back into the downtown area, towards an area called La Villita, which was where the first Europeans settled in San Antonio and was now a pretty quiet area that had a few restaurants, shops and galleries. From La Villita, we could access the San Antonio river walk, which was probably the highlight of San Antonio. It was a series of concrete pathways built next to the river as it meandered through downtown. Some of the river walk was just pathways but other areas had restaurants and cafes to relax in and enjoy the scenery. We fancied a beer, so rather than choose somewhere specific, which we are terrible at, as we were walking up, we said we would go for the third place in and just go for it. The third place turned out to be an Irish pub, so we skipped that and went for the one after it. We were given a seat overlooking the river, which seemed like a good idea at the time. We were kept amused by a tame duck pecking away at one of the people sat next to us in search for food. About half way through our drink, I received an unwanted gift as a bird relieved itself on the side of my head and my shoulder. We could only laugh and luckily, nobody else around us noticed it. As Charlotte pointed out, it is considered lucky, so we were hoping to find some money on our walk back to our hotel. We paid the bill, refused the tip and set off back to the hotel, so I could get out of my soiled clothes. Apart from a meal out, we'd done everything we wanted to do in San Antonio, so we spent a couple of hours relaxing in the room, in an attempt to recover from the tiring train ride the day before. We regretted the brief sleep we both had but forced ourselves up and out and across the road to the restaurant we'd picked for dinner. It was recommended by Lonely Planet and featured on our map of the city, so we reckoned it couldn't be too bad. It was called Mi Tierra and was listed as a café and bakery. It had started out with 3 tables but now boasted more than 500 seats, so it was a sizeable establishment. After a bit of a wait, we decided to go for what were selection plates of various tex mex foods. We both had a taco, an enchilada, some Spanish rice and some refried beans but mine came with something called chilli con quesa (quesa being Spanish for cheese) and some guacamole, which was silly as I can't stand avocado and really can't understand why it is the hippest fruit/vegetable in the world right now. We sipped our beers and snacked on the tortilla crisps and salsa whilst we waited for our dinners to arrive. They were hefty portions and by the time we finished, we could barely move from our seats. The tacos had been the highlight by a long distance and we both slightly regretted not going for just a plate of them each. We were still content with what we tried though and we paid our bill, left no tip and headed off to pack what little items we'd got out and have a good night sleep before moving on the next day.
This ones a famous quote:
“…., we've had a problem here”
James and Charlotte
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