Time out

It was a wobbly, shaky start. After we had an overnight at Walmart our van wouldn't start anymore. A nice guy helped us to jump start the battery but unfortunately our car broke down another three times. It was a horrible experience stopping suddenly in the middle of the street. Finally we reached a car repair where we spent the rest of the day. We had to replace the battery and the alternator, also the filter was bitten by a mouse. On top of that we were recommended to replace the tires as they were worn out but we kept that on hold to not exhaust our wallet too much at one go.  
Anyway, we had quite a windy shaky highway ride to California. Next stop was "The New Jack City" in the Sawtooth Canyon for another rock climbing experience.  It was great, in the middle of the desert with everything you needed: Sunny weather with some breeze, great rocks to roam around and a toilet in front of your home. The Mojave Desert is an arid region, in past times low lying basins were covered by a great sea. Wind followed water as the major erosional factor shaping the land of the Mojave into its current spectacular form. It hosts approx. 200 plant species and so many lizards and birds, we even saw a hummingbird.
We met a bunch of interesting people along our way, one of them was an old man who started to travel at the age of 17, when he left his parents home in Finland to discover the world. He travelled from Europe to India by overland route and his story reminded us of Shantaram.
After another 5 consecutive days of crimping, pinching, smearing and pulling we entered Greater Los Angeles and discovered Orange County and its beaches by bike. Being the birthplace of surfing we were a bit disappointed to only see a handful of them but at least we could lay our eyes on the biggest container port of America. Hollywood was nice, many crazy people but not so cool as we expected so we definitely prefer New York City to Los Angeles.Read more