On......NY inspirations, California frolicking and the Water theory

New York was merely a two day stopover and it was my intention to use the time to recover and save some money for the west coast jaunt that lay ahead. That was the objective until the moment Kollington, my party loving friend, arrived on the scene and said we had to rock on Friday. I dragged myself out of bed and cursed my easily susceptible self. We ended up at the Hudson and the night itself was a non-event and the only noteworthy episode involved my foolish dalliance with champagne – the one alcoholic drink that induces a hangover in me.

I did not need to wait long to regret my foolishness because I had to rouse myself at about 8am in order to return the rental car ahead of time. A word of warning – DO NOT EVER ATTEMPT TO USE A GPS NAVIGATION SYSTEM IN NEW YORK CITY. I attempted to plot what should be a 20 minute drive from Central Park West to 22nd street and it took me damn near an hour. The bloody GPS kept attempting to take me down one way streets and send me hurtling to my doom. The rental assistant had her hand on a stopwatch as I managed to drive the car in one minute before the deadline. There was an unmistakable look of disgust on her face for not being able to impose a late penalty charge plus one day rental cover plus taxes. I managed to walk back to the hotel – a journey which took me ten minutes -and there was Kollington’s grinning face waiting for me. He is one of those medical marvels who are somehow able to consume copious amounts of alcohol in one night and yet somehow retain the presence of mind to wake up in the morning with an unblemished clarity of thought. He and his brother were going for some gym training and did I want to come along? What the hell I thought. It turned out to be one of those boot camp type of things where the instructor physically abuses you for one hour. After the session I felt violated with my heart beating at a rate that it had not reached in many a year.

In the evening I somehow found the strength to meet up with an old friend who works as an actress in the city. She was late so we skipped dinner and headed towards Chelsea and a book reading by one time blogger Teju Cole (a pseudonym). He has recently published his first book Every Day is for the Thief which is a very promising debut. I was a huge fan of his as a blogger and I sense that there are great things to come from this author. A further rallying cry to you literally inclined bloggers out there – STOP SLEEPING. In less than 18 months Teju (picture below) has gone from updating his admittedly brilliant travel blog to becoming a fully fledged author. Make una wake up o!

The morning belonged to San Francisco and California dreaming. It is a city that I fell in love from the moment plane tyre touched tarmac. It is hard to describe this bay side city in words so feast your eyes a bit on the pictures above

California was unarguably the finest state I visited on this trip and has a strong claim to be regarded as a country in its own right. You will never savour a finer driving experience than the eight hours (broken up in chunks) that I spent on the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Dana Point. I enjoyed it so much that I got clocked doing 104mph by the local sheriff in Salinas. He took one look at my license, decided that it was probably not worth prosecuting a foreigner and let me go after and making me promise to “ease up on the ol’ gas pedal”

LA was the endpoint of my California trip and in many ways it was an anti-climax to the preceding days of the serene, unspoilt beauty witnessed in Carmel-by-theSea, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. In terms of adventure, however, LA was unrivalled. It is a city that reminded me greatly of Lagos, at once basking in the opulence of palm tree lined boulevards coupled with the very immediate squalor and hardships of so many tramps and layabouts. It is also the only other city I know where “shakara” and “effizy” are the order of the day, more important than any other thing of substance. Big shots and high rollers do not even look you in the eye when they address you. They are constantly looking past you, beyond you, trying to check out other people checking them out.

At the Sky bar on Sunset Boulevard, one Yahooze guy decided he was going to buy everyone drinks. I am not talking one sachet of pure water each o! This guy was popping champagne like say tomorrow no go come. I shack tire that day and even made friends with the guy sef. He said his name was Chad and that he was some producer or something. I lied that I was a screenwriter (everybody in LA na screenwriter). At the end of the night he invited me and the friends I was with back to his place. He said that there was going to be an after party with ample babes and that he had bountiful amounts of “Bolivian cocaine”. Which one be Bolivian cocaine again? Is that somehow different from your garden variety, buy-off-the street cocaine? He lived on Mulholland Drive and we promised to meet him there. We actually did roll there in the hope of witnessing a fully fledged LA orgy but when we reached, the place was looking kinda spooky with its long winding drive and unlit gates. We carefully reversed our car and sped away. No be me they go use do ritual!

LA was a trip and in the end I felt sad to leave but I was convinced that Vegas would provide even more delightful hedonism. I was disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, the self-indulgence is very much in place but it is of the manufactured kind. Everything is ingloriously over the top in Vegas – the buildings, the food, the clubs, the women. It is also full of bloody foreigners and you cannot move without hearing a hotchpotch of various accents and languages. Not a bad place but you could literally be anywhere in the world (there is even a mini New York and Paris for crissakes). It was just a little too touristy for my liking and in retrospect I would have knocked it off my list of destinations for this particular trip. The dusty drive through the old Route 66 was a great treat though but avoid doing it at night. I was a bit frazzled cos we spent a bit too long taking pictures and nightfall caught us on that old road with no streetlights.

I was not sad to leave Vegas a few days later and the early morning flight to Miami could not come soon enough. It was my first time in Miami and the first thing that you notice is the women. Even the women notice the women in sheer appreciation. They are of every hue, body size, ethnicity, inclination and sexual persuasion under the sun. I am not an ashewo but I am a lover of beautiful women and to my mind, Miami has a greater concentration of beautiful women per square foot than any other worldly place I know - apart from my village in Benue state of course where even the mammy water hides her face in shame anytime a female child is born. There is perhaps a link there – water. Are riverine men and women the finest? Think about the finest people you know. I bet they grew up near water. Or perhaps even just a very well dug-borehole. I will accept that. IS there something about the water that makes them very fresh? Surely worth further investigation no?

We spent most of our days in Miami in South Beach between Washington Avenue (clubs), Collins Avenue (shops) Lincoln Road (restaurants) and Ocean Drive (beach and people). Was sick of clubbing by the time we get to Miami and even sicker of the small-minded staff that inhabit the realm of their doorways. However I must give a big up to Opium on Collins Avenue. This was quite simple the best joint I went to on this trip. It is an open air concept that could only ever work in a temperate climate.

On the fourth day the skies opened and they wept. The trip was over and inside I joined in the celestial downpour. It was time to leave and I was satisfied that I had achieved many of the things I sought out to accomplish. I was well rested. I had made good headway on the story I was working on. I had met some fantastic characters. I had dined at some very fine establishments. Life was good.

Many thanks to my travel companion, Bournvi, who at various points of this trip reminded me of the true meaning of friendship. Many thanks to the DC cops who harassed me – e no go better for you. Much love to the understanding sheriff who took pity on me. Thank you to Sierra – you taught me a lot. Thank you Aloha – you saved me cheddar. Many thanks to all American ATMs that will never give you ten dollars when all you need is ten dollars. I will be back soon, perhaps, not wiser, but undoubtedly older.