From Sea To Shining Sea - "Welcome To The Jungle" (Los Angeles, USA)
/Dates of travel: 26 April 2013 to 28 April 2013
Location of travel: Los Angeles, United States of America
Over the course of April and May 2013, I took a month-long meander across the USA. The main reason was to attend and report on the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California. The road to and from there was just as memorable. This is part 2 in a series of 5 articles.
We take it day by day
Once Coachella was done and dusted and my time was up in San Francisco, there were still three weeks left for me to cross from sea to shining sea before hopping on a plane in New York City to return to my homeland in South Africa.
A month-long meander through the States made sense, as I’d get a cheaper deal for my inbound and outbound flights from the country. In between, it was up to me how and where I went and who I stayed with.
Before setting off from South Africa on this sprawling journey, I mapped the route with friends in mind, each providing me with a place to stay and a host to show me around town.
This was not the case in Los Angeles, and this uncertainty continued right until I packed my bags to leave San Fran. My budget was tight, and hotels were not an option. I had exhausted my list of contacts from over two decades of existence, so with time running out and a bus to catch, it was looking likely that I would need to rely on the kindness of strangers for the weekend.
Fortunately, a friend of a friend of a friend pulled through. The tangential trust secured me a spot on their couch in a small one-bedroom apartment in Brea, one of the outer suburbs of LA
The Greyhound bus station in Downtown LA was at least an hour away, but the guy still offered to pick me up after my overnight bus trip on Friday morning. It's rare to encounter such generosity from someone you've never met before. No wonder they call it the 'City of Angels'.
Even though accommodations were arranged, the battle of Los Angeles had just begun.
My home base for the Los Angeles leg - a housing block in Brea, California.
To put it simply, the city is huge—or, more accurately, the county.
It's an interesting fact that Los Angeles city itself is quite small in geographical size, but when you consider the larger LA metropolitan area, it expands like the roots of a massive redwood tree. So the term 'LA’ is often used interchangeably, but it can be deceptive.
The apartment where I was staying in Brea was not just down the road from Hollywood; it was actually on the other side of the city, requiring at least three different forms of public transport to get there.
Once I made it to the outskirts of Tinseltown, I was able to put my weekend plan into action: to see the major sights of Los Angeles from an open-top, hop-on-hop-off sightseeing bus over just two days. Bustling from one bus to another.
We are the people that can find whatever you may need
Fortunately, I had some downtime on Friday afternoon and evening in between these two titanic journeys, so I could at least rest up and refuel in suburbia.
The first food location was lunch at an authentic Italian market and deli named Claro's. Think fresh salami, sausage, cheeses, pasta, tomatoes, and olives in an ode to Italia, filled with varieties of groceries that I had rarely seen or ever heard of. It was a healthy top-up after my red-eye road trip from up north and kept me going until dinnertime, and an American staple: burgers.
The bar was set rather high after the In-And-Out Burger I'd tried on the Coachella road trip (a Southwest speciality, since they’re mostly found in California and the surrounding states). But Five Guys Burgers And Fries came presidentially approved, as was revealed in an NBC documentary about a typical day in the White House during Barack Obama's first administration. I remember watching that at the time and seeing the president placing a special order at a Washington, D.C., branch and personally picking up the burgers with Secret Service members in tow.
Now I got to try Five Guys myself, and they did not disappoint. Not every fast food joint needs to have overwhelming menu choices or a glitzy presentation. Five Guys and In-And-Out focus on simplicity and freshness, and even though the food is fast, it still aims for restaurant quality.
Five Guys Burgers And Fries in Brea, California
You can taste the bright lights, but you won't get there for free
I was excited to be heading into another city for the first time, but the task at hand threatened to overwhelm me with the many moving parts of public transport—something I was rather unfamiliar with growing up in a car-centric country like South Africa.
For the first time on my trip, I was genuinely concerned about the amount of responsibility resting on my shoulders transport-wise, knowing that if I screwed up just one part, I could be stranded very far from home in wholly unfamiliar territory with min money.
Yet that butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling fueled my desire to explore and make the most of it. It's that same adrenaline rush a politician must feel when they step up to the podium, a singer to the stage, or a sportsperson to the field.
The journey from Brea involved a bus, an Amtrak train, and a subway, all before I finally emerged from the Hollywood Highland station onto the otherworld constellation that is the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The Hollywood Walk Of Fame
Starline Tours has 3 major routes that encompass the touristy parts of LA, and at the time, they were planning to roll out two more in May 2013:
The first route I went on, the Red Route, comprised of the glitzy and glamourous Hollywood and Beverly Hills.
A transfer to the Yellow Route was available in Beverly Hills, which takes you down through the beachfront city of Santa Monica to the Pacific Ocean and the famous Santa Monica Pier, before turning back inland and passing through the lavish Brentwood and Westwood.
Finally, a brief transfer through Koreatown connected the Purple Route, which was located within Downtown Los Angeles to the east of Hollywood.
Wherever you are in the world, I'd highly recommend a hop-on-hop-off tour if you're in town for a very short time and need a superficial yet informative way of seeing a new place. It ticks off so many items on a sightseeing to-do list, and because you can freely hop on and off buses, you can spend more time investigating a landmark on foot if you wish.
I did this almost as soon as I started the Red Route's run along Sunset Boulevard. Early on, there was Guitar Center, one of the world's largest retailers of musical instruments, with the location on Sunset Boulevard renowned for its extensive selection and numerous celebrity clientele.
It was staggering to see the sheer variety of instruments on offer, including an entire floor devoted to drums. Guitars adorned the walls like floating axes, with vintage and acoustics also assigned their own shrines. Glancing at some of the price tags wasn't for the faint-hearted though (I spotted one electric guitar going for $24,000).
A store of this stature on the Sunset Strip has also collected a sizeable amount of rock star memorabilia over the years, including signed portraits, equipment, clothes, and concert tickets, So if you’re not in the market for an instrument, you can browse the artefacts that they’ve proudly put on display.
Guitar Center was the first of many music landmarks that Starline Tours pointed out along the route. The influence of music on the area is so strong that you may want to walk the Sunset Strip to see the following sights from street level (and perhaps go inside for a drink):
The Viper Room (infamous nightclub previously owned by actor Johnny Depp, and the site where actor Joaquin Phoenix's brother River died of a drug overdose in 1993)
Chateau Marmont (quintessential Old Hollywood haunt, where musicians and film stars have often taken up residency or produced work from within its walls, such as Jim Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson, and John Belushi)
House Of Blues (a chain of live music venues and restaurants)
Whiskey A Go-Go (which started out as a nightclub that popularised the term "go-go dancers", and soon became the launchpad for the rock 'n roll scene in L.A.)
Watch it bring you to your sha-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-knees
The Red Route soon passed through Beverly Hills, the retreat of many a silver-screen icon, and the fashion mecca of Rodeo Drive, which had many tourists on the bus gawking at the glamour on show. I took the opportunity to transfer to the Yellow Route so I could feel the sea breeze and some good vibrations.
The Beach Boys began blaring through our tour-issued earphones as we cruised down Pico Boulevard, the anticipation building with each passing block until we finally reached the iconic end of America's Route 66 at Santa Monica Pier, where I next stepped off.
The pier and its pristine surrounding beaches were a hive of activity on this sunny spring Saturday afternoon, with an amusement park, souvenir shops, and street performers to keep beachgoers busy. I strolled along the seaside, soaking in the vibrant atmosphere and understood why writing music about this stunning stretch of ocean would be nice, if not a bit fun, fun, fun.
Venice Beach was about 5 miles further south, but unfortunately the Green Route to there was only rolling out in the next few weeks (so I made a mental note to visit the following day via regular bus). Linking back to the second half of the Red Route brought me within the orbit of that star-spangled stretch of road I started on.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a dense galaxy of stars, with almost 2,500 of them over its two kilometres of pavement and another 700 metres perpendicular to it. It celebrates not only the stars of the film industry but also musicians and other entertainers who’ve earned acclaim.
I enjoy a good collector’s challenge, and given that I was free to roam these star-studded streets without dropping a dime, I made it my mission to see every single star on the Walk of Fame and photograph a few of them.
Neck cocked downward, I traipsed up and down Hollywood Boulevard obsessively, oohing and aahing at each artist I recognised. The cataloguing quest paid off when I pivoted up one of the quieter perpendicular streets.
As I ventured up Vine Street, I noticed not one but all four Beatles stars in a row. I’ve got a feeling this isn’t a coincidence.
Averting my gaze from the ground, I saw that the Fab Four were shining brightly outside the Capital Records headquarters, their American record label, with the white building’s distinctive circular shape and tall spike on top resembling a pile of records.
It was a hard day's night for this Beatlemaniac and an unintended musical pilgrimage while wearing my band tee. I got to admit, the day was getting better all the time.
If you got a hunger for what you see, you'll take it eventually
But it could get worse.
The high-stakes transportation game I was playing almost left me in a lurch on my journey home that night. Missing an Amtrak train by a mere two minutes meant waiting another two-and-a-half hours for the last train east for the evening. At least there was still another one to catch before sunrise.
Little mistakes you make as a traveler can have large, unintended consequences. Not every moment of serendipity leads to fun and enjoyment, and I learned the hard way despite being on high alert. When your comfort zone is being forced to expand, when everything is new and unfamiliar, you must learn to accept the good with the bad and move on—sunburnt yet smiling.
I had a flight booked out of LAX Airport that evening, so Sunday was to run on an even tighter schedule. Armed with yesterday's experience, I aimed to fill in the gaps I hadn't seen previously and further explore the places I had liked.
Venice Beach was my main port of call, however this required an extra bus ride or two outside of the Starline tour. It was well worth the trek, though; its quirky, interesting boardwalk was packed full of food stalls, art vendors, and people just chilling out.
Compared to Hollywood's somewhat 'plastic' feel, Venice Beach felt more homely and relaxed. I enjoyed tucking into a Greek gyros (a form of wrap) under a palm tree next to the beach, watching the many weird walks of life parade past me. As a huge fan of the TV series 'Californication', I definitely recognised this place as a filming site for the show and it made the story of anti-hero Hank Moody more real in the mind's eye.
On the Starline buses, prerecorded audio replaces an actual tour guide, but this was not an issue for this solo traveller. I found the British man's voice on the English-language channel soothing, and his crisp commentary was a constant companion over my two days of touring; his little anecdotes and facts perfectly timed with each passing landmark.
Although I was repeating certain routes, I conveniently managed to be on the bus over sections where I had chosen to walk the previous day, and thus, I still received a rounded education on the City of Angels. Music-related sights were less forthcoming on Sunday as we passed by icons of the film industry, such as Paramount Studios and 20th Century Studios, and a plethora of places devoted to the arts.
The whirlwind weekend wound down to a close as I stepped off my last Starline bus at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, home of L.A.'s historic district.
I felt like a 21st-century explorer hacking his way through the dense urban jungle to reach this oasis on the old plaza and witness the city's birthplace. I walked the colourful marketplace of Olvera Street, where families gathered and children played in the early evening sun
It was here that I realised there is much more to Los Angeles' history than what is produced in the notorious neighbourhoods of Hollywood and Beverly Hills. You just have to trek through a jungle of joy, pain, and fame to find the source.
Writer Kurt Duvel’s 5-part series ‘From Sea To Shining Sea’ takes you on his month-long meander across the USA. His fifth and final stop is New York City, a diverse metropolis of skyscrapers and scenic views which continue to entice, even on his third bite of 'The Big Apple'.