The airport in Mexico City was a much easier experience than we were anticipating. We were flying with Volaris, a budget airline, and were expecting Ryanair kind of treatment. In reality, it was fine. When we'd arrived in Mexico and paid our entrance fee of 332 pesos, we were handed a list of other charges, equating to about £30 each. This list included things like, fee for leaving and returning to your country. We feared we would have to pay these fees, but apparently we didn’t have to pay any of them! Bonus. In the queue to check in, we met a chap from San Diego called Daniel, who also had Mexican family and connections. We got chatting and went for lunch with him. Having been disappointed in the Mexican food in Mexico, we decided to give it one last try. We had a fairly reasonable meal with Daniel in an airport restaurant, crossed through security (also surprisingly fine) and went and spent our change in pesos on actually useful things in a shop.

The flight was a little over three hours long and passed pleasantly . Daniel occasionally popped over with a tit-bit of information for us, such as when we were about to pass over the Gulf of California. When we reached the border with the USA, and were passing over Tijuana, we listened to Manu Chao’s 'Welcome to Tijuana’, followed by ‘Tijuana Lady’ by Gomez, and finishing on ‘Californication’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, until the cabin crew told us to take off our headphones and pay attention.

Soon, we reached the bit we were dreading – the USA customs and immigration officials. We stood in line for nearly an hour, waiting for our turn. When we reached the desk the immigration official was very pleasant, and didn’t ask us any more difficult questions than where had we been, where were we staying, and when were we leaving. We were fingerprinted and sent on our way. Being a US citizen, Daniel had cleared immigration long before us. However, when we were let loose into the airport, he was waiting for us with a bunch of leaflets and discounts for things he thought we would be interested in, based on our conversations . Which was just lovely and very welcoming. We said a fond farewell and went to get a bus into San Diego centre.

There were two problems with the bus; firstly, we missed the bus stop by walking straight past it. Secondly, when we found the bus stop, we discovered that the bus only accepted exact change. We did not have exact change, so had to venture back into the airport to buy something. This, and waiting for the bus, took a long time. We’d gained two hours on entering the US but were pretty tired already. We reached our hostel, ventured out and had a Mexican meal that was much better than any Mexican we had in Mexico, and crashed out for the evening.

Our hostel was in the centre of San Diego, between the districts of Gaslamp and Little Italy. The hostel itself was terrible – expensive, and we had a tiny room with a single bed! The shared bathrooms were awful and usually dirty with unflushable broken toilets . It left a lot to be desired. However, we were next to a handy transit centre, so were able to get around easily. We soon discovered, on reading the leaflets, that San Diego had loads to offer. Our draw was some city time and so we could wander the streets and quote lines from the Anchorman movie. Daniel had informed us that San Diego had recently been voted as one of the most desirable seaside cities to live in in the world. We could see why; the warm temperatures but lack of humidity was pleasant, the city had plenty of activities and 70 miles of beaches, and it was easy to get around. The leaflets showed we could easily fill a week with activities in San Diego.

On Friday 14th, we had an early start. Minding the strict jaywalking laws, we crossed the street and bought bagels for breakfast. How American. We took a trolley up the line to Old Town, and wandered through an entirely fake ‘Old Town San Diego State Historic Park‘. We then took the Old Town Trolley (a big bus with open sides) on the seaside route . This was eye-wateringly expensive, until we remembered we’re in the USA and prices are relative. The first stop was Mount Soledad, where we stopped for a few minutes for a scenic view over San Diego. We were hoping it would be the make out spot from Anchorman – it wasn’t. The next stop was La Jolla beach, where we got off and went for an explore. We saw sealions and seals, as well as cormorants, pelicans and two squirrels. The original plan was to go kayaking, but we were dropped off quite a distance from the kayaking places. Instead we went snorkelling off the beach. The first one we picked was a bad choice with strong currents. We quickly abandoned and went around the corner to the Children’s Beach, so called because of a pier, constructed to keep the strong currents at bay. We went back in and went for a nice snorkel through lots of sea grass. We saw plenty of garibaldis – bright orange fishes – and we had a seal swim directly below us, which surprised all of us. The seal popped up to the surface to have a good look at us, before swimming away again . There were plenty of other fish around as well. The water temperature was not the Caribbean warm we’d been recently spoilt with, but was probably still around 25 degrees celcius – not bad for the Pacific. The dip kept us nice and cool for the rest of the day, which was good because it was hot.

We hopped back on the Old Town Trolley, didn’t go to the next stop, and went to the last stop on the line, Mission Beach. Daniel had recommended this beach to us and we were pleased to see a huge long stretch of golden sand. The closest we’d seen to it was Copacabana in Rio. The bus dropped us off next to an amusement park, and we eyed up the rollercoaster as we sat eating our foot-long sandwiches in the adjacent park. We decided to go for it. It was a wooden rollercoaster, built in 1925, and it was definitely rickety. Afterwards, we took a stroll along the boulevard to the end of the beach, and admired the view to San Diego. All too soon, we had to catch the last trolley back to Old Town, where we took another trolley on rails back to Downtown . We just missed sunset, so consoled ourselves with a trip to a Karl Strauss place, for some nice food and craft beers for Ken. San Diego has a strong brewing community, with a wide variety of beers and even ales (though the ales were cold). We went back to our hostel and watched Anchorman, of course. When in Rome! We also found out that the B52s were playing a show the following evening, but the tickets were $300 dollars. D’oh!

On Saturday 15th, we picked up some free bagels from the bagel jobber across the road and went in search of breakfast. Which was surprisingly difficult to find. We found plenty of closed cafes, and walked for ages until we happened on an open one. After another search for water (and it was only now we discovered a 7/11 just a few doors down from our hostel), we finally got underway to our fun activity of the day, Balboa Park Zoo. We wanted to go to see the big animals – giant pandas, of course (there are no female pandas at the zoo, just two males), the rhino, giraffes, elephants, and the polar bears . In the news recently, there has been much talk about poaching (poor Cecil) and the death of the only capable breeding female of the endangered Northern White Rhino. This leaves only four Northern White Rhinos in the world. Three of them are in Kenya, and the other, Nola, is in the San Diego zoo. We were keen for our ‘last chance to see’ a species which will sadly be extinct in a few years time. Unfortunately for us, Nola was not at the Balboa Park Zoo, but at the San Diego Safari Park Zoo, a few miles away in Escondido. We missed our ‘last chance to see’ by going to the wrong frikkin zoo.

We only discovered this after twice going to the rhino exhibit, not finding a rhino, and finally finding a staff member to ask. We also didn’t have much luck with the polar bears. Or in fact, no luck with the polar bears. We went to their enclosure three times during the course of the day, and they weren’t there. There were no staff to ask so we were sorely disappointed by this . The elephants and giraffes were great, as were the multitude of other animals we saw. The bears, of course (though Anchorman wasn’t actually filmed at the zoo) were fun, lots of big cats, Galapagos Tortoises, Komodo dragons, flamingos, snakes, and so many birds. The place was huge and after a long day, we still hadn’t seen a chunk of the park in the middle, containing loads of monkeys and apes. We found out that Diego, the saddleback Galapagos tortoise who was such a successful breeder, and who we had seen in the Charles Darwin Research Station on the Galapagos, was actually born at the San Diego zoo (hence the name). That was nice. The giant pandas were lots of fun. The adult male was hiding in his enclosure. The younger male was roaming around and was unusually active, according to his keepers. The queue was long so we had a short while to admire them before moving on. All in all, the zoo was great. We were disappointed in the lack of rhinos and polar bears though.

We took the bus back to Downtown, and arrived just in time to see sunset by the bay. It was lovely. Just along the bay, we went to see a ship that is in one of the shots of Anchorman. Not having had enough of wandering around all day, we took another wander to the Gaslamp area to see what was happening. Apparently it is the place to be, and to be dressed up. We felt out of place and found somewhere that sold us a lot of cheese for dinner.

All too soon, it was time to leave San Diego. We had a casino booked as accommodation in Las Vegas for the evening of Sunday 16^th, but no way of getting there. So we set off back to the airport with the hopes of hiring a car, and a back up plan of a flight if we couldn’t. Next stop – Las Vegas!