An early start so we could get to San Francisco
in good time. The road we were on took us right over the Golden Gate Bridge
which you have to pay $6 for the pleasure I might add. We had a bit of trouble
finding somewhere to stay and had to have a drive round the motels before we
found a spot. Once we had got settled we had a walk to China Town, it's the
biggest China Town outside of China, so we thought we could get a pretty good
Chinese meal there. Whether we were in the wrong area I don't know but there
wasn't much choice in restaurants and the one we ended up going to turned out
to be very average. The next day we bought a ticket for the historic cable car
tram things that go round on a track up and down the really steep streets. We
went down to Fishermen's Wharf looking for some Alcatraz tickets, we had been
told they sell out really fast and can be booked up weeks in advance. Luckily
we managed to find some, although we did have to buy a city tour as well. We
had a walk down to pier 39 which is where there is a permanent colony of Sea
Lions. After some dinner we went on the city tour, it took us round town with
the option of walking the bridge which we did. From a dull morning it had
turned into a beautiful afternoon and the walk was great. We even saw Seals and
Dolphins with calves swimming below us. Once on the other side we got picked up
by the bus and went to Sausalito, this is where all the rich people live and it
costs anything up to $16,000,000 for a house there! Apparently they all used to
live in San Fran and moved over to Sausalito after the earthquake, and because
the Sea Lions were sinking their fancy boats. We stayed on the bus back to
Fishermen's Wharf and walked back to the motel. It seems a weird sea fog blows
in most nights and covers the city making it quite an eerie place. It was an
early morning and we had to be down at pier 33 for 8.30_am to catch
the ferry to Alcatraz. We made the journey over to the old prison and imagined
if we were going to be locked up here. Its a strange place and I can see how it
was one of the worst prisons in the world. Once on the island we were given an
audio tour of the prison which told us about prison life and had prisoners and
guards talking about their memories of the place in it. If the wind was right it said you could hear people
laughing on a New Year's Eve from the city. There is even old bullet marks from
escape attempts. We also met an ex-prisoner of Alcatraz in the gift shop,
selling his book he'd written about his time inside. We couldn't stay long as
we had to get on and head down to LA for the night as we flew the next day. We
stayed in a Motel 6 near the airport, I think it must of been a bit of a dodgy
part of town but we survived.