Epilogues 1: Costa Rica

Long-haul. OK - I'd done it a couple of times since the Big Trip, but nothing that promised two weeks of luscious views, relaxed living and more biodiversity than I could possibly comprehend. Costa Rica is aptly named, with Caribbean and Pacific coastal zones split by volcanic mountains harbouring cloud forest and some of the most exotic flora and fauna on the planet. A country where sloths - half-blind, half-deaf, all-day sleepers who do little more than hang around and chew on fruit - can thrive. It sounded like my kind of place.

America (the USA that is) has already taken Costa Rica to heart, of course. So dollars are interchangeable with the local currency, everyone is bilingual, and levels of convenience are high (think air-con, orthopaedic beds, overly-attentive waiting staff etc.). It also meant that additional costs (tours, taxis, and tacos) were similarly priced, catering to perceived Western budgets. As a result, we'd deliberately chosen slightly off-beat locations for most of our trip, hoping to carve out a bit of cost, cater for ourselves where possible and feel a little bit more adventurous.

So our first stop was the Pacific coast, yes, but further down than most go on the Nicoya peninsula to Nosara. Even there we stayed on the quieter Playa Pelada rather than the more bustling family beaches of Guiones or Garza. Mid-afternoon the day after leaving London, we flopped into our airbnb beach house, with crabs and a few locals (Ticos) for neighbours. The house was run by June, who lived around the corner, a sturdy pensioner originally from North Carolina, one of the many US ex-pats taking advantage of Costa Rica's stable, peaceful and beautiful living. Our little Casita nestled in amongst rainforest and was a two minute walk to the beach, under trees rustling with howler monkeys.

My task, week one, was to surf. I love open water - swimming, sailing, and even a bit of windsurfing, in my time. I never grew up on a surf-beach, but here was my opportunity to catch some waves and live out my Point Break fantasy. I fully expected to be terrible at it, but to make up for my lack of skill with my enthusiasm and determination. And that was basically how it went. I lost count of how many times I got ploughed under by the powerful breakers that wash the shore. Having a seven-foot plastic board strapped to your leg also makes wipe-outs downright brutal as I fell in one direction only to be yanked by the ankle in another and lose all track of which way was up or down. Constantly being beaten by the breakers (and without the skill to go out and tackle some real waves), the whole experience was physically exhausting. Like most sports, surfing follows the rule that the worse you are at it, the more energy it sucks out of you. My London gym habit finally paid off as I kept dragging myself back onto the board, paddling out, and trying to "pop" up into standing position and keep my balance. I also learnt why they call t-shirts "rash guards" as the constant adjustment of your body on the board rubs your skin into a speckled-red haze: with my bad technique leading to scraped knees, chafed nipples and bruises literally everywhere. But I loved it. By my third and final outing, I was standing pretty regularly on the board, surfing the little waves I could catch for a few seconds before tumbling back into the ocean. Maybe I'll never go professional, but I certainly have the taste for it.

Casita - our home for the week

Meanwhile, the rest of our time was spent relaxing on the beach, or taking afternoon naps to recover from our metropolitan over-tiredness. Amongst our one-pot meals in the Casita, we went out to a couple of local restaurants - Il Peperoni and La Luna, where the seafood was fresh and well-seasoned at both. Mhairi  showed pizza who was boss at the first, and sampled some veggie Tico tacos at the second. And there was the "Seekret Spot", Pelada beach's best ice-cream shack where we gorged on genuine gelato during the mid-afternoon lulls. The whole experience was relaxing, with only the occasional afternoon storm breaking up our hot and sweaty sun worship. We hired a quad bike to zip around more easily, though our visit to Turtle Beach yielded only the desiccated eggshells of young already hatched and gone. Still, the beach again was beautiful and like Pelada, mostly deserted. With one more day on the coast to go, we treated ourselves to massages at Tico Massage in Guiones, where their take no prisoner surfer's massages pummelled elbows into the tightest knots, built up from office work and catching waves. Mhairi at least had a compensatory facial to finish. And all too soon, it was time to leave the beach behind, with its powerful crashing waves and peaceful, forested shores home once again to the crustaceans and Tico families who are always there.


Monteverde was our next stop, and now we meant business with nature. Not seeing turtles was somewhat forgivable - we planned badly and were out of season. But with Monteverde there was no excuse. Fortunately, Monteverde was ready to deliver. Firstly, though, we threw down our kit down at Cabinas Valle Campanas late afternoon, having made our taxi transfer, where our super-organised host suggested a number of restaurants ( we chose Tico Y Rico for a traditional casado meal in the evening) and helped recommend and then book tours we wanted to take. On offer was also an $8 breakfast of champions that we succumbed to once: delivering chunks of banana, mango, pineapple, papaya, watermelon as a fruit starter before moving to coffee and eggs (or in Mhairi's case, pancakes...), with toast and local jams again from the rich fruit pickings of Costa Rican nature. In line with the plan, our cabina was a little walk outside of Santa Elena town, and there were more than a few taxi trips taken to get to jumping off points for the parks or restaurants. The only shame was that we had to downgrade after two nights to a less plush, no hammock+balcony cabina for a couple of sleeps due to a double booking. But the spare $50 saving went on a beautiful evening meal out at El Jardin. With a corner table, windowing onto the evening cloud forest, we ploughed through innovative Tico-takes on international cuisine. A salad with avocado, mango and coriander, joined by palm heart and beetroot was followed for me by a rib-eye steak in a chocolate and berry mole sauce. Instead of potato, fried cassava chips came on the side, and some roasted plantain nestled under the meat to sweeten the salty bite of the beef. Mhairi had a mediterranean veggie affair for her main course, after an intriguing cauliflower and mint soup starter. We loved the passion fruit and pineapple tart to finish, laced with coriander sugar and accompanied by a scoop of local vanilla ice-cream. The night rounded off our time in Monteverde before our final transfer the next day to Rancho Margot at the foot of Volcano Arenal.

But, Wait!  The nature... In Monteverde that's what it was all about. We spent a quiet afternoon with serpents and lizards in the serpentarium, where we revelled in all the animals Costa Rica contains that could cheerfully poison you. Out in the real forest we hit both Monteverde reserve - a pure cloud forest park, the eponymous area that everyone has to visit. But we also visited Curi-Cancha - a smaller reserve that backs onto the Monteverde park, that contains transitional rainforest too, and slightly less-beaten paths. In fact, we did Curi-Cancha first, and our guide Adria was immense. Hugely knowledgeable, hugely passionate and, as he will admit, somewhat lucky, he had spotted two of the main birding draws before leaving the car park - the resplendent Quetzal (the national bird of Costa Rica that indeed

first drove tourism to the cloud-forest mountains) and the Three-Wattled Bell Bird. Super-powerful telescopes gave us perfect views to admire these amazing animals, and it was thirty minutes before we started to walk up into the woods. Then we saw hummingbirds, guans, a russet ??? and even a tiny hummingbird moth (a disguise so that predator birds will think it's a real bird and not eat it...). We learnt about different types of plant life, particularly the avocado trees (though, not all 93 species that Costa Rica has); we saw an inch worm and the chrysalis of a ?/ butterfly. We even shone a light down one dark burrow and saw the furred body and legs of red-kneed tarantula mother, guarding her brood of eggs. Another active nest was less chilling - we put a mirror over the top and buried at the bottom were two day-old nightingale chicks that immediately started to blindly beg for food, thinking our noise and commotion was their parents returned with a worm. Taking a guide had made all the difference, and really exposed the huge richness of Costa Rican wildlife.

The next day in Monteverde, our independent progress was less bountiful in terms of animal-spotting, but we could go at our own pace and breath in the forest some more.  It was also lucky that I had worn a pink t-shirt. Attracted by bright colours, I had a hummingbird hover around me, working out if there was any nectar to be had. Following Adria's advice from the previous day I held out my finger and the little bird perched on it for a quick rest. Finally, he decided there was no food to be had and moved on. We also picked up a poisonous centipede, who's defence mechanism is to curl up when threatened, and then release almond-scented cyanide if unrolled. And last, but not least, we came upon another tour and an over-excited tourist whispered to us, We've found a sloth!! Sure enough following the direction of their guide's telescope, high, high in the tree-tops was a black furry ball. Dripping with damp, looking like a growth on the tree branch, a sleeping sloth was planted firmly, motionless but for the wind across its fur. We counted our blessings - even though he was far away and didn't do much, we could have missed him entirely.

A special mention should be made of the other tour we took in Monteverde - to the San  Luis coffee plantation. Coffee is one of my addictions, and Costa Rica is (of course) one of the premium growers. The government took the view that it could never compete in terms of quantity so since the 19th century has been growing the best beans it can. From the start they have focussed on lower yield and higher quality, with all plantations grown under canopy cover so that bigger trees take the hit of the diluvian rains and the precious topsoil is nurtured. We saw the coffee growing process, grounded in the small scale family-run finca, from start to finish. Our guide Greivin knowledgeably explained how coffee roasting was done both in the past and now - his tale mirroring the global story of how commercialism has often sought to increase quantity and reduce quality. Only now does the finca see requests not just for the shelled green beans that have been fast dried for mass coffee output, but also for the full beans that take 22 days to slow dry and have sweeter mouthfeel followed by a long wine-flavoured aftertaste. Our tour finished with a cup of their black honey coffee - from beans that are dried naturally, so that the caffeine and oils make the beans sticky and dark as the water slowly evaporates. We drank a lot, buzzing with the caffeine but eager for more as the brew had little bitterness and we had accompanying chocolate cake to get through. San Luis is an authentic little family outfit, selling its coffee to our Western demands, but happily living with its own fresh produce right on its doorstep for everything else -  avocado, banana (7 types or more...), mango, orange, lemon, guava, papaya, pineapple... and more and more and more... It is a fruit lover's paradise, but the fruit we love most is the coffee berry.

And so we finally made our way to Arenal. The plan was a little bit altered - we'd spent quite a bit of money to stay at the Rancho Margot lodge, as a luxury stay to end our trip. Having said that, the ranch is about 40 minutes drive from La Fortuna, where most backpackers end up, situated above a little village called El Castillo and exudes a sense of solitude and oneness with nature. As indeed it should - the ranch is dedicated to self-sustainable organic living. Not only do they grow and rear almost all their own food, they create natural insecticide from wood fungus; they make their own soap and cleaning products; all the gas is natural methane from animal waste; and that waste is turned into fertilizer. Plant waste is composted, with the heat of the process warming all the water, and all electricity is supplied by hydro-plants installed on the river. The ranch itself is a verdant paradise with plants and animals everywhere - even the roofs of the buildings are covered in vegetation, so that the whole estate feels like a part of the land it inhabits. All meals were included, sourced and served up from the farm. We arrived for lunch and realised immediately that this was our sort of place - they serve pizza and salad as a starter for every lunch and dinner. The quality of vegetables was amazing; almost addictive in how fresh and vitamin-packed it tasted. I found myself going back for plate after plate after plate.

We spent our days at morning and evening yoga, with a punctuation in-between for some other activity. On our first day, we took the ranch tour where we learnt the detail of how the farm is set up, including close encounters with the pigs and chickens that ended up on our plates the day after. The next day we took a kayaking tour, the hulking figure of Arenal Volcano swirled in cloud and brooding on the shores of the lake, where again we saw again a whole menagerie of birds - neotropic cormorant, ringed kingfisher, cattle egret... Our guide Michael, from the ranch, again talked knowledgeably about the history and ecology of the area and kept our minds awake as our bodies tired with the paddling. All too soon, it was time to leave our little paradise. Sitting on the balcony of our bungalow, it was tempting to think that, come the Apocalypse, Rancho Margot would be a pretty good place to rebuild from.


The journey home was long, and we had ample time to adjust from relaxed country-living to the energy of London. It was also interesting to reflect on the richness of Costa Rica. The numbers are just astonishing. In Europe we have 6 types of kingfisher - in the world there are 96 and they can all be found in Costa Rica. We have one UK wren - in Costa Rica, 28. They have 10+ types of edible banana tree, the 90+ types of avocado tree. All in all, with such a tiny landmass (and some help from their tropical location) they sustain a huge range of biodiversity - a richness that the UK has completely lost, and continues to lose. While Costa Rica has its problems - we learnt from a taxi driver about government corruption and problems with healthcare - one of their biggest challenges is climate change. Outside of their control, world changes in climate threaten the nature that provides all their eco-tourism and renewable energy sources (which provide 100% of electricity in the country). They may be a poorer country than the US and the UK, and they may have taken the route of ecology to sustain industry (tourism) as well as the more noble cause of conservation, but ultimately they are trying to build a more sustainable way of living as an entire country. In that sense they are light years ahead of us.

And then it was over...

Another trip done (at least 'til the foot starts tapping...) I now blog over at Being Elsewhere. On the joys and trials of occasional wandering and a restless heart. Come play!

Final stop: springtime in Vancouver

Final stop. 

End of the road. 

We hightailed it, running late as ever, from the liberal hippy hotbed of Fremont on the north side of Lake Union, past the Space Needle and on through the city to the shabby fringes of Chinatown where the Boltbus awaited. We’d hoped to journey up via the spectacular San Juan Islands but, rarely, pragmatism had won out and with barely a week left before (gulp) our ticket out – and now back on public transport to boot – heading straight for Vancouver seemed like the best plan. So with the final smuggling of Philadelphia, garlic and chilli flakes across international borders (‘How long in Canada?’ ‘ Just a week’ ‘Why only Vancouver? Canada’s a big country.’ ‘Yessss… Just a week’) we trundled into our final destination.

Vancouver is famed as one of the lifestyle capitals of the world. The kind of city that regularly tops international indices for quality of life and general all-round happiness. Somewhere the infinite possibilities, all-encompassing service culture and scales of choice of North America meets effective health and social care, soft power foreign policy, a melting pot that actually works, effective gun control and a grip on irony. And maple syrup. Somewhere you face sea on one side and mountains on the other. And, perhaps most importantly of all, a place where the incredible sushi is both ridonculous in proportions and low in price.

Funny thing, last stops. We were pretty exhausted in some ways. People kept asking if we were ready to come back and in some ways the answer was yes. Ready to stay somewhere for longer than a week, ready to see friends and family, ready to have more than one pair of trousers. But at the same time, and as it always does on these type of trips, the departure date had kind up snuck up on us and it was bewildering to imagine ourselves back in London in barely a week.

So Vancouver was the perfect landing/departure point, offering the right hybrid of relaxing city and harbour-side wandering - as we mused and gabbled on a random (and slightly anxious) mix of travel and homecoming themes - and End-of-Days nights out. Of practical, grown-up ‘getting our lives together’ logistics alongside a last-ditch glut of cycling, eating and gallery options.

In this city, the views are spectacular and unassuming. The green Lion’s Gate bridge between Stanley Park and the city’s Northern shore seemed, scandalously as it may sound, more than a match for the Golden Gate bridge; while cycling around the Seawall of the park itself on hired bikes is an idyllic and serene afternoon. More than a little 'first date' but in an utterly charming way. In any direction you're confronted with mountains and, in these warm, late March days at least, the ocean was surprisingly calm and sheltered compared to the wild US Pacific North-west coast we'd left just a few hours south in Seattle.

The sushi, the pho, the dim sum, the full brunch at the ram-packed Templeton diner… great meals come cheap and the riches are worn lightly. Our first dinner was an early Japanese at SamuraiSushi on Davie Street – a personal recommendation which more than delivered on amazing quality and gigantamous portions at tiny prices – and throughout the week the Asian eats in particular proved the city’s hype true.

With the end in sight, we felt faintly haunted by the conflict between packing in as much culture and activity as possible – and the fatigue of 7 months travel catching up. However, we did make time for The Vancouver Art Gallery (tip: Tuesday evenings after 5pm by donation) - which was hosting an engrossing Art Spiegelman exhibition with reams of early Maus drafts as well as a fascinating pick of his earliest comics. Wandering through the Chinese gardens over in what passed here for the ‘dodgy’ part of town (God bless their beautiful, stable Canadian souls) was another highlight, providing lovely contrasting views with the city highrises beyond.

My birthday fell midweek and the night before we’d perked ourselves out of an impending low by cracking into some decadent sparkling Shiraz we’d picked up from a friend of a friend at the Wattle Creek tasting room in San Franscisco, over dinner prepared in the hostel. On the day itself we took a bus down to the Museum of Anthropology in the UBC grounds, a stand-out collection of First Nations art, carvings and bequeathed and rescued house posts housed in glass-fronted halls looking out towards gardens and the sea beyond. The wider permanent collection is also archived in an open-access space for visitors to research and explore all year round. As throughout the week, we mused on the modest capacity of Canadians to do so much so well, with friendliness, transparency and minimal fuss. 

It was hard, more specifically, not to compare favourably with the US the way their indigenous history, and historiography, is interpreted and integrated into the broader national story. A surface-level, outsider’s impression, which presumes as wretched a history of violence and appropriation (and I’m sure as many on-going blind spots and hypocrisies), it's true. But the respectful and energetic way the MOA has sought to preserve and archive the material culture of the region’s peoples and has grappled with questions of cultural ownership, voice and power was palpable to us nonetheless. A memorable trip I’d recommend.

We ate sushi in Kitsilano and walked along the pebble beach facing downtown before returning to change for the evening’s festivities. Where fun was had. 

The night began with classy cocktails at Gastown’s Pourhouse and ended in a whirl of beers, former Edmonton Oilers hardman Dave Samenko and dancing at the Roxy before 3am poutine (chips, cheese, gravy) in our rowdy neighbourhood on Granville street. Pourhouse in particular was a real winner, a fantastic bar we’d be propping up on a regular basis was it in London. Except that it couldn’t possibly be. Being the kind of grown-up, classy bar-restaurant that in any US or UK city would be self-consciously Stylish and more than a little pretentious – but found in Vancouver was chatty, warm and welcoming, altogether a little bit Cheers. 

After kicking off with Prosecco and Negroni, we promised the French-Canadian barman we’d be back. Which, after a brilliantly appropriate cheese and wine pairing dinner at the Salt Tasting Room, and another drink at the Alibi Room, we were - and a few rounds of martinis and whisky-cocktails passed all too easily. 

Eventually prising ourselves out a bit after midnight, when our affable companions in the Canadian construction industry (and talk of their first-hand experience of the giddy delights of Stowmarket and Ipswich) had become sufficiently slurred and Wayne Gretsky’s former ‘body-guard’ Dave with the psychotic eyes was well into his 6^th hour on the bar stool, we walked back to Granville street. Little night-cap, cheeky beer...? we asked ourselves innocently, passing the door of the Roxy (‘…always good fun’, my hipster hairdresser with the handle-bar moustache had advised with a wry grin the day before). Dancing to live renditions of ‘Wannabe’, making friends with bikers from Morpeth and working ladies who liked my jacket, more encounters with Dave from the bar (the route to our former drinking buddy now barred by numerous self-appointed minders) late night chips... and done. 

33 years and counting, who'd have thought it? To paraphrase William Saroyan, I always believed an exception would be made in my case.

And in some ways, that wrapped things up. We had a few days left, which felt a little besides the point this close to the edge. Our last day took us out by bus to the lovely Lighthouse Park in northern Vancouver where we took one last hike through the woods before perching on the rocks musing on what was to come and watching the boats; toying with running away to sea. 

Back in town we returned to hipster Gastown for a final dinner and cocktails at the Revel Room and then the Diamond, looking down on Vancouver’s contented, secure citizens setting about their nightlife. A town where you really do get the best of city living - its energy and pace, its variety and its colour - seemingly without the scale of the sediment that gathers elsewhere. The seediness; the pretentiousness; the dirt; the spectre everywhere of unquantifiable and unjustifiable inequalities; the sadness, the hardest edge. Though I suppose for many it is just these things that give cities their ironic pull; their pathos. Perhaps without them a restlessness would descend in a world so built for contentment. 

A last glass of wine topped off a pretty perfect evening but one tinged with mournfulness, in the way of endings. When there’s somehow little left to say. When you’re kind of ready for the next instalment, but not quite ready to leave the last one. And it’s hard to know how to finish this tale.

In fact, perhaps we will avoid any nature of Summing Up, What We Learned or The End. Instead may follow a final couple of Lists, for we are nothing if not List-Makers and Accumulators of Assorted Trivia. And because we don’t travel to find ourselves but to lose ourselves; not to pretend we move forward but because life is often best lived sideways.

And so it goes on. Until the next time, when the urge again becomes too great to resist and a couple of jealously grabbed weeks here and there will just not do. An Itinerant - signing off.

Onwards from Portland

The Northwest was determined to make an impression, it seemed. Our plans had turned out well, but Oregon and Washington had some surprises up their sleeve. Our drive out of Portland took us east for a couple of hours to take in the mighty Columbia River gorge. We sped along to Hood River before turning back to stop off at Multnomah falls. The chill of winter still hung in the air, and autumnal hues framed the surging waterfall with its fairytale bridge. We hiked up to its top, where the vertiginous drop roared. Who knew this was America's second highest waterfall?

Back in the car and we skipped through Portland revisiting the New Deal cafe for a spicy burrito lunch followed by cardiac arrest banana and cream pancakes, smothered in maple syrup. By the end of the day we'd have sped all the way to Astoria on the recommendation of Owen and Terra, our Portland hosts. And we were there for one reason: The Goonies! We drove to Canyon Bay and felt the childish flush of excitement at seeing the rocks that had pointed the way to One-Eyed Willies' treasure. Canyon Bay itself is stunning, and we took a stroll on the beach and around the lookout points to breathe it in.

The next day, we hit the Goondocks and I did my obligatory truffle-shuffle obeisance. I swear as we got in the car to move on, I was a little choked, and there was a tear in my eye. After all , I'll never be 8yrs old watching The Goonies for the first time ever again.

But the Northwest coast STILL wasn't finished with us. The Lewis and Clark exhibition over the incredible Astoria bridge, is situated at the end point of their journey. In the late 18th Century, Oregon was completely unmapped, terra incognita to Europeans. In 1804, Lewis and Clark undertook an 18month overland journey to map the frontier. Thomas Jefferson asked them to go in peace to the native inhabitants and link the country coast-to-coast. They succeeded, and the incredible bounty of the land was soon opened up to migrating Americans. Along with the California history museum, and the Oregon history museum, we'd really learnt a lot about Western America and its people. Firstly, the natural resources here were mind-blowing: men literally caught salmon as they leapt up stream, there were so many. The timber resources were (and still are) vast - the oldest and biggest trees anywhere in the world. Beavers were so plentiful and their pelts so valuable, they became known as 'soft gold'. It is a testament to the courage and ambition of the American frontiersmen that this wealth was harnessed so quickly in what began as total wilderness. The mentality of men like Lewis and Clark, not only to explore, but document in daily diaries and collect thousands of specimens, in the face of severe hardship still propagates today in some of the best American qualities - their entrepreneurship, their optimism. But the rapacity and self-interest is also evident: Settlers poured into the West rapidly after Lewis and Clark's success. The biodiversity and wealth of the Northwest is still great, but also greatly diminished. And the treatment of Native Americans was terrible - and generally continues to be, despite the immense strides Canada has made a few miles away with their integration of the First Nations. There was no crystal ball in 1804 though, and the staggering journey that took 24months round-trip was amazing to uncover.

Art in our hostel, City Hotel

As the rain clouds gathered, we closed in on our final American destination - Seattle. Starbucks, Microsoft, Nordstrom clothing, Boeing: The city is home to some of the most successful businesses of the moment. A diverse and variegated economy, with massive success and the continued creativity in the arts, particularly music and food: it's no wonder that its poster boy is the smug intellectual Frasier crane. But Frasier is balanced by his dad, Arty, and likewise we found a super-friendly and approachable city amongst the skyscrapers and riches.

Pikes Place Market was our first stop, and we took a tour with Seattle Bites. Our excellent guide Kristin displayed such infectious friendliness and enthusiasm that we couldn't help but be swept along. The fact that it was backed up by serious knowledge about the history of the market, delivered to us as we grazed around the finest eateries on offer, made for a superb morning out. We stopped at an artisan creperie run by an immigrant Dominican family; a Goan had set up an Indian stall with the finest tikka masala; Ulli's Bierstube offered the best in German sausage (actually better than any I'd had in Germany...), and locals had perfected their soups at Pike Place Chowder: so good that they were banned from national competitions. The market is not only a great melting pot of cultures and cuisine, it is a real lesson in incubating start up businesses: it is here that Starbucks opened up its first hole in the wall coffee joint. And indeed any Starbucks in Seattle has a much more independent, organic feel than the carbon-copies shipped out for export. Like Guinness, it doesn't travel well but at its source you can see why it's such an institution.

First ever Starbucks...

The other thing about Pikes Place is that it operates as a real example of social history and the lessons to be learnt. When the US sent its Japanese American citizens into concentration camps in 1942, the market almost collapsed - these Americans had run 75% of the businesses. Their forced migration has left a legacy, and today there are no sushi bars or any Sino-American involvement in the market. A mural was added to the wall of the market to at least recognise that for the first 50years, the market's existence relied on these tradesmen. The market was also threatened with closure in the 1970s as supermarkets peddled their one-stop-shop approach that would end up dominating the Western world. In Seattle, the proposals to bulldoze the market for a car park started a grassroots movement that not only saved the market, but started Seattle on an long road to ethical living: it is recognised as the most environmentally friendly city in the US. And finally, its sordid past where 'seamstresses' plied their trade with gentlemen's trousers gave way to female led businesses; the first female owned business in the US was  registered at the Market and it continues as a one of the most liberal cities on women's issues. All in all, it was a real education - and a quick wine tasting at the end was the cherry on top.

The creamery is owned by Nancy Nipples. No Joke...

With such a foodie culture, we would have been remiss not to go crazy and eat out all the time. So we did. Top Pot Donuts were soft and moreish with mouth-filling jammy centres. Sutra was an epic vegan five course dining affair, a list of ingredients as long as your arm creating subtle and delicate flavours to an Indian inspired backdrop (complete with gong to start the meal and mini- Ghanesha on our table). We had our first ever real Chicago style pizza, so deep pan you get why they call it a pie, and with tomatoes so ripe you could taste the sun. And for drinks, we couldn't fault the Bathtub Gin joint: tipped off to a black door in a back alley, we entered the speakeasy and three hours later they had to pull us out at closing time as we clung to the bar demanding just one more drink...

It wasn't all gastronomic. We made time for EMP, where the history of Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana are laid out in glorious audio-visual detail. We saw the first guitar to ever blast out Smells Like Teen Spirit. We spent hours listening to rare recordings, talking heads from the time, and ogling memorabilia. To top it off, a little sci-fi exhibit downstairs  had geeky props on display: Mr. Pointy - Buffy's favoured stake, Captain Kirk's command seat, Neo's cloak-type costume. Yet again, just sober this time, we were dragged out at closing time.

Our final day was spent in Fremont, hipster central. Here the jeans are tight and the glasses big, and facial hair is the in-thing. Owning jeans that fit me, having a beard, and being a coffee nerd at all of the boutique artisan roasters in the area, I felt at home. Mhairi's Peruvian Llama jumper and Indian styled jewellery meant that together, we felt like we could rent a flat and run away to Fremont. The street art, the liberal culture, it all started to spoil us. It's not all of America, but it's certainly the nicer part that gets under-reported in the face of North Dakota style politics.

All in all, the US part of our trip had been really eye-opening. Little things make London living seem backwards - free wifi everywhere, free water every time you sit down, modern cheap public transport - the pure benefits of consumer society are easy to see. But the dispossessed also seem much more out in force - and those needing wheelchairs or crutches are often in poor relics from the 70s. Turning on the news channels, even in the blue states, is terrifying: and the continued drain on resources - lights on everywhere all the time, massive food waste from huge portions - is mystifying in the current global environment. With a better understanding of the incalculable riches of the American West, it is obvious that amazing things would happen. But with such a territory, could a post-Enlightenment state not have done better? Given equal rights for blacks and native Americans earlier? Or today have a more sound policy on immigration and income disparities? Used its resources more conscientiously from the start? Or today at least realise that SUVs are gas-guzzling waste buckets of cars? It's unfair to judge America though - it's too big, too complex. And generally the West Coast is on the right side, championing issues where it can. Most importantly though, it is a culture of hope - and given the cynicism of old Europe, it's perhaps the greatest lesson they have to teach us.

Lenin stalks the streets of hipster Fremont

The Redwood Coast: from California to Portland

The Northern Californian and Oregon coastline is ridiculous. Thoroughly ridiculous - vast and almost bleak in a bleached palette of bone ivory, ochres, wooded greens and duck egg. From our wine adventures around Sonoma and the Russian River, we packed up Sally the tent (her days now sadly numbered) in Armstrong Woods, said goodbye to the rowdy inmates of the Bullfrog Pond and, after a coffee stop in our adopted local in Guernville, turned towards Route 1 ready to round the bend and strike out up the Coastal Highway. We would stop in Mendocino - notorious as idyllic B&B territory for urban Bay area weekenders in search of quaint and scenic - but first overdosed on cliff-hanger hairpin bends and jaw-dropping ocean views as we wound up the stretch from the Russian River through Jenner and Fort Ross. 

We'd suddenly screech into a lay-by when the views got too unbearable not to take a closer look (or when my craning my head around every new bend got too hazardous). Look at this!, we said, rock-strewn utopian clifflines, just lying around the place! If this was in the UK it would be rammed wall to wall with tourists and picknickers the whole time and here it is on a momumental scale with barely the odd dog-walker taking it in. The vastness of the US hit us again: the sheer scale of everything from bagel and coffee selection to natural beauty, to the terrifyingly mammoth off-road vehicles we confronted at every turn in the road.

The frontier here is a bare, visceral reality you can't look away from. Time and again on our month winding up towards the Pacific Northwest we got a palpable sensation of the profound awe that must have silenced the Lewis and Clark men before the snaking trails of Oregon wagons that followed them in the decades after. Nature is inescapable out here even in the 21st century - enormous, desolate and commanding. The couple of hours up to Mendocino passed this way, between the perilous drops and the woodlands to our right. We ate lunch in Patterson's Pub, a quiet, friendly bar with huge plates of food served within 15 minutes of ordering and a smart, elderly bartender in a shirt and tie. We stocked up on food supplies for the night, unsure what provisions we might find that night at Humboldt Redwoods State Park where only one campsite was yet open at this chilly stage of early Spring. We'd taken to cartingaround our own wood supplies in the car boot, together with our portable kitchen: a couple of sturdy carrier bags with fruit, bread, cream cheese, porridge oats, vegetables and condiments ready for whatever BBQ treats we could source at each stop.

The road continued in spectacular style up past Fort Bragg before we veered inland from the coast towards the 101 Redwood Highway. We'd managed to grab extra gas for the stove but not to stop at a laundry, in the way of hand-to-mouth backpack travel: just another night wearing everything I own as the temperature drops and off to sleep reeking of bonfire, I resigned myself. The Redwood Highway running alongside Humboldt is immense. Yet it is also curious, being in large part the work of a sedantry American culture which seeks to bring absolutely everything, from fast food to the great outdoors, to your car window. Why drive to a forest or beach, after all, in order to park and carry yourself off on your wee legs, when you could just motor along it all without having to expend a single calorie?

This aside - and passing by a drive-through where you can literally drive your car through a single redwood - we wound contentedly along the shaded highway, marveling at the towering beasts overhead. The sun was fading and as we found the Burlington campsite, the temperature had already begun dropping. After the ritual faffing around with payment we got our nightly routine underway. Tent up, fire started up and mushroom and onion pasta on the go. A couple of San Franciscan weekenders wandered over apologetically with an unlit log. Could they light it on our fire, they giggled hopelessly. Chest puffing up, now secure in his fire-lighting prowess, Toby took the girls in hand and rescued their woeful fire bin from its indignity. Our good Samaritan moves did not go unrewarded, with a couple of beers and an extra bag of fire-logs coming our way once both fires were roaring.

And despite being further north, Humboldt Redwoods turned out much warmer than previous US campsites - perhaps the inland location or just the complex microclimates of the Pacific coastal strips. So a couple of much better nights' sleep passed in our shaded forest camp, with the day spent walking among the prehistoric giants - photographing and nattering, driving out to different start points and meandering along the silent bracken pathways. It's hard to communicate how imposing the redwoods really are, or why it is you naturally find yourself half-whispering in their company. How alive they feel and how utterly they dwarf you - together with your whole civilisation, in fact. If you've never before felt the tree-hugger urge - in so far as this is possible with trunks that so exceed your paltry grasp - these will be the beings who inspire it. 

But with no time to lose - and pretty tired and matted from rounding on a full week's freezing camping - we regretfully packed Sally up for what would turn out to be the last time and set our sights north. Time for Oregon and, after a day or two's driving up its wilder and more isolated coastline, to head for Portland. And a return to civilisation, hipster bars and central heating. 

First though, the southern Oregon coastline blitzed us. As we headed north, back on the 101, the temperature began palpably to drop and the fog whirled in off the Pacific. We knew there was a coastline there to our left, we knew it was staggeringly beautiful. But could we see an effing thing?? Intending to stop off for lunch and a mini-hike at the Redwoods State park just before the state border, we wandered along the wild bleached beach. Taking pictures for 5-10 minutes before I realised my camera was on black and white - barely distinguishable at first from the haunting, washed out shades of the shoreline. We took a meandering drive along another barely visible stretch of parkland, eventually stopping to eat at another fog-obscured bluff, where I started - not for the first time - to mutter about bear-danger in light of the many warning notices about messy picnic sites and we entered into another of our ongoing debates on the best course of action should one be intercepted by one of nature's more terrifying predators. Run or fight?

Thankfully never put to the test on this matter, we sped out and up along the chilly coast towards the Oregon Dune Recreation area and Reedsport. Pulling in for our first motel stop, we found a friendly, cheap little place and spent the night quite in the lap of luxury - laundry done, comfy bed and, when it emerged we had left it too late for dinner, this being a 9pm lights-out kind of town, my once-a-decade McDonald's dinner. The craft beers and TV movies went part of the way to making up for the latter. As did the following day's blustery off-road walk in the dunes themselves - all lunatic ship-wreck beach-heads and swampy thickets amidst huge, heaping dunes sweeping down towards the Pacific and oblivion.

Ready for Portland now: for exotic foodcarts, micro-brews and padding around town centres in search of culture. We spent two nights at a motel on the outskirts, taking the excellent European-style bus and light rail network into the centre: visiting Deschutes, the Tugboat Brewing Company and Bridgeport brewpub; eating pho, chickpea curry and softshell crab from the foodcarts that line the squares and visiting the brilliant Oregon Historical Society and its exhibitions on Oregon life, black history in the state and the anthropology of its First Nations. 

We had one wild night out tasting the ever-potent and ever-carbonated Portland microbrews in the vast, Weatherspoons-redolent bars of town and back over towards our neighbourhood in more comfy local dives. T pursued the rugby through a couple of frightening Irish bars welcoming the third-generation, emerald green-clad St Paddy's weekend crowd in as the real Irish, desolate from their 6 Nations defeat, abandoned the bars by late-morning. One of our best finds was the Dan and Louis Oyster Bar where T soaked up the morning's rugby-viewing 'refreshments' with platters of oysters from northern California to Washington while I set about the Cabernet Sauvignon. 

After a few nights we drove, improbably, across to town to park our car at a strange house before bussing over to meet a random couple I had sourced via Couchsurfing for a beer. Owen and Terra had gamely agreed to put us up for a night and, after vetting us in a low-key way over a beer, extended the offer to an extra night. Afterwards, we headed to the hipster-tastic Doug Fir to catch the spectacular Hillstomp rock their hillbilly punk roots and behold the epic cultivated beards of the Portland area. 

We liked Portland a lot. Though strangely, were never quite as taken with it as we had expected to be. It felt like one of those places where you need a key. Where wandering around in search of doesn't quite work to get the feel of a place. The streets always felt pretty quiet - and while we had some great meals, some great drinks and a very enjoyable couple of days, we didn't quite feel the connection we'd expected beforehand.

No matter. Owen and Terra were thoroughly generous hosts, cooking up breakfast and dinner and providing smart dry banter and a tonne of great local knowledge both about our onward drive and our final daytrip out into Oregon wine country. Dundee, to the south, to be exact. Taking one for the team, I took on driving duties and we had one of the most enjoyable wine-tasting days of our trip. However good an experience we'd had with California wine, we'd never been entirely bowled over with the exception of Ridge. The Pinot, in particular, had been a bit under-whelming - and having previously thought of myself as a fan I'd come to think that perhaps I could take it or leave it (or indeed that our Malbec days of South America had ruined most other grapes for us!). Turns out, no. There is, quite possibly, a Pinot for everyone, sensitive and variable as it is, and ours turned out to be of the Oregon persuasion. 

Heading only 45 minutes south out of town into the Wilamette Valley and, with Owen's instructions, we toured Duck Pond Cellars, Sokol Blosser, Domaine Drouhin, Argyle and wound the day up at Erath before hitting the sublime pizza of Redhills Market wine shop and deli. At each stop we sampled Pinots that actually hit the spot, as well as enjoying the famed sparkling whites of Argyle, picking up a dessert wine for a friend's engagement at Duck Pond and enjoying the best US Chardonnay I'd yet tried at Burgundian-owned Domaine Drouhin Oregon. But the highlight was really Sokol Blosser, set up high on the Dundee hillside and a welcome refuge as the rain began to pour on our leaving the car. The wines were already impressive and as we got further involved in a fantastically interesting and geeky conversation with the the Tasting Room sales associate on tasting notes, viticulture and Oregon and Californian wines at large we could quite happily have bedded in for the afternoon. We were treated to a 'vertical tasting' of their 2009, 2010 and 2011 Dundee Hills Pinots and, even among a day full of bright, knowledgeable and thoroughly warm Oregonian tasting room staff, Jim at Sokol Blosser stands out as a star. 

Admittedly, being the sycophantic freeloaders we are, we managed to slip our overwhelming preference for local Pinot Noirs over those of their attention-grabbing southern cousins into the first 5 minutes of every tasting conversation. However, these warm, charming Pacific Northwesters were genuinely among the most welcoming wine hosts we met on the whole trip. With or without the free extra tastings...

In fact, in general, we got an altogether Good Feeling for Oregon. Even if we'd not fallen quite in love with Portland, as we'd expected, both the city and the state in our limited time had captured our affection. The autumnal hues of Portland buildings, the friendly, dry warmth of the people we met, the wild windswept coastline, the tasty food, strong hoppy brews and quietly winning wines were quite captivating in their own understated style. Those pioneers had to be on to something after all.