Flagstaff I

So I've only just got to flagstaff, but I figure the bus-journey alone is worth an entry, because it lasted 27 hours and 20 minutes, which is more than most entries would cover.

So it was all routine and boring, overnight, i even slept for maybe two hours collectively, until morning came and we got to phoenix. Phoenix, Arizona, where it was hat. That is to say - hot. 110 farenheight. All I can really compare it to is the feeling of bright hot sun shining on already sunburned skin. Imagine that feeling but on normal skin, in the shade. Yowee, even with full air-conditioning the bus got warm.

So we set off from there about 2ish, I think. It was just beginning to get really boooorring (finished my book by accident, other bag had been loaded up for me on to next coach without me being able to get anything) when providence came to the rescue, in the form of a man so desperate for the toilet he tried to pee in a bottle. Luckily the toilet-user emerged just in time to prevent aforesaid peeing, but not before the man had - how to put this tactfully... got his penis out, and pointed it vaguely in the direction of an enormous frowning guy, who luckily was incredibly humorous funny and kept the back half of the bus laughing for a good hour or so. So that pretty much all worked out.

We stopped and I was forced to eat a big mac and fries. I secretly enjoyed it, since there was no choice - having already exhausted my bread and cheese packed dinner/breakfast/lunch/another dinner.

So we got into El Paso at probably 5 30ish. El Paso was arizona proper, and tailed off into a hillside displaying what I could have believed was an African shanty-town, presumably housing these Mexican immigrants people won't shut up about over here (american news coverage, as you know, not being top-quality. As for england, as far as I can make about, someone called Henry Thierry has left his post as President of England - or Arsenal Rangers as it is also known - and been replaced by central defender or Quarter-Back Gordon Brown. This is in spite of Gordon's recent attempt to blow up Glass-Gowwwww airport.) Anyhow, the cactusses and desert stretched infinitely away as we started climbing.

Suddenly our shining highway turned a corner and we met what I could have believed was the hills of South America - those raggedy mountains that look like a one beautiful but now tattered blanket of greens and yellows and browns thrown over piles of bric-a-brac, but a million billion times bigger. We drove up through a passage in these and reached some kind of plateau and suddenly again plains stretched away for miles, dropping off on one side, enough so that it was like seeing a map, towns and rivers and lots and lots of cactii. Signs here said things like "land for sale - With Water!!". The sun got behind a cloud so it looked like the cloud was exploding.

This is, you understand, taking a fair while, and the screaming baby in the seat behind has been kept at bay by my Mp3 player, which was been stubbornly displaying three bars of battery - usually an indication of 5 minutes of musictime left - for the last 10 hours or so. An old lady with a pacemaker and hacking cough had earlier beaten me up and taken my bottle of water, so I was drying out. The pretty scenery, though, mixing nicely with my sleep-deprived derived poetical mindset, kept things ticking along nicely. I read 'howl' by allen ginsberg about 50 times. It's good though.

So we next drove into a big valley, which the now disentangled but lowering sun separated into two halves - one ash-coloured and the other incredibly rich golden. The sky here looked like a vividly eccentric watercolour.

Anyhow, we got into Flagstaff at 9 30, and my bag - containing all my clothes, books, spongebag, passport and debit card, wasn't on the bus. Greyhound people said it must have been loaded onto a different bus, and I must call back at midnight. I am half-nervous, half-worried, half-looking-forward-to-the-adventure-of-my-journey-being-ruined. I am one-and-a-half emotion beings.

Although maybe it'll turn up.