We are in San Diego (whale's vagina to those in the know), staying in the Ocean Beach International Hostel. Its a dump. Dont EVER stay here. But ocean beach is awesome, just a small beach town, huge waves, full of hippies, surfers, tramps, and general weirdos, but we came for the beach and thats all good!

We travelled here from San Francisco with outrageous hangovers, courtesy of Ian and his Irish car bombs (drop a shot of jamesons and baileys into a guiness and drink. quickly before it curdles!) and several helpings of jack daniels and sierra nevada. First stop - in desperate need of hangover cures we went to Hodads - the best burger place in the entire world. It worked, well almost as we then quickly realised just how terrible our hostel really was. Intriguing stains all over the bed linen, ridiculously cramped rooms, mouldy bathrooms, rotten shower cutrains, the RUDEST AND MOST OBNOXIOUS staff we have encountered anywhere, locks that dont work (matt really enjoyed being walked in on whilst checking out 'the john' - and has since seen the same person AT LEAST twice a day since then). We chose this place because it was cheap but didnt expect it to be this bad!

Saturday we went to the world famous San Diego Zoo, a place that already held a fond place in our hearts due to it being the scene of the last scene in Anchorman. It really was very good, loads of amazing animals (we finally saw those bears wed been searching for in yosemite) including the biggest hippopotamus - they look so much bigger when you view them from underwater! Pandas, gorrillas, elephants, and many scary looking snakes were the other highlights.

Over the last few days we have enjoyed being hardcore beach bums; the surf has been a lot bigger than we are capable of taking (until today only around 4 or 5 people have been in the water at any time, seems even the pro san diego surfers have been scared as the waves have been so gnarly), so we have been lounging around, swimming, renting boogieboards (a patronising lifeguard informed me you couldnt call it bodyboarding unless you are actually good at it), becoming strange shades of orange and red, and fnally today we arose early, the surf was back down to a feasible height and so we surfed surfed surfed. Many an 'epic left' and 'gnarly barrel' were caught (dude) - not by us though, we were firmly stuck in the white water on our rented foam longboards, but we are getting much better and are standing on pretty much most of the waves we go for! Pro status here we come.

Tomorrow we are off to LA for the night, possible a theme park if our budget can stretch that far, and then to Guatemala on friday night! Bueno! :)