North of the Border down Mexico Way
....SAN Diego

It was only when I woke up and pulled back the curtains that the size and scale of The San Diego Marriott Hotel fully hit me, I looked down from my 20^th floor room (There were another five floors above) to find that beyond the swimming pool and waterfall it had it’s own marina. The boats were not all rich men’s toys. You could rent them by the hour or by the day, everything from a thirty foot Catalina yacht that could hold eight people (£143 a day) through to a 14 foot sail boat (at £15 an hour) For the nautically or financially challenged there were even kayaks (£7.50 an hour or £22 half day.) To help me plan my precious time one of the helpful girls at the concierge desk, plied me with a bewildering range of suggestions and even more leaflets. I decided to pour over them at breakfast so I headed for San Diego Pier Café, which looked like the kind of ancient wooden construction that Popeye might have lived in. Folk were getting ready for work and on my way past the marina park I met a clown busy putting his make up on. Across the bay at the North Island Air Station the first flight of Navy planes were taking to the air and tugs were edging an aircraft carrier in to its mooring while a fully rigged schooner sailed by.

The Seaport Village looked quite ancient with Mexican style buildings and street lamps. "Authenticators" from Disneyland had used special techniques with plaster, cement and sandblasting to give the bay front attraction a century-old antiquated look. One of the popular attractions there is a carousel which originated at Coney Island in 1890. Four hundred thousand visitors a year come to ride it and visit the shops, ponds and lakes. After breakfast I found that the clown was already surrounded by children and doing tricks with balloons. I set off on one of the old town trolleys, an orange and green bus that gives you an excellent introduction to the place. You can stay on for a two hour narrated tour or hop off and on at nine different locations. Along the way you learn that San Diego was founded by the Spaniards who built their missions thirty miles apart, (one days journey by horse.)

It was a military base and still is. Eighty thousand marines a year graduate at the training base and you can watch a passing out parade each Friday morning.

It also used to have flourishing tuna trawlers. Now there is a busy cruise terminal and a ferry to Catalina Island. San Diego is the 6^th largest city in the United States and that being only 17 miles from Tijuana in Mexico, it makes an excellent base for "a two nation vacation." (A ticket there on the light railway costs only £1.12.) Another attraction is the famous San Diego Zoo where you can visit some of the 4000 animals and peer down from an aerial cable lift that runs for a third of a mile across the treetops.

We hopped off our trolley at the Old Town State Park for a sanitised taste of life in the old west, Mexican style. In the courtyard of the Casa de Bandini Restaurant we ordered large margaritas and the ladies in our party were flattered when the mustachioed waiter asked for their ID. "to prove that they were over twenty one."

It was obviously not the first time he had shot that line.

Public transport in San Diego is excellent and as I like to be with the locals I took a No 34 bus for La Jolla with it’s pleasant coves. I joined the pelicans perched on the rocks and watched the ‘fly past’ of a squadron of cormorants. They flew in line skimming the sea while snorkellers slipped into the water to visit what was described as a colourful underwater garden. You can wander the cliff-top boulevard with it’s pungent scent of gnarled eucalyptus trees or relax on old wrought-iron benches decorated with sea-horses. It is a beautiful spot where bird of paradise flowers grow and I was not surprised to see it being used as a location for wedding pictures.

Feeling energetic I followed the sandy bay north passing surfers riding in on the pacific rollers. It was a long hike in the warm sun but I eventually reached the Torry Pines State park. 

As I was cooling off in the sea a "Clint Eastwood look alike" and his friends pointed out a whale and some porpoise wheeling out of the water just a few hundred yards from the shore. 

Nearby was the Solana Beach rail station from where a smart green and blue double deck train whisked me back to San Diego.

It was a scenic journey, riding along the top of the cliff and the walk that took be almost two hours was retraced in a matter of minutes.

The next day when the girl at the concierge desk asked if I still wanted to hire a bike or kayak, or was I perhaps interested in volleyball? I asked for directions to the Jacuzzi.