After a 45 minute wait and a charge of $6 you have to question why you'd want to board a rickety wooden contraption on wheels that gets yanked up and down the hills of San Francisco by an underground cable system. But once on board and standing on the edge and leaning out in the way of traffic you realise there really is no better way to go. The cable car is probably the most exciting way to travel.
There are four Chinese people sitting near me and the cable car man is giving them advice on where to eat in Chinatown, which is on this route. He told them to make sure to prod their food with chopsticks to make sure it's dead first and to be sure to ask where the meat comes from. They are finding this hilarious and have just burst into a fit of laughter. I'm not sure if they are laughing at the accent he put on whilst saying this, the fact he assumed they were going to china town or whether it was the dead food thing. Perhaps they are actually the ones making a delivery of seagulls from the pier, they do have rather large bags.
A couple just got on at Lombard street and the woman rudely pushed her way into my spot, which she regretted when she realised how difficult it is to hold on as the car hurtles down the hill! She is now squealing in my ear whilst the man who got on with her is trying to hold on casually and is mocking her screaming. A quick glance at his now bright red hand is enough to see he is not all that calm about the situation either. It's one of the few places where you don't hear the automated 'hold on to the handrails message', but this is certainly the place to do so. The boy in front is trying to take a picture with his iPhone, which is making me nervous because he is only holding it with two fingers. I wish so much I had a camera with a strap or something because there are some great views on this journey.
In a world now obsessed with health and safety, it's quite refreshing to be standing on something that has only one safety feature - a set of wooden blocks that can be dug into the rails to stop the car in an emergency. I wonder if my travel insurance covers this ride, after all this is basically just an elaborate game of chicken where the aim of the game is to not be hit by car wing mirrors as we whizz up and down the hills. We just had very close call with a truck that was coming up the other hill on Powell. You just can't see anything when you get near to the top of a hill or to a corner because of all the tall buildings and so it's basically a case of bashing on ahead whilst a little bell attached to the roof rings loudly, and wooden blocks hover just above the ground at the ready should something get in the way. I hope these drivers aren't percussionists, this would not be the place for playing woodblocks out of time!
The smell of the wood burning as it rubs along the road is actually a really nice one, but just keep in mind that this is the smell of an obstacle a few feet down the hill from you...
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