Out of Office

Travelling statistics, tips and 'Best and Worst of.....'

2006-09-05T10:50:00.000+01:00

Days on the road: 330
Countries visited: 20
Nights spent apart: 9

Beds/places slept in: 139 (includes overnight buses, planes etc. and different places we stayed in our campervan!)

Nights spent free with friends/relatives/other random people: 55
(17% of the total, that's really not bad going is it!)

Hours spent travelling by:
Bus - 282 hours
Car - 238
Boat - 93
Plane - 78
Train - 31
Tuk tuk - 16
Bicycle - 12
Moped - 6
Rickshaw - 2
Hot air balloon - 1
Bamboo Raft - 0.5
Elephant - 0.5 (and a bloody long 0.5 at that)

Weight lost/gained: Amanda +/- 0 kg! Rob -6kg

Highlights and Lowlights:
Our highlights are always places where we stayed a little longer and did something more worthwhile than simply being a tourist - the week of living with a local family and learning Spanish in Guatemala, learning to dive in Belize, 12 days working on the sheep farm in New Zealand, trekking to the local village in Laos, and the cookery course we did in Thailand. Sleeping on the Great Wall was pretty amazing too! And getting all those clothes made in Vietnam was great fun. Could go on all day!

Honestly cannot think of any specific lowlights... coming home?

Top 3 Favourite places: Belize, New Zealand, Laos

Most disappointing place: Honduras

Most surprising place (in a good way): Nicaragua

Paradise: Aitutaki, Cook Islands

Best accomodation: Maison Souvannaphoum, Luang Prabang, Laos (it was posh but we needed a treat)

Worst accomodation: There was the place in Belize where we looked at a room, but bats flew out when he opened the door, so we opted against that. The worst place where we actually stayed, probably a windowless room in Malaysia.

Best cuisine: Indian in Laos, French in Vietnam, Cambodian (in Cambodia!)

Best drink: Amanda - Cappucino! Rob - Beer Lao (we couldn't agree on this one!)

Best walk: Tongariro Crossing, NZ

Best experience: Our 'perfect' day in Aitutaki - snorkelling in the amazing clear lagoon in the day time, and in the evening an island buffet followed by dancing and beautiful singing from the locals. Fantastic.
Loads more too - skydiving, scuba diving, walking on glaciers, caving, trekking in Laos etc etc...

Scariest moments:
- The boat journey from Belize to Honduras when we thought we were going to drown
- Arriving home (!)
- and (for Amanda) whenever Rob let his facial hair grow for more than 3 days.

Person we saw most of: Our American friend Kevin, who we met in no less than 6 countries! Sinead comes a close second - we saw her in 3 different countries.

Tips and Pearls of Wisdom

A head torch is a most useful thing
Girls, pack a sports bra for those bumpy bus rides in eg. Central America & Asia. Trust me on this one!
For travel in Asia, practise your squatting technique (yes, THAT squatting technique!)
Get a raincover for your backpack. Not only does it keep your pack dry, but it protects it from all the dirt and scum in coach and aeroplane holds. Oh how I wish I had one, when my bag spent a long journey on a Greyhound bus swimming around in fishy smelling water. All my underwear stank of fish after this. Come to think of it, this may have been an improvement on the pre-journey smell. Another advantage of bag covers is that it makes you look like a tortoise.
You will meet many Americans on your travels and they are a friendly bunch. However, feel free to slap them in the face every time they inappropriately use the word 'like'. Its the only way they'll learn and they will thank you for your efforts.
Listen to an iPod sparingly. We witnessed so many backpackers get on to rickety old buses and put in their earphones for the entire journey. Part of the experience involves listening to arguments that you can't understand and hearing worrying clunking sounds from the rear of the bus. iPods do isolate backpackers from the locals in my opinion.
If beer is laughably cheap, drink plenty of it. You will get home, got to the pub and regret every minute of the day when you weren't drinking the 8p a pint beer in Vietnam. It was good beer too.
Eat at markets. We did, generally eating very tasty, very cheap food, most of the time not knowing exactly what it was. And ignore those scare stories about hygiene, we never once got the squirts. Well, not from market food anyway.
Try to spend time living with locals - it is a much more rewarding experience.

Winding down

2006-08-17T16:12:00.000+01:00

Well I thought it was about time that I tried writing a blog entry again as Rob is getting far too many compliments on his writing :-)

We are currently in Beijing, staying with a friend of Rob’s and gradually preparing for our return home by buying up half the DVDs in China. In fact the total is at 250 right now...well at 40p a go, it's hard not to!

Since we last wrote, we have been up to quite a bit. We spent some time in Laos after Vietnam - Laos was a beautiful country. After Vientiane, the capital (where we learned to weave), we spent one week in Luang Prabang, spending two days trekking in the wonderful scenic hills, our overnight stay being in a small village where the people are pretty much self-sufficient, working in the rice fields and building their own houses. We were honoured to stay in the Chief’s house, Rob even managing a round of Laos wine with him (a bit like schnapps), which certainly helped sleeping on thin mattresses on a wooden floor. The houses were made of bamboo, the village shower was cold spring water coming out of a bamboo hose rigged up so it poured into the stream, and the land in amongst the houses resembled a clean(-ish), dry farmyard, with pigs, chickens and dogs running around causing us both much entertainment (yes, even though I grew up on a farm!).

After Laos we headed back to Thailand, to it's 2nd largest city, Chiang Mai, where we went to 3 days' worth of cooking classes at a fantastic school, which we thoroughly enjoyed. It wasn’t only cooking, but also presentation and the fine art of vegetable carving. This provided much entertainment for me as I watched while Rob aggressively gouged his leaves from a piece of cucumber instead of daintily carving them (as I did, of course). In any case, we really hope to cook ‘proper’ Thai food for our families and friends as soon as we can when we’re home. Which, as many of you already know, is not far off now….

As well as learning whilst travelling, we have also developed certain habits… well I have anyway. You may even call them addictions…

Scarves. And cappuccino.

The scarf thing came about only recently when in Luang Prabang – having learned to weave and seen scarves being woven, I became suddenly interested in buying as many as I could carry in all sorts of designs and colours. Rob even talked about getting a second job to fund my new obsession…
But the cappuccino thing, well anyone who knows me will know that I am a tea-lover and have never drunk a cup of coffee in my life… but now I can admit that I am fully fledged coffee lover as well (well Rob claims that cappuccino isn’t as ‘manly’ as coffee, but it’s the best I can do right now). In fact, because you can’t really get a proper (by my standards) cup of tea here, I search the menus instead for coffee. And I cannot believe what I have been missing out on all my life! No Nescafe for me though, only the proper stuff ;-)

We are in Beijing for a little while, going camping at the Great Wall of China this weekend. Completely illegal apparently but will be a fantastic way to see the wall, although I’ll have to go without the luxuries of a bathroom, bed etc. Soon we fly to Frankfurt to see our old offices and colleagues, before finally returning home….. and I’ll be in touch with everyone as soon as possible!

Thailand

2006-06-24T11:29:00.000+01:00

Since Rob last wrote we have spent the majority of our time on beaches - a hard life it is indeed, but believe it or not we did get a little bored of it and were happy to finally arrive in the huge metropolis of Bangkok.

Our journey here took us through a very hot and sweaty and extremely old (oldest in the world?) national park rainforest in Malaysia called Taman Negara. We couldn't do the place justice as, due to the heat, all we could manage was a one hour treetop walk (not for the faint hearted) before giving up and heading back to our air-conditioned room to cool down. We ate on floating restaurants, visited the local tribespeople (where we failed miserably to hit the target with the blowpipe) and headed out of the park in style on a wooden long boat.

Following that were 3 nights relaxing on the Perhentian Islands - beautiful, white sand, clear water etc - before crossing the border to Thailand. We were glad to finally reach Thailand, it is definitely a country we have looked forward to a lot, not least because of the food, and so far we haven't been disappointed.

We spent our first two nights in Thailand in inland towns where we hardly saw another white face the whole time. We got stranded out in the sticks one evening after dinner (no-one told us the buses stop running after dark in remote places!) but two of the waiters kindly gave us lifts on their motorcycles - one on each - back to a main road. This was my first ride on a motorcycle and was actually surprisingly fun. Motorcycles are the main form of transport here but I just wouldn't trust myself to drive one around, although it would make our lives easier for exploring if we did.

Over to the west coast of the peninsula to try and visit Krabi and Ko Phi Phi (the island where 'The Beach' was filmed) without getting rained on, as it's rainy season there right now. Scariest moment? When we rounded a corner on the back of a truck in Krabi town and I spotted a friend from my days of A-Level Business Studies! It's actually the 2nd time I have bumped into Lindsey at random (the first time being outside the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas) but being in a taxi we couldn't actually stop to talk, although she did do a triple-take when I finally managed to get her attention! Anyway, we couldn't believe it when, later that day whilst on Ao Nang beach, a 20 minute boat ride away, there she was AGAIN. So this time we could talk and ended up travelling to Ko Phi Phi together and spending 3 nights there with her, her boyfriend and his mate.

This was to be the location for watching the first England match, but when it neared 8pm (local time the match started) and there was still no coverage on the tele, despite what the TV guide said, I could see Rob starting to get a little anxious... In actual fact we ended up missing the first 25 mins (and the first goal) of the game due to coverage of the Thai King's 60 year anniversary of being on the throne, and I swear you could practically see the smoke coming from Rob's ears by that point. His anger was made even worse by the fact that every other channel was showing exactly the same pictures of the king. He was not a happy bunny, and swore at that point that we would not, under any circumstances, be in a remote place for any of the future matches!

From there we travelled across to the eastern coast of the peninsula and spent more time on more beaches on more islands - Ko Samui, Ko Phang-an and Ko Tao - all beautiful, if a little crowded and too 'touristy' for our liking. We had intended to dive on Ko Tao, and indeed we did dive, but just the once before realising that conditions were not the best (strong current and bad visibility). It was a real shame as we had looked forward to it so much, but you win some you lose some. We did some great snorkelling instead.

So after a very long journey we arrived in Bangkok last week and have been staying with Rob's cousin, John, and his family in their gorgeous house, being very well looked after and enjoying the proper bed complete with duvet, squashy pillows and air con! Going out with the children is certainly an eye opener - both blond and blue-eyed, they cause a sensation with the Thais, who all want to touch and take pictures of the children. Tilly had a group of teenage schoolgirls cheering and clapping when she put her hands together in prayer, the Thai greeting. It was unbelievable what a fuss was made.

Bangkok has been a lot of fun - John and Laura even managed to wangle us an invite to the British Embassy along with them. It was an informal 'do' to celebrate the Queen's birthday, with miniature fish & chips, beef pies, lemon meringue pies and apple crumbles - we were in heaven! Last place we expected to visit on our travels but not something that every backpacker gets to do!

We leave for Cambodia on Saturday - hopefully the journey goes smoothly so that there is no chance of missing England's next match, on around 10pm in this part of the world.

One final note, we have encountered some superb English mis-spellings on menus recently. It was a tricky decision as to whether to go for 'Gordon Blue' or 'Sosej and chips' at one place. Turning to the drinks list, I plumped for the 'spacking water'. I had brought my own wine, but was put off by the expensive 'cockage fee'....

Til next time.

The end of NZ

2006-03-15T17:10:00.000+00:00

Well it has been a while, and since Rob has done most of the writing I thought it was about time I wrote an entry instead.

We last wrote just before visiting the Cadbury Chocolate Factory in Dunedin for my birthday – Rob failed to mention the balloons he blew up and the little notes inside each one with a present for me (bless!) – including dinner out that night (delicious), $10 to spend at the chocolate factory shop (I spent $13 instead!), and, amongst other things, a hot air balloon ride! More on that later. The point is that, although it rained pretty much all day (the first time I spend my birthday in summer…), it was really special and I had a lovely time.

We also visited the Speights Brewery in Dunedin and ended up staying an extra night due to van problems, before heading back inland through some amazingly stunning scenery and going to Mount Cook, Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo – all beautiful places, the lakes are the bluest blue you have ever seen! However we were constantly a little distracted by the fact that we knew we only had a week to sell our van when we arrived in Christchurch.

Our fears were made worse by the fact that, during our last week in NZ we had to replace both of the back tyres, one of which we had bought just 1000km previously! So Rob is practically a professional tyre-changer now, and we sure know how to spot a warped tyre when we see one!

But we were in luck and, unlike the people who had been at the Backpackers Car Market for 9 days trying to sell their vehicles, our van came up trumps and we sold it on the 2^nd day! This really was a stroke of luck and extremely jammy – probably about 5 buyers came through the market over the whole 1½ days before ours did, so we left feeling a bit (ok, very) smug and had another 5 days in which to enjoy Christchurch – lovely city, if a little cold and windy.

This was also the city where I had my hot air balloon ride – a 5am start but definitely worth it. There were actually 22 of us in the basket – it was the 2^nd largest balloon in the world (made in Bristol) – so very cosy but it needed to be at those temperatures. Floating through the air was so calm and smooth, and we felt completely safe with our Oxford-born pilot. Landing was fun in a field full of cow poo, followed by a glass of champagne, and then I was treated to a big breakfast in town afterwards. A fantastic birthday present!

Our last night in Chch was a free concert in the park which concluded with the Christchurch Symphony playing the 1812 Overture complete with real canons, the cathedral bells and the most fireworks I have ever seen in my life – it was fantastic, despite the fact I was ill! Rob says that the canons were even louder than the version they did at Yate Leisure Centre a few years ago…

So that was it for NZ - a really amazing, beautiful country with some fantastic scenery and very friendly people. But don't worry parents, we have no intention of living there, yet!

NZ - after Zorbing

2006-02-02T08:24:00.000+00:00

So we have been on the road for over four months now and in NZ for over 5 weeks. So an update is in order of all the recent fun and games, I feel.

After the Northlands we headed to the Coromandel Peninsula, a beautiful stretch of coastline. We bought a body board and went splashing around in the waves. Amanda got caught out by a big old wave and nearly drowned but was back in the sea half an hour later. Brave soldier. Hot Water Beach was fun - digging a hole in the sand by a hot spring and enjoying the hot water in the sunshine.

Walked up and down an extinct volcano which was very hard work, rewarded by a dip in a soda water spa at the end. This was meant to soothe our aching muscles, however, we both could hardly walk the next day.

Then it was down to the Tongariro National Park for 'the best day walk in New Zealand'. And it was very good. Up at 5.30am and we started off in the freezing cold at 6.30am. The first couple of hours were in the shadow of a volcano so it was a welcome relief when we finally got in the sunshine again. We skirted round the bottom of a volcano (Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings apparently) and then walked over a massive crater, which was very like walking on the moon (I have experience of lunar walking of course). Look out for my arty pictures on flickr. Then it was on to unnaturally blue crater lakes and through some magnificent countryside, and we were done by 2pm. Very nice indeed.

We met up with Amanda's parents in Taupo and had the luxury of a proper wide bed for a few days. We had a lovely time, and I think they did too. One day myself and Amanda jumped out of a plane. We were relieved to look round and find we each had a man with a parachute attached to us after we had done so. It was 12,000 feet, so 45 seconds freefall of our faces wobbling around uncontrollably and lots of screaming, before floating down over Lake Taupo and landing quite smoothly - Amanda gracefully on her feet, me on my arse. Quite an experience. The next day it was more adrenaline packed adventure with a whitewater rafting trip, this time with Richard and Julie. We paddled down a beautiful river and got quite wet along the way.
Then it was back to Taupo and out for dinner for the biggest challenge yet, as I embarked on the consumption of a 750g steak. Needless to say, I rose to the challenge, even managing to squeeze in Spotted Dick and custard afterwards. Well, Julie did say that I looked like I had lost weight, so I decided to do something about it. Therefore it has also been necessary to increase pie consumption by 50% in recent days - the Thai Red Chicken Curry Pie today was exquisite.

Then it was down to Napier where we took in a Twenty20cricket match in a glorious sunny day. Good game, although Amanda missed most of the action as she was reading the paper. She did say that she liked the music they played whenever a four was scored. So that is the main thing I guess.

We met my Mum and Dad in Napier, wandering around the town on the first day and tastings at a couple of wineries on the second day. Their camper rather put our rustbucket to shame (one of our tyres fell to pieces on the way to Taupo, but apart from that she's still in good health), but I still think our van has more 'character' than these modern new-fangled things. Out for a cracking Thai meal before saying goodbye and going back to normality.

Down to Wellington, which we liked, and over the Cook Strait to South Island. Great, and thankfully smooth, crossing. There was a maritime festival in Picton, which was pleasant. My highlight would have to be the middle-aged couple dancing to a blues band. There was plenty of finger pointing in the air involved in her dancing style - particularly at the end of a song when she would freeze in a certain pose. It was priceless to watch.

Then onwards to Blenheim (more wine tasting), Nelson (more again) and to Abel Tasman which was stunning. Did a cruise and day walk along a beautiful stretch of coastline, stopping briefly to see some seals. Scenery was very similar to the Cook Islands but the water, unfortunately, much colder.

Then we headed down the West Coast stopping to cross NZ's longest swingbridge high above a river. It was very wobbly too. Mother, you would have loved it. Then some more stunning coastline before ending up today in grey Greymouth.

Have just come back from a trip clambering through caves, floating on inner tubes in caves looking at gloworms and generally getting quite wet and muddy. The spa, beer and muffin at the end were tremendous too.

So where from now. Onwards and downwards to Queenstown before we stop for 8 days to work on a sheep farm. They have a sit-on lawnmower so I intend to drive around on that all week. Then to Milford Sound and round up to Christchurch.

NZ is definitely a beautiful place and the people have been very kind and friendly to us. One small annoyance is that they do seem to have a problem in the correct use of apostrophe's which really gets to be quite annoying. Even worse than the greengrocers back at home. I blame the school's over here not learning the kid's proper.

We fly out of NZ on March 6th now (original plan before we left was Feb 1st so we are little behind schedule) then straight to Tasmania for a few days. Got tickets for the Commonwealth Games Rugby Sevens in Melbourne on March 16th, so keep an eye out for us there.

Tahiti, the Cooks and HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

2005-12-23T19:00:00.000+00:00

Kia Orana ('May you live long', NOT a brand of orange squash) from the Cook Islands!

Well I think we can safely say that we had the longest 33 hours of our lives so far when we made our journey from Costa Rica to Tahiti, via LA.

The first problem croppedup when we arrived in LA and my bag didn't turn up on the carousel. United could only tell us for sure that it reached Guatemala... so we went to check in for our Air NZ flight to Tahiti, only to be told that they couldn't find us booked onto that flight. Turned out United hadn't informed NZ of the changes we had made to our itinerary, but to cut a long story short Air NZ were wonderful and sorted it all out for us.

We still didn't know where my pack was so waited the next 7 hours to board the flight assuming we'd have to wait a day in Tahiti for it to turn up. But we arrived in Tahiti and jumped for joy when my bag was sat there, yay!
One thing though, it was raining very hard, we had been given ponchos as we stepped off the plane (along with a pretty flower to put in our hair). We made our way by ferry to Moorea, an outer island with a circumference of 60km (37 miles) and stayed at a campsite in the village of Haapiti. However due to the rain I refused to camp, so we got a room instead :-)

We were exhausted and disillusioned after the journey and the disappointing weather, but the next 6 days of sunshine (interspersed with short sharp showers) more than made up for it. We went snokelling in the lagoon right by the campsite, cycled part way round the island (too hot to go all the way), walked to a waterfall and enjoyed the sun and sea. It wasn't quite as we expected - the coast was white sand and palm trees, but inland was muggy volcanic mountains covered in luch green vegetation. Absolutely beautiful and magical.

A little overexuberance in a late-night drinking game (the one with the plastic bits that hold cans of beer together) led to Rob falling backwards off a picnic bench. The consequence - a broken rib. The fool. Full story when we get home.

Local speciality is raw tuna fish dipped in coconut milk, which we tried one evening (our splurge night). It was delicious.
Everything was expensive, so the days' food revolved around the baguette bought each morning, well it is French after all.

And now we are sat on the lovely island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. We were here for 3 nights before heading to Aitutaki, an outer island. It was simply heaven on earth, we'll let the pictures do the talking when we have a chance to upload them. The people are so friendly and the island and lagoon so beautiful, we didn't want to leave!

On returning from Aitutaki today we went to stock up on Xmas food supplies, and afterwards in the carpark were offered a lift home by a local family. On hearing that we hadn't yet sampled any fresh local mangoes, they promptly performed a u-turn and took us to an uncle's house to pick mangoes straight from his tree. This is just one example of the generosity and kindness of the Cook Islanders.

We now have 3 more nights here on Rarotonga before flying to Auckland on 27th. Xmas day will likely be spent on the beach, with Santa hats on of course! I am off diving tomorrow (R has cried off with his rib excuse), otherwise more sun and snorkelling.

It may be a bit late but we wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a Happy 2006. Enjoy the festivities, I know we will!

Til next time,
Rob and Amanda

Final thoughts on Central America

2005-12-08T10:15:00.000+00:00

As we prepare to leave Central America for the pacific islands, I thought I would note a few of our thoughts on this group of 7 countries, 5 of which we have visited.

Before we started our travels, Central America was the ´scary´place on our route, the countries where we thought we may be unsafe and it would be difficult to get around, buses would be infrequent and unreliable and we would be constantly paranoid that someone would nick our iPods. How wrong we were! Until a few days ago I was looking forward to leaving CA to start the next phase of our trip (we have mentally broken it down into bitesized chunks to make it easier to digest!). However, I recently realised that I´m not sure I want to leave after all.

Aside from a few bad habits, we have had a wonderful experience here - it is unbelieveably easy to travel around and extremely traveller-friendly. OK, we haven´t exactly made it off the beaten track, but even so, I have been pleasantly surprised by the frequency and punctuality of buses, people are generally friendly, helpful and a good source of information, and we have not had one bad experience concerning our safety. Aside from that, we have come to be used to the little things that make this place different. The chicken buses which have our packs balanced precariously on top no longer scare us, and a bumpy ride isn´t a bad thing, it´s fun! You get to see a lot more from a bus window than from the air. I even commented the other day when we got a fancy minibus to a Costa Rican reserve that it wasn´t very nice because I couldn´t see out of the windows properly (they were kind of blacked out), never mind that the seats were very comfy and it was air conditioned, I wanted a view!

There are a few things that I didn´t appreciate, e.g. in Guatemala it seemed that it was acceptable to urinate on the side of a street in public, in Honduras the people were generally a little miserable and the men insisted on spitting loudly and publicly, and in Nicaragua people threw all their rubbish right out of the bus window without a second thought. Costa Rica, although very beautiful, is also relatively expensive compared to the rest, due to too many tourists. But hey, you can´t have it all.

If anyone needs inspiration where to go for a 2-3 week holiday, I would certainly recommend going to Guatemala, Belize or Nicaragua, or indeed all three!

So, until the next time amigos - we´re flying from San Jose to LA on Friday morning and then overnight on Friday night from LA to Tahiti. It will be a shock to the system I expect, especially the price increases!

xxx

Tikal ruins and rest of Belize (it´s a long one...)

2005-11-20T16:16:00.000+00:00

Well I keep saying that we are blogging too much but we’ve been a bit stuck due to weather problems recently and internet is cheap right now, so we’ll update on the recent (and very dramatic) goings on.

First of all, Rob didn’t mention Tikal (Mayan ruins) in his last update, which was our last stop in Guatemala. We got up at 3am in order to get there for sunrise. We arrived in the dark and climbed to the top of one of the ancient Mayan temples just as it started getting light. Unfortunately it was far too cloudy to see a proper sunrise but we were above the jungle and mist as it got light, and we could hear the birds and howler monkeys waking up as the cloud began to disappear. It was quite magical and eerie to experience the jungle waking up, and definitely worth the short nights´ sleep to do so. We spent most of our morning monkey-spotting and wandering around the ruins. Also saw several brightly-coloured toucans.

After that we went to Caye Caulker in Belize, which Rob wrote about. A little more on the diving: we both really enjoyed it but the learning experience was not without hiccups – namely Rob getting seasick from swallowing too much water, and me being a scaredy-cat doing the exercises… but apart from that it was fun and we got to do it in clear, warm water on a coral reef instead of in a swimming pool, which was fantastic.
Caye Caulked itself was fantastic. There were no cars on the island, just golf carts and bicycles!The ´roads´were made of sand and there were just two of them: Front St and Back St.

Having left Caye Caulker (sniff), we headed south down the coast to Hopkins. We thought we’d get a little way off the beaten track… you could tell we had done so when we arrived on the bus and nobody approached us to offer a place to stay. After seeing a room with about 30 bats hanging from the ceiling (the proprietor’s comment: “oh…we’ll just leave the door open for them to fly out”) we found a half-decent room but soon realised there was not a huge amount to do and so left the following day for Placencia, our ultimate Belizean destination.

We had a lovely few days on the coast at Placencia – the main ´street´ is called “The Sidewalk” and was built in order to make walking through the sand easier. It is only about 3 feet wide and obviously not really a street, but is in the Guiness Book of Records as the narrowest street in the world. Certainly would have been hard work without it as most of the hotels, bars etc. were on this walkway. The school playground is entirely sand, as are people’s gardens. Imagine a sand playground in a British school, paradise!

It was here that we first experienced the tropical storm that was developing (Gamma) when we went on a diving trip with 3 others we had met. The dive shop told us we wouldn’t go out too far as the weather didn’t look too good, so took us out 18km to Laughing Bird Caye (see this link for an aerial pic: http://www.laughingbird.org/). The ride out there was pretty rough in the small boat and we were drenched by the time we arrived at the island to drop off our lunch. Having done the first dive, we returned to the island for an extremely windy lunch, and watched on while 6 guys tried to save a boat that had been moored on the wrong side of the island from sinking due to broken steering. By the time we surfaced from the 2nd dive, the weather did not look pretty. As we began to return to the mainland, the weather got worse and worse – we were being battered by the waves and I was holding on to the flimsy tent-like roof so hard that it came off, so we were completely open to the rain and spray from the sea. With 4 of us huddled under a towel to keep in some of the warmth, the driver shivering and no land in sight because of terrible visibility, the giggling soon turned to worrying… not for long as the storm soon blew over and we eventually reached land again. Walked home still in our wetsuits and laid our things out to dry: EVERYTHING was wet, and I can say for certain that that was the wettest day of my life, with a little fear thrown in for good measure. Little did we know this would not be the last of our experiences with this storm…

Our boat to Honduras was supposed to leave on Friday morning but was cancelled due to the weather (they were on red alert down there apparently) so we were pretty pleased when we went back on Saturday to be told we would be going; the weather had improved, wind now coming from the right direction. However, during the course of the ride, the conditions went from mildly choppy, to large smooth waves, to downright huge choppy waves and torrential rain. It was worse than we had ever imagined. They handed out life jackets, people were not very well and it really was the scariest thing we have ever been through. At one point the waves were higher than the (pretty small) boat and it was crashing down so hard I thought it would split open. The one thing that was good was that neither of us felt seasick, despite being tossed around by the massive waves. I am finding it hard to convey how awful it was and how scared we were, but we were relieved to reach land!

We have certainly had enough of boat rides for now…

Lake Atitlan and Lanquin

2005-11-05T18:00:00.000+00:00

Hi again...
it seems like ages (again!) since we wrote, but our days are just so action-packed that time flies by! It's a hard life...

So, after Rob last wrote we bid farewell to our host family in Antigua and took a long bus ride to Lake Atitlan. Consequences of the mudslides were evident in the hills with parts of the road having collapsed completely due to the hillside having collapsed underneath them. To get the last few kilometres to Panajachel we had to get off the big coach and were piled on (standing) to the back of a pick-up truck, yes a pick-up truck to go across a kind of make-shift bridge (which was in place of the road that collapsed) that the coach would have been too big and heavy for. Slightly unnerving! Once we made it to the jetty to get across to our destination, we saw that half of that had collapsed too...

Anyway, we made it to Santa Cruz safely on a ‘lancha’ and our hostel was luckily right in front of us when we arrived. Great place, and we spent a very relaxed few days there. Our first night was the ‘legendary’ BarBQ, the legendary bit being that you had to dress in drag... we’ll post the pics asap, Rob looking ravishing though.
We walked to a nearby town, San Marcos (Gwen!). This took a while, and took us through to small villages on the way. Again, the devastation from the hurricane and consequent mudslides was pretty awful. Seems that people don’t have much to do but wait for help, and these villages are only accessible by boat or foot which doesn’t help. Hardly any tourists about due to the mudslides and at the time another hurricane was on its way...
Other than that I don’t think we did much, but the place we stayed was fantastic and the lake extremely beautiful. We didn’t have electricity or hot water but that made it even more fun!

On Tuesday we spent all day on another very long bus ride (total of about 10 hours) via Antigua and Guatemala City to Coban, where we stayed for the night and got up first thing the next morning to get the bus to Lanquin. The following day we went to Semuc Champey (Gwen again!), a natural limestone bridge of turquoise pools and waterfalls, with a river running underneath. Stunning, just like paradise. But the best part of that day was the caves we went to first. Stripped down to our swimming things and were each handed a candle (our only light) before we proceeded to swim though pools, climb up and down ladders, jump into pools and climb through a very small hole in these amazing caves. A fantastic experience, probably my favourite so far.

After another few relaxing days we decided it was time to move on, and this morning got the bus back to Coban and up here to Flores. Was absolutely boiling when we arrived and then proceeded to bucket down with rain – I don’t think I have ever seen so much rain in so little time. But it’s ok, coz it’s kind of an island so hopefully doesn’t flood!

We will take a trip to the Mayan ruins of Tikal tomorrow before taking a bus to Belize on Monday. Phew!

Oh, and to answer a much-asked question, yes I am using the hairdryer when electricity is available, cheers Em!

Leaving the USA

2005-10-20T21:39:00.000+01:00

Ola!

Seems like ages since we last wrote as we were so busy. We covered about 8 US national parks in the same amount of days, camping the whole time (we didn´t give in to the cold again after that windy night at Bryce).
After Bryce (GORGEOUS) we went to the Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Monument Valley, Lake Powel, Grand Canyon and Lake Mead. Lake Mead was created by the Hoover Dam, which we took tour of - very impressive. Did you know with the amount of concrete used to make the dam they could have built a 4 foot wide, 3 inch thick pavement around the Earth´s equator? Amazing!

Of course the Grand Canyon was the icing on a very large cake (with Bryce being the best layer), and the plane flight we took over it was the cherry.... notice the food associations again!! We had a lovely campsite at the GC, in the forest. We even had a campfire! Did a fairly long hike into the canyon and our trainers turned orange from the sand. Rob even got a kind of fake-tan effect on his legs...mmmm.

Finally we packed up the tent, mats and sleeping bags for the last time (for now) and drove back to Vegas for a few days of luxury. I wasn´t as successful as Rob on the slot machines but did well at the roulette table (with pink chips) after overcoming our initial embarassment. Vegas was lots of fun, but as everyone told us, it was nice to get away from the noises of the slot machines when we left. We did eat some great food (over-ate so many times at buffets!) and saw a v funny comedian who had tears rolling down my face. Unfortunately we had quite bad weather, it rained for 2 of our 3 days there (it´s in the desert... make sense?!) but it didn´t spoil it too much for us. Know which hotels we´d like to stay at if we ever went again too.

So last night (Wednesday) we took a short flight from Vegas to LA and from there an overnight flight to Guatemala City, landing at 4.30am local time. Hardly had a wink of sleep. We were understandably a little apprehensive - until now it´s all been very easy in the US and Central America will be quite different to that. We walked out of the airport not having a clue where we should go (it was 5.30am) but a taxi-driver spotted us and seemed to know we wanted to go to Antigua. And so we took our first journey which led us out through the run-down streets of Guatemala City into the hills to Antigua, the old capital. We arrived around 7am, but the hostel we´d planned on going to was full. Taxi driver was v helpful and took us to another place he knew, where we were greeted by the friendly owner and shown to a basic room with... a bed! That was all we needed. We slept til 12, fantastic!

We´ve wandered around the town and looked at language schools, had something to eat etc. Is really quite different to anywhere either of us has been to before. Rickety old buses and cars, lots of people to-ing and fro-ing. It´s a holiday today so maybe it´ll be quieter tomorrow when people are back at work. For now it´s just interesting to watch and take it all in. Hopefully we´ll start a Spanish course on Saturday, where we´ll stay with a family for a week and get one-to-one tuition for 4 hours a day.

Think that´s about it for now without going into too much detail. Rob will update on the Cheesecake Incident very soon...

xxx

Washington & Frederick

2005-10-09T20:05:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone!

Can't believe we're finally here and really underway now!

Just a quick update on our first stop. We had a pretty uneventful but quite enjoyable flight over from London to Washington. Bit nervous to start with but once we were in the air felt considerably better.

We were picked up by my uncle and taken back to his house in Frederick, about 45 mins drive from the airport and fed a lovely meal, even though by that time our bodies were telling us we should have been in bed long ago!

Saturday was spent exploring the wonderful city of Washington DC. After a few teething problems with the metro system we managed to cover a lot of the city, including the Botanical Gardens, the Capitol Building, the White House, the Natural History Museum, the Aquarium and the Washington Monument. Amazing city and all very clean, well kept & well presented.

Sunday and Monday were spent with the family and the dog Tobie (who will have an identity crisis if they're not careful - they call him Sally when he's around so he doesn't know they're talking about him...). We saw downtown Frederick and Sugarloaf Mountain, and ate lots of ham (!). We were truly spoiled and it was a fantastic and 'easy' start to our trip. Thanks again for having us!

We stopped by the Air and Space Museum near the airport before our flight to Dallas on Tuesday - a huge hangar with all sorts of examples of aircraft and spacecraft. Very interesting!

In those 4 days we managed to take well over 100 pictures... so will just put a select few onto flickr for you! Follow the link on the right hand side ---->

PS. A few notes on the USA in general - they all drive very large cars or even small trucks, which they have apparently no real need for. Roads very wide and houses very large too!

The coming home / leaving again party

2005-09-24T19:08:00.000+01:00

One more entry before we leave …

Wanted to say thanks to everyone who made it to the party, it was really good to see you all, just a little bit on the chilly side! Congratulations to all the campers, it was quite amazing we didn't find the following morning that you'd all migrated to find a warmer spot on the lounge floor - it was so cold out there!
Much was drunk and a little was eaten as well (can't believe I missed out on a pork roll – rumour is that they were good!) - we have been living off leftover quiche and various cakes and biscuits since then!

I think (hope) it was successful… we really appreciated the effort everyone made to come, so thanks again! Actually we are having trouble remembering who we talked to all evening as it feels as though we didn't speak to anyone at all!

Things didn't look too bad the next morning - by about 9am we had cleared most of the rubbish away and everyone was feeling better after bacon butties and cups of tea and coffee to help them on their various journeys home :-)

Beginning to feel slightly apprehensive in the lead-up to our flight to Washington on Friday. We intend to do our packing on Wednesday and Thursday - got to figure out who is going to carry the mountains of various drugs that Rob insisted on buying (Boots made a fortune out of us) and whether I should pack my (very light and compact) travel hairdryer that Emma kindly gave me as a present at the party... 'rude not to' is my feeling on this matter!

So, til the next time…

Ciao
x

Prologue - Part 2

2005-09-05T16:12:00.000+01:00

Phew!

Well we have finally finished painting our flat white and finished our last Monday at work - wow!! So that's 3 proper days of work left to go (the last day doesn't really count, does it?) and after that we can start planning our trip properly. So far we haven't really done much in the way of arranging things as we've been too busy with the move, but that doesn't matter - this way we have to be more spontaneous.

I have been reading up on what to pack again... this will be my biggest challenge yet, I'm sure!