Hello all.

We’ve finally reached the end of the road. Back to cold England tonight.

After Lorna’s last blog we had a good few days in Ushuaia. An interesting little town that doubles in size around lunch time, when the huge cruise liners pull in. We spent a couple of days doing nice walks up to their ´glacier´, and taking a boat trip in the Beagle channel to watch the Sea Lions.

From Ushuaia we flew up to Buenos Aires and have been here for the last week. We’re both feeling a bit ill and in the need of some  healthy vegetables after 5 steaks in a week. They were really excellent steaks though. Buenos Aires is a very European style city, that is quite reminiscent of Paris. We’ve managed to see a bit of Tango dancing while we’ve been here and spent some time in street cafes watching the world go by and relaxing at the end of our massive trip.

Neither of us can quite believe that it’s over. After 13 countries in 6 months we’ve finally reached the end, and have to go back to reality and get a job.

We have some pretty unforgettable memories though:
Swimming with sealions, penguins, sharks, giant turtles and marine iguanas in the Galapagos. Riding around central america in chicken buses, watching the crazy conductors throw goats off the roof. Paddling down a tributary to the amazon in a hollowed out canoe watching the glowing red eyes of caymans. Catching piranhas in the river we’d just gone swimming in. Coming through the sun gate after 4 days of walking to see the first view of Machu Picchu. Hiking up to glacier grande in El Chalten. Seeing the Perito Moreño glacier calving huge chunks of ice. The view of Rio from Sugarloaf mountain. etc etc.

Thanks for occasionally looking at this blog. I hope it was at some points interesting.

Have a nice Christmas, and see you soon.

Chris and Lorna

Wales, whales, and the end of the world as we know it

Sorry for the long gap between posts blog fans but we have found ourselves busy in the Patagonian steppes.

We left Santiago by train which was a marvellous novelty which we both enjoyed.  Soon enough though we were back on our bus making our way to the Chilian Lake District.  Puerto Varas is a beautiful town on a beautiful lake surrounded by beautiful volcanoes.  This blissful scenery set the tone for the rest of the trip so far.

We hired a car for a few days and drove round the lake and up the volcano and stopped in several villages populated with German settlers who made lovely cakes and lived in Bavarian style houses.  It all seemed very alpine.

We then took the car over to the island of Chiloe where we went to a Penguin rookery and were confronted by rugged coastal scenery reminiscent of British beaches.

We bused over to Bariloche in Argentina which is a very similar set up to Puerto Varas.  The scenery was phenomenal and we took some pretty walks in the area.

We then executed Operation “We are not spending 39 hours on a bus”.  We hired a car and over the next 10 days drove of 3500 kms around Argentina (“around” being the operative word as there was nothing direct about it).

Day 1:  Bariloche to Trevellin.  Trevillin is a focal point of the Patagonian Welsh and, like the Germans, they make great contributions to the world of baking.  We had high tea which basically consisted of all you can drink tea and all you can eat cake.  It was a good feeling to blow all our money on cake.

Day 2:  Taking in the legendary Route 40 we then changed roads and crossed west to east to Trelew which was our base for…

Day 3:  Peninsular Valdes is a wildlife sanctuary that is conveniently placed on many species migratory routes.  Our favourite animals  and birds were the penguins, elephant seals and the southern right whale which we got amazing close to as they swam around our boat with their calves.  It was awesome and closer than we ever thought we´d get.

Day 4:  Driving day to Comodoro Rivadavia.

Day 5:  Driving day to Puerto San Julian which is the first place a Chrsitian Mass was held in Argentina.  Fact.  On the way we visited a petrified forest which was very interesting.

Day 6:  We spent the morning ambling around beaches before driving to Rio Gallegos going miles out of way to avoid bad roads

Day 7:  Arrive in the hikers Mecca of El Calten and take an afternoon hike.  The view of the Fitzroy and Torres mountain ranges are breathtaking.  Chris takes a swim in the crystal clear and freezing Laguna Capri.

Day 8:  Another day of hiking around the area.  This time we head to see the Glacier Grande in action.  We then drive to Calafate.

Day 9 & 10:  El Calafate is in a beautiful location on Lago Argentino but its big draw is the amazing Perito Moreno glacier.  It is one of the only advancing glaciers in the world (2m a day!!!) however calving at the snout of the glacier shaves of 2m a day keeping it in a constant state.  Seeing the calving of the glacier was great and the sound that goes with it is loud!

We then turned in our little car and headed back to Chile for more hiking in the Torres del Paine national park.  This time we spent a night camping to extend our time in the park which was well worth it.  We have been exceptionally lucky with weather through the whole of Patagonia which has really made the trip.

Now we find ourselves literally at the end of the world as we know it.  Everything south of us now is small islands, ice, water and generally polar type stuff.  We are in Ushuaia, the most southern city on Earth.

We justed passed a road sign which says Mexico City is 8770km away.  We´ve come a long way baby!

See you all very soon,

Lorna and Chris xxx

Hello All,

Excited about Christmas yet?

Lorna’s last blog left us in Bonito, Brasil. A town famous for it’s crystal clear rivers, ideal for snorkelling down. We decided we’d snorkel down the crystal clear rivers too. Very cool. Nice to have a current to propel you along without the need to swim.

After Bonito we took an overnight bus to Foz do Iguazu. A town just next to the waterfalls. The town itself isn’t much to look at really but the waterfalls were pretty spectacular. Formed way back when by a jealous god who wanted to teach his girlfriend a lesson for running off with a mortal man, they really are the most spectacular waterfalls in the world. 275 different falls of up to 82 metres and up to 12,000 cm³ of water per second goes over.

Luckily we were able to see the falls from both the Brazillian and the Argentinian sides. Brazil having the better overall views but the Argentinian side allowing you to get much closer and wetter and having a greater number of view points.

After Iguazu we headed to Parity for a bit of beach time. Unfortunately it rained every day, but still a really nice little town to spend a few days. Great seafood.

From Parity it was only a brief trip up to Rio (all the way with Lorna alternating between “The girl from Ipanema” and “Copacabana”, neither of which she knows all the words for).

We both really liked Rio. A very beautiful city, but staggeringly expensive. Unfortunately it was cloudy most of the time so the views from Christ the Redeemer were a bit less than we were expecting. We had a few days to kill in Rio so managed to do all of the touristy stuff. Christ, Sugarloaf, Copacabana, Ipanema, the Maracana. The Maracana being one of the highlights for me, Flamengo beating their local rivals Botafogo (according to the local fan we spoke to, this means they’re on track to win the league, but according to the table still puts them in third). Sugar loaf being the highlight for Lorna as the clouds cleared long enough to give us views of the whole city.

From Rio we took a flight to Mendoza in Argentina for a spot of cycling around the vineyards and tasting the wine before crossing the border (through some really spectacular scenery) to Valparaiso on the Chilean cost. Valparaiso is a Unesco world heritage site for its little cobbled streets and old cable car ascensors, unfortunately it has been a bit run down lately and is covered in graffiti. We also seem to have stumbled into Chile in the middle of a massive series of protests about pay, so most of the ascensors weren’t running.

We did have a good time though, and managed to find the one that was running.

From Valparaiso we have come to Santiago which is where I write this from. A very European style city with lots of nice leafy parks and coffee shops etc.

From here we’re heading further south to Chilan and then on to Puerto Montt.

Hope you’re all well.

See you pretty soon.

Chris and Lorna

World´s Highest…

From our adventures in Cusco we headed to Puno, the main Peruvian town on the shores of Lake Titicaca. And so begun our tour of World´s Highest things.

Lake Titicaca is the highest commercially naviagable lake in the world. It is also the largest lake in South America. The scale is huge making it difficult to appreciate being so high. We took a two day tour of some of the islands on the Peruvian side of the border. Firstly we stopped at Uros. These are the famous floating islands made entirely of reeds including the island itself, buildings, boats, watchtowers, furniture and handicrafts. We then headed to Amantani where we stayed with a local family as a homestay. The experience was very humbling as they cooked for us and gave us a whole room in their house. We then attended a fiesta in the evening in traditional dress. For Chris this was just a poncho over his normal clothes but I had allsorts of strange things like a belt, a puffball skirt, a blouse and a big heavy hood thing. We tried some local dancing which was so straightforward that even Chris got the hang of it. The next day we headed to Taquile which is famous for its textiles before cruising back to Puno.

From there we headed into Bolivia and directly to La Paz. La Paz is the World´s Highest capital city and the smog in the air meant the altitude affected us a lot more here despite having been 1,400m higher previously. La Paz was a typical big city but had a friendly atmosphere and some interesting options for excursions. We headed to the badlands to the south for a taste of the wild west but the main tour was the WMDR (World´s Most Dangerous Road). The name comes from research done by the IMF which proves it kills more people than any other road in the world. This is due to it being too narrow in many places for cars to pass each other, coupled with 600m sheer drops to the side. 58 people have died on the road since February. Despite this, or actually because of this, it has become the thing to hope on a mountain bike and career down 3600m altitude over 64km. For 44km of this, the road is a dirt track.

The experience was exhilarating one way or another. We both survived so I am able to say I´m glad we did it. The scenery was spectacular after the clouds lifted and I would recommend it as an exciting trip. Watch out if you are googling it though as apparently there are plenty of nasty You Tube videos of when it goes wrong!

From La Paz we took and overnight bus to Uyuni and head straight ot on a three day jeep tour of the salt flats. Salar de Uyuni is the world´s largest and the world´s highest (unverified to the point of being a guess) salt flats and is just spectacular. It is very hard to explain being able to do a full 360 and only seeing salt to every horizon. Apparently the salt is also 100m deep. It took a day to drive across it and at the end of that day we stayed in a hotel made entirely of salt. The next two days got even stranger and possibly more beautiful as we crossed desert terrain (an extension of the Atacama) and saw odd rock formations, active volcanoes, steaming geysers, stunningly coloured lagoons, sat in hot springs and generally took in the wierdest scenery I´ve ever seen. For me, the best place since the Galapagos.

Then we headed to Potosi for a bit of moral debate with ourselves. The main attraction in Potosi (despite being a beautiful colonial town and the WORLD´S HIGHEST city) is Cerro Rico, once the richest silver mine in the world and the source of much of the funding of the Spanish Empire. Cerro Rico is now almost exhausted but the miners still work in their under appalling conditions as a co-operative. Tours are run to observe the miners working in these conditions justified morally on the basis that some of the money goes directly to the miners and each tour stops at the miners market on the way where tourists buy gifts ranging from coca leaves and food to a stick of dynamite. The whole thing just seemed very wrong to me and whilst Chris was considering it, his asthma at altitude settled it. A filthy mine was not the place to make it better. So we left…

Sucre is the former capital of Bolivia and a beautiful colonial city. We spent three nights here for some relaxation time. We did another downhill bike ride but as it wasn´t remotely dangerous it just didn´t seem to hit the spot!

Because of current political issues in the east of Bolivia we flew from Sucre to Santa Cruz and after a 13 hour overnight wait in the airport onto Campo Grande in Brazil.

In Brazil we feel like we did when we first touched down in Mexico. We don´t understand the signs, we don´t understand the people. It´s a culture shock again. We´ll be experts in Portuguese in no time though!

From the plane we pretty much got straight on a tour to the Pantanal, a vast savannah which is distinctly different to the Amazon. We did walks, boat trips, more pirahana fishing (I got one this time!) and Chris went horseriding. We slept in a huge log cabin with everyone in a hammock. It was surprisingly comfy for three nights. The heat after two months in the Andes however is not. The first few days were in the early 40 degrees before a big storm bought relief.  We saw monkeys, lots of bird life, caimans, capybara, deer and plenty more.

I´m so excited about being in Brazil. The next two weeks should be fantastic!

Happy Halloween,

Lorna (and Chris) xxx

Crossing the great Peruvian picket line

Hello All,

Me again!

We’re still in Peru but have been doing some pretty cool things since Lorna’s last blog. After Lima (a nice city made all the better for having a local guide showing us the sites), we headed south along the coast to Pisco. Unfortunately Pisco was destroyed by an earthquake in 2007 and hasn’t really recovered yet, so we went to stay just outside the city in a place called Paracas. In Paracas we soon realised why they haven’t rebuilt Pisco yet: All the builders are busy building hotels and beach front holiday homes for the rich tourists. From Paracas we tooka trip to the Ballestas Islands; a group of islands protected from too much human activity and home to huge colonies of birds, penguins and sea lions. (Often referred to as the poor man’s Galapagos.)

 

After a brief stint bird watching we headed inland from Paracas to the desert where we did a spot of dune buggy racing around the dunes followed by some sand boarding. Excellent fun in one of the most beautiful spots we’ve found so far. After watching the sun set over the sand dunes and spending a while emptying huge amounts of sand from our pockets we headed further south to Nazca.

Nazca town itself wasn’t much more than a collection of travel agencies selling flights over the Nazca Lines and tours to various burial sites, so we only stopped long enough to get a little 6 seat Cesna to fly us over the lines. Great fun as the pilot liked to point out the different lines with the tips of the wings and both hands while turned around in his seat, so it made for a rather scary flight. The lines themselves were pretty amazing. Made between 200bc and 700ad there are around 800 lines measuring up to 200 metres across and portraying a series of different animals and geometric shapes. They were made by removing the dark stones to reveal white sand underneath. The best bit in my opinion is that nobody really knows why they would go to all this effort for shapes they couldn’t even see from the ground, so to see them now is all about how cool they look rather than trying to understand their meaning.

After Nazca we headed up to Arequipa and Colca Canyon. Arequipa is a really nice colonial city that it was nice to just stroll around and sip coffee. The highlight for me was a museum that housed a mummified 12 year old girl who they found on top of the local volcano. She has been really well preserved in the ice and was only found because the neighbouring volcano dropped a load of hot ash on it, melting the snow cap. Quite impressive how this 12 year old girl climbed something the height of Mt Mckinley wearing not much and eating practically nothing, in the knowledge that she would die at the top. A couple of hours driving took us up to Colca. Colca is the deepest canyon in the world. Forget your grand canyon rubbish. It’s also home to a large number of Condors which we were lucky enough to see soaring around really close to us. (the size of the canyon makes for good up drafts that they like to glide on) We also used it as a good opportunity to acclimatise us to some seriously high altitudes and to improve our Spanish on the friendly group of Peruvians who came along with us. During breaks from the beutiful scenary and Condors we also sampled some traditional Peruvian food and drink. Lots of Mate de Coca (Coca Tea), Alpaca meat (a bit like venison but more chewy and less fatty) and Guinea Pig (lots of work for a small amount of meat, tastes like rabbit though).

After Colca we took an over night bus up to Cusco to start our Inca Trail, only to be told by the first tout we met from the bus that all of Peru was on strike the next day and we wouldn’t be going anywhere! Luckily the company we were doing it with had a cunning plan, so we headed out the night before to try and get on to the trail before the strike started. After a two hour bus ride and still around 7km from the start of the trail our bus was stopped by a large number of locals who had covered the road with boulders and lit a rather large fire in the road. As we weren’t going anywhere that night we decided to camp by the side of the road and set out on foot in the morning.

The next morning we managed to get a cattle truck a couple of km down the road before being stopped again and having to walk past the picket line and pick our way through the boulders blocking the path. Luckily we didn’t encounter any violence but we’ve since spoken to tourists whose bus was pelted with stones and blocked from both sides so they couldn’t escape. After around 5km of walking we made it to the usual starting point, a bridge over the Urubamba, only to find it chained shut and with around 30 chanting locals blocking the path. With no time to waste we set off down the train line for an extra 6km and managed to make it to the second bridge before the protesters so we got across. (one group made it across the first bridge before the blockade, we then got across the second, but we were the only two groups out of the usual 400 people per day) Unfortunately our porters were under quite a bit more pressure to join the strike as they were all locals, so they didn’t make it across until after dark that night. Luckily running in the dark with huge heavy packs, what took us a whole day to walk, only took them little over an hour. So after a rather surreal first day, and still not much sleep since Colca Canyon, we continued the Inca Trail as normal, except for the complete lack of crowds (apparently the one big problem with the Inca Trail).

It was a really amazing 4 days of some pretty tough hiking at up to 4,200 metres through some really amazing mountains, dotted with Inca ruins, culminating in the really very impressive Machu Picchu. It is quite impressive how they built such a huge town in such an inaccessible place without any iron tools or proper wheels. Most of the buildings are built using the stone they found on the mountain side, roughly cut and held in place by mortar. The ceremonial buildings though, are made using no mortar at all. Each stone was really slowly ground to shape using harder rocks, and then assembled so there were no gaps at all between stones. They also did the usual trick of lining things up so they got the morning sun on a particular day, or so they could look at the southern cross on a certain night etc, but mostly the location was chosen as it would be impossible to attack from any side without a couple of helicopters. Pretty good for a civilisation that couldn’t get to grips with writing, wheels, metal work etc and still thought mountains were gods to be appeased with 12 year olds.

We’re now back in Cusco relaxing our aching legs before heading to Lake Titikaka fairly soon.

Hope you’re all well.

See you soon.

Chris (and Lorna)

p.s The strike seems to have worked, as the president has just stepped down.

Costa, Cordillera, Oriente

The Ecuadorians divide their country up like this into its three distinctly different parts.  The costa (coast) was covered in the last post about the Galapagos so I will tell you about our adventures in the cordillera (mountainous centre) and the Oriente (the east)

Quito sits firmly in the Cordillera and we spent two days exploring this beautiful city.  We went to the both the equator lines (one measured originally by empirical evidence, the other measured relatively recently by GPS).  We did a few experiments at the line to demonstrate the different effects of being in either hemisphere.  I thought it was very interesting, Chris thought it was a fix but the metre either side of the line seemed to have a noticeable impact on the directionality of draining a sink, the ability to balance and egg on the head of the nail, and the strength of a person.

We then took a cable car up from the already giddy heights of the city to 4600m for a stroll around.  The views were fantastic and it gave us a chance to see what the air would be like at the peak of the Inca Trail.

We also trotted around the picturesque old town where we had the hairy experince of climbing the steeple and the belfry of the basilica.  Both were high with little in the way of safety measures, but the view was stunning.

We then took an overnight bus into the Oriente for our Amazon experience.  Amazonas covers a vast area of South America and our little part of it was in the Cuyabeño Reserve.  After a long journey by bus and motorised canoe we finally arrived at our lodge.  There was no electricty, the water came directly from the river and they had a pet monkey so living was basic.  By day we were escorted in a small group around the tributaries of the Amazon by canoe.  We saw many birds and trees and the occasional taratula and snake.  Other attractions included freshwater dolphins and swimming with, then fishing for, then eating pirahanas.  We also took day and night walks through the jungle where we saw frogs and monkeys and were shown how to use the forst for construction, medicine, survival etc.  We went to meet a shaman who is still very much a part of the indigenous community.  By getting high off a mixture similar to peyote, he claims to be able to see colours glowing around you which tell him what is wrong and how to treat it.  Nice work if you can get it!

On the last day of our five day trip into the jungle there we only three of us.  Instead of the motorised canoe, we used paddle power.  The peace attracted mush more animals and birds.  We were able to go anaconda hunting (although we didn´t find any) and took the canoe down the river at night without our guide.  That was exciting.

A couple of big bus rides took us to Baños, a beautiful village firmly back in the Cordillera.  It is set amongst active volcanoes in a lush valley with copious waterfalls.  We hired bikes and headed down hill to a most spectacular waterfall called “Devil´s Cauldron”.  Buses were on hand to drive the weary cyclists back up the hill. 

Other attractions of Baños were the thermal spring pools and the strange steam baths at our hostel where a man puts you in a wooden box with just your head poking out then fills the box with steam.  After four minutes you get out and flannel cold water over yourself.  This process is repeated a few times with extra cold water shocks of being splashed in a bath and being hosed down.  All very refreshing.  I did it three times.

Next stop was Riobamba were we climbed the Chimborazo Volcano to 5000m (erm…after getting a taxi to 4800m).  This is the highest we are likely to be on our trip and it was amazingly tough, even on relatively flat bits, due to the thinness of the air.  Due to the Earth´s bulge around the Equator, the summit of this volcano at around 6300m is the furthest away you can be from the centre of the core and still be touching ground.  Yes, further than Everest!

We then took a full day train ride south where strangely the main draw is that you sit on the roof.  The guys who run it are on to a winner here.  Fifty odd tourists pay $11 each to sit on the roof of a train with no seats and be tranported through the Ecuadorian countryside.  It was a beautiful trip though, which climaxed in a descent via switchbacks down the “Devil´s Nose”.

From there we had a far too brief stopover in Cuenca (the home of the “Panama” hat) before skipping the border to Peru. 

Our first encounter with Peruvians was awful.  The first three that we met tried to rip us off and we did not take to the border city of Tumbes at all.  We had four hours to kill waiting for our plane to Lima and we hid in a cafe for them all.

Luckily things picked up on our arrival into Lima.  We were met by a local, a friend of a friend called Juan Carlos.  He set us up for one night in a fancy hotel to recover and then gave us a tour of the town the next day.  It was great to talk to a local Limeño and be shown the not so touristy sights.

Today we took an open top bus around town to take in the rest of the city before we head off again tomorrow.

Hope you are all well,

Lorna and Chris xxx

Galapagos

Hello all,

We´ve finally made it to the Southern hemisphere and are currently living it up in a nice hotel in Quito.

After Lorna´s last post we headed East through Panama to a town called El Valle in the crater of an extinct volcano for a bit of swimming in a waterfall before pressing on, over the canal, to Panama City.

We went out to the locks at Miraflores and watched a couple of huge container ships pass through, including a mighty big 300 tonne floating crane that used to be owned by the Nazis. The locks themselves are a pretty impressive engineering feat. They shift 52 million gallons of fresh water each time they send a ship through, and they´re just one of three locks on the canal. It handles a huge amount of traffic every day and takes almost a third of the worlds international freight shipping, all while dealing with the rather huge Pacific tides. Quite impressive.

Panama City itself was a bit of a mixture of quite poor rough areas and really really wealthy American style areas. Nice city though. The ruins of the old town and the nearby causeway and islands are very picturesque.

After Panama we flew in to Quito briefly before heading off for 8 days of sailing around the Galapagos Islands, which we`ve just arrived back from. I think the appropriate description would be WOW!

They really do have the quite rare ability to completely surpass even the most optimistic expectations.  We  spent the 8 days doing a mixture of land tours around the different islands, Santiago, Bartholomew, North Seymour, Rabida, Baltra, Santa Cruz, Santa Fe, Floreana and Espanola, and visiting snorkelling and wildlife spotting sites from the little dinghy. We were lucky enough to see the full house of cool Galapagos wildlife too. All the stuff you´ve seen on wildlife shows really close up and completely unafraid of us.

I think my favourite was swimming with the sea turtles, although having a sea lion brush past you and eat a fish in front of your face is a pretty special sight. Lorna´s favourite, i´m pretty sure was swimming with the penguins who are incredibly cute and get very close up to you in the water.

One of the most striking things about the islands is how different each one is. They all have completely different wildlife depending on the age of the islands, the position, the amount of volcanic activity etc. There was just too much of it to fit into a small blog but some of the coolest stuff we saw is listed below:

Sea Lion (dominant males, females, losers (males without females) and babies (including one that was only a couple of hours old) both on land and swimming)
Marine Iguanas (Males and females, basking on the rocks, swimming with their special flat tail and grazing on the algae underwater)
Land Iguanas (Mostly just plodding along)
Hybrid iguanas (mixture of male marine and female land iguana, only 3 exist in the galapagos because they are born sterile (like mules)
Lava lizards
Blue Footed Boobies (males and females, on land flying and from underwater as they dive a few meters down for fish)
Masked (or Nasca) Boobies
Frigate Birds (including the big puffed up red necks to try and attract females)
Waved Albatross (the smallest albatross in the world and still pretty huge)
Hump Back Whale (mother and child, only from land unfortunately)
Galapagos Penguins (nesting on the rocks and swimming for fish)
Giant Tortoise (in the wild, as well as babies in the breeding centre, and lonesome george)
Galapagos Dove
Swallow Tailed Gulls
Eagle Rays (up to 2 metres across)
Manta Rays
Galapagos Sharks
White tip reef sharks
Black tip sharks
Moray Eels
Fur Seals
Darwin Finches
Flamingos
Hood Mocking Birds
& loads more fish than could possibly be detailed here.

So all in all a pretty amazing trip. I´m going to try and get all the photos uploaded but this internet cafe doesn´t want to let me, so they´ll be there in a few days i hope.

Tomorrow we´re off up a mountain for a bit of training before we do the Inca Trail in a month´s time and possibly to see the equator line and see if we really do weigh less, and the water really does flow the wrong way.

See you all soon.

Chris and Lorna

Pura Vida & Panamania!

Hello, Lorna again…

Well Chris finished up the last post glossing over a fairly important event in our lives.  I´m not at all offended that the paragraph on chicken buses was much longer than the paragraph on our engagement!  But to be fair, he summed it up well.  Turns out he is a romantic after all!

So back onto the important stuff.  Costa Rica has proved our most action packed country so far with speedy zip wires through cloud forest canopies, jungle walks over high bridges spotting armadillos, owls, foxes, tarantulas etc, climbing active volcanoes (more active than the one in Guatemala) and white water rafting down grade 4 and 5 rapids!  Phew!  We combined that with the high class luxury of Baldi hot springs where we took a well earned soak in several of their twenty odd pools that ranged from 20 to over 60 degrees celcius! 

We finished Costa Rica at the Caribbean town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca chillaxing with a little scooter bombing the coast visiting beautiful beaches whilst trying to spot monkeys.  Turns out it is difficult to sneak up on a monkey on a scooter.  Who knew?

A pretty straight-forward border crossing took us to Panama where we headed to the archipelago paradise of Bocas del Toro.  As we had saved several “emergency days” for delays along the way which never happened, we spent one whole week in Bocas.  We used this time wisely to take ten hours of Spanish lessons.  To demonstrate that we did not waste our money, I will now describe our time in Bocas en Español!

Mi gusta Bocas del Toro.  Las playas es muy bonita y el mar es azul.  Vamos a muchas islas en las lanchas por nadar.  Las islas son muy tranquilo.  El tiempo es caliente pero estamos feliz.  Las personsas de Bocas son muy amistad.  Los restaurantes son bueno con muchos pescado y lomito.  El hotel es comodo.

The quick witted amongst you will notice that I only know the present tense but I´m sure that is the only mistake!?!?!  For those non-Spanish speakers, Bocas is an all round stereotype island paradise.  Bliss!

So now we find ourselves back in the rain in Boquete.  Another cloud forest town in the Chiriqui mountains.  Yesterday we visited a wonderful animal sanctuary run by an English couple and they had some imported Tetley teabags so I had my first proper cup of tea since I left England.  Amazing!  Of course, this is a big coffee area but we´ve tried some of that as well.

Only five days left in Panama before the South American adventure begins.  Hope you are all well and thanks to everyone who sent us well wishes after the last post.

Love,

Lorna (and Chris) xxx

Volcanoes, Beaches & Jungle

Hello everyone,

Hope you´re all well. It´s been a while since I wrote one of these as we´ve been without a decent interweb connection for a while, so i´ve got quite a lot to tell you about.

Lorna´s last entry had us just entering Antigua. A very nice little town surrounded by three volcanoes and full of tatty colonial buildings. We took a tour up the most active of the volcanoes, to toast marshmallows on the lava, (They toast really really quickly, and taste extra nice), and enjoy the views once the clouds lifted.

After Antigua we headed up to Lake Atitlan a little to the north where we blew some serious budget on a hotel right on the lake and spent a couple of days relaxing on hammocks and swimming in the lake. From Atitlan we took a couple of crazy chicken bus journeys to Chichcastenango to see the market.

If you´re not sure what a chicken bus is; they take old US yellow school buses that are way beyond being worth repairing and they drive them the few thousand miles down to Central America. Then they spray them up with really cool colours, rewire the lights so they flash in time with the music, cover the inside with pictures of Jesus (including a Jesus that lit up when the driver hit the brakes) and jam on more locals than you would possibly think could fit on 6 buses and all of their possessions (including livestock, hence the name) and drive them like they´re playing Gran Turismo while leaning on the horn. It´s good fun. I much prefer them to the boring tourist alternatives.

The market at Chichi was simply huge. All the locals from the whole area were there selling everything they own and buying new stuff. All the stalls overlapped each other too, so there was no daylight creaping through and no order to the positioning, so we were lost almost instantly.

After the market we headed briefly back to Antigua before a long drive across the Honduras border to Copan, an old Mayan city from back in the heyday of the Mayans. A little like Tikal and Palenque, but this time there were loads of statues and carvings, all really intricate and well preserved. Or so we thought, until we got to the museum and realised loads of the stuff out in the jungle is all replicas and the real ones are in the museum. Still very nice though. Lorna´s favourite jungle based Mayan ruins so far.

After Copan another long day of travelling took us all the way up to Utila in the Bay Islands on the Caribbean side of Honduras. A tiny little island famous originally for being where the British dumped all the slaves who revolted, and now exclusively for diving. I did my Advanced Open Water and my Nitrox courses and Lorna did her Open Water, so we can finally dive together. The quality of diving, coral life, wrecks, fish life etc was all amazing. And only 5 mins from the island so plenty of time for lying in hammocks and drinking Salva Vidas and Cuba Libres.

From the Bay Islands we headed on to Tegulcigalpa for a night. You wouldn´t really want to spend longer than one night if the part we were in was anything to go by. Everywhere had security grills up the whole time. The bar we drank in was the roughest we´ve seen so far and had a locked security grill from 8pm onwards. Lorna and I did dance with an old Honduran couple to a live mariachi band though, and a local drunk bought us a beer just because we were gringos!

As early as possible the next day we headed to the border with Nicaragua and on to Leon, another old Spanish colonial town that hasn´t been given a lick of paint since the Spanish left. Then we headed on to Granada which is pretty similar to Leon but with more money.

Aparently Leon and Granada have been fighting pretty much since they were formed and the capital Managua was built directly between the two just to stop the squabbling over who would be the capital. At some point during the fighting all the left wing artists went to Leon and all the right wing merchants went to Granada, so Leon has produced Nicaragua´s only art of note but has no money at all, and Granada is quite rich but a bit devoid of culture.

Although, devoid of culture may be a bit harsh as there are a few local kids who wear huge papier mache suits and dance while their friends play the drums. What more entertainment could one want?

After Granada we took the boat to Isla de Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua. An island formed by two volcanoes and full of jungle, monkeys, beaches and petroglyphs.

I took advantage of the nice moonlit beach we had to ourselves to propose to Lorna. She happily accepted, so we´re going to get married. (that´s not at all scary, honest). I got the ring in Antigua which is the Jade capital of the world it seems. It´s a nice Lavender Jade, white gold and diamond combo. (i´m sure Lorna will be uploading photos and giving many more details soon.)

We´re now down in Monteverde in the cloud forests of Costa Rica, but we only got in a couple of hours ago. We´re heading on a couple of cool tours into the jungle tomorrow so i´ll let you know what it´s like next time.

Hope you´re all well, and i´ll see you soon.

Christopher (and Lorna)

Belize and beyond

So the sunrise tour of Tikal was certainly early.  The alarm went off at 2.30am and a couple of hours later we were trekking through jungle to visit the famous temples.  The animals were lively as promised and the call of the howler monkey rang through the air.  It truly is the scariest sound, somewhere between a monster and a big cat´s roar.  I am glad I had been forewarned or I would have been terrified.  I have resolved to bring a ditaphone next travels so we can record all the wierd sounds we here.  Then we can bore you with noise as well as blogs and photos!

We climbed to the top of the tallest temple for a period of quiet contemplation while the sun rose in front of us.  This was difficult given the approximate 100 other people on the tour also sat on this temple, the heavy breathing of all of us who were too unfit to really be climbing the temple and the mist that prevented any glimpse of the sun.  Still it was very cool to see temples jutting out of the jungle and fading in and out of the mist.

The rest of the temple complex was just as impressive.  We had an excellent guide who was really passionate about the subject and had some interesting ideas on the rise and fall of the Mayan empire.

The next day we headed to Belize for some English speaking action and some beach bumming.  We headed to the Caribbean island of Caye Caulker and got a beachside cabaña (beach hut).  The island is so small that there are only golf carts and bikes (no cars) and the whole place has a traveller vibe.  The hope of understanding people went out the window as they all have thick creole dialects!  The food was amazing though!  Lobster coconut curry…hmmm.

We hit the beach hard and on the second day Chris went diving.  He will tell the divers all about it but he did three dives including the world famous Blue Hole.  These were apparently the three best dives of his life so they must be good!

Rather than face another bus ride down Belize, we signed up for a three day, two nights sailing trip down to Placencia  with the dubiously named Ragamuffin tour company.  The trip had 17 tourists and 3 crew.  Everyone was really great and we enjoyed hours of snorkelling, fishing and sailing.  We ate what was caught in the day, mostly barracuda, and the captain was an excellent chef.  At night we camped.  Firstly on an island barely big enough for our tents and the campfire, secondly on a slightly bigger island with a bar.  The rum was all inclusive so it flowed freely!

From Placencia we did a series of travel days.  Firstly, three boats and a bus to Livingston in Guatemala, a centre for Garifuna culture (look it up, its too long to explain here).  We then took a boat down the mighty Rio Dulce to the town of the same name and stayed in a wonderful jungle lodge on stilts above the mangrove swamps.

Today we took a couple of buses down to Antigua, a beautiful colonial town that was once the capital of Guatemala. 

We are trying to get some more photos onto flickr now.  It is taking a long time so we might give up.  They are a bit more edited than the last lot!  Hope everyone is well.

Lorna and Chris x