First, Happy New Year, Merry Christmas etc etc. I hope you all enjoyed your holiday season.
Righhtioo, it has been some time since i last spoke to you all, so heres what ive been up to.
Medellin, the final days-
I ended up extending my stay in Medellin an extra night. I met up with Martin again, Andrea (a couchsurfing freind) and her friends and we all hit some really expensive club. All in all a good last night, ensuring that for my bus trip to cartagena the next day i was sufficiantlty tired.
And here begins about 5 days of constant travelling and relatively little sleep.
I arrived in Cartagena, and after a cheap and unhealthy breakfast of fried chicken and chips and a quick siesta, my new mexican freind and i explored a little bit. Cartagena is essentially a pirate city, crazy looking, crazy buildings and a giant wall surrounding the city. (see pics)
Ok i wake at 4am, for my 6am flight to Panama. Arrive in panama roughly 12pm, to find out there are no money exchangers at the panama city airport (WHY!!). Anyway after some money problems and waiting for a bus for over 2 hours, i eventually arrive at the bus terminal. There i find out the direct buses to Costa Rica are all sold out until the 24th. (i was meant to meet calley in sanjose on the 22nd). After speaking to some very unhelpful staff i finally book a ticket to the border in an attempt to find a bus to san jose once i get there. Bus trip is ok. I arrive in offically the dodgiest border town in the world at about 11pm. There i get led around the dodgey motels by a crack addict named benjamin button... Fair to say i didnt sleep much that night, in my tiny room with insufficiant locking system.
Next morning i wait 3 hours in line for customs (the computer system failed, leaving about 150 christmas travellers stranded for a while). Luckily i met an american/panamanian family who kept me company until i got to san jose. So finally crossed the border, waited another 2 hours for customs and buses on that side and finally got on a bus.
I arrive in san jose (apparently really dangerous), and realise i dont know where i am meeting calley, luckily i meet a really freindly Tico (costa rican) who after we pick his mum up, drives me around the town looking for an internet cafe, Nice dude.
Ok i finally meet calley and can relax for a few beers.
---
Pt 2.
Calley, Stacey (NZ, fellow volunteer of calley) and I head to Puntarenas. Again luckily we arrange a lift with a guy named andres, who was driving there anyway, and we end up staying at his freinds mums house (huge 100yr old house). Oh we also arrived on the day of the soccer grand final which was being played in puntarenas also. So we went out to join the orange clad soccer fans partying in the streets. We found a nice little room with a kitchen for Xmas day, and had a quiet xmas dinner (24th) together after sunset on the beach. very nice. Xmas night (25th) there was a carnival on the beach so we went down there had a little party, sampled Guaro (different to colombian guaro) and went to bed.
---
Next day we hit San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, a little (very touristy) beach town on the coast of nicaragua. We had a nice few days there lying on the beach, wine for sunset of course, and even tried a bit of surfing at a beach about 30min away from SJDS.
After 4 days, San Juan got a bit small so we left for Leon, a colonial city in the north of nicaragua. Really cool little place. This is where we were for NYE: which turned out to be the poorest organised party in the history of the world. Goes a little like this:
We leave the hostel at ¨7¨(really 8), arrive at the beach and realise that the boat across to the island can only hold 8 people, and it will take a while to transport the 80 or so of us that were on the bus. We finally arrive on the wrong side of the island, get lost, then finally arrive. Cool spot, nice little party despite the ¨international DJ¨ being a man with an ipod on shuffle. 2am (leaving time) comes and goes. Everyone, now a little drunk, gets lost trying to find the boat, finally find it, get across the water, and wait in the bus for about an hour (apparently the driver hadnt been paid). Anyway we finally get home and hit up a hotdog stand for a nice end to the night. (NB: calley managed to eat 2 hot dogs and a slice of pizza- good effort right. ¨in her defence, there was no sauce on the hot dog¨)
--
Ok the next day we venture out to the beach to bask in the sun with Michael and Harry (UK). Come home, sleep and wake early to leave for Somoto (north of Nicaragua). We arrive, see the town, organise a tour of the cañon for the next day and sleep. The canyon tour was wicked (see photos), but freaking freezing. Again, sleep (after having some beers in a divey bar) and wake again freakishly early to go to Honduras. This is where we all split up. Michael and Harry and Stacey all headed south to go home and calley and i north to continue the trip (4ish weeks left).
This part of our bus trip is pretty legendary. From Somoto we get a 6am bus to the border (BUS 1). From there we get realise we have no money (just manage to pay the border fees) and have 1$ left to get a bus to the nearest town, el Paraiso (BUS 2). There we find an ATM, get the best enchiladas in the world and get on a bus to the next biggest town, Darino (BUS 3). There we get back on the bus to Tegucigalpa (Bus 4). In tegucigalpa we have lunch and get a bus to san pedro sula the closest town to the Copan Ruins that we can manage that day (BUS 5).
The next morning we get another freakishly early bus to Copan and even manage a tour of the Copan Ruins that day as well. (here i must point out that travelling this fast sucks... im soooo tiredd... ). The Ruins were awesome, really cool, and quite, we were literally the only group there, i saw about 10 people the whole time. amazing. (see photos)
AGAIN another freakishly early morning for a direct bus to Antingua in Guatamala, and that is where we are now. WOW:.. that took a while, sorry if that was boring, but alot of ground to cover. We plan to stay here a while to see a volcano, and relax a bit, then head north.
I will attatch photos to another post.
Until next time. CYAAA
No comments:
Post a Comment