The Final Blog

Ok Guys,

So i have made it back to Australia safely in one piece and I thought I would give you all one last update before this blog gets lost in cyberspace somewhere.

A Quick overview of my last 10 months.

Buses Taken: 59 (and one long train trip)

Approximate time spent on buses: 350 Hours

Longest Trip: Rio (Brazil) to Santa Cruz (Bolivia) = 50 Hours

Countries Visited: 15

Times Mugged: 1

Friends Made: Many!

Girlfriends Lost: 1

Favourite Country: Colombia

Favourite Cities: Buenos Aires, Rio, Sucre, Medellin, Mexico City

Amount of times I ran out of money completely: 4

Planned Trip Time: 6 months

Final Trip Time: 10 Months

Wierd Foods i ate: Grasshoppers, Cheese in hot chocolate, Beer with salt, pepper wostershire sauce etc etc,

Times i got really Ill: 3

Biggest beer i drank: Sol 1.180L

Cheapest thing i drank: 1L of Aguardiente Tiburron for $1.30AUD

Tattoos got: 1

Beginning wait of Backpack: 13kg

End Weight of Backpack: 18kg (not bad eh)

So if anyone reads this now. Thanks to everyone who helped me along the way, let me stay on their floor, fed me, kept me company, shared beers, translated, showed me around, carried me home, lent me money (thanks mum and dad), emailed me, put up with me and everything else. Cheers.

STEVE

End to Beginning.

Our last day at the beach. Puerto Escondido. (mex)

Our last day at Puerto Escondido. This is a massive hammock!!! Made in a prison by the way.

(mex)

Australia Day Lunch. Some type of Fish. (mex)

Australia Day Afternoon. Vodkamelon with me swimming in the background. (mex)

Good Photo no??? This is the town of Puerto Escondido (mex)

Puerto Escondido. (mex). With Jana walking (eagerly) towards the ice cream store.

Cool Blue church in San Cristobel de las Casas. (mex)

Not an alcolholic, its just a big beer, and only $2.4 AUD

Chilling on the roof in San Cristobel de las Casas (mex).

Cool Church in SCDLC (mex).

Amazing Door!! and maybe my favourite church in Latin America.

Chichen Itza.(mex)

Calley with her daily iced coffee at Chichen Itza (mex).

Me at the worlds biggest Mayan Ball Court. (mex)

MEXICOOO!!!!

Hola All,
Only 6 days to go... Kinda exciting, kinda sad, but i get to see you australians again soon, so cool.Ok so Mexico!!
Firstly, after we left Tulum, we hit Playa del Carmen, again on the carribean. A slightly (very slightly) less american version of Cancun. Playa was cool, we stayed in a hostel with mostly latin people which was strange for such a touristy place. So that night Aldo and Fer (both mexicans) took us out to some gigantic club. Pretty fun, i seem to remember it was free drinks for calley the whole night, lucky to be a woman. Ok so despite the (slight) hangover the next day we hit Cancun to do our one night party in the Vegas of Mexico. Despite what i thought beforehand, the central of cancun wasnt too bad, little boring but had the most amazing Quesadillas i have ever eaten!! WOW
That night was a bit crazy, with an american and swedish guy we all legged it to the Hotel area of cancun and found another big trashy club with an open bar. Big night, unfortunately i had my camera stolen, the upside being that i will get it back and i didnt really loose many photos at all. Luckily. Also for anyone playing along at home, some of the resorts on that strip have REAL DOLPHINS in the swimming pools. Strange.
Again travelling quickly, we hit piste the next day to see chichen Itza. Really cool, massive ruins and..... ELTON JOHN is playing there in a month. amazing!!
Ok our last quick bus, this time to San Cristobel de Las Casas. An awesome little city in the middle of Mexico, nice and cool during the night, hot during the day. Really cool.So we spent the next 4 days there just hanging out, walking around etc, eating LOTS of amazing mexican food. SOOO GOOD.
Ok so after thatt,,,, it was time again for the beach, so with Jana (Switzerland) we arrived in Puerto Escondido, and found and awesome little hostel on a kinda seculded beach, and just did nothing for about 3 days. Just hung out on the beach, read, ate lots more food, swum, ate more food and sat back on the beach... Until OZZIE DAY!!
Ozzie day was cool, there was a big party organised on the beach, so calley and i and our new australian convert, bought a watermelon (that may or may not have had vodka in it) and hit the beach.Photos below. Including proper bogan australian tatoos.
OKKKAAYY. so now in the present. We arrived in Oaxaca (WA-HA-KA) today and its cool. I am still soo tired, the bus trip wasnt too kind to me. But we have done most of our mexico shopping and almostready to hit mexico city, population of australia in one city!!!!
okay for now BYE BYE: See you aussies in a week!
STEVE

The Sunset from the side of Volcano Pacaya... Absolutely amazing!!

And that would be me, toasting a marshmallow on a river of molten lava....

And that would be me enjoying the fruits of my labour.

Me getting my mayan meditation on in the ruins of Tulum.

Calley jumping... Again, Tulum in the background. Tulum was a kind of port for trading and the such, but is essentially a badass mayan beach resort overlooking the caribean coast.

This is also in Tulum.. We rented some bikes and rode down the ruins from town, stopping for a casual stroll on the white sandy shores. A tough life i think.

The central plaza of the Tikal Ruins in Guatamala.

Tulum again.

Ok More later,

CYA

Lava Toasted Goodness y Mexico!

Hola all,

Calley and i have made it to Guatamala. We hit Antigua (kind of a cooler, slightly more rustic Cuzco) sometime last week. Sorry i have lost count of the days. So we spent some time walking around antigua, and generally relaxing after travelling straight for almost a week. But we did manage to get out to a club where a man (namely the coolest cat i have ever seen in my life) and also a member of the buena vista social club, was playing salsa. Pretty damn cool. We were still pretty shattered from the bus trip, so it wasnt a late one.

Anyway the main point of this blog was to brag about toasting marshmellows on a river of lava....

So the volcano is Pacaya (apparently named after a plantation of Pacaya plants that got run over by some lava in 2000) and is just near Guatamala city. You grab a bus out there from antigua, climb up the side of the volcano (about 1.5 hrs) and end up near a kind of river of lava.. Although i was expecting an actual liquid river, it was still amazing. I guess when we were there the lava was slightly cooler and it just looked (deceptively) like a river of coals from a fire. But about 700 degrees hotter. Luckily no one died, despite the guatemalan health and safety standards being suprisingly low. And the views from there were absolutely amazing.. (will put up photos soon!)

Pt 2

Guatamala y Mexico!!!

Okkkaayyy.... I am happy to finally say we finally reached mexico. The rest of Guatamala was amazing though. We went out to one of the protected national parks called Semuc Champey, and spent some time there in a really nice eco lodge, met some crazy people, explored bat caves, tubed down freezing rivers, caved through another cave with only candles, sauna-ed and generally partied and relaxed...

Umm ok, after that was Tikal, which was fairly amazing. Huge. Then a long and incredibly expensive detour through Belize to arrive in mexico..

We have only been in Mexico 2 days, but its amazing. Amazing spicy tacos, 1.125 litres of Sol, for about 2 dollars, white sand and crystal blue water... what else do you want.

Ok i will do the photos and things soon. But dont have much time, so until 3 weeks (if your in OZ) or maybe longer if you live elsewhere..

CYYAAAA

Fotos!

Front to Back. Sorry.

The Mayan Ruins of Copan.  The Paris of the Mayan World apparently.

Calley standing somewhere cool.  Copan Ruines Also.

The Somoto Cañon.  This is Stacey jumping off a really high rockthingy.

Henry the tour guide, Calley, Michael, Me (check the gangsta shoes), and Stacey.

A aussie surfer.  See we all DO surf. 

......Just not well.

Playa Madera btw.

San Juan Del Sur.  Reall nice.

Xmas night in Puntarenas (Costa Rica)

Xmas Dinner, followed by beer, vegemite, apricot marmelade and Manjar Blanco.

Cartagena!

The Coolest sunset. This is from the wall in cartagena.  We sat and had a beer.  Who needs work???

Ok i have heaps more, but not enough time to put them all up... 

CYAAA

Central American Xmas and NY!

Hello everyone!!

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.

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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.

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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