Sunday, 31 January 2010
El Tunco, El Salvador
Amazing waves, amazing weather, funky little surf village with a great
vibe, good social scene, amazing food.
Spent a few days chilling, doing absolutely nothing - we haven't
really done much of this on our travels! Today we looked after a guy
who jumped off a rock into shallow water and fractured his foot. Oh
dear. The local dentist came to the rescue and drove us to the
hospital - scary driving again! No charge for x-rays and a plaster cast!
Kirsty has been surfing loads. I haven't, I've had a sore back for
almost a month - not quite sure what's going on there. Not too serious
but not feeling like surfing.
2 more days here then off to Antigua, Guatemala for 3 nights, then we
fly to Miami for 3 nights, then back to London for a freezy few days!!
vibe, good social scene, amazing food.
Spent a few days chilling, doing absolutely nothing - we haven't
really done much of this on our travels! Today we looked after a guy
who jumped off a rock into shallow water and fractured his foot. Oh
dear. The local dentist came to the rescue and drove us to the
hospital - scary driving again! No charge for x-rays and a plaster cast!
Kirsty has been surfing loads. I haven't, I've had a sore back for
almost a month - not quite sure what's going on there. Not too serious
but not feeling like surfing.
2 more days here then off to Antigua, Guatemala for 3 nights, then we
fly to Miami for 3 nights, then back to London for a freezy few days!!
Sent from my iPhone
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Tikal to the surf
We spent an afternoon walking around the little island town of Flores.
It draws tourists simply because it lies in the middle of a lake,
connected by a bridge. After about 10 minutes we had walked around it
and had about 6 hours to kill before our night bus to Guatemala city.
We chilled out at a little cafe called 'Cool beans'. It had wifi and
hammocks, but the salsa on our nachos had that nasty fizzy off taste -
we knew immediately and got more. After cool beans we relocated to a
beautiful empty hotel across the lake, we read books and killed
mosquitoes then headed for the bus station.
We haven't done an overnight bus since the freezy freezy ice bus in
Colombia. This was the total opposite- The sauna scorcher bus. At
about 1am we awake to the booming sound of the tyre exploding. We then
sit by the road for 2 hours while the driver sorts out what to do.
They end up changing the tyre (aided by our mighty bright torch
light), but in the process manage to deflate the spare tyre... 4 tyres
across the back (1 of which was flat - but better than noisy shredded
tyre). We rolled into Guatemala city about 4 hours late.
We were heading for the pacific coast in search of waves. We caught a
chicken bus ( old American school buses now used as local buses - they
stop everywhere...extremely slow!) bound for Sipicate. The lonely
planet listed this as one of the highlights of Guatemala, surf
capital. The bus took forever, it would zoom along little country
roads picking up and dropping people off before parking up ( in the
scorching sun) in each village for 30-45 minutes. We finally arrived
at the coast, piled our stuff into a tuctuc headed for the surf
paradise hotel resort, Rancho Castillo. Tuctuc got lost and took us
somewhere totally different, then realised, then short-changed us for
his mistake. Grrrr.
So, Rancho Castillo is on the beach, separated from the town by a
swampy canal, you cross over by speedboat. First impressions were good
- resort with 2 pools, on the beach, rooms were spacious, resident
crocodile pen, massive restaurant etc. We checked in and it soon
became apparent that we were the only guests in this huge resort. They
told us the restaurant opens at 5 - We were starved from not eating
breakfast or lunch. We came back from our stroll on the beach and most
if the day staff had gone home - just 2 guys and a child remained. I
found some menus and told him what we wanted, then we
waited...waited...for an hour. We then had a conversation that
concluded that the restaurant wasn't open, we couldn't have dinner
here and that we would have to speedboat back into scuzz town to get
food. Sooooo angry (mainly because we were super hungry) our Spanish
is not great but it was clear that we were trying to order food - menu
in hand. Our nice boat driver showed us a good place to eat (he waited
for us, personal escort). The main reason we were here was fir surfing
so bright and early Kirsty heads out to check out the surf. There were
waves, but really small and it was low tide, wasn't going to happen.
We checked out (argued and paid less for the room) and got back on the
chicken bus, this time headed for the surf coast of El Salvador.
We had our bikinis in these breathable bags attached to the outside of
our backpacks, which were now on the roof of the bus. We realised
later that it must have been the overweight pervy bus conductor whol
had stolen our bikini bottoms - sicko!! Kirsty was first to notice
that they were gone. 'ah, you must have left them at the resort' I
assured her. Then I checked and mine were gone too :( yuck!
We crossed into El Salvador - tuctuc buggy assisted us between the
immigration offices at the border. We had hoped to catch a bus to the
surf town of El Tunco but all the buses only went as far as sonsonate.
We splashed out and got a taxi, which was worth every penny. Our taxi
driver was also a driving instructor, so his car had a brake pedal
under the passenger seat! I was tempted to use it soooo often as this
guy was a shocking driver. We swerved about 3 dogs before finally
smashing into one - yelp! Terrible! We arrived at El Tunco after dark
but were happy to see lots of surfers walking around. Hooray, hostel
on the beach!
It draws tourists simply because it lies in the middle of a lake,
connected by a bridge. After about 10 minutes we had walked around it
and had about 6 hours to kill before our night bus to Guatemala city.
We chilled out at a little cafe called 'Cool beans'. It had wifi and
hammocks, but the salsa on our nachos had that nasty fizzy off taste -
we knew immediately and got more. After cool beans we relocated to a
beautiful empty hotel across the lake, we read books and killed
mosquitoes then headed for the bus station.
We haven't done an overnight bus since the freezy freezy ice bus in
Colombia. This was the total opposite- The sauna scorcher bus. At
about 1am we awake to the booming sound of the tyre exploding. We then
sit by the road for 2 hours while the driver sorts out what to do.
They end up changing the tyre (aided by our mighty bright torch
light), but in the process manage to deflate the spare tyre... 4 tyres
across the back (1 of which was flat - but better than noisy shredded
tyre). We rolled into Guatemala city about 4 hours late.
We were heading for the pacific coast in search of waves. We caught a
chicken bus ( old American school buses now used as local buses - they
stop everywhere...extremely slow!) bound for Sipicate. The lonely
planet listed this as one of the highlights of Guatemala, surf
capital. The bus took forever, it would zoom along little country
roads picking up and dropping people off before parking up ( in the
scorching sun) in each village for 30-45 minutes. We finally arrived
at the coast, piled our stuff into a tuctuc headed for the surf
paradise hotel resort, Rancho Castillo. Tuctuc got lost and took us
somewhere totally different, then realised, then short-changed us for
his mistake. Grrrr.
So, Rancho Castillo is on the beach, separated from the town by a
swampy canal, you cross over by speedboat. First impressions were good
- resort with 2 pools, on the beach, rooms were spacious, resident
crocodile pen, massive restaurant etc. We checked in and it soon
became apparent that we were the only guests in this huge resort. They
told us the restaurant opens at 5 - We were starved from not eating
breakfast or lunch. We came back from our stroll on the beach and most
if the day staff had gone home - just 2 guys and a child remained. I
found some menus and told him what we wanted, then we
waited...waited...for an hour. We then had a conversation that
concluded that the restaurant wasn't open, we couldn't have dinner
here and that we would have to speedboat back into scuzz town to get
food. Sooooo angry (mainly because we were super hungry) our Spanish
is not great but it was clear that we were trying to order food - menu
in hand. Our nice boat driver showed us a good place to eat (he waited
for us, personal escort). The main reason we were here was fir surfing
so bright and early Kirsty heads out to check out the surf. There were
waves, but really small and it was low tide, wasn't going to happen.
We checked out (argued and paid less for the room) and got back on the
chicken bus, this time headed for the surf coast of El Salvador.
We had our bikinis in these breathable bags attached to the outside of
our backpacks, which were now on the roof of the bus. We realised
later that it must have been the overweight pervy bus conductor whol
had stolen our bikini bottoms - sicko!! Kirsty was first to notice
that they were gone. 'ah, you must have left them at the resort' I
assured her. Then I checked and mine were gone too :( yuck!
We crossed into El Salvador - tuctuc buggy assisted us between the
immigration offices at the border. We had hoped to catch a bus to the
surf town of El Tunco but all the buses only went as far as sonsonate.
We splashed out and got a taxi, which was worth every penny. Our taxi
driver was also a driving instructor, so his car had a brake pedal
under the passenger seat! I was tempted to use it soooo often as this
guy was a shocking driver. We swerved about 3 dogs before finally
smashing into one - yelp! Terrible! We arrived at El Tunco after dark
but were happy to see lots of surfers walking around. Hooray, hostel
on the beach!
Sent from my iPhone
Monday, 25 January 2010
Tikal
We managed to jump on the San Juan shuttle out to Tikal - although
Flores is known as the jump-off point, it's still 70 km away. There
are a couple of hotels at the main gate to Tikal, and you can camp at
Jaguar Inn. We camped, with the ants. You can go into the ruins after
4pm when you buy your ticket for the following day. We arrived too
late to do this. We woke up at 5:30 to try and watch the sunrise over
the complex. We hurried through the jungle, howler monkeys shrieking,
and stumbled into the main plaza complex...soooo misty and still
pretty dark - nobody around, very creepy! We finally made it to temple
4, the highest temple, but the mist hung around for hours, our view
was limited to about 3 metres, we were frozen and hungry so went back
to get breakfast and a picnic. We spent the rest of the day wandering
around the temples and jungly mounds - 85% of Tikal is still to be
uncovered! They have done a good job on the current restorations but
it'll be amazing to come back here years later once they have
uncovered more. All very mysterious. On one of the paths between
temples we spotted an ant trail, then another, then another, then they
all merged into one huge mass of ants - they were taking over the
entire footpath, all heading in the same direction, a sea of ants.
I've never seen anything like it! Big ants!
Flores is known as the jump-off point, it's still 70 km away. There
are a couple of hotels at the main gate to Tikal, and you can camp at
Jaguar Inn. We camped, with the ants. You can go into the ruins after
4pm when you buy your ticket for the following day. We arrived too
late to do this. We woke up at 5:30 to try and watch the sunrise over
the complex. We hurried through the jungle, howler monkeys shrieking,
and stumbled into the main plaza complex...soooo misty and still
pretty dark - nobody around, very creepy! We finally made it to temple
4, the highest temple, but the mist hung around for hours, our view
was limited to about 3 metres, we were frozen and hungry so went back
to get breakfast and a picnic. We spent the rest of the day wandering
around the temples and jungly mounds - 85% of Tikal is still to be
uncovered! They have done a good job on the current restorations but
it'll be amazing to come back here years later once they have
uncovered more. All very mysterious. On one of the paths between
temples we spotted an ant trail, then another, then another, then they
all merged into one huge mass of ants - they were taking over the
entire footpath, all heading in the same direction, a sea of ants.
I've never seen anything like it! Big ants!
So many people just come for the day, but because we were camping we
could stay until the park closed at 6pm, again we found ourselves
alone at sunset - just the zillions of birds and monkeys for company.
This morning we went to the 2 museums at Tikal. They show lots of
photos pre-restoration - the jungle had totally taken over, it's taken
them decades to clear! Also, lots of original limestone carvings and
ceramics found on the site. Very lucky to have made it up here, was
really worth it.
We're now trying to get an overnight bus to the south of Guatemala,
looking for surfing waves, we seem to be ahead of schedule!
Sent from my iPhone
Rio Dulce
Rio Dulce, Guatemala
We caught the ferry back to La Ceiba, taxi shared to the bus station
and hopped in a bus to San Pedro Sula where we stayed in Hostel
Tamarindo. We popped our for food - Spanish fail. Couldn't read the
menu and ended up with a plate of fried plantain with kebab style
stuff on top.
Woke up at 4:15 am to catch a bus to Rio Dulce. All we knew, from
google searching and blog write-ups, was that the bus company was
called Fuente Del Norte. Sure enough, Fuente Del Norte had buses into
Guatemala across that northern border, we caught the 5:30 bus. Border
crossing was easy, stated on the bus but jumped off in Guatemala to
get passport stamp. Had to change buses in Morales. We were in Rio
Dulce by 10:30. Rio Dulce is a river that cones in from the Caribbean
and opens out into Lake Izabal. They say it is the safest place in the
caribbean to keep your boat in hurricane season, as a result there is
a substantial international community based here, or their boats are
based here anyway. We stayed in a hotel across the bay from the main
town, you could only get there by boat- Hacienda Tijax. It was all
built on stilts with wooden walkways linking all the buildings together.
Rio Dulce is a tiny town, crazy. We went by collectivo to a thermal
waterfall. Cold river with a scorching hot waterfall cascading into it
- almost too hot to stand under! The next morning we went to see the
old Spanish Fort, El Castillo de San Felipe - built in 1652 to keep
pirates out, pictures of Johnny Depp around the place.
We jumped on another Fuente Del Norte bus bound for Flores, the
jumping off point for Tikal. Very hot bus, we stood for about half the
4 hour trip. Beautiful countryside - very lush and green.
We caught the ferry back to La Ceiba, taxi shared to the bus station
and hopped in a bus to San Pedro Sula where we stayed in Hostel
Tamarindo. We popped our for food - Spanish fail. Couldn't read the
menu and ended up with a plate of fried plantain with kebab style
stuff on top.
Woke up at 4:15 am to catch a bus to Rio Dulce. All we knew, from
google searching and blog write-ups, was that the bus company was
called Fuente Del Norte. Sure enough, Fuente Del Norte had buses into
Guatemala across that northern border, we caught the 5:30 bus. Border
crossing was easy, stated on the bus but jumped off in Guatemala to
get passport stamp. Had to change buses in Morales. We were in Rio
Dulce by 10:30. Rio Dulce is a river that cones in from the Caribbean
and opens out into Lake Izabal. They say it is the safest place in the
caribbean to keep your boat in hurricane season, as a result there is
a substantial international community based here, or their boats are
based here anyway. We stayed in a hotel across the bay from the main
town, you could only get there by boat- Hacienda Tijax. It was all
built on stilts with wooden walkways linking all the buildings together.
Rio Dulce is a tiny town, crazy. We went by collectivo to a thermal
waterfall. Cold river with a scorching hot waterfall cascading into it
- almost too hot to stand under! The next morning we went to see the
old Spanish Fort, El Castillo de San Felipe - built in 1652 to keep
pirates out, pictures of Johnny Depp around the place.
We jumped on another Fuente Del Norte bus bound for Flores, the
jumping off point for Tikal. Very hot bus, we stood for about half the
4 hour trip. Beautiful countryside - very lush and green.
Sent from my iPhone
Roatan, Bay Islands, Honduras
Roatan, Bay Islands, Honduras
The ferry was like a giant speedboat. Pancakes for breakfast. Sunny
day, all looked calm, 5 minutes into the crossing the stewards handed
everyone an orange and white stripped sick bag. Felt rough, worried
about the pancakes in my belly, moved downstairs...everyone was
throwing up, stewards constantly on the move with their bags and
tissues. Gross!
Arrived in paradise. Headed to 'West End' and found our apartment at
Arco Iris. Amazing to have a kitchen after eating out every day for
months! Everything on the island was expensive, more like normal US
prices - you pay to be in Caribbean paradise. It was exactly what
paradise should be like though... lapping water along White sand
beach, little jetties going out over crystal clear water, bars on the
beach, and over the water, white sofas with overhanging curtains
overlooking the beach etc.
We were here to dive, so we went with Coconut Tree Divers - looked
like a fun sociable shop, owned by British ex-pat, PJ. $25 per dive.
Amazing reef all around the island, wrecks, caves, tunnels, loads of
fish, turtles. I did 11 dives, didn't see anything huge or unusual,
but I've been spoilt by Thailand, Phillipines and Okinawa. We did see
the biggest moray eel I have ever seen - huge long and very fat. Also
a huge area of garden eels, don't see them very often but very cute
little things. Kirty's daily mission was to find gear that fitted her
- she's tiny, and all the wetsuits were huge and holey. Her nickname
was 'The bag lady' as some of her wetsuits were shredded and hanging
off her. We had one day where we both had the wrong sized fins. Tragic.
We walked along the beaches checking out all the resorts - had
cocktails at Luna Beach, where they filmed a series of Temptation
Island. It was nice but not as grand as we had expected. We wandered
off the beach into this insanely nice resort, it seemed totally
deserted. They had glass bottom canoes, which I thought was a spark of
genius. We found ourselves on a rope swing bridge across a lake and
proceeded across and down to sqawling parrots in cages - huge brightly
coloured birds. We noticed some White faced monkeys running around, as
they came closer we started to get a little nervous. They were very
cheeky and were obviously not afraid of us, probably looking for food.
As more and more came, they became bolder and bolder until one of them
stood up and grabbed my legs. Time to evacuate! It started to bare
it's ugly teeth. Cute monkey became scary screeching monkey, we backed
off then ran, as I looked back over my shoulder o could see at least 5
of them gallopping along behind be at great pace, all with bared
teeth... we picked up our pace - difficult as we were laughing
hysterically. We have this entire episode on flip video.
We escaped the monkeys, then got eaten by huge mosquitoes before
finding our way to West Bay beach.
We had one night out, starting at Luna beach resort drinking monkey
lalas cocktails, then walking back through town. The night ended with
Kirsty dancing on a bar to get some shiny beads. She only managed one
dive the following morning.
We left Roatan after 5 days. Onto our last country, Guatemala!
Sent from my iPhone
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