Into South America - Colombia...

So we took the easy option, thinking better of attempting the Panama/Colombia overland border crossing & flew down from Costa Rica, via Miami, into the Colombian city of Medellin. Slightly unsure about what to expect after hearing & reading about so many horror stories about Colombia over the years, we arrived with a certain amount of trepidation...

Any misgivings we had were very quickly dissolved as we were greeted at Medellin airport by some very warm & friendly people (even the taxi drivers were pleasant!), & as we took the 45 minute journey across the Andes from the airport to the city, it became ever more apparent that the Colombia of today is not the Colombia we had imagined. Medellin is a city set in possibly one the most attractive settings we have seen so far on this trip, set in the base of an Andean valley at around 1,500m above sea level, dissected North/South by the River Medellin - it is a stunning sight as you cross the summit of the surrounding mountains at either day or night & take in the panoramic views as you descend the valley into the city.

Medellin is known by most as the city that the infamous drug baron Pablo Escobar & his notorious drugs cartel called home in the '80's & '90's - however since his death in '93, & with gradual poltical stability being regained, the government has made a lot of effort to revitalise the city. Medellin now has a very modern public transport system, including 2 cable cars that link directly into the metro stations, linking the once isolated, dangerous & poverty stricken areas of the city up the valley walls with the main city centre, enabling better access for jobs etc to the communities of these areas. There are now numerous art & culture galleries in the city - with a paricular bias to the Colombian artist 'Botero' - an artist who focus'on the fuller figure, there are now many sculptures & paintings around the main cultural centre.

Medellin also has modern shopping malls like any European city, & a very affluent & modern district called El Poblado - the area where our hostel was.

Hostel Tamarindo was a very nice, modern homely hostel run by a Colombian American girl called Natalie, who spoke perfect English & was able to provide us with lots of useful local information. Natalie even took the 3 of us out one night to a great sushi restuarant & onto a real Colombian locals live salsa club, where we were 3 of only about 5 non Colombians in there. The club was great - small, dark, overcrowded, hot & loud with a really cool live band playing a sort of street salsa. I have to say the locals somewhat put us stiff Brits to shame in the dancing area...not that we actually humiliated ourselves by attempting to dance that night, but needless to say there was some pretty smooth moves going on. It was quite funny to see the cultural difference that they have here, where groups of friends would take it turn to dance one on one with each other some up close & steamy routines...can't quite imagine our groups of mates doing the same thing down the pub back home!

After about 4 days in Medellin we flew to the Carribean coastal city of Cartagena - a UNESCO world heritage site for it's beautifully preserved colonial walled city & fortress'. Cartagena is the one area of Colombia where tourism has actually remained fairly active during the years that the majority of the rest of the country was considered off limits...and unfortunately it shows. In the exact opposite of the way things were in Medellin, where we could freely walk the streets & blend into the cosmopolitan city life quite easily without being hassled at all, as soon as we got to Cartagena there were hustlers on us trying to scam us, 'assist' us with our search for hostels, bars, restuarants (for a very reasonable financial contribution naturally...), not to mention the abundance of tour guides who all seemed to double up as drug dealers, living up to the Colombian stereotype. Literally within the first hour of walking the streets we were offered all manner of drugs at least 10 times by 10 different people. An image that the rest of the country seems to be trying hard to dispel, in Cartagena the simple economics of supply & demand still remains the easiest way to a fast buck.

That said, Caragena was actually quite nice, ridiculously hot again - humidity like you wouldn't believe (averages 90% apparently), as soon as you are out of the shower & dressed you need another shower again. Claire & I both had pretty bad colds while we here (fortunately not swine flu!), so with the added discomfort of the heat we took it as our cue to do very little for the few days we were here - with the exception of a couple of nights out, the main night being at 'Havana Cafe' - which as the name suggests was a Cuban styled bar that specialised in Rum, Mojitos & live music. Needless to say, we all thought better of taking to the dancefloor in fear of upstaging the locals...

Leanne on the other hand was up for some more adventure, & decided on our last full day in Cartagena to hit the beach. Unfortunately the beach on the mainland is not particularly pleasant, so it involves a boat ride out to an island to get to the quintessential Caribbean white sand beach of Playa Blanca. True to form as per all the other hustlers in Cartagena, getting a straight answer out of anyone running boat trips about whether they actually go to where you want to go is not an easy process - favouring to tell you what they think you want you want to hear, regardless of whether it's true or not just to get your cash & on board their boat heading to wherever they may be going. This coupled with Leanne's basic grasp of Spanish, the combination resulted in her being taken to an aquarium on the wrong island in a boat full of Colombians, none of whom spoke any English to assist with her plight. When Leanne's irrate English-women rantings finally got her message across, they did eventually take her to Playa Blanca, by which point the sun had gone in & a tropical rainstorm had kicked off...the tan didn't exactly get much of a topping up that day!

Feeling not entirely displeased to be leaving Cartagena - keen to get back to a city atmosphere, we jumped on another flight down to Bogota. Without wishing to sound like heathen, part of the reason we had something of a lack of affinity with Cartagena was down to a case of Colonial fatigue. Whilst all these places in isolation are very spectacular, we had visited quite a number of Latin American picturesque Colonial towns in a relatively short period of time prior to getting here, & you do get a bit tired of the same sort of theme. That, & the scamming, thieving scum bags that prey on the area of course (though to be fair we did also meet some very nice locals there as well).

So we arrived in Bogota, a city also in a rather spectacular setting high in the Andes. At 2650m above sea level it is the third highest capital city in the world behind only Quito (Ecuador) & La Paz (Bolivia). We had found a new hostel on line that boasted an on site bar, daily BBQ's, & all the usual trimmings we have become accustomed to (...a bunk bed, a bathroom, breakfast - the usual 5 star luxuries...) located in the historical old town area - or la Candelaria, the hostel was called 'Destino Nomada' for any of you planning a trip to Bogota soon. It certainly lived up to it's own hype, & in many ways surpassed it. The guys that own & run it are 20/30 somethings who have all been backpackers in the recent past & have basically pulled together their idea of the perfect hostel - which it pretty much was really. The afternoon we arrived, Colombia were playing Argentina in a world cup qualifying match, for which all the locals were fired up for, ready to throw a huge party if Colombia were to win as it had been a number of years since Colombia had beaten Argentina in a football match. We all piled into the on site bar, a good mix of travellers & locals, & proceeded to get stuck into the local brew & cheer on our new favourite team. As promised, BBQ'd burgers & chicken wings were served up at half time & things were shaping up nicely, Colombia looking fairly dominant in the match. Then Argentina scored & Colombia were not able to pull it back. Major city party cancelled, we decided to carry on & make our own party anyway. We made our way out into the city to meet up with an acquaintance of Leanne's - who Claire & I are not actually convinced exists, because after arranging a time & place for us to wait around for him on some dodgy street corner in the Bogota equivalent of Shoreditch, the loser never actually showed. So after looking into a few bars we decided there was as much, if not more fun, to be had back at our onsite bar in the hostel with our new found friends, where we had a really funny mini party through to the following morning.

We were only in Bogota for 3 days which was a real shame in the end as it is a great city but takes at least a few days to come around to that way of thinking ie it is so sprawling, you need to experience some of the different areas to get a feel for it properly and that can take a good few days.

There are also some good sights to see just out of the city which we were pushed for time to see however, Claire managed to visit a place called Zipaquira, about 30km away, to see the infamous ´Salt Cathedral´. There is a working salt mine there where many years ago the miners built a cathedral within it but it was destroyed in the 1990´s. The miners got together with Architects to design another that is now a key tourist attraction however mining is still a huge part of the community but it is now done in the evening approx. 1000ft away from the Cathedral to avoid disturbing the visitors. It is very impressive!! Huge grand columns, simply designed with lit crosses, quite a feat of engineering.

We had been told in advance that the journey through the countryside between Bogota and Medellin is absolutely stunning and so we took a bus on this leg... 9 hours of amazing countryside dotted with small villages. We only wished that we had taken more buses intead of planes and spend much more time here... definetely a place to come back to and explore more.

We then had another flight booked for Quito, Ecuador but had a few problems trying to get out of the country.... we had changed the dates of the LAN flight but LAN had only changed 2 of the flights... Claire was booked on a different flight that had departed 4 days earlier! After a couple of hours of discussions about our ´fully flexible´tickets, they conceded they had made a mistake and could have simply changed the date of Claire´s flight ... by this time however, the gate had closed and they refused to let us board.... 24 hours later after a night in a not so nice town called Rionegro, close to the airport, we eventually left Colombia & flew to Quito!

Costa Rica

Not only was our method of travel into Costa Rica something that we had not been accustomed to over the last 5 weeks or so, but the relative normality & civilization of Costa Rica took us a little by surprise. As the wealthiest of the Central American countries with the most prolific & developed tourist industry, there are times when Costa Rica can feel like a tropical state of North America. Whilst Spanish is still the primary language, English is widely spoken, the buses resemble human transportation means rather than agricultural & livestock transportation & the roads have a form of order & structure not seen since Mexico.

We landed in San Jose & headed straight to the Pacific coast, first to a port town called Puntarenas, before catching a boat across the Gulf de Nicoya, over to the Nicoya Peninsula & planting ourselves in the bohemian surf town of Montezuma.

After a bit of a torturous accommodation hunt (we are back in hellish heat & humidity territory here) we finally found a beautiful old colonial style wooden house - like something from Out Of Africa, right on the beach - which was basically a family home where they rented out a couple of rooms. We then proceeded to do…well, very little actually for a couple of days - exactly what you are meant to do in places like this. We had had a pretty full on few days of traveling leading up to getting here & were glad of a chance to just relax a while.

On day 3 we decided it was time to actually do something, & took out some sea kayak’s from the guy who owned the place we were staying & paddled our way out into the Pacific along the coast. For the most part the sea was nice & calm, until we got to a surfing bay where Claire got caught by a wave & quickly surfed her way into shore (unintentionally i may add!), quickly followed by the rest of us in a less than stylish manner - with the exception of Leanne, who inadvertently caught the perfect wave & cruised in like a total pro, losing her paddle & sunglasses on the way but laughing hysterically the entire time!

Unfortunately we are on a little bit of time schedule in Costa Rica, as we have another flight to catch on Sun 31st May out to Colombia, so Thursday we decided it was time to move on & made our way back onto the main land to Monteverde

Monteverde is a place up in the mountains, full of cloud forest, Volcano’s & known as the epicenter of the Costa Rican ‘Canopy Tour’ industry. Which basically consists of a series of steel cables being strung between trees, across valleys etc that you connect a little pulley & harness to & make your way around the forest on - otherwise known as zip-lines. The company we went with boasted having the longest & highest cables in the world, so off we went. It was great fun - a few of the cables were about 600 meters long, one of which was actually 1km long, stretching right across valleys, we were often 200m off the ground just hanging from a harness whizzing across the sky! Below the longest zip wire across the valleys... 1km and 200m up!

Claire & I then went on a tour of a coffee plantation in the afternoon which was really interesting, seeing what a convoluted, labour intensive process it is to actually get our daily caffeine hit to our tables.

The following morning Claire & Leanne took some horses out for a tour of the countryside before we jumped in yet another bus to head back to San Jose to catch our flight down to Colombia.

...A fleeting visit through El Salvador

...After spending a little longer than originally planned in Guatemala we were left with only a couple of days to see part of El Salvador as we had a flight to catch on Sun 24th May. We caught a bus across the border & followed the ‘Ruta de Flores’ (Route of Flowers) - which is a beautiful stretch of mountain road lined with all manor of tropical plants, through to a town called Juayua - where there was a market & street party going on. It was really entertaining, there were a number of live bands - all playing music with a religious message, of which we understood little due to the language - but there was one band in particular who were really good & had the hundreds of people in the street bopping away in the name of the lord like there was no tomorrow! We stopped the night here & met some nice locals who told us all about the hardships of their lives under the weight of the civil war & the US Governments exploitation of their land. Easy to forget sometimes how fortunate we are to come from a developed relatively civilized society!

We then roughed it across a series of 4 local buses to the airport in San Salvador - whereby we were transported to a different world, as it transpired that our flight tickets were business class (of which we knew nothing) - so proceeded to hit the executive lounge & take full advantage of the complimentary bar, before boarding our plane for a full luxury flight down the Pacific coast over Nicaragua into San Jose, Costa Rica. We could definitely do with a few more journeys like that one!

Through Guatemala...In which the earth actually did move for us...

...So we crossed the border from Belize into Guatemala, begrudgingly paying the extortionate exit & entry taxes that seemed to just go straight into the pockets of the immigration officials, & made our way down to a town called El Remate on the shores of Lake Peten Itza, which is essentially the closest town to Guatemala's largest & most significant Mayan archaeological site of Tikal. Tikal dates back to c. 500bc, was a major power of the Mayan world until it was defeated & ultimately deserted around 1000ad upon which it was quickly swallowed up by the jungle, not to be re-discovered until 1848 by some locals harvesting chewing gum trees.

So the following morning at 5.30am we set off on the c. 25km journey into the mountains & jungle headed for the site. The location really is quite stunning, deep in the jungle you are surrounded by the sound of tropical birds & howler monkeys - who from a distance sound quite fearsome - adding to the atmosphere of the place. It is a huge area with several hundred structures that have been excavated, including 7 main pyramid temples, the tallest of which exceeds 70 meters in height - which makes that fact that this place was completely buried without trace by the jungle vegetation pretty amazing.

The following day we journeyed further south heading for a place called Semuc Champey - regarded as one of the new wonders of the natural world. After travelling through the whole of Belize on the local 'Chicken Buses' (named so because that is what often up sharing your seat with, on their way to & from market), we decided we treat ourselves to the relative luxury of the tourist mini bus service that is a direct door to door affair, costs about 10 times the price of the local buses & is generally regarded as a more comfortable option....wrong! 15 of us then spent the next 7 hours crammed into a mini bus designed for 12 passengers, complete with the drivers mate travelling the entire journey on the roof of the van hanging onto the luggage.

Guatemala's landscape is made up of 90% mountainous areas, so the views for the most part were really impressive, though what was really quite striking from this bus journey & also the subsequent journeys we took through Guatemala was the extent of the deforestation that is going on all over the place. Almost every other hillside has a fire still smouldering where the trees have been felled, the ground burnt to prevent re-growth in the hope that the land will be able to be used for agricultural cash crops in later years. Clearly, most of us from developed countries have some level of environmental conscience these days, & are aware that these things go on in the developing nations though it is very easy to feel removed from the reality of the situation until you see it first hand. It was enough to convince us to cut down our Sunday newspaper intake from The Times, The Observer, The Independent, The Mirror & The Sport to the bare essentials of just The Sport...

Anyway, we had a couple of days chilling out in wood & straw cabana's perched on the hillside on the banks of a river - a gorgeous setting before making our way out to Semuc Champey. Semuc Champey essentially is a huge gorge carved in the limestone hillside by a river over millions of years, & there is one place where several thousands of years ago a huge slab of the limestone cliff collapsed across the river creating a natural limestone bridge. the river still flows underneath it, though on top there are a series of tiers in which have formed natural pools created from the water running down off the hillsides - a really beautiful spot, but more importantly you can swim in the pools & throw yourself off the different levels of the tiers into the water below & jump the 10m off the final tier into the river below which was great fun.

To top the day off we headed down to some local caves at dusk & sat at the entrance of the cave as literally hundred's of thousands of bats fly millimetres from our heads as they headed out for their evening meal. Thankfully all the bats seemed to have had their sonar devices recently serviced, as with the exception of the odd bit of bat shit, nothing actually hit us!

Next on the agenda was the picturesque Spanish Colonial town of Antigua,

just outside of the hellhole that is Guatemala City. Antigua is a very nice place, very touristy however & the prices of everything reflect the fact that this is a particularly popular spot.

After vowing not to get on anymore 'tourist designated' bus services, we set off on an adventure to lake Atitlan, Xela & a huge market town called Chichi for the next few days using nothing but the local Chicken

buses. Lake Atitlan looked beautifully serence from the bus winding down the mountainside although not quite so when we got there.... 'hassle' and 'fleece' the tourists was the number one pastime which marred the whole experience a little although you can understand why when hordes of tourists head into town in air conditioned buses, bling jewellery on show and will pay anything they ask rather than barter for anything.

Xela was a great place had we the time to do some of the many hikes on offer although, the rains start around 3pm, so most activities need to be finished by then or you are absolutely soaked like you have jumped into a pool with your clothes on!

Whilst travelling around on the chicken buses saved us a small fortune vs. the cost of the tourist buses, it certainly provided us with our fair share of 'exciting' moments along the way. The main link road through Guatemala is the Inter-Americana highway, which because it is called a highway, people drive on it like it is a highway - even though for the most part it winds its ways up, down & around the Guatemalan highlands. Some of the road is paved, some of it is a dirt track, some of it is single lane, some of it dual carriageway, some of it has roadworks going on, some of it has a contra-flow in place - none of these things however affect the constant 100kph the bus drivers insist on sticking to - literally launching these old dilapidated hand-me-down American school buses of the tarmac onto the dirt track that is about 1ft lower - there were bags, people & chickens being thrown all over the place. Absolutely hilarious & absolutely terrifying in equal measures!

We returned to Antigua for a final couple of days in Guatemala & had a couple more pretty exceptional experiences. The first of which was there was an earth tremor - not quite an earthquake, but definitely some seismic shifting going on. It was really weird, like we were stood on a frozen lake in our socks for a few moments as the ground literally slid around beneath our feet - the weird thing was that walls of building moved with the ground in perfect unison & nothing collapsed.

The second unique experience was that we climbed an active volcano just out of Antigua, called Pacaya - where you could toast marshmallows over the lava, walking across lava that had recently hardened & getting within inches of the stuff that was flowing. We had a 'guide' in the loosest sense of the word - who was running & jumping around on the hardened lava, one of the guys in our group actually fell through some of the hardened lava cutting his legs to ribbons on the razor sharp debris. Health & safety clearly doesn't come into it over here - apparently there is nowhere else in the world where you can get so close to active lava unless you are some sort of professional Geologist or something - a unique but really quite unnerving experience, hovering inches above molten earth that is in excess of 2000 degrees C - there wouldn't be much foot left if you fell through into that!

This journey through Guatemala really challenged the pre-conceptions we had of the country - & that no doubt most Westerners who have never been here also have, based on the 36 years of civil war that tore the country apart up until 1996. Whilst there is still massive amounts of corruption clearly evident, huge wealth & huge poverty on display, 90% of the people we met along the way were really kind, helpful, happy & respectful of tourists - recognising the benefits tourism brings to their country.

Guatemala is a stunning country, full of mountains, lakes & caves, has a Pacific & Caribbean Coast & has a whole host of things to see & they also need to remember tourists will not continue to keep paying the ever increasing costs to do and see these things.... there was a local and foreign price for everything and although this is fair in concept, the foreigner cost is rising quickly and these costs there have more than doubled from the costs the lonely planet was quoting in a book only a year ago.

The only slight dampener on our time here was the fact that on the final day as we got the bus into Guatemala city to catch a connecting bus onto El Salvador, Claire was pick pocketed & had her purse stolen. Fortunately there wasn't a great deal in there, & in reality this could've happened anywhere - so we won't hold it against you too much Mr Guatemala...

From the Pacific to the Caribbean - Mexico to Belize

After literally melting ourselves in the intense heat of Mexico’s Pacific coast we headed east on a 12 hour bus journey across the mountains up to a beautiful old colonial styled town, 2100 metres up called ‘San Cristobal De Las Casas’. The climate here was pretty much perfect - sunny with a fresh breeze during the day, & something actually resembling mildly cold in the evenings - after the heat of Puerto Escondido this was a welcome relief.

One of the things that is definitely a theme in Mexico is their love of really loud music, played through completely knackered speakers with more emphasis on the distortion than the music…San Cristobal was no exception on this front - & whilst it does have a certain innocent charm in some instances, Pink Floyd played at full volume through speakers that really should’ve been binned several years previous whilst you’re eating breakfast first thing in the morning is enough to test anyone’s patience!

San Cristobal was a really cool place, very laid back, full of indigenous tribes of people all selling their handy crafts in the daily markets, beautiful architecture surrounded by stunning mountain scenery - we had some fun sampling a few of the local Tequila’s in a bar that had saddles with stirrups as bar stools - very funny!

After spending a few really nice days in San Cristobal we jumped on another 13 hour bus ride heading East towards the Yucatan Peninsula - quite a stunning drive across the mountains, passing one of the largest Mexican Mayan ruin sites called Palenque. The trip was made a little more interesting by the addition of a couple of military check stops - one group of military doctors getting on the bus checking people out for swine flu symptoms (thankfully there was no one on our bus that qualified), & later army check stop checking for drugs - again, no one qualified on our bus so we all moved on, arriving at the Mexico/Belize border at around 1am, only to find that there was no transport available on the Belizean side of the border save for a dodgy Belizean immigration official who offered us a ride into the nearest town for $30USD - due to the fact it was less than 10 miles away we decided out of principle we wouldn’t take him up on his kind offer…so we waited 6 hours for the first bus to turn up at 7am…Still, we befriended a Belizean military medical officer who was posted there to check people out for Swine flu on entry into the country (which consisted of a few questions - have you got a sore throat? Have you got a headache? Body aches? Fever? - answer no to all of the above & you’re through…) - he was bored out of his mind as apart from us there was literally no one else crossing the border that night, so he was filling us in on all the do’s & don’ts of various places in Belize & Guatemala.

When the bus finally arrived (an old hand-me-down disused American school bus) - we headed to a town called Orange Walk - & found ourselves back in the same intense heat again that we thought we had escaped in Mexico. From here we took a really cool jungle river boat tour up a crocodile infested river, surrounded by vultures, iguana’s, monkeys (we had 2 monkeys actually get in our boat with us) & a whole host of other wildlife - 2 hours up river to an ancient Mayan ruin site called Lamanai in the middle of the jungle. With the full on wide brimmed hats we were all sporting it all felt very Indiana Jones, there was hardly anyone else at Lamanai due to most tourists being scared off by the swine flu threat (even though Belize has had no reported cases so far), so we pretty much only shared the site with the howler monkeys that were chilling out in the trees above us. Really good day.

We then moved on to Belize City where we spent a night - didn’t bump into Ross Kemp filming a series of his ‘Gangs’ program thankfully - then caught a boat out to the Cayes to spend a couple of days chilling out on Caye Caulker, a beautiful Caribbean island that is just a mile or so away from the Belizean barrier reef which stretches for about 180 miles, second only in size to the Australian barrier reef. We took a really nice sail boat ride out with an old local guy called Juni - who actually built his own boat, for a snorkelling trip around the reef where we swam with nurse sharks, sting rays, turtles & a multitude of other beautiful marine life. Another really great day.

We then headed south towards the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, in amongst the area where there are a large population of Jaguars (the animals, not the cars…). We stayed in an old fishing village called Hopkins that was home to the Garifuna people of African descent - renowned for their tribal drumming style music & laid back approach to life. They certainly lived up to their reputation on both fronts - there was a constant rhythm pulsing through the town day & night & the people were so laid back that the local bus that took the people of Hopkins onto the next town literally stopped every 20 metres to pick up passengers & carried out a tour of the entire town to ensure that they gave every household in the town the opportunity to be picked up from directly outside their own front door, because walking to one or two designated spots was all a little bit too much like hard work. Can‘t imagine that going on in Blighty somehow!

We took a combination of buses, hitching rides & taxis from Hopkins to the Cockscomb wildlife park, where unsurprisingly we didn’t see any Jaguars - I mean, who in their right mind would be out strolling around the jungle in the mid day sun when there is a shaded palm that you could be resting under….what is it they say about mad dog & English men?!? However it was all made worthwhile by a really refreshing swim in a waterfall in the middle of the jungle, & happening upon an old plane wreck in the jungle covered by vines & general overgrowth.

We spent one final night in Hopkins in our ramshackle beach front accommodation that we found we were sharing with a variety of insect life - including some enormous cockroaches & army ants. Claire & Leanne quickly drew up a ‘Memorandum of Responsibilities’ & designated me the responsible group member to deal with Cockroaches & spiders, Claire has committed to dealing with any encounters with rats & mice we may have, whilst Leanne has taken on the task of addressing any situations we may have with large mammals including jaguars and sharks, & also possibly helping out with some ant duties…something tells me I got the raw end of that particular deal!

We got another rickety old bus ride east to west across Belize & are currently sat in a town called San Ignacio on the Belize / Guatemala border, from where today we head into Guatemala - first stop in Guatemala is the ancient Mayan city of Tikal. On the whole Belize has been really good, if somewhat overpriced - largely due to the fact that it is quite a popular American holiday destination, & while they are willing to pay the price, people will charge the price. Considering Belize is an ex-British colony as well there is a remarkable lack of any sign of British influence, i.e. no architectural evidence, no real infrastructure to speak of - the only evidence is a good education system that is in place here, & the fact that most people speak English, as well as Spanish & Creole. Bye for now!

Mexico

We arrived in Mexico City late at night and shattered on 22nd April. Checked into the 'luxury' accommodation we had booked.... Mexico City Hostel, which according to hostel ratings, was the best on offer.... perhaps by Mexican standards but I guess this is what we have to get used to! It was 'basic' but clean & the staff were very helpful and friendly and it couldn't be better located for the historical centre.

It was Pauls birthday the following day so being organised, both myself and Leanne had between us managed to get Paul absolutely nothing... no present, no card, no token gesture, nada. We opted for making it 'his day' and proceded to do what he wanted for the day.... he was not so impressed by this arrangement! Off we went sightseeing around the old town (which incidently is beautiful and compares to any European city for its architecture), settled down for some beers in a friendly local establishment & some tacos from one of the many taco stalls with a plan to find a good restaurant and late night bar later to celebrate...... a few beers and some rather large G&T's later.... a littel drunk, we rolled back to the prison cell block H room at the hostel only to fall asleep for several hours.

We did manage to get up and roll into a traditional Mexican cantina for dinner. It was here we decided to sample the local speciality of 'mole Poblano', a paste/sauce made of red chilies, chocolate, nuts and anything else they can find. It has a very peculiar taste, resembles a plate of melted chocolate and is definitely an aquired taste!

The next day we took a tourist bus around the city to take in the suburb of Coyocoan, a leafy bohemian district in the south of the city which was really cool. Like most other British tourists abroad, we opted for the open top bus tour in the 30+ deg heat at the hottest part of the day.... Once we arrived in Coyocoan, we wandered to the Frida Khalo museum only to find 5 'masked' attendants tell us it is closed due to 'the epidemic'! We laugh this off, having not heard of the Swine Flu issue yet & and wandered back to the square. On arrival back at the hostel, the scale of the situation was becoming more apparent with the police handing out masks and all public events cancelled, which included the 'nacho libro' wresling we had booked that evening. Fortunatley we were leaving Mexico City early the following morning - fully equipped with face masks!

... Leanne was somewhat drowning under the weight of her pack.... 9 pairs of shoes, jeans, trousers, a dozen tops, shirts, dresses... something for all occasions.... all lovely but not at all pratical when trying to carry it all!

We head to Oaxaca with a stop off in Puebla after thinking we had read somewhere that this was a small quaint old colonial town.... it is, but it also has 1.6 million inhabitants and the size of Birmingham... not quite the quaint leamington size town we pictured! A 15 min bus ride to the town centre and it was in fact lovely and worth the stopoff! After meandering around for a few hours, we take a bus to Oaxaca.

We arrive into Oaxaca at 1am and head for the hostel.... another great hostel, this time with a shared bathroom within the lounge area/courtyard... nothing wrong with that except the toilet and bathroom doors were glass and you could see anybody on the toilet or taking a shower.... not want you really want to see whilst eating your cornflakes! We move to another hostel the following day and take a walk around the town.... taking 5 kg of clothing to the post office that we have encouraged Leanne to send home...less than 1 week in...

We took a 6 hour white knuckle mini bus ride over the mountains to the coast, to the Mexican Pacific surf haven of Puerto Escondido, we got a really nice bungalow right on the beach. Really nice place, totally laid back as you would expect - & although we have only been in the cities for a few days, it was really nice to get out of the hussle & bustle & just chill for a few days.

...briefly home..

Flew home for 2 weeks for Kerry and Gus's wedding and pick up the 3rd member of the posse.... Leanne, who will be travelling with us for the next 12 months.

The wedding went off without a hitch and was a fantastic day despite Gus and Kerry's appauling lack of organisation!

We said our final farewells to family and friends before leaving and so begins phase 2 of the journey.... Mexico

Last Week in Fernie....

Another good snowfall over the weekend meant the last week started well yet again... 20 cm of new snow and the mountain to ourselves as you can see from the photos!

Made the most of it as it was forecast warmer temperatures so we had another couple of great days before it became a slushy and patchy but still really good.

Decided one day to have a day off as after 9 days on the trot snowboarding we were a little achy... decided to go snowshoeing instead. Hindsight is a great thing... had we known that snowshoeing was quite so exhausing, we perhaps would not have embarked on the 17km round trip up to Island Lake... 4 hours later and unable to move or speak, we made it back to the B&B... so much for the restful day off!

We headed back to Calgary via a detour to Waterton lakes on the Montana border. Absolutely stunning scenery but unfortunately everything was still closed for the winter and so driving through in the car admiring the views from a far was the extent of what we could do there... a visit in the summer another time is essential.

Took the scenic route back to Calgary to see our friends for the last time in a few years...!

... and so back to England for final farewells and preparations for Kerry's & Gus's wedding.

Rockies Road Trip

We are now in our final week at Fernie, we have been amazingly fortunate again to have yet more snow to see us through to the end of our stay / the season. Fernie is generally renowned for receiving unbelievable amounts of snow, though this season by normal standards has been pretty light - so much so in fact that alot of the locals & the seasonaires gave up on this season during Feburary, business' were laying off staff, shops were selling off their winter gear at 50%...all a bit premature really considering the way March has panned out - we've had a fairly consistent amount of snow, averaging about 30cm a week - & given the fact that so many people have already given up on the season we have had the mountain almost to ourselves. Literally, we have only queued for 2 lifts the whole time we have been here - & even then only for a few minutes. We have had a great time here.

In amongst our time in Fernie, we caught the Greyhound back to Calgary last Fri (20th March) to spend the weekend with Kelly, Joerg, Mia & Neisha again which was really nice. Here is a shot of Mia & I jamming through the song Mia has written, called 'Chairs In The Ocean', & a shot of Neisha looking like she's enjoying being a little taller!

We turned up in Calgary & it was like a spring day, people walking around in T-shirts, beautiful sunshine, about +13c, by the time we left on Sunday there was another 30cm of snow on the ground & it was sub zero again. The local saying in Calgary is 'if you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes & something else will come along' - & it's certainly true!

While we were in Calgary we also picked up a hire car, so we took a road trip around the Rockies on our way back to Fernie. We drove up to Jasper last Sunday, about 4 hours north of Calgary via the 'Icefields Parkway' - which is a road between Banff & Jasper that is about 260km through some of the most stunning mountain & glacier scenery we have experienced, which is an absolute pleasure to drive. Anyone planning a trip to the Rockies should definitely take the time to venture north up to Jasper - if for nothing else than the drive there. However, thats not the only reason to go there though - as Jasper is a really cool little town right out in the wilderness in the middle of a National Park. We went on a really nice walk through a frozen river canyon (Maligne Canyon), stayed at a great B&B run by a really nice Swiss couple - all in all it was a real highlight of the trip.

We then drove back down south again to a town called Golden, which is basically the base town for the mountain resort of Kicking Horse. We came here mountain biking in 2007 & loved it so wanted to come back & check it out for snowboarding - for which it has gained quite a reputation in it's relatively short existence (the resort only really opened up about 8 years ago). Again, we found a great little B&B to stay at run by really nice people - in fact everyone in Canada seems to be really friendly & nice. We had a days snowboarding at Kicking Horse on the Monday, unfortunately the snow conditions weren't great & it was pretty much a total white out the whole day, so we weren't able to take advantage of what the mountain had to offer. Still a good day though.

Another tough day on the piste...

We've been in Fernie for just over a week now, had a few days of glorious blue skies though with temperatures at about -30c, & a few days of snow fall with slightly warmer temperatures - providing us with a couple of really good powder days. Between Saturday and Monday almost half a metre of new snow fell - as a result a lot of the resort has been closed off while they stabilise the avalanche risk, though there has still been plenty to keep us entertained. If the snow stops tonight the rest of the resort should be opened up tomorrow - we'll be up early for the first lift tomorrow to take full advantage of it.

Here are a couple of clips of us on the mountain today:

A clip of Claire last week taking on her first jump: