Ash Ade

Good Friday in Copacabana, Bolivia is mental. The streets and beach were crammed with holidaymakers, mostly up the short distance from La Paz. Giant popcorn sellers (the popcorn not the people were giants!) lined the streets as well as vendors selling sunglasses, umbrella hats and various other trinkets. The water was littered with coloured swan pedal boats and the beaches swarmed with revellers. Oscar, our personal guide for the two day trip, rocked up a few hours late due to the shocking traffic coming into town. When trying desperately to get a ferry to Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) Oscar suddenly realised he’d made a grave error in assuming boats were running as usual. After much rushing up and down the docks we decided an alternative mode of transport was required. He managed to ... read more

After 5 days on a boat we really enjoyed being on land & having lots of space and what better place to relax than beautiful sunny Cartagena. Immediately we felt the change in continent, people were so friendly, the food was different. Streets were lined with food stalls and lottery stalls. For breakfast we had 3 eggs fried in a sort of batter bun. Not our favourite but definitely different! For dinner Ade devised a stir fry with our bargain 5 for $0.50 chorizo sausages. It was quite delicious. Not by design we ended up staying in the red light district (cheap property for hostels and close to the old town), Ade even got propositioned the first night while trying to find the ATM on his own. The old town of Cartagena is famous for its ... read more

The sun was setting as we touched down in Havana. A long tedious immigration line awaited us and when we finally retrieved our bags Ash's pockets had been rifled through though nothing had been taken. Welcome to Cuba! Interestingly and per Cuban immigration policy our passports weren’t stamped, as we understand that this may cause issues visiting the States at a later date. Despite being accosted by loads of taxi drivers at the airport we managed to get into an official one and were advised a relatively decent fare to our hotel. Our 30 minute cab ride was in the dark and disappointingly the car we were in was modern but we did see plenty of old cars on the road as well as old trucks and bizarre looking old buses type things. The iconic Hotel ... read more

It took 8 legs of transport to get from Belize to Honduras, including a water taxi, walking, buses, a ferry and a completely overcrowded shuttle bus (25 people on a 12 seater minibus, both sliding doors open and 5 people hanging out, the driver still racing round corners at full speed). It took the entire day but was quite cheap. The border crossing into Honduras felt a tad sketch as some hoods were walking around eyeing everyone up and making gestures to Ade but nothing happened. We got off the bus at Omoa and as we walked the 1km to our hostel by the beach the power went out. It was completely pitch black with only fire flies and stars to brighten the way. We managed to find the hostel, check in as the only guests ... read more

The bus journey from Antigua to Flores seemed to take forever, which quantified was between 8 and 9 hours. The driver sped most of the way and intermittently blasted dance music as if to keep us awake but the lack of leg room and head rests were doing a good job of that already. During the lunch break he told us briskly that we only had 20 minutes so we all powered through the food and were dutifully waiting by the bus in 20 minutes where we waited a further 40 for him to turn up. He spent this time pacing the car park on his mobile phone. At least we had ice-cream to keep us cool. Upon arrival in Lanquin we were a tad worried about the lack of hotel name on our voucher and ... read more