http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Ben-Lakoff/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Ben Lakoff en-us Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:06:59 +0000 Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:06:59 +0000 Documentary worthy.4500k Huancayo Peru all the way to Asuncion ParaguayIn a 125 or 150 cc moto taxi that topped out at 47mph down hilldownwind. Way over the weight limit to have them work correctly. wow.Finished the race going across the Chaco desert in Paraguay... Representing 95 of Paraguays landmass and housing just 3 something like that of their population i soon found out why. Tha http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Paraguay/blog-455706.html So for the second time in my trip today I had to watch family member walk through the airport and wave goodbye. Never is an easy thing but seeing my parents for those 8 short days was well worth the hardship of seeing them leave. I could not have asked for any better present than to see them come out of the Cusco Airport. Amazing week.... and no that's not a suck up speech.Altitude was not a http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/blog-447301.html A couple months ago I heard of a trek in the middle of Peru. Stayed too long in Colombia and had fly through Ecuador to make it to the end of trekking season. The trek is the Cordillera Huayhuash. It was worth it.Peru is a truly amazing place. Started the country at a backpacker resort of a hostel in northern Peru got my surf on saw a massive humpback whale and decided I was ready for the mo http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/blog-440749.html Saw the equator monument that is not really built on the actual line French... whoops saw the real equator line did some experiments and stuff climbed a massive church scary lack of safety and then decided we were over ecuador and using US currency and went to Peru. Sorry the internet is horrid I promise my next entry will be better. http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Ecuador/blog-439949.html Bogota. A little different than the rest of Colombia that I have grown so fond of but nevertheless a must see on the tourist train. Although Bogota is cold dirty bum infested and cold did i mention that I actually liked the place. Full of awesome museums Im not the museum type either... and bums yet it does have its charm.Sundays in Bogota are pretty special. They shut down most o http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/blog-439384.html Medellin... What an amazing place. When one thinks of Medellin Colombia it is impossible not to think about Pablo Escobar and the drug cartel. If you watch the HBO series Entourage you would think this place is all mafias and military. Quite the contrary. Medellin is a modern large city and the people here will not let you down being the most genuine people you will meet...This place is nick http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Medellin/blog-434747.html Tayrona. 3 days worth of water tuna oatmeal peanut butter and bread. Beach side camping in paradise. After a hot jungle two hour trek to our desired beach of El Cabo San Juan we were finally there. The hike was relatively easy and we saw heaps of monkeys they actually were throwing fruit at us and long highways of leaf cutter ants. Tayrona was beautiful and I have to admit the sunrise the http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/blog-433865.html My journey through South America began with a whopper of a city. Cartagena. Wow. The beauty the history...Perfect start to an amazing continent. To give a brief history Cartagena was founded in 1533 and became the main Spanish port on the Caribbean and after a ton of pirate attacks the Spaniards constructed elaborate walls all around the town and a chain of forts to protect it. The walls a http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/blog-429270.html The past few weeks have been a blur. Pete has left and is now all moved in up at Purdue hesa gettin sooo biig my parents are now officially empty nesters Jess is working.... hahah and I have missed the Travis Hacker Golf tournament Sorry Smiths . The day I chapperoned Pete to the airport to see him out I returned to my hostel and got on a 17 hour bus straight to Panama City. Hooray f http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Panama/blog-426022.html So far all of the border crossings we have done have not been that bad. You go through the typical formalities of stamping passports and then you are on your way. Not Panama. The one glitch is the need to have an onward ticket. Kind of a scam in my opinion. So in order to cross the border you have to have some kind of ticket already to leave the country. Conveniently they sell tickets back t http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Panama/Bocas-Del-Toro/Isla-Colon/blog-424481.html Costa Rica is a beautiful country. The wildlife and the jungles are exactly what we had heard... Pretty darn good. However in our opinion we feel like CR is way too touristy for the budget traveler and it is very difficult to get through without shelling out a lot of cash. It can be done but it is very easy to spend a lot of money... Even when something looks inexpensive in the restaurants i http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Costa-Rica/blog-422004.html We got into San Juan del Sur on Sunday and stayed sunday night in a nice little hospedaje. We met up with some other travelers we have seen several times and went out to a nice restaurant to treat ourselves before camping. The next day we caught a shuttle to Maderas which is the beach that everyone goes to surf. San Juan del Sur is a little beach town right on a bay so there isnt any waves. http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Nicaragua/San-Juan-Del-Sur/blog-419228.html We left the beloved Granada and took the two oclock ferry straight to Isla de Ometepe. We met up with another Swedish guy named Joaquin on the ferry. He has been traveling for six months and hes a very cool and interesting guy. The ferry was pretty nice and not too bouncy. We arrived at dark and hiked for an hour to a cheap hostel the first night. We stayed in Hostel Ortiz which was pretty c http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Nicaragua/Isla-de-Ometepe/blog-417936.html We have been in Granada now for 9 days and have loved it. This city is amazing. Beautiful. Granada in our opinion is way better than its 'rivals' Antigua and Leon. We have been taking classes at a school here and living with a family nearby. I think it is one of those 'maturing' times during our lives when we voluntarily elect to study and put ourselves through school... The classes hav http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Nicaragua/Granada/blog-416868.html So we arrived in Leon Nicaragua early in the afternoon Saturday. We have been staying at the Big Foot Hostel here and have enjoyed creating amazing meals in the kitchen not a lie. Special thanks to Aaron and your meat creation you showed me at school we have been eating that the whole time. Beans beef onions corn tomato sauce. Delicious.Sunday. The first whole day we have in Nicaragua http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Nicaragua/Leon/blog-413891.html We left Utila and caught the 2 p.m. ferry. Oh my we had a long day of travel ahead of us. We caught a bus straight from La Ceiba to Teguc. Little did we know it would be a 7 hour bus ride......It was pretty scenic on the bus. Rolling hills cows crossing the road and a pretty nice sunset from the bus window. We wrote in our journals and drifted in and out of bus sleep aka horrible sleep.W http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Tegucigalpa/blog-413179.html So we just finished our Advanced open water certification. One of our instructors Ryan was nice enough to let us stay at his apartment all week while doing it so we didnt have to get a hotel. The whole diving experience was awesome.To wrap it up we swam with dolphins did a night dive saw a massive shipwreck at 30m swam with sea turtles and spotted eagle rays. Thats bout it in a nutshell http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/blog-412593.html Copan is amazing. It is probably one of my favorite places weve been so far. It looks a lot like Antigue only cleaner. All of the buildings are in great shape and theres several backpacker hangouts that were awesome. We ended up staying in a hostel called La Manzana Verde the green apple. It was extremely clean six dollars and there were tons of kids there.Strangly enough we were beginni http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Copan/blog-410958.html We spent 11 hours on buses from Copan and went straight to La Ceiba on the Caribbean coast off of Honduras. We got into La Ceiba and took a cab straight to our hostel. Our hostel is right on the beach. We went to the markets in town during the day. Its huge and kinda sketch but whatever. Its very cheap too. We stayed in La Ceiba a night just to stock up on groceries for the Islands. We wen http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/La-Ceiba/blog-410969.html Amazing. This place is sick. Theres only two or three roads that go around the islands but there is tons of things on each of them. We get into town after an hour ferry ride from La Ceiba. Immediately upon arriving we are swarmed with like fifteen representatives from each dive shop on the island. There are around ten or so dive shops here maybe a few more. All of them are pretty much the http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Honduras/Bay-Islands/blog-410959.html