Travel Blog Posts
December 8th 2005
On a couple of occasions we've crossed a border and immediately been taken by how different the new country feels to the last, we had that feeling here. No, hold on, the first thing we felt after crossing the border was temporary blindness, after making it over the wooden bridge (with holes big enough to lose a wheel) we'd forgotten to wind our windows up and received a full dose of insecticide spray...welcome to Panama. We chose this border because we were keen to visit the Bocas del Toro archipelago on the north west coast (Panama has an east-west orientation so for a good proportion of the country the sun rises over the Pacific and sets over the Atlantic which is a little difficult to get your head around), the scenery approaching the port town of ... read more
October 30th 2005
We're sorry Costa Rica, we didn't have enough time to devote to you, we had to make it to Panama in a hurry and, since you seem to be one of the easiest countries to get to in Central America, you'll be first on our list when we return to this part of the world. Fortuna was our first night's stop, not a bad little town it has a ski resort feel about it and is dominated by the imposing silhouette of Volcan Arenal, Central America's most active. It had taken us five hours, and about eight police inspections, to drive from the border, we arrived after dark and had to leave early in the morning so there was little time for us to explore. Even so, as we passed numerous expensive looking houses with large, ... read more
October 25th 2005
An hour into Nicaragua and we came across our first problem - no bridge. We were attempting to satisfy the latest phase of Rachel's seemingly insatiable appetite for all things "local" and "crafty", by visiting a pottery co-operative in the village of Ducuale Grande. After a few miles of dirt road we saw the remains of what was once the only safe way to cross the river, until the fringes of hurricane Stan had played with it. The only way was to ford so I took all the necessary precautions that any self respecting over-lander would; asked the locals where best to cross, checked the entry and exit points, checked the flow rate, estimated the depth...finally I suggested that the vehicle behind us should go first. The pottery was an interesting place where a number of ... read more
October 10th 2005
Guns. OK, they've been part of everyday life since and including America, but Honduras...they seem to take them a whole lot more seriously here. We had to change some dollars into lempiras and chose one of the main banks on the central square of Santa Rosa de Copan, our first stop. We enter the bank past four guards, each with a shotgun and handgun - neither was holstered - and join the queue behind what appears to be half of the town's population. As has happened so many times, embarrassingly, we're ushered to the front of the queue and then behind the teller counters to talk to a senior member of staff, then we notice all of the male employees (which appears to number the other half of the town's population) have handguns stuffed into the ... read more
September 20th 2005
And we thought the Guatemalans were paranoid. Our first night's accommodation in El Salvador involved us calling through a locked gate just to get into the village, the guesthouse was even more secure; but Rachel struck a bargain deal again and for two nights we had the whole beachfront place, with pool, to ourselves. We'd earned it though; the border crossing was the most hassle yet and took over two hours (although it did cost a grand total of $0.70), we'd looked at a couple of other hotels - the first prompted a face from Natalie that we'd never seen before, the second had rooms with no windows, adjoining garages and hourly rates...if you know what I mean - and our final choice was at the end of a dirt track that didn't seem to lead ... read more
September 15th 2005
A series of hand gestures from the money changer at the Guatemalan border suggested that we'd have a bumpy ride on our way to the town of Flores. He was right. For about the first twenty miles or so we were thrown around quite a bit on a road that Cambodia would have been proud to call its own. The border crossing was again straight forward; pay cash for fumigation, vehicle and tourist permits, the only difference was that there's no such thing as insurance in Guatemala, and we were off. We were late though and again found ourselves slowly making our way, in the dark, through another foreign land. After a couple of hours we arrived at Flores, the most convenient town to stay in when visiting the temples of Tikal in Northern Guatemala. Flores ... read more
September 7th 2005
Four weeks in Mexico and our Spanish was, shall we say, muy poco, so it was with some relief that we approached our second border and the English speaking Belize. The border crossing was straight forward enough with charges for liability insurance and fumigation, then a signed declaration promising to not sell the car and after only half an hour and a quick chat with the immigration official, about how great his country is, we were on our way to the notorious Belize City. There are immediate and obvious differences between Belize and Mexico, but the most striking is the people, the majority now of Caribbean descent. Superpop's, a roadside barbecue and our first stop, gave us our first taste of both Belizean cuisine - rice, beans and meat - and Belizean people - big, loud ... read more
September 1st 2005
So we made it to Mexico…..us and our trusty (we hope) 4Runner had negotiated a relatively hassle free border crossing at Tijuana. I say relative as even at this early stage a lack of Spanish made the wheres and hows of obtaining vehicle and tourist permits all the more tricky - need to get learning and quickly. We counted our blessings though and shot past the endless queues heading in the opposite direction back into the U.S. We were headed south through Baja California - the long, narrow stretch of land between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California. Wanting to avoid the more popular resort areas in the north we didn't stop until well after sunset, thus breaking rule number 1 - don’t drive after dark in Mexico and Central America. I must admit ... read more
August 1st 2005
Los Angeles and we had some work to do, we’d decided not to travel further North to Seattle, Vancouver or Anchorage and began our search for a vehicle in the city of dreams. Our dream seemed to be an endless tour around hundreds of used car lots until, after nearly two weeks and nearly throwing the towel in, we found what we wanted (if it doesn't last the distance we'll claim it was bought in frustration!). Inglewood was our home for the first week, the area around LAX is not the nicest but the people were friendly enough, saying things like "JESUS!! TOURISTS?! HERE?!", "Yeah man, come to Inglewood, come see the crime scene." and "Oh God...watch out for your wallet." A few trips on the local buses, which were pretty reliable and not as dangerous ... read more
July 1st 2005
'What have we done?' we asked ourselves as we sat eating cheese sandwiches like a couple of old biddies in the back of a campervan in the pouring rain. We'd said our good-byes to Asia's heat and humidity and after a four day stopover in Perth had arrived in New Zealand, in winter. If the truth be known, we were actually looking forward to cooling off for a while. We had elected to tour the islands by campervan. Coincidentally (hmm), our timing would allow us to take in some of the Lions games as well. True to form we were greeted by driving rain and gales at Auckland airport and after a couple of hours wait, were united with what we'd call 'home' for the next month, a two berth camper complete with twin hob and ... read more
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