My 28 hour bus ride north left Rio at 9am on the morning after Rolling Stones. My plan had been to stay up all night in the hopes of having a decent kip on the journey. As it happened I'd sneaked into the hostel I'd already checked out of and slipped into a coma on the pool table. Waking up at 8:50 I realised I had a problem. Rather conveniently, the only reason I made the bus at all was because unbeknown to me summer time had just ended and the clocks had gone back. After God knows how many weeks [View Full Entry]

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So Brazil. Turns out the Spanish and the Portuguese dreamt up some line of longitude to separate their New World empires. Then they discovered Brazil. Or something like that. Long and short of that is they don't even bother speaking Spanish here. Well that's no bloody good, is it?! Anyways, four months of lazily travelling far too slowly meant so far I'd cut short my stay in Costa Rica from three weeks to two days, scrubbed around Panama altogether and put Cuba off until later. So far so good. Flying into Sao Paulo late January was a bit of a shock [View Full Entry]

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So... a bus, a bike-taxi thing and another bus later and we were in Nicaragua, a fascinating and lovely country with possibly the most interesting history of any country I've visited so far. A nation of proud, friendly people this place felt undeniably safer than many of its neighbours. This, despite me reading that, after Haiti, here is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. The two main cities founded when the Spaniards came a-rapin' and a-pillagin' were Grenada and León. A number of factors made Grenada a rich colonial city attracting the wealthy elite, who brought thei [View Full Entry]

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Uh-oh... camera playing up. Had to post her back to England for a bit of TLC, poor little lamb and having trouble connecting my disposables to the computer while I wait for a new one to be posted out to me here. Anyway, so, where was I? Fresh out of Xela and filled to bursting point with Spanish. Knowing only too well the virtues of language consolidation, the most sensible thing to do here was to head straight for Honduras' English-speaking Bay Islands for a spot of scuba diving. Having phoned ahead to check, I was pleased to discover that the [View Full Entry]

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Errr, October 13th? So first its two weeks, then four and now, well who would ever have predicted this, eh? Perhaps its time to start thinking about making lots of New Year’s resolutions I’ve no intention of ever keeping. I managed to leave my diary somewhere in Antigua so I've given up on that one. Means I can hardly remember what I've been up to though so I'd best start making things up.... NOW! So after all of Mexico - or at least the 3% or so that I must have seen - I had to take a boat and a [View Full Entry]

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Heeeey! Five weeks in between blog entries already eh?! If you think Mexicans are lazy, come and have a look at me… So after thoroughly outstaying my welcome in Puerto Vallarta I made my way to Guanajuato, a beautiful beautiful colonial city which owes its wealth to producing a third of the world’s silver for almost two centuries. It was their annual Cervantino festival so the town was pretty packed with visitors. Sadly most of the events laid on were far too highbrow for yours truly so I went out and got drunk with a couple of sound Mexicans down on [View Full Entry]

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So I had to spend a couple more days at Barre de Navidad than I’d planned to, quarantining myself in my hotel with the shits but it soon passed and I made my way to Guadalajara. You know when I said Mexico City rocked? I think I must’ve meant this badboy! I just had an unbelievably cool week there. The city’s quite modern and alive with music; during the day you can hear it coming from every shop, car and plaza but the place is something else after dark. There’s a couple of hundred thousand students too, so there's plenty of [View Full Entry]

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Tempted to fake the whole trip while living in secret in my parents’ shed for twelve months and possibly against my better judgement I eventually flew to Mexico City. This’ll probably come as a shock to anyone who knows me but I nearly missed my flight following one final boozy leaving do in the departure lounge some four weeks after the first. If anything, it was worth flying half way around the world just to get away from them there leaving dos, as I’m sure my liver was starting to give up the fight. Mexico City absolutely rocks! In fact, I [View Full Entry]

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