Our final stop in Cuba, and also the end of our Latin American adventures. We had a 2 night stay in Havana. It is distinctly divided into 2 parts, new(ish) Havana, and Old Havana. We were expecting the city to be full of crumbling ruins, but we were pleasantly surprised. Old Havana was a treat. Still retaining a lot of its Spanish Colonial charm, a lot of the buildings have been restored and converted into shops or restaurants. A highlight was the old American cars that are everywhere. Some of them have been well maintained and would fetch a good price [View Full Entry]

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After Vinales, we travelled to the very western point of Cuba to a remote location called Maria la Gorda. Known world wide for its diving, but should also be known world wide for their ancient diving gear. As we didn´t bring any gear with us, we had to hire everything. The wetsuits had giant holes in them, the BCD´s (vests) were all torn and tattered, but worst of all, the regulators would hiss leaking air when we turned on the tank! Our dive leader would jiggle them around a bit and just tell us that there was ´no problem´ We ended [View Full Entry]

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Unfortunatley we landed in Havana 3 hours late due to delays in Cancun, and it was too late to see anything in Havana. First thing next morning we had a 3 hour drive to our first destination, Vinales (pron : Bin-ya-les), also known as the Switzerland of Cuba. Nestled between unique mountains called 'mogotes', Vinales is known as one of the best tobacco growing regions in Cuba. One of our first excursions was a 3 hour hike through the local tobacco plantations, learning how tobacco is dried, and then rolled into cigars. The next day we all mounted horses (though I [View Full Entry]

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Well our Mayan Adventure has finally come to an end. We have made some great friends along the way, and our group leader, Martin, did a fantastic job getting us safely through 3 countries in the last 22 days. Our final stop was the Mexican tourist town of Playa del Carmen. This place looks to be built for the thousands of American tourists who jump of a cruise boat, buy some souvineers, then tell all their friends they have seen Mexico. Unfortunatley we haven´t been SCUBA diving yet. We were both recovering from a cold in Belize, and after booking our [View Full Entry]

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Belize is a hot place! We have packed our warm clothes in the bottom of our backpack, and will be living in shorts and tshirts from now on. We have spent a total of 6 days in Belize, and the first thing we noticed when crossing the border from Guatemala, is they speak Reggae! Well its actually English. "Hey mon, how ya doing mon". Bob Marley is god over here, every second man has dreads, and there is no one is in a hurry to do anything - what a great place to have a relaxing holiday...but not for us. Our [View Full Entry]

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We spent 7 days in total in Guatemala, and it has been fantastic. The people are really nice, and will go out of their way to ensure you are having a good time. The country reminds me of Thailand, with Tuk-Tuks and street stalls everywhere. After our first few nights in Panajachel, we travelled south-east to Antigua, with a stop at the Chichicastenango market on the way. The Chichi market is the largest of its type in Central America. Most of the stalls sell hand crafted goods (blankets, scarfs, wood carvings etc), but we stumbled into the food market area, which [View Full Entry]

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Monday was the best day of the holiday so far. We got to climb an active Volcano, and it would not be possible to get any closer to the lava. I'll let the pictures do the talking. [View Full Entry]

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San Cristobal was a lot colder than we were expecting. Apparently the altitude is about 2100 metres. We spent 2 nights here. San Cristobal is the Amber capital of Mexico, with every 3rd shop selling amber. The next leg of our journey was the most hectic so far. In brief our transportation was as follows - quality Mexican bus to the last town in Mexico, taxi to the Mexican-Guatemalan border, get immmigration cards and passports stamped at border, Tuk-tuk from the border to the chicken bus stop, chicken bus to our hired van...then on to our accomodation for the night! Suffice [View Full Entry]

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After a rather uneventful 10 hour bus trip from Merida (well the only thing of interest was the militray checkpoint where little Mexicans with big guns did a random search of our luggage, including Soni´s), we finally reached Palenque. The next day we went to the Mayan ruins of Palenque, which are even more impressive that those at Chichen Itza. These ruins are in more of a jungle setting, the humidity is high, and the bug count is even higher! Unlike Itza, were were able to climb some of the pyramids, and in one or two of them, go inside and [View Full Entry]

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Hola Amigos, Well its not really called Chicken Pizza, but more of that later. We have finally started our adventure. After 2 days of flying, we landed in Cancun, for what is the US equivalent of schooies week. Lucky for us we were not where all the party goers are, we are more in the backpackers area. All we did on the first day was have a good sleep in, and then a meet and greet with our GAP leader and 8 travelling companions (2 Aussies, 3 British, 1 Dutch, 1 Canadian and 1 American). Day 2 is when the travelling [View Full Entry]

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