Our one and only night we stayed in the city of Belem we got mugged at knifepoint. Belem is the big, ugly city at the end of the Amazon River on the far north east coast of Brazil. I would like to gloss it up and say Belem isnt actually that bad, but I cant.. I really hate the place. I wouldnt recommend it to anyone as a ´must see´ but it is a place you often go through to get from the Amazon River to the rest of the North East. We were there one night and this is what [View Full Entry]

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Well, we finally stepped off the boat at Santarem, the half way stop down the mighty Amazon river between Manaus, a massive city in the middle of the Amazon basin (where we set off from 2 days earlier) and Belem which is another massive city near the coast at the end of the even mightier amazon (at this point). Before I go on, I'll tell you that should we have been due to stay on the boat until Belem, we would have got off at Santarem anyway, as a German actually did. The rest of the westerners we met on the [View Full Entry]

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to be completed [View Full Entry]

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Woo hoo!!!  James and I are in Salvador, Brazil right now and it~s Carnaval.. their annual party. Seriously man, this is crazy shit. It is officially the biggest party on earth, with more people than anywhere else gathered in the one place with the sole common purpose of partying for a full week. Oldies, youngies, they all get into it and everyone - everyone - is happy all the time. It is unbelievable. The place is going off 24-7 and there are different street parades all over the city, each with its own flavour, style, flair. Yesterday we went to [View Full Entry]

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Warning - This one will probably contain swearing [View Full Entry]

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Oh yes this will be a good one.. [View Full Entry]

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Watch this space... [View Full Entry]

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to be completed [View Full Entry]

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Tikal is known as the ´dog´s bollocks´ of all the Mayan ruins and consists of LOADS of pretty well preserved Mayan temples, palaces and other ruins hidden in the thick jungles of northern Guatemala. We got there after a long trip and border crossing from Belize to Guatemala which took about 6 hours. Spent the afternoon cruising around the jungle climbing all these ruins (you can climb some of them thanks to specially built wooden steps) and basically marvelling at how amazing the 3-4 foot Mayans were.. how did they build these things?? We were also subjected to some monkey business [View Full Entry]

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Semuc Champey, Guatemala In the depths of the depths of the most mountainous regions of Guatemala is a tiny, tiny, tiny little village called Semuc Champey. We ended up here on a whim, having heard good reports from some Irish hippies we met on top of one of the Mayan temples in Tikal. It was like hearing a whisper of an ancient secret... by accident. It wasn´t easy to get to. We took a mini bus (which is basically the country´s transport system) from St Elena / Florres in the north of Guatemala to Coban - a bus packed with locals [View Full Entry]

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