KitKat
Kirsten Vigar Joined: February 21st 2006
Logged in: February 22nd 2007
Logged in: February 22nd 2007
Travel Blog Posts
Beautiful Kaikoura
Which I think means 'hello everybody from the land of the long white cloud'. Yeah, I know it's corny but you try thinking of a witty title after 7 months on the road! My brain, my body and my bank balance are all in pretty poor shape but it's been well worth it, especially the last four weeks in New Zealand. There's still a lot of world left to see but it's difficult to imagine that there is anywhere else on the planet that comes close to this county in terms of raw physical beauty. I started my lightening tour of the country in Christchurch just over four weeks ago and have barely stopped moving since. It's a short, 3-hour flight from Sydney across the Tasman Sea but what a difference those 3 hours and 1,300 ... read more
The beautiful Opera House
Well, I hate to admit it because for 7 weeks I thought Melbourne was my favourite place in Australia, but Sydney is a helluva town. What with the beautiful harbour for a backdrop, two iconic landmarks, great shopping (always important), green spaces, beaches, a cheap and easy to navigate public transport system and a really lovely mixture of old and new buildings, it's pretty difficult to find any faults. Mind you, I didn't feel quite so pleased with Sydney when I first arrived - via a quick tour of the Hunter Valley wineries - as the driest continent on earth continued to defy this epithet with howling gales and torrential rain for my first four days in the city. The only good thing about the foul weather was that it forced me to kill time by ... read more
A hump-back whale!
Hi All! I know it's winter here but last week was still a bit of shock to the system. Of the five full days I spent in Brisbane, it rained pretty much solidly for four of them. Not just a bit of drizzle, but clothes, shoes and bag-soaking downpours of monsoon proportions. While Australia desperately needs the rain, I don't and needless to say it put quite a damper (hee hee, pun totally intended) on my sight-seeing plans for the week. Luckily though, it didn't stop me going out on a boat to do a spot of hump-back whale watching. At this time of the year, these amazing creatures are migrating down the east coast of Australia, from the Great Barrier Reef where they calf and spend the winter, back to their feeding grounds in the ... read more
Aaaah, the brakes!
Hi All I know what you're thinking, no blogs for weeks and then two in a fortnight. Don't worry, this is just a quickie to bring the story up-to-date so if I were you I'd save it for Friday afternoon when you need to look busy. As you probably guessed from the cheesy title of this instalment, I've left the warm weather behind and am now in wintery Oz. After a lovely, relaxing and very expensive 10 days in San Francisco (my credit card is now on life support!) where I caught up with my mum and some old family friends I flew to Melbourne on 20th July (arriving on 22nd July having crossed the dateline and completely missed the 21st!) and got back into proper travelling mode. Melbourne bills itself as the 'loveable, liveable city', ... read more
Finca Santo Domingo - Ometepe, Lake Nicaragua
Hi everyone Well, no excuses: I'm just rubbish!! It's been an embarrassingly long time since I last updated my blog which means I've now got four countries to tell you about. Lucky you! However, four countries is a lot of miles and quite a few chicken buses so to spare you all the "and then we got on a bus" type of detail, I´ll just do a quick post-card style summary of my favourite events of the past few weeks to bring things up to date. Roatan, Honduras After a couple of days in the steaming heat of Grenada - during which I came down with a cold, got locked out of my room (again) and climbed a volcano - it was back on the road for two days bound for Roatan in Honduras. Nearly 24 ... read more
Well, here we are in Nicaragua and it's steaming hot. Unfortunately, the power and water is pretty intermittent, which means no fans and no showers for most of the day. Mmmm, nice! It's only been a week since I last updated my blog, but we've covered quite a bit of ground so it's probably easier to do a quick summary to bring things up date and write in more detail when the internet connection is better: La Fortuna After collecting another ten people and a new guide in San Jose, we had a pretty easy travel day up to La Fortuna in the interior of the country. It's an absolutely beautiful place dominated by the area's main attraction, Volcan Arenal, about 17km north of the town. It's an active volcano which means if you're lucky, some ... read more
Arriving in Bocas del Toro
Although it´s only 50km or so from Bocas del Toro to the border with Costa Rica, the journey took about 2 hours. Not only did we have to take a water taxi back to the mainland but the roads are unbelievably bad in this part of the country. Still, we managed to negotiate a good price for a private taxi rather than schlepping all the way by bus, so while the ride was bumpy at least it was air-conditioned. We´d been told that the border itself was a fairly makeshift affair involving a decript old bridge across the river that marks the end of Panama and the beginning of Costa Rica. The guidebooks even suggest that those of a nervous disposition should pay one the local children to take their bags across to make the journey ... read more
All roads lead to Boquete
After our quick stop in El Valle, it was good to get on the road and really feel like this journey was underway. And getting to Boquete was no bad way to start. At over seven hours and including three different buses, I certainly smelt like a traveller by the time we arrived! Mind you, bus may not be the most comfortable way to travel but it´s certainly the best way to see the country. From the rolling hills of El Valle, we passed firstly through lush-looking agricultural country that could have been anywhere in northern Europe except for the odd incongruos palm and mango tree. About four hours into our second bus-ride, we entered the Chiriqui Highlands and the landscape began to change again as we climbed higher into the mountains. At David, we made ... read more
El Valle
What a relief to get out of the city! After 4 days in the heat and humidity of the coast, the cool mountain air of El Valle is a very welcome change. We´re only 96km from Panama City but we could be in another world. El Valle is a bit like Shangri La: a beautiful, prosperous little village set among lush green mountains where everything seems to be just about perfect. It´s barely more than one main street with a few roads leading off either side. The neat, tidy houses are all painted bright colours and flowers of all sorts, especially bougainvillea, orchids and hibiscus, grow in abundance all around. All the houses have well-tended, flower-filled gardens so the whole place reminds me of an English village in high summer. It´s very quiet too (apart from ... read more
View of Panama City from Ancon
The journey from Santo Domingo to Panama City was long-winded (I had 7 fun-packed hours at Miami International airport) but pretty straightforward. Having been picked up from the guesthouse at 4.30am, I eventually arrived at Tocumen airport at 8pm so I was very glad to find that it was as easy to get a taxi into the city as all the guidebooks said it would be. Tocumen is about 20 minutes East of Panama City and the contrast with Santo Domingo was apparent from the get-go. Gone was the relaxed, caribbean vibe and attitude to driving, replaced with what seemed to me a more ´western´ approach. For a start, the taxi was in one piece and for seconds, the driver managed the entire journey without once honking his horn or cutting somebody up. The Hotel Marparaiso ... read more
