Pacific Circle
Start date: August 29, 2008Len and Fran
End date: February 28th, 2009
Travellers:
Lennard Meijer
Frances Block
Equipment:
2 backpacks and a bunch of plane tickets
We moved to the US early 2007 and we have been in Santa Monica for over a year and a half now. The big question, do we go back to The Netherlands or stay here, is coming at us and fast. Making this decision is so hard, therefore we figured we need more time to think about it. That's when we decided to get away for 6 months and backpack through Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South America. So we took a leave, sold our car, ended our lease, and booked our plane tickets and we are on our way to explore the world.
Travel Blog Posts
March 11th 2009
Entering Costa Rica overland was easy and without any hold ups. We arrived within an hour in Puerto Viejo, our next stop. Our first day however started a bit unpleasant, because it rained all day, fortunately we were staying in an very nice B&B with plenty of hammocks, so we just took it easy the rest of the day. The next day the weather cleared up and we rented a bicycle to explore the beaches. Punta Uva was supposedly the most beautiful beach, but because of the storm of a couple of weeks ago the beaches weren't really attractive. The next day we left Puerto Viejo for Cahuita to stay in a hotel with swimming pool. The place we stayed was a beautiful resort where we saw more poisonous arrow frogs and also toucans. They also ... read more
March 2nd 2009
On February 6 we arrived at our last part of our journey. Destination Panama and Costa Rica. At Panama City airport we met up with Jasper who landed 15 minutes after us. He was going travel with us for the last couple of weeks. After the first night in Panama City we flew the next day early to the San Blas islands at the Caribbean coast. There we Gaston and Britt were waiting for us, with whom we were going to sail throughout the San Blas the next 4 days. The San Blas are beautiful uninhabited islands with lots of palm trees and white beaches. We spent our days snorkeling, spear fishing and a lot of relaxing. Some islands do have people on the islands, populated by local Indians called Kunas. Of course we also visited ... read more
February 3rd 2009
On January 18th we landed in Buenos Aires and as you have read in our previous Antarctica blog our first day we spent booking that amazing trip. After that was all settled and done, we had a couple of days of to enjoy the city. We were staying in a great boutique hotel, Che Lulu, in a very fashionable area of the city called Palermo. The days were filled with strolling through the city enjoying the architecture, shops and restaurants. We also visited the famous grave of Eva Duarte de Peron and many others at Recoleta Cemetery, quite bizar cemetery in the middle of the city. We left Buenos Aires for the southernmost region of Argentina, Patagonia. This region borders Chili and it comprises the Andes mountains to the west and south, and plateaux and low ... read more
February 3rd 2009
On January 18th we arrived in Buenos Aires and as always the first days we spent, besides sightseeing, doing research to figure out what to do in Argentina. One of our dreams was to go to the most southern city of Argentina, Ushuaia and get on board of one of the ships that sails to the Antarctic. We didn´t book anything in advance because, according to the Lonely Planet, you can great discounts as soon as you are there. On January 21st we were lucky and able to book an expedition, that´s what they call them, that was leaving on January 24th. When we arrived in Ushuaia, we were dropped of in a beautiful hotel, we haven´t seen luxury like that in months and we listened to a short briefing about our trip to the the ... read more
January 15th 2009
We arrived on December 21st in Christchurch, southern island of New Zealand, first thing we did is pickup our campervan for this trip. This time no Hippie, but a Jucy, the ugliest green and purple van on earth, but surprisingly it was quite comfortable, even came with a dvd player. The first day we spent doing research and checking availability, with the New Zealand summer holiday just started, we needed a bit more planning than usual. The first obstacle was heli hiken at the Franz Josef Glacier, either the next day or three days later thanks to Christmas. We choose to book it for the next day, being so well rested after Fiji we didn't mind driving the rest of the day. The next day we we were dropped on the glacier with a helicopter, there ... read more
December 21st 2008
On the morning of December 8 we arrived in Fiji. Tired of 4 intense weeks on the road in Austalia and a red eye flight, we decided to start on the main island Viti Levu. Our Fiji export Prinsie had provided us with heaps of information about the islands. This made us decide to go to a backpackers resort called the Beach House located on the Coral Coast. When we arrived at the place all double rooms were booked, however the friendly Fijian lady had a solution, she had something available, called the Secret Room. We weren't sure if that was a room for us, but we checked the room and it looked fine, it had it's own bathroom and was $20 cheaper, only those see-through mirrors were a bit odd. We stayed at the place ... read more
December 6th 2008
We flew from Indonesia to Australia on November 9th. We arrived in the morning in Cairns all the way on the north part of the east coast. We had planned to stay a month in Australia and hired a campervan to drive down the coast all the way to Melbourne. Our Hippie (name of the company) campervan we hired had a fridge, kitchen utensils, sink and a folding bed, which surprisingly fitted Lennard. After getting some groceries, we spend the first day relaxing in Cairns. The second day we went up to the north, Cape Tribulation. Beautiful nature with great scenery's where rain forest meet the ocean. On our way we stopped in Port Douglas to book diving trip for the next day to the Great Barrier Reef. We booked a luxurious boat which could carry ... read more
November 4th 2008
Java After a delay of a couple hours we arrived on Jakarta airport on October 12 at 2 am. We had no hotel reservations and because we found out that a 6 am flight was going to Yogyakarta, our next destination, we decided to wait at the airport. Arriving in Yogya we immediately took a bus to the Borobudur, buddhist temple and biggest tourist attraction of Indonesia, although we are not sure if the lonely planet is right. After arriving on the Borobudur, all Indonesian tourist lost their attention to the temple and were focussing on getting a photo of Lennard. After a beautiful sunrise the next morning, we took the bus back to Yogya. Our hotel receptionist gave us a leaflet with trip itineraries. One trip was with transport and 2 nights hotel to the ... read more
October 3rd 2008
We left Kota Kinabalu with a private car to Sandakan, 250 miles, the ride took us all the way through Borneo. Past the mountain Kota Kinabalu, which many tourist climb, but we skipped. Arrived in Sandakan we checked in at the NAK hotel (rooftop bar) and went by all tourist operators to see we could book a trip to Turtle Island. We already informed by e-mail and learned that because of the holiday, end of the Ramadan - Hari Raya, the whole month of October was fully booked. We were persistent and asked all the operators to call us when they received a cancellation. In the evening we enjoyed a cocktail and watched the sunset from the rooftop. When we went downstairs to the reception to pick up our laundry we got a call from one ... read more
September 28th 2008
On our way from Yap to Borneo, we spent just one day on the Philippines, the original plan was to stick around for 5 days and move south for some scuba, but it's typhoon season and we already had plenty of rain in Micronesia, so we decided to change our flight and go early to Borneo. However the day in Manila was well spent, we rode local motor tricycles, jeepneys (limousine of the Philippines) and taxis to find a local mall, so much fun. Unfortunately this time, no massage. On September 25th, we flew from the Philippines to Malaysia, Kota Kinabalu (KK) on the island Borneo. We arrived in the evening and had ourselves dropped off at a hostel that we found in a Malaysia book we bought in Manila, the book was dated 2000, but ... read more
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