11/04/07 - 12/04/07 Viva Las Vegas! My hands weren’t exactly shaking as I sat down at the Poker table; cause the stakes weren’t that high but I was extremely nervous. The table was a Texas No Limit Hold ‘Em table with $1 and $2 blinds. Minimum $100 buy-in and max $300 but the cash tables run all night so I sat down with players holding hundreds of dollars of chips. This means that you invariably join as the short-stacked player and so need to make some kind of early move to stay at the table. After losing a few dollars just [View Full Entry]

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The Valley of Death We took the long barren road into Death Valley, via Badwater and all the other viewpoints that we decided we would visit the next day and headed all the way up to Stovepipe Wells to wander through the Mosaic canyon, before heading into the Mesquite Sand Dunes for sunset. 11/04/07 Early, Early start to catch sunrise at Badwater, so named when an early explorer’s mule/donkey/horse (can’t remember) refused to drink there. Badwater is the lowest place in North America at 86M (282ft) below sea level and has salt flats, which sit as a thin white crust over [View Full Entry]

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08/04/07 - Beginning at the end of the road The Ambrose Hotel in Santa Monica dropped us at Avis - the only car hire place open on Easter Sunday it seemed and quite possibly the nearest car hire to the junction of Ocean and Santa Monica Boulevards, the official end of the historical route 66. We snapped the required photos of the Will Rogers highway plaque in Palisades Park and Santa Monica pier and then headed up Santa Monica Boulevard and into Sunset Boulevard for our last glimpse of the Hollywood sign on the hill. I was excited to see that [View Full Entry]

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31/03/07 - 06/04/07 Kissing Dolphins and Tequila for Breakfast! Our accommodation in Tulum was Cabinas just seconds from the beach. We lazed around the first day on the beach watching kite boarders and soaking up the rays. When we weren’t lazing on the beach, we were lazing on the hammocks that were strung out in front of our small stone huts. If swinging on the hammocks wasn’t enough, we also had the unusual feature of a swinging bed that hung down from four strong ropes tied to ceiling beams. If you didn’t keep very still then it was easy to become [View Full Entry]

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27/03/07 - 30/03/07 Pastel Streets and Jungle Ruins Arriving at Campeche, we first glimpsed the Mexican Gulf and a huge Mexican flag flying over the town. Campeche is a historic fortified town and UNESCO world heritage listed site. It was founded in 1540 by Spanish Conquistadores and soon became a wealthy port. Due to its wealth, pirates and buccaneers attacked it regularly and so to counteract this the Spanish fortified the City with huge walls. The remains of the fortifications still exist with numerous bulwarks and walls but the real beauty of the town are the narrow streets of multi- [View Full Entry]

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25/03/07 - 27/03/07 Merida, Yaxcopoil, & Uxmal Arriving in Merida we soon found our hotel based on the grid system of numbered streets, each one running as a one-way street for traffic. We wandered the locals market in the Plaza Mayor and soon found 4 large sombreros at a bargain price for us all to wear for a mad night out and Patrick and Rebecca modeled the Love Seats. Although the streets are all named with numbers, i.e. calle 61, calle 45 etc. there are pictorial signs on some street corners based on characters or events from those who had lived [View Full Entry]

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23/03/07 - 25/03/07 Chicken Pizza We arrived in Mexico an hour before Rebecca and Patrick landed on their flight from Amsterdam. We knew that their plane had landed when all the tall people started coming through the arrivals hall and then we eagerly looked out for Rebecca’s pink wheelie suitcase. Of the 4 of us that came through Mexican immigration, only I received the red light on the Russian roulette game of luggage inspection and had to open my bag. It contained a mixture of Jeanette’s clothes and mine but they didn’t eyeball me as a cross-dressing troublemaker so w [View Full Entry]

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18/03/07 - 22/03/07 Los Angeles From out hotel on Wilshire, we walked the 2 blocks down to Rodeo Drive area and had brunch in a café on Beverly Drive. From our vantage point we were in people and car watching heaven. A 17- year old looking kid driving a convertible Ferrari, Mutton dressed as lamb stamped all over with Louis Vitton’s monogram, a plastic faced, tracksuit wearing woman steps out a Lamborghini and a bleach blonde complete with spray tan, fake boobs and barely clothed, wobbled past us on her unfeasibly high heel ankle boots. Porn star? We mused…. With serious [View Full Entry]

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16/03/07 - 17/03/07 Tahiti - Bijou of the South Pacific - Non, je ne pense pas A 2-day stopover in French Polynesia turned out to be plenty of time. Tahiti is expensive and from the moment we stepped of the plane, we met moody, sultry people. The taxis from the airport to the hotels are ludicrously expensive for the distance traveled and have the cheek to charge you a set price for the distance and then and additional charge per piece of luggage that you are carrying!! Tip - use one huge bag!! It was strange to sit in a smoky, [View Full Entry]

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09/03/07 - 15/03/07 Cook Islands Paradise on earth!! In the Cook Islands, the greeting equivalent to ‘Hello’ is ‘Kia oriana’ which translates as ‘May you have long life’ which has a more longevity than the greeting in most languages where we generally wish each other a mere ‘Good day’ only. We arrived late at night, spending our second Friday 9th March night in the Aquarius hotel just across from the Airport. Similarly to Fiji, we were met at the airport by the sound of a guitar, ukulele and singing which some feel is that beautiful island [View Full Entry]

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