As usual, we start with a mammoth journey. Set off from Costa Rica at 6.00 AM, fly to Dallas/Fort Worth, which is a great airport. Then we off to Los Angeles, at LAX we catch the Flyaway Shuttle downtown to Union Station, this is where we connect with the Metro for Hollywood. On arrival we discover that the midnight Greyhound Bus doesn't stop here, it stops at North Hollywood, so we return downtown and catch the overnight bus to San Francisco. We arrived at 7.00 AM, more than 24hrs later. On our supposedly 10 minute walk along Sutter Street to the [View Full Entry]

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Decisions! Decisions! Where are we going to spend our last two weeks in Central America? Somewhere we´ve already visited or a new location? Why not head back to Costa Rica then make up our minds. A mere 11 hours on a coach from Leon to San Jose, can´t believe these journeys are starting to feel like a short hop. After needless fuss and bother at the border crossing we entered Costa Rica, it feels like we made a big mistake, it poured bucketloads all the way to the capital, yet in Nicaragua we hardly saw a raindrop!! Too late now!! [View Full Entry]

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Said our farewells to Rene and Li Nhi at Rivas, they departed for the Tica Bus heading south, we went in the opposite direction on yet another chicken bus, our backpacks ended up on top of a load of dirty vegetables. Read good reviews about two hostels in Granada, the Bearded Monkey and Oasis, one a bit more lively than the other. We plumped for the quieter Oasis, especially when one traveller declared that it was the best hostel he had stayed in. Overheard an English girl on the bus mention Oasis, made the mistake when we reached the bus station [View Full Entry]

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Up bright and early to catch the 5.45 bus to Liberia, the first leg on our journey to San Juan Del Sur in Nicaragua. Joining us at the bus stop were Nigaraguan construction workers on their way home and Kate, a lovely young girl from Vancouver who we first met in La Fortuna. We bumped into her again at the beach in Tamarindo, she intended travelling to meet friends in Nica, so we agreed to leave at the same time. About 2 hours on a packed chicken bus to Liberia then change to another heading to Penas Blancas on the Costa [View Full Entry]

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Nothing surprises us anymore about local bus journeys, especially the amount of people that a driver can cram on. With that in mind, it probably wasn´t our best decision to travel to La Fortuna on a Saturday afternoon. Started off fine on our four and a half hour jaunt from San Jose Bus Station. Front seat on a half full coach, not for long!! Before we left the city limits it was full to the gunnels, no air conditioning and surrounded with passengers standing. Each time you thought it just wasn´t possible to stuff any more locals on board, the driver [View Full Entry]

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Another Mega journey from San Diego by Greyhound to Los Angeles then caught a plane via Miami to Costa Rica. Left Southern California at 2 o´clock in the afternoon and arrived at our accommodation in San Jose 29 hours later, helped in no small part to a 6 hour delay at Miami Airport. Our landing at San Jose in heavy rain was a bit scary. The plane was bouncing about so much that the guy sitting next to me crossed himself three times. I still have the reoccuring problem with my ingrowing toenail. It´s been agony for over a week, no [View Full Entry]

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Crossed both the Equator and the International Dateline on our 9 hour flight from Fiji to Los Angeles. We left Nadi at 2300hrs only to arrive in Southern California at 1300hrs on the same day, 10 hours before we left Fiji. Quite weird!! Up until now we've always been in front of GMT but now we're 8 hours behind. Our destination in LA was the USA Hostel in the heart of Hollywood. This was practically the only accommodation we'd booked before we left home. 7 nights in a private ensuite room for 380 dollars. From LA airport, known as LAX, we [View Full Entry]

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3 hours after leaving Auckland we touched down at Nadi Airport on the main island of Fiji in the South Pacific. First thing that hit us when we left the aircraft was the heat, 30 degrees or more!! Our initial accommodation was pre booked by e-mail a few days before at Smugglers Cove on Nadi Bay. Looks like the next 17 days here on these islands could be pretty tough, nothing much to do, maybe we will have to just laze about on the beach, read, swim in the ocean, and watch sunsets. Turns out guests at Smugglers can play [View Full Entry]

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Decisions!! Decisions!! Which direction next? Do we retrace our steps back to Wanaka then head across to Franz Josef Glazier and up the longer West Coast or travel across the island towards Dunedin and up the East Coast. If we had thought more about our route at the start we would've planned it differently. Following another night at Te Anau holiday park our decision was to travel towards Balclutha then work our way north up the eastern side of NZ. We spent the night at Kaka Point after watching Yellow Eyed Penguins coming ashore at Roaring Bay on Nugget Point. This [View Full Entry]

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Touched down at Christchurch Airport with no plans other than looking at campervan hire availibility and cost. Checked out a campervan at an airport hire companies depot, it looked good so we decided to go for it, except we didn't realise tomorrow was Good Friday and the start of the Easter Holidays. There were none available until at least Sunday. Headed into Christchurch instead. Found decent accommodation at Thomas"s hotel for NZ$ 69 per night, the current rate is 2.5 New Zealand Dollars to the pound. Spent a few days in the South Island's largest city exploring the centre, visiting places [View Full Entry]

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