olso9

Ah, once one gets behind on a travel blog, it just snowballs. So, now I'm in Panama City, but I spent the better part of the last two weeks on the islands of Lake Nicaragua. Headed with the group from San Juan Del Sur to Isla de Ometepe, which required a pleasant one hour ferry ride on the lake. Third world ferries are always interesting. I remember laying on the roof in the sun, somewhere between the bananas and a motorcycle. The island itself is beautiful - two volcanic cones rising up with a land bridge connecting them. We decided to stay on the distant, more remote side of the island. The bus rides on the island are incredibly slow and bumpy, but one just gets used to this sort of thing. Stepping off the bus ... read more

So I guess I'll pick up where I left off. After getting sick in Rantepao and traveling for two days on hot buses and staying in filthy rooms, I got on the ferry to the Togean Islands. I was with a Spanish girl named Laia whose bus broke down and so she was on my bus. We shared a room in Poso and Ampana before finally making it to the islands. I should say that those towns were fine, lots of friendly people and everything, but I was sick and just not in the state of mind to look at the bright side of things. We stayed on a small island called Kadidiri. It was really really perfect. Nothing at all on the island except the three little resorts all on the same beach. No road ... read more

Well, my impressively horrible luck with plane rides continues. On my fifteen hour flight from LAX to Taiwan, I was seated next to a (and there just isn't any way to be politically correct about this) 50 year old retarded man who constantly had his hands down his pants and was telling me about his 23 yr old girl friend he was giong to visit in China and he was sneezing all over my food, and I'm not proud to say it, but I almost yelled at a retarded man. But overall, the trip went smoothly. I landed in Bali and got a room in this tourist trap of a town called Kuta, which is remarkable similar to Jaco in CR, where I just was. But I guess every tropical tourist trap is pretty much the ... read more

Let´s see if I can remember what I´ve been up to for the past week or two... After the trek, we bussed it to Bogota and stayed there for two days. The colonial section of the town was really enchanting. It´s just a maze of thin cobblestone streets lined with colorful buildings that all seem to be on the edge of melting due to the sagging of walls and roofs. The central plaza is the most impressive one I´ve seen, it even had huge flocks of pigeons to stroll through. The weather was actually pretty glum while we were there, which probably contributed to us all moving on so quickly. We took a night bus south to the small town of San Augistin, which is surrounded by rolling green hills with a patchwork of small coffee ... read more

Cartegena goes down as the best city I´ve ever visited. Best as in... the amazingly well-preserved achritechure and atmosphere of the old city is stunning, live music pours out of every other bar, friendly-beautiful people, armed guards for most businesses, the best fruit shakes on Earth, the list goes on. Yes, a group of us were almost robbed (some local guy saw it coming and started yelling to scare the would be robbers off), but overall, it´s just great. Inside the walls of the old city, loud taxis and buses are replaced by horse drawn carriages. In the more dilapidated parts of town, donkeys are still used to haul heavy items on carts. There was a giant defensive fort three blocks away from our hostel complete with giant cannons and a labirynth of tunnels. When I ... read more