A riddle for you. It is 11 AM in a small town in Guatemala. You own the only bus company in town and the next bus out is at 2.30 PM. What time would you tell a group of tourists the bus was leaving? I guess the obvious answer is "the next bus comes at 2.30 PM. Why don't you go off and get some food, explore the town and return a few minutes before then". However, in Guatemala time is a more fluid notion - instead, we were told "the bus will be here in 15 minutes" every 15 minutes for 3 and a quarter hours. So we sat in the terminal, watching both the pouring rain outside and the ticket salesman scare unsuspecting customers with a huge phallus that had been safely stored in ... read more

“Is that rain?” Who ever thought that three small words could usher in a more, err, colourful period of travel adventure? Waking in beautiful, spectacular La Ceiba early, we aimed to get to the terminal ASAP so we were certain to make the ferry to Utila. Utila is an island off the coast of mainland Honduras that was used as a hideout by pirates who would plunder Spanish ships that were carrying bounty the Spanish had plundered from South American Indians. The population of the pirates in these parts grew to 5000 or so until the authorities killed or enslaved the mauraudering bunch. Nice. Nearly as nice as the weather that bucketed down and filled the streets of La Ceiba with floating refuse. We aimed to create our own pirate ship while in Honduras. We had ... read more

Early morning Saturday we piled into a minivan bound for Panajachel, one of the small towns that surround Lake Atitlan (Lago de Atitlan) which is a huge lake in the South West highlands of Guatemala. The lake is around 300 metres deep and is serviced by dozens of small passenger boats (lanchas) that take locals and tourists alike between the towns. In September last year this area of Guatemala was ravaged by torrential rain that caused numerous mudslides and casualties. Our speedy drive into Panajachel was often punctuated by the driver slowing down to navigate an area where the road had slid down the mountain we were traversing. On roads at such heights it proved to be a spectacular trip. Just before you come into Panajachel there is a bridge that crosses a large riverbed. The ... read more

In the 1930´s a few states got together and started building the Hoover Dam on the border between Arizona and Nevada. In a stroke of quick thinking genius, a few weeks after construction began on the dam Nevada legalized gambling to attract all of the bored workers to their state to spend their fat pay cheques. Soon the border town of Las Vegas sprang to life and since the 30´s only Anzac Parade, Sydney has rivaled Las Vegas for having more Dens of Iniquity per square mile (and for that we all have the Waterhouse family to thank). We did th big drive from Yosemite to Vegas in one day. As we crossed into desert and Nevada night fell. It was a Sunday evening and we were driving against the weekend visitors leaving Vegas. I have ... read more

After escaping the island of Kauai and its $45 nachos we were psyched to get to San Francisco and check out what it had to offer. None of our traveling party (Linda, Ben, Cookie and myself) had been to San Fran before so we were all keen to explore the place with fresh eyes. Our time there was taken up primarily with doing the "tourist thing" which proved to be relatively rewarding as far as those types of experiences go. On the first morning we got up and walked from our hostel in Union Square through China Town up to Coit Tower, across to Lombard Street and down to the Tourist trap of Fishermans' Wharf. I was very much struck with how appealing the architecture is in San Fran. All of the houses seem to have ... read more