Megzi

Ubud was the perfect way to end the holiday. It is the cultural centre and heart of Bali. We decided to hi a driver for the day to take us from Seminyak to Ubud so we could do some cultural things around the island on our travels. First stop was the Balanese traditional dancing.... This was well... Interesting, I didn't really enjoy it that much but there was a crib sheet telling you about the story behind the dance and I found the culture and "myth" like aspect of the dancing interesting. For example the Barong is a good spirit and the Rangda a bad spirit and they basically battle during the dance, in which there is no winner. There's a lot of screaming and weird parts to this dance. In sure there are multiple but ... read more

so... My first 10 day trip in almost 2 years, and what other place to try other than Bali. Trip started in Seminyak, initially staying in a Airbnb in the North of Seminyak close to Batubelig. This was a nice little place with a pool and several apartments away from the main road. We were about 2 minutes walk from the beach and could hear it from the window. when we arrived we ventured north up the beach to a place called Finns Bar and had a few cocktails on the beachfront, we then had dinner at a little warung closer to town whilst the sun set. We headed to the infamous Potatohead which is a cool bar/club in Seminyak and then headed back home. The holiday has involved a lot of chilling but I feel ... read more

So after a long bus journey on a bus which stank of cockroach repellant, we arrived at Panama City. We were lucky as our room was available at 6am when we arrived so we went and crashed there for a few hours. That day we went to the infamous Panama Canal. We took a shuttle there from our hostel (Lunas Castle) in Casco Viejo- the old part of the town and went to the Miraflores Locks. Here they had a four story museum about the development of the canal and viewing points looking over the lock and allowing us to view the massive ships that go through. Due to the current usage of the canal they are trying to extend and widen it so they can get more and bigger vessels through. On our way back ... read more

To get down to Panama, our final stop of the Central American diaries we needed to get back to Granada so decided to book an AirBnb there with our friends from Bristol and have a last weekend with them. The AirBnb is owned by an American called Glenn who moved to Granada with his wife 5 years ago and we got a beautiful apartment for around £8 each a night. Over the weekend we did some stuff we missed out on in our last visit but unfortunately all the girls got food poisoning on the first day so we couldn't do much. The highlight of the weekend was the trip around the isletas in Granada. In lake Nicaragua and just off the Granada port is 365 archipelagos, some containing houses, some monkeys, some birds, one was ... read more

Granada is another colonial town in Nicaragua. It is on the western edge of Lago de Managua and is another grand stop along the Central America route. It doesn't have the grit and character of Leon and isn't as perfect as Antigua but I found that it was a thriving town which had a lot to offer. The town is set around the cathedral and leads down onto the lake, the road down to the lake has lots of bars and restaurants and leads to a park and beach. We arrived in the afternoon from a chicken bus that we got from Leon- Managua- Granada, it was a bit of a palaver, but we got there in the end. The first day there we wandered around the city and did the classic horse driven carriage tour, ... read more