Miami

Party in the city where the heat is on... Yes, the heat is definitely on! It was 33,33 degrees today. However, before I start rambling on about Miami I should probably say a few words about our previous stop; Panama. (Yes, I did see Bjorn og Tiger)

The first city we explored in Panama was Boquete. This beautiful town situated 900 meters above sea levels was really good. The temperature was similar to a hot Norwegian summer’s day. In other words it was quite cold, and we loved that! The reason why we went to this town is because it is well known for producing some of the best coffee in the world. We went on a coffee tour, and boy, the coffee really did live up to our expectations!

After Boquete we took a short 8 hour bus ride to Panama City. Somehow I had in my mind that this city would be beautiful, quite developed and very interesting. It was interesting. We went to see the Panama Canal and the locks. It is always great to see the places where history was/is made.


The city centre itself did not impress us much though. Obviously the beautiful buildings in the old town was stunning, however, it doesn't really have the same appeal when you know that there are slums and poor people for as far as the eye can see behind this little area in town. We got the impression that there are some people in Panama City with vast amounts of money. They stay in beautiful condos in really tall skyscrapers where they have their own gyms and restaurants. The largest majority of people never get to see that kind of living standards. The contrasts are so big. Obviously we are also guilty of living a contrasting life to all the poor people we encounter. Taking 7 months off to go traveling is unheard of for many. I does make me feel guilty thinking about how lucky we are to be able to not work, but still have food and a place to stay every day. We really should appreciate the opportunities we have in the west.

Gosh, I made myself feel really guilty again.

Back to Miami. Yes, it is beautiful and the people here shine even more than their city does. I have never seen so many people who looked like they could be on the cover of magazines. We saw some men working out in the street without shirts. It was really funny!

We did an art deco walking tour today (on our own). The buildings are so great! Many of them have 80’s colors. You should check out our photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattgreenham/

Tomorrow we will just hang out on the beach for half a day. Then we’re going to walk around some more and reveal hidden treasures. We are saving money by making our own food here. It is great! We fly to Quito in Ecuador on the 31st of July. I can’t believe that summer has come and gone already …

Matt & Betta

Costa Rica

Hi

We are in the far north east of Costa Rica, living the pura vida in a very small and relaxing little place called Manzanillo. We left San Jose as soon as we could. It wasn’t the worst capital city we’ve seen (by a long way!) but it’s still just a city and we guessed Costa Rica had better things to offer. We headed up to the north Caribbean coast by bus and boat (past crocodiles sunning themselves by the side of the river en route) to a tiny village called Tortuguero. It’s a very popular tourist destination though due to the diverse wildlife here, most notably the 4 species of turtles that nest along the beach in huge numbers. It was made a national park in 1975 and they do really good work in helping the turtles and controlling tourism and ensuring it’s responsible. We lucked out in finding a nice local guide called Ernesto and signed up to a very long day of wildlife adventures. We started at 05:30 with a 3 hour kayak trip through the canals there (It’s called Costa Rica’s Amazon). We saw Iguanas, including a trio of very quite babies, Caymans, a ‘Jesus Christ’ Lizard (runs on water), Howler and Spider Monkeys, the beautiful Blue Morpho butterfly, as well as many waterbirds such as a Kingfisher and Tiger Heron.

After lunch and a little snooze we went for a 2 hour walk through the national park and along the turtle beaches, seeing much evidence of nesting.

Later that evening we trekked off to find the actual turtles. As I said they are very responsible so there are no photos allowed and a team of trained spotters on the beach who call in tour groups when the turtle is settled and laying so as to disrupt the process as little as possible. By the red lamp light we saw a turtle laying some of the 120 or so ping pong sized eggs, before covering them up again, and another turtle hauling her 120kg (16st) frame back to the sea. You don’t get to see that every day and it was a special evening. We also got the fright of our lives while leading the group back to base as the guide called out from behind us. We’d all walked straight past a Ringed Kingsnake (red, black and white) by the side of the path. Apparently they are extremely venomous causing fatality in 10 minutes if bitten!!! The moral here is to always follow the guide.


Another thing I’ve realised is that Wildlife photography is extremely difficult, I’ve always liked the pictures but I have even more respect for them now. I probably just need a much better camera, that’ll be it. I am also starting to get into bird watching…it’s so much better when they are all beautiful colours. Really want to see a Toucan before we leave but that is a long shot. Just today around our lodgings we’ve seen blue grey tanager, grey necked wood rail and scarlet rumped cacique (they’ve got a birdwatching guide book here!)

There is not too much going on here but hopefully we’re going to see an animal rescue centre tomorrow and a tour of a little organic chocolate factory the day after as well as the usual snorkelling and chilling on the beach. Following that we’re off into Panama (we’re only about 30k from the border) for quite a brief visit before we get onto a plane again to head to South America. We go via Miami though and we are both really looking forward to our 3 days there. It’s amazing how much you can miss a good cheeseburger and fries and frappuchino!


MandB

Costa Rica

We’re in San Jose in Costa Rica. We’re staying in this lovely little hostel that promotes peace! We are staying in the Gandhi room. It is very nice and quiet here. San Jose is a lot colder than most other places we have been in Central America. We are still wearing shorts though. I compare the temperature to a hot Norwegian summer’s day, in other words it is lovely. The city of San Jose is quite developed. There are a lot of western restaurants. We are going to a vegetarian restaurant across the road for dinner tonight. It looks really good!

One thing that really strikes me about the Ticos is that most females are overweight. I have never seen that many fat women in one place at the same time. I wonder if it is seen as healthy or attractive in this area. The women also wear clothes that really highlight their bulging stomachs and ripe booties. Why are the men so skinny? I really do not understand how one part of the population can be so much fatter than the other part. I am sure that cooking and carrying children around (sorry if I am stereotyping. I really have no idea about gender roles in this country) must be hard work. Surely men and women have the same diet? If anyone of you know the answer please do let me know.

I have had a few realisations when it comes to Central America in general. I am sure that most of you already knew what I have found out though. You see… I was really looking forward to having the best coffee and chocolate in my life in Central America. I thought, surely, as the products are grown here, and as they are meant to be top quality in this area, they must be sold everywhere? I was so wrong. Most people here drink instant coffee, and they eat mnm’s and Snickers. I do somehow feel guilty that these great ingredients are so easily available to us on the other side of the world. We eat their amazing chocolate, and we drink their heavenly coffee. It’s their gold we are consuming. Isn’t it unfair that we live in a world where locals can’t afford to have what grows in their back yard, but yet the cost is peanuts to people who live in countries on the other side of the world?

We are not staying in this metropolis. Tomorrow we are heading to Tortuguero. It is a very exciting place because 4 species of turtles lay their eggs here. If we are lucky we will get a chance to watch some eggs being laid. We are also hoping to go kayaking up there.

Congratulations to Joe and Ragnhild who just got engaged! :)

Love Matt & Betta

Nicaragua

So it was with heavy hearts that we left Roatan. We spent 6 nights there and had a great time in our jungle hideout amongst all the wildlife. It was also nice relax by the beach and to get back into diving after a couple of years (6 for Betta!). Thankfully we had a very tranquille trip on the ferry back (no sea sickness this time) and got on the bus to the capital Tegucigalpa.

Now, we'd read a lot on this place and were not expecting it to be a particularly nice, but we weren't prepared for the reality. Dimly lit concrete streets, piles of rubbish in the road being faught over by rabid dogs and humans. Gangs of druggies inhaling big bags of glue and homeless people in rags everywhere. As well as that you had guards on almost every respectable business and bars and gates locked over almost every window. To make matters worse the taxi drivers we got were appalling. None of them knew where to go and had to keep stopping to ask directions, and when we finally got to our hotel, they had even written their name on the sheets so you couldn't steal them!!! It was safe and quiet though so we were very grateful for that.

Safe to say we got out of there first thing in the morning and headed to Granada in Nicaragua, via Managua. We arrived after 22 hours of travel in 2 days and were pretty shattered so found the first decent lodgings and crashed.
Granada is a nice enough colonial town. Certainly the nicest place we'd seen for a few days. The trouble is though is that these towns are all very similar. San Cristobel, Antigua and Granada are all basicaly the same. Maybe we are getting spoilt. So following a day exploring there we took 2 chicken buses and a chicken boat to the Isla de Ompete (8 hours travel - $5p/p). The Island of 2 hills.

This is a unique place as it's an Island in a masive lake made from 2 great volcanoes. It's very pretty. We are here for some chilling out and relaxing but decided to climb the smaller (1300m) of the 2 volcanoes yesterday. We were expecting a pretty hard few hours to the top but we got a lot more that we bargained for. It was 3.5 hours of solid, sweatty, dirty, muddy graft, straight up, and 3 back down. The terrain was so slippery and difficult with large vertical sections where you had to haul yourself up tree roots and strategically placed wires, through, over and under wet tree trunks. Man, it was tough. And to add insult to injury, we got to the top and all we saw was cloud cover! There was absolutely no view at all the whole way, and the descent was probably even worse as it was so trecherous underfoot (especially in urban trainers). We likened it to a 6 hour session at the gym. No more fun than that. And boy do we ache today...


We're here for one more night, then into Costa Rica, and our first border crossing by boat.

PS - It's day 50 today, and approximately a quarter of the way through our trip. How time flies.

MandB

Honduras

We were in Copan ruinas last week. It seems like ages ago already. The town was very cute. It did remind me a lot of Antigua and ad San Cristobal. The one reason why it is wort taking a trip to Copan is because of the Mayan ruins that are situated right outside the city. We hired a guide, and we greatly enjoyed hearing about how 20 000 Mayans lived. To our pleasure some of the buildings had been restored. The kings who ruled this village/city used to build new buildings on top of the old ones when they gained power. This means that although it looks like the town is built on a mountain top; it is actually built on a mountain of stone houses. Archeologists have managed to create tunnels underneath the houses, and they have discovered tombs and colorful temples underneath. I was very impressed to find that the Mayans used so many colours on their buildings. The buildings must have looked even more amazing in their glory days. They didn’t use any metal, so all the beautiful stone sculptures we saw have all been carved by flint and other hard stones.



After our stay in Copan ruinas we took a luxury bus to La Ceiba. It was wonderful to sleep on a bus where you could actually almost lay down flat. We even got food! We knew that we had to take a boat to Roatan, the beautiful island we were aiming for. Since I have a tendency to turn inside out whenever I see a wave the size of a ant, we did prepare ourselves and took seasickness tablets. So when the boat left the shore, I found pressure points on my hand that is supposed to prevent you from getting sick if you press them (don’t know if I found the right ones), and I thought to myself ‘this will be a piece of cake’. 10 minutes after I had my head in a plastic bag. I was sweating like crazy and I thought that Armageddon was upon me. Luckily the staff on the boat kept taking my puke bags and running up to me with new ones. It actually makes me feel a bit sick just writing about it now!! It is possible to fly out from here, but we got a return ticket. In other words, I know that another nightmare awaits in a few days time. I might take a whole packet of tablets next time, and I’ll let Matt knock me uncounscious.

The Island is really beautiful. The sand is white and powdery. The water is clean and warm. No stingers here! We are staying in a shared cabin with bathroom and a kitchen. Luckily, we have the place to ourselves at the moment, I you don’t count the mice and ants that live in our kitchen.

Diving is very cheap here. One dive is $35, which is about 250 NOK or £25. We went for a dive today, but we will book 2 new ones for Monday.

The food here is really expensive! (not compared to the UK or Norway, but still!). We are now making all out meals in the cabin. We were just about to have egg sandwiches for lunch when we discovered that all the eggs we got were actually rotten! I have never seen rotten eggs before. Did you know that they get black spots on them?

That’s all for now! Hope you are enjoying summer! There is nothing like a European summer. It is way too hot over here!

Fact of the day 1: Cheddar cheese may taste like nothing in some parts of the world.
Fact of the day 2: In Roatan they actually give you prices in dollars! That says a lot about this place I guess.