logzjulz's latest blog entries

london

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:51:58 EST

back in london now....and into work

Cuba...Fidel and the Boys (Feb 08)

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 03:13:19 EST

Cuba.....Just the name conjures up images of Fidel and Che's revolution and the socialist state that has frozen this country in a 1950's time warp. This alone should make you want to book a ticket right away!

It's a place that you visit with an open mind and leave with countless unanswered questions. The longer you spend there and talk to the people, the more unanswered questions hang in the air. It's incredible that this country alone has shunned external influences (not withstanding the communist influence though!), yet loves to embrace the busloads of camera totting tourists.

The roads are shocking with potholes, cattle and some that just abruptly stop because the money's dried up.

If something is broken....then fix it, modify it or change it yourself, because ya just can't wander down to the local "Bunning's" or "Argos" to get another.....consumerism here just doesn't exist ( a refreshing change....).

Two separate currencies exist (one for the locals and one for the tourists) that now appears to be dividing the country back into a class system...something that Fidel and socialism fought hard to wipe out.

Food rationing is alive and well and the architecture is amazing with colourful, rambling old buildings that have drying laundry waving about off the balconies. The streets of Havana beg you to get lost in with antique Buicks, Oldsmobile's and Fords limping asthmatically through the narrow cobble stoned streets.

Spontaneous music breaks out in the streets and there's always constant chatter from the open doorways facing the streets. Kids playing stickball on the streets (literally a stick and bottle cap) knock these bottle caps around and jump to either side of the street to let another beat up Buick cruise past.

There's always the constant whispering of buying "black market" cigars or the whispering of some lady wanting you to head back to her place for a cheap meal instead of frequenting a state run restaurant.

Ohhh, and the music.....Salsa, Rumba and Jazz oozes from every corner bar and restaurant and the country thrives on its dancing. The musicians are fantastic and know how to keep you entertained. Mojitos and Cuba Libre's are the staple drink of choice here and boy can they make both....."What's coke for?"

Last but by no means least are the people that make this extraordinary country what it is. Friendly and genuinely hospitable people tie this country together and everyone seems to know someone on the other side of the island to stay with, great networking.

Now, if you're not already on the blower to the travel agent and booking tickets...keep reading below about our adventure...

Habana...or Havana (depending if you're Spanish or English...) was such an electric place. Your first impressions are one of "wow" and just wanting to check in...throw the bags on the bed, grab the camera and explore.

When you see your first 1950's ford spluttering down the road with a guy hanging out the window chugging on a cigar...you know you've arrived in Cuba. Enough can't be said about just wandering the streets of old Havana and taking in the sounds, smells and constant activity around you. Enough though that we were lured into buying a few cigars by one fellow on the street that got the ol' ticker racing. We trudged up 3 flights of dodgy stairs into a tiny room that had the guy's wife, mother, sister, aunt and grandmother living there. After we bought a few cigars he disappeared onto his balcony for a minute...came back in and gave us the "all clear to leave" signal - hey, what the! (Nothing like a bit of danger to wake ya up).

Our 4 days here went in the click of the fingers and we loved every minute of it. We managed to fill up each day with museums, rum tours, cigar factory tours, wandering the streets, lotsa late night music and Mojitos in some of Ernest Hemmingway's favourite joints...

After Havana we decided to hire a car for a week and explore some of the country. Now driving in Cuba is a completely new experience. I've had my licence for 20 yrs and Julz for 18, but experience means nothing when navigating or driving on these roads. There are no road markings, no signs, pot holes on steroids, a 6 lane highway with no markings that stops 3/4'rs the way down the country, no cars on the roads (well, almost no cars...) and traffic that consists of horse and carts, bicycles, tip-up trucks overflowing with people, any model of car between 1950 - 1959 (Fidel stopped the imports then) and the occasional nice rental car (us!)

Anyway, after miraculously ending up in the right direction (we kept the setting sun on our right) we arrived into "Cienfuegos". This was a cool little place and we watched such an amazing sunset whilst sipping perfect Mojitos. On the way back to our casa particular (B&B) we watched a couple of blokes paddle into shore and then push this boat down the street. What made this slightly unusual was the boat was made of polystyrene!

The Cubans can make anything work with next to nothing. Their circumstances have determined their ability to keep things working, and they rely on huge back scratching networks. Considering they aren't allowed to import anything personally (only for the state), their cars run, and are maintained with whatever that's floating around. More often than not when you look under the bonnet of these cars they resemble nothing of the original, but a hybrid of different manufactures. The saying "runs on an oily rag" is very much a reality in Cuba...

We left Cienfuegos and headed to Trinidad, a Unesco heritage site. The scenery on the way there was stunning. Combine that with pot holes, mismatched tarmac and the odd limping Oldsmobile makes a memorable trip.

Trinidad was a quaint, picturesque place and we enjoyed wandering around chatting with some of the locals and watching the oldies in their rocking chairs. They hang cages full of budgies outside doorways and in their courtyards and it seems on every corner a game of dominoes is taking place.

The outdoor salsa evenings were good fun also. We ended up doing a crash course in salsa one afternoon with a guy that Julz danced with whilst I was away getting the drinks the night before (most opportune...). 1, 2, 3...1, 2, 3...1, 2, 3...1, 2, 3... (along those lines somehow), or cha, cha, cha...cha, cha cha...etc etc. what's that saying, "white men can't dance"...it's true.

After a couple of late nights in Trinidad we headed across to the other side of the island to a little place called "Remedios'". Along the way we picked up quite a few hitchhikers. Everybody hitch hikes in Cuba. Doctors, Lawyers, Police...everybody. They're meant to stand at a major intersection, get their name put on a list by an official and then wait your turn. Apparently if you have a blue licence plate then you legally have to stop. We didn't know this until we dropped the car back in Havana (ours was white in case you're wondering...)

The drive over to "Remedios" was the worst road we've ever driven on...period. It's one of those undescribable roads that you need to experience first hand. Suffice to say the rental car would need a few nuts tightening after this!!! Over this road we picked up a couple of Doctors, a shop assistant and an Engineer. It was quite fun stopping for people, but after our dribbling use of basic Spanish the majority of the trip was silent. We did however try and match make a Doctor with an Engineer...ha ha ha.

"Remedios" was a really cool place. The main square was relatively quiet, but the people were so friendly and happy. The buildings were quaint, old colonial styles and in varying states of condition. The one thing that stood out here was the amount of different types of doors. Almost every building had a huge door!! Bizarre thing to notice but these really stood out.

We enjoyed wandering around this place. It was full of old cars, old people, old buildings and our new rental car... I've gotta say, Cuba's a photographers dream. The amount of people who wanted to have their photo taken beside their cars and houses was huge. Especially in "Remedios", people wanted us to take their photo and get us to send a copy back to them. This makes perfect sense as developing film in Cuba is like paying to go to the dentist...

After a few days in the Eastern part of Cuba we headed back West towards Havana and beyond. We gave two policemen a ride back to Havana with us. A bit weird to start with, but when I was pulled over for not stopping at a railway track and for not slowing down through a slow zone, these blokes were worth their weight in gold. One look in the back seat by the officer, a wink and a hand wave and we were through.

Into the tobacco country we go now...

The majority of the tobacco for cigars comes from the western part of Cuba. This area is surrounded by mountains and red soil, perfect for tobacco leaves.

We drove to a little place called '"Vinales" and booked into another casa particular. What made this casa particular different was as soon as we'd arrived our hosts, Roberto and Lola, proceeded to roll us up a couple of big fat cigars and poured a couple of Cuba Libres. Roberto had just been to a local 'cock-fighting' event earlier in the day and so was pretty jolly. Cock-fighting is illegal, but like most things in Cuba a blind eye gets turned.

"Vinales" was a great place for a few days to chill out and see the beautiful country side. We ended up going to a cigar plantation owned by a guy called 'Alejandro Robaina'. Robaina's cigars are world famous and Alejandro is the only person in Cuba that has a brand of cigars named after himself.

One night after rocking in one of the chairs with Roberto on his porch and smoking cigars with him we asked about buying some cigars. Like most people he knows someone. So after 20mins we were looking at quite a varied selection of fine Cuban cigars in the little outhouse behind the main house. We now have a couple of boxes of fine 'Cohiba' cigars for a 10th of the state run cigar shop prices.

On our last morning and as we were about to start breaky we heard some pigs squealing...and you guessed it, they were slaughtering and skinning one. Seeing and listening to this emphasises the necessity for survival to these people and the primal way in which to do it. Watching this let the whole of the last week sink in for us, and opened up a different side to Cuba not witnessed in Havana. Anyway, after watching the liver, heart and other slimy organs brought into the kitchen for dissecting (pâté springs to mind...) we needed to head off back towards Havana...

Last stop..."Las Terrazas", a model eco-village. An interesting place built as a completely self sufficient, sustainable community of approximately 900 people. The funny thing about this place was that in order to make it self sufficient the government built a state run tourist resort in the village and brings in "by the bus load" tons of tourists...go figure. I personally thought the place looked like a concrete correctional facility with a couple of yummy restaurants, namely a gourmet vegetarian one...superb.

We stayed a night here in a bungalow in the camp site which was pretty cool, and gave away our Spanish/English phrasebook to one of the park guards to help his kids practice and learn English.

...back to Havana for our last couple of days travelling before hitting LA. We drove back to Havana, picked up a couple of hitch hikers along the way. Fortunately they lived just around the corner from the car rental place. This probably saved us hours of driving around in circles finding our way into the city and when you think about the odds of it happening, well...

We spent our last night in Havana at a historic Jazz club listening to a fantastic jazz group and soaking up the entire atmosphere. Sipping Cuba Libres whilst listening to a pianist play off with a drummer was just what we needed to wind down, reflect and prepare to head back to New Zealand.

Well, that's all from Central America and Cuba. We hope you've all enjoyed these tales from afar. We enjoyed the replies from a lot of you and we'll keep your informed of our whereabouts when we travel through our own back yard (New Zealand) in Feb.

Until New Zealand, caio chicos...

Logz & Julz

PS: I sweated, went red in the face, had shortness of breath taking those cigars through Mexican customs...

Panama....Bananas & Man Made Wonders (Jan 08)

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:52:37 EST

Panama.......ahhhh, a country with a strong backbone, beaches on both sides, lotsa bananas and huge high rises gracing the vibrant metropolitan capital city. Ohhh, and also home to one of the world's greatest man made wonders......the Panama Canal.

It's hard to pin down Panama, which basket it should fall into (bananas in one...sorry that's bad). On one hand the country is incredibly undeveloped with haphazard little villages that you pass through without a second look. Then, on the other hand the stark contrast with huge foreign development taking place in the city of Panama. The construction boom that the city is going through is incredible. Sky rises are gracing the water line in all directions and in varying states of construction.

It's tempting to look at snapping up one of these apartments, but when you see the city at night, it's then you realize that half the finished apartments aren't lit up with occupancy, but rather dark with the overseas investors only coming down occasionally to stay. Still, the cities prospering for now. What happens when inflation rises like neighbouring Costa Rica....which it will, then its the people of the country...the backbone that suffer, not the investors that come down for their couple of weeks holidays a year.

Anyway, enough of this cynicism......we've had a good time here.

It all started with us entering Panama right up on the Caribbean coast, over a rickety one lane iron bridge that you had to squeeze yourself against when a truck rumbled past. What also made this route more challenging was the 50m drop to the piranha infested river below. So imagine stretching your legs between two wooden planks with nothing below except some hungry fish, sucking in the tummy with your back to the iron bridge in the sweltering heat...real Indiana Jones stuff!! (Ok, maybe I've gone a little overboard especially with the fish.....). Actually, the border crossing was quite pleasant...nice and quick, efficient and a waiting taxi to take us to our next destination.

Boy, was it was hot though...and you can see why the bananas love it here! They grow the things everywhere. The famous Chiquita nanas come from this area. I love bananas, so this was probably as close to heaven on earth for me. Unfortunately, all the bananas were green as everything in the area is exported to our lovely fruit sections in our supermarkets, arriving nice and yellow. Eating green bananas just isn't right, unless they cut them up, fry them and call them "papa platanos"...yum yum yum.

We jumped on a boat in the banana area and sped through lush jungle lined rivers to a place called "Boca's Del Toro", bisecting and putting to flight numerous bird species along the way. The Boca's are a series of Caribbean islands that all offer something different. Some islands are great for laying on beaches, others for surfing and others for restaurants/bars. We stayed on the main island of "Colon" which was quite a cool spot.

The majority of buildings here are wooden, all in various states of degeneration. They've been built out over the water edge, so it's refreshing to sit out on the water sipping and eating away. Because all the buildings are so close (you can literally jump from one balcony to the next), the music scene is a mish mash of many genres. Imagine listening to (britneys) "opps, I did it again..." and "your poison running through my veins...yourrrrr poisonnnnn" (Alice Cooper) at the same time. Really hard to know what groove to get into $·$%$%&.

We spent a day hopping around some of the islands and managed to see dolphins jumping and playing in our boats wake, went snorkeling, laid on a white sandy beach and also saw an Eagle Ray (a bit freaky seeing it by yourself snorkeling...). We also spent the rest of the night in a place called "the wreck bar". Rightly named as it is built over a ship wreck that you can hang over the rope railings and feed all the fish. What´s not good is wanting to swim late at night......

Anyway, we left the Boca's after a few days and headed into the interior of the country, the backbone....to a place called "Boquete". We both weren't feeling the best in Boquete and hadn't eaten anything for 30+ hours. We picked up something from the curries we had in the "Boca's" the night before (yeah right!). Combine that with drinking over a ship wreck, and well...

There was a big celebration in Boquete for the couple of days we were there. They have a flower festival that lasts for 10 days and includes two massive dance tents. Needless to say, trying to get to sleep at 3am with a thummp, thummmp, thummmp and the snoring in the room next door isn't much fun. We bought ear plugs for our last night, which only succeeded in reducing the music and snoring to a dull rumble....

We left "Boquete" and headed to the "Los Santos" peninsula on the pacific coast where we spent 5 days chilling out and exploring the area. Our first stop was a place called "Chitre", which we aptly named "Shitre". Not that there was anything bad about the place, just not a place you'd spend a second night in. The only good thing about "Chitre" was we rented a car from here (a little Kia....cute, but gutless). We promptly got on the road and headed down into the peninsula to explore.

We found a neat little place called "Pedasi". It was quiet, quaint, full of colonial buildings and really nice people. I ended up getting pulled over to a 92yr olds porch (the locals call him gringo Jose) and I had a perfect chat in English with him. It ended up that he was employed as a time keeper by the Americans when they started on the construction of the Panama Canal, as he was the only one that could speak English at the time.

We also did two dives at an island close to Pedasi called "Isla Iguana". This was good fun and their slogan was..."The latitude with a laid-back attitude"...

The area around Pedasi is really nice and we found an awesome B&B overlooking the water called "Playa El Ciruelo" that we stayed at for a couple of nights. Our first night at the B&B we had a visit from a Scorpion. It was one of those harmless small ones (so the ladies next door told me). Mind you they moved pretty quickly when I swept it their way!!!!

After chilling out in and around the area watching surfers and drinking 60c beers we headed onto the capital of Panama....Panama City. This trip wasn't without its dramas either, as Julz left her bag at the B&B....so after a 3hr round trip we were finally on our way.

You enter Panama City over the "Bridge to the Americas" and are swiftly thrown into big city chaos. Horns, fumes, erratic drivers, skyscrapers and slums all gel together in harmony. We must've drove around for 2hrs looking for a decent hotel with any vacancies. Due to the massive amount of construction and commerce going on at the moment, all the hotels are fully booked. We finally found a hotel downtown, showered and treated ourselves to a nice meal.

The following day we spent at the "Mira Flores Locks" watching huge ships pass through the Panama Canal. What an amazing feat of engineering this is, but not without its unprecedented problems like tropical diseases, landslides, massive excavations needed etc. Ships pay according to length and weight with your typical cargo ship (see photos) paying around $200,000 - $300,000 USD to pass through. One bloke swam through and paid the lowest amount of 36c.

Our dinner that night was pretty special. We managed to reserve a table overlooking the locks, so we munched out on a buffet dinner whilst waving to the captains and crew of these massive ships that passed almost at eye level.....very cool indeed.

We've also enjoyed wandering around the old city full of rambling buildings and watching CNN repeat the US presidential preliminaries over and over again. Julz has loved the shopping in Panama City, leaving me at the cinema complexes in these huge shopping malls for hours at a time...great fun.

Well that's about it. We´re off to Cuba tomorrow and can't wait to experience what that fascinating country has to offer. From talking to people that have been there, we´re definitely in for a treat.

Until the next installment, ciao chicos....

Logz & Julz

Costa Rica...Pura Vida (Jan 08)

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:24:34 EST

Costa Rica...

¨Pura Vida¨....¨the pure life¨, the countries moto is on everything from napkins to teeshirts, and the country throws about the eco/sustainability/conservation words to attract even more people to visit...and live.

The reality however is somewhat different, with some beaches and towns suffering from major over-development through foreign investment. This has created some real eyesores and the basics of urban planning (ie; sewage runoffs) seemingly an after thought. We felt in some areas, the countries selling itself off for the fast buck. It will be interesting to see how long the country keeps plugging the ¨pura vida¨ slogan and how long tourists are prepared to pay over inflated prices for goods and services....

Anyway, all that aside Costa Rica is incredibly diverse and there is no shortage of things to see and do. You can literally be surfing in the morning, bird watching at lunch, hike in the afternoon and then back to the beach to catch a glorious sunset.

We spent New Years at a beach on the pacific side in northern CR called ¨Playa Tamarindo¨, and it was one of those over-developed places mentioned above. Having said this, on New Year´s eve we went on a turtle tour to see the huge Leatherback turtles laying eggs on the beach. These turtles are huge, with some up to 2m long and weighing 300+kgs! It was amazing to watch this feat under a starry night. We also witnessed an incredibly long shooting star that seemed to stretch across half the sky.....awesome stuff.

Celebrating New Year´s itself was a little strange. We finished the turtle watching around 9pm and raced back into town hoping to sink a few quick ones to get into the NY mood. Anyway, we ended up wandering around most the bars wondering where everyone was. The bars were virtually empty...weird. So come midnight we grabbed a drink each and meandered onto the beach where pockets of people were letting off fireworks. Actually, this was pretty cool to watch....anywhere that involves drinking and fireworks is gonna be entertaining......

So....after watching skyrockets being let of vertically and gritting the teeth as some wicks fused immediately, we decided that it was time to retire whilst watching the crowds scattering in all directions dodging unpredictable skyrocket trails.....

We left Tamarindo on NY´s day and headed south to another pacific beach called ¨Playa Samara¨. Now this is a beautiful beach, with long sandy beaches, coconut palms and a great chilled out vibe. We spent a few days here just chilling out and enjoying the sunsets....(and rum & cokes)

After spending nearly a week by the beach we decided it was time to head back inland for some more adventures. We headed up into the cloud forests of ¨Monteverde¨ to seek out some adrenaline activities. Monteverde is famous for its pristine cloud forests, abundance of wild and bird life.....and zip lining 200ft above forests. Being attached to a saggy wire that´s wound around two large trees 300m apart (yes, that´s 300m...it´s a bloody long way) is pretty exciting. Couple that with 15 other zip lines of varying lengths and you´ve got yourself a ton of fun. We got some pretty dramatic video footage of zipping above forest tops screaming and yahooing.....all good stuff. Julz also did the tarzan swing which involves throwing yourself off a high tower and swinging out over the forest. It was quite funny in the way they stop you swinging at the end, by holding up a rubber tube that literally stops you dead in your tracks......much the same way planes stop on an aircraft carrier, completely knocks the wind outta ya.

We also went to a couple of wildlife displays, one of which was a frog enclosure. We had a guide with us spotting copious amounts of tiny and large brightly coloured frogs...some called ´red eye poisonous dart frog and green eyed cow frogs (green eyes with black/white spots all over the body...). There were hundreds of different frog species that we saw, pretty impressive stuff.

We also went to the 3rd largest insect museum in the world. This guy had been collecting insects from the age of 5, and hasn´t stopped. He´s got over a million different species with 300,000 of them on display...(different strokes for different folks I guess). Some of these insects were on steriods...huge is an understatement. With massive nippers and legs, camping in the forests anywhere in Central America is out of the question!

We also went on a coffee tour, cheese tour and a hike through the cloud forests. We managed to spot the rare ¨resplendent quetzal¨ bird (with the help of the guide..) which has been used as a symbol of hierarchy and royalty in ancient mayan times....so much so that the poor ol´ bird is on the endangered species list.

So after this action packed few days in the highlands of the continental divide it was time for more fun in the sun, and over to the caribbean coast we went for some more rasta vibe.....

There´s something about the caribbean coast that we´ve loved this whole trip. Whatever country we´ve been in, there´s been a combination of laid back living, food, amazing beaches, warm waters, dreadlocks, reggae music and great rum. All together making trips back here so enjoyable.

We stayed at a place on the caribbean coast called ¨Puerto Viejo¨ and it lived up to all the above. We had 5 days here and chilled out reading and walking on the pristine white sandy beaches...all the while enjoying hot sunny weather. We hired a moped for a day and cruised around the little villages dotted up and down the coastline. This was good fun except all the roads are dirt, so you get covered in dust and bugs whenever a bus or truck rumbles past.

Soooooo, that sums up our 2 weeks in Costa Rica. Would we come back to CR? That´s debatable. I think the over-development and inflated prices dampens the experiences in the country somewhat, and you feel something for the locals that get forced to move elsewhere to cater for the foreigners that have moved here in their droves.....

Anyway, next stop Panama....so until then caio chicos...

Logz & Julz

Nicaragua Tales.....(Dec 07)

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 16:42:48 EST

Nicaragua.....wheww, what a country. From active volcanoes in the middle of fresh water lakes, to white sandy beaches on caribbean islands, this place pretty much has everything a dictator/revolutionist would ever want to start another civil war over.

Civil wars have raged throughout the last century, that in some places (remote caribbean coast) the locals have been oblivious of them....¨what war, i din´t know der was anada war on man!¨ Fortunately for me and julz the only power struggle we encountered was getting outta bed the day after an arduous 8hr hike up a volcanoe.....

Let the tales begin...

Our first experience of Nica was through the windows of another chicken bus. The state of the bus was ´nteresting´ to say the least....However, we made it to our first destination in one piece....Estili.

Estili fought hard throughout the civil wars of the 60/70´s and the town still had walls where bullets had ricashaded off them. We thought this would be a good place to learn a little bit about the history of all this turbulance, so we went to the history museum and proceeded to look at old type writers, paper mache models of surrounding hills and different currency denominations from around the world!"·$·$%&. The museum relied on donations, so we left them a fine 1 Limpera note (Hounduras currency) to add to their growing currency collection (in a glass display).

Anyway, our next stop in Nica was the town of Leon. This place had an edge about it...raw, chaotic, bustling with activity and the best natural fruit juices ever. We had quite a few days in Leon and loved it. The main square had an impressive church, that prior to being built the locals fooled the spanish catholic authorities by submitting a rather dumbed down version of what really was built. I guess back in the 1600´s it probably took years for mail to be sent and arrive from overseas...so they got away with it.

We witnessed a famous folklore celebration in honour of the virgin maria where you run around the town with everyone else up to as many door ways as possible. The owners call out ¨ÇQuien causa tanta alegria¨....from which you reply ¨La concepcion de Maria!¨ and then get handed sweets and other goodies. It´s fun for a while until the suger goes to your head and you end up with glucose stuck between your teeth....

My watch I bought in Belize (refer back to that blog) stopped. I wasn´t too surprised, as the price I payed for it came with far too many features to actually be real. The annoying thing about it, the alarm still goes off at 7am every morning.....So, I went out and bought another watch....a Casio F-91W. While it sounds like an old german fighter plane, its one of those watches that was cool to wear in the 80´s and is suppose to be water resistant. For $5US i´m not expecting it to last that long (still going strong on the 28/12/07).

After about 4 days in Leon we headed to Granada, which is the complete opposite of Leon. Granada has the sophistication, finesse and classier feel about it that Leon has resisted. It´s know wonder that both these cities have been at logger heads with each other from day dot. It got so bad that the government was moved to be directly in the middle of these two places to avoid any more conflicts.

We also loved Granada. The restored colonial buildings, the colours, the rare beef mignon fillets wrapped in bacon, coffees and the sunsets from atop of a 16th century bell tower.....

We did a couple of day trips out to some neat little villages around Granada and also spent the night up a Volcanoe called Mombacho.

Spending the night on an active volcanoe was pretty interesting. To get up the volcanoe you need to register at the park entrance and then get taken up to the top in the ¨eco-mobile¨. The ¨eco-mobile¨ is a old desiel mercedes 4x4 russian troop carrier, donated after the cold war......This caused a few laughs with the other couple that spent the night at the top with us..

So, back then to Granada where we spent one more night before heading out to the Corn Islands (Caribbean side).

The flight to the Corn Islands is in one of those really small twin prop planes that the majority of people would look at and go...¨whewww, i´m glad were not flying in that!¨ There was none of that initial walk down the aisle checking seat belts and safety demonstration that we´ve come to expect as the norm...instead, the ¨larger than the cockpit seat¨ pilot shuffles to the front, fires up the engines and takes off.

None-the-less, we arrived safetly on the Corn Islands (big Corn) and then jumped on a little boat (called a punga) and headed out to the Little Corn Island. This was a pretty bumpy ride, but we were rewarded with seeing a double rainbow along the way.

Little Corn Island was amazing, and not without it´s history that (still) included pirates, treasures and a great stop off point for drug runners between Colombia and the States. We thoroughly enjoyed our 10 days spent there. The locals were great and had that neat carribean accent.....¨yowsa man, what dis going on wit ya!, git yurself a rum man and a hammok¨...

Julz ended up doing her PADI Advanced diving with a great dive shop called ¨Dive Little Corn¨ and I did quite a few dives also. Our last dive was a night dive that also coincided with the full moon. It was simply amazing being underwater in the dark with the moon casting eeiry silhouettes over the coral. We managed to see two turtles, spook a shark and watch two big stingrays looking for food. The underwater torches made you feel like you were in a cross between a star wars movie and a deep sea odyssey movie.....Anyway, i found it amusing swaying my imaginary light saber through the dark water cutting in half all the unlucky nocturnal fish in my beams path!"·$·"$%....

On a side note, the PADI slogan of ¨go places, meet people...do things¨ is, for all intense purposes pretty corny.....but actually right. We meet some great people on the island and had good fun socialising.

We also stayed at our favorite place so far in Central America......¨Dereks Place¨. This was a 20min walk through lush jungle from the village to the northern tip of the island. The cabanas were just right and Derek and Anna (owners) could open up a gourmet restaurant anywhere in the world. The food was fantastic and comprised of whatever was caught from trawling behind the boat and in the cupboards at that time. Needless to say, it was tough leaving the island. However, the adventures must continue!

We flew back to the mainland and jumped on another local bus and headed south, down to a place called Isla Ometope.

Isla Ometepe comprises of two volcanoes perched on a fresh water lake. The island supports eco sustainability and all that stuff. In actual fact, most of Central America is pretty sustainable as nothing is really over developed and private cars are almost non-existant. Public transport on local buses is dirt cheap and a ton of fun....

We had Christmas on Isla Ometepe and stayed on a working co-operative coffee farm called ¨Finca Magdalena¨. It was pretty rustic accomodation to say the least, with what looked like a barn cut up into little cubbyhole rooms. The views over the lake were stunning and the surrounding coffee plantation relaxing to wander through. This finca is also the base to hike up the Volcanoe Maderas....

Now, you may wonder what we did on Christmas day. While sitting around eating, drinking and ´general being´ would have been the norm....we hiked up to the top of the volcanoe.

Volcanoe Maderas is a 5km hike to the top and it´s gruelling. Whatever inspired us to do this we will never know. We hiked a total of 8hrs up and back, and this has gotta be the hardest hike we have ever done....completely unrelenting through mud, grabbing branches, slippery rocks and then into the cloud cover. The beer at the end never tasted sweeter. The legs however, were jelly.

After a day of recovery we left Isla Ometepe and headed over to the Pacific coast to a fishing/surfing village called ¨San Juan del Sur¨, where we hung out at the beach sipping G&T´s and watching stunning sunsets as our legs still recovered from the hiking.

We´re now on our way south to Costa Rica for New Years.....and have no idea as yet where we´ll celebrate it. I think probably on a beach somewhere to continue the general overall theme of our travels so far........¨lifes a beach¨

Until the next blog, have a wicked NY´s wherever you may be......

Ciao Chicos..