Ya mon

Ya mon, we finally in Belize, mon.

Arriving in Belize was by far the most friendly and easiest country we have arrived in so far. We were greeted by George, our taxi driver, with a huge white smile contrasted by his lovely dark skin. Every other word was mon, ya mon.

He drove us swiflty to the boat dock in Belize City where we set sail to Caye Caulker, about a 45 minute boat ride. The day was unusually beautiful, the water was crystal clear, not even blue, clear mon! As soon as we got off the boat we noticed a sign on the ground "Caye Caulker - Go Slow". We checked into our lovely one bedroom house overlooking the soccer field and headed to the best beach/bar ever. It has picnic tables in the water and cheap drinks . . . nice mon.

We swam, drank rum punch, swam, drank rum puch, you get the picture right? Not a bad day mon. We snorkled and saw nurse sharks, Portugese Manawhars and many tropical fish.

Caye Caulker is a tiny island , only 8km long and about 50 yards wide. There are no cars, only golf carts and the streets consist of white sand and nobody wears shoes. We kept seeing the same smiling faces each day and made many friends. One of these friends was named Ras, who lives on the most amazing boat ever, he invited us up for a mango and a chat. We also met a man named Kenny who rescues animals on the island and has a vet come to him once a month to spay and neuter his new pets. This man must have about 35 cats and three dogs. We bought some big bags of dog and cat food and would visit Kenny and his animals each day we were on Caye Caulker.

Most of our days were spent diving off picturesque docks and drinking coconut rum and cokes. Mmmmmm. It tasted like the beach, minus the sand of course. We celebrated our one year wedding anniversary-yay!- at the beach bar and were treated to freestlyles about love from the locals, mon. Hahahaha, it's true! We had a yummy romantic dinner at Agave and then headed back to our cute little house . . .

The last day was by far the best. The rain had stopped and we decided to book a full day snorkeling trip on the second biggest reef in the world. The first place we snorkled was called "Shark and Ray Alley". Quite a fitting name I must say, mon. As soon as we dropped anchor nurse sharks and giant manta rays were circling our boat. We hopped right into the water and came face to face with some of the most beautiful marine life we've ever seen. Nine foot nurse sharks, manta rays about eight feet wide, huge colorful coral reefs and we even saw a few sea turles! It was one of the highlights of our trip by far, mon. We then went over to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye for lunch, not quite the isla bonita Madonna sang about. But it was cool enough, I think we were spoiled by the beauty of Caye Caulker.

We slept good that night and knew we had quite a journey ahead of us in the morning. Now it's off to San Ignacio, Belize to go caving and see some Mayan artifacts.

-B

Puddle Jump No-More

7/10/09
Needing to get back up to the northern part of Central America we decided to fly instead of bus it. Our bus route would have taken us through the now unstable Honduras and it would also take us way too long. We booked our flight to Belize-leaving from Bocas Del Toro Panama. The only flight they had stopped first in San Jose, Costa Rica , then in San Salvador, (overnight) and then onto Belize city. Annoying flight but it was our only option.
While waiting in the terminal a storm blew in that would have frightened passengers waiting to board a 747. When our plane taxied up to our terminal a let it’s full load of 6 passengers off I knew we were in for a really rough ride.
We boarded in disbelief and silence. The half hour flight was one of the longest most uncertain times in my life. Brooke and I were holding hands and closing our eyes through the roughest plane ride ever. The engines were cutting out and the plane was bouncing up and down like a small boat getting tossed around by rough seas. I could see directly into the cockpit where the pilot struggled to keep his clipboard on the seat next to him. He even looked nervous. There would be clear skies as I looked out my window--then I would see a massive dark grey cloud and brace myself. Our heads were smacking the ceiling and I really did think we were going to crash. After dropping fifty or a hundred feet and hearing the engines sputter I just couldn’t make myself believe that the plane could take much more.
When we landed I was speechless. Maybe this was normal, maybe not, but it was new to me.

Sloth and Frog

Bocas Del Toro-Last Day
7/9/09
Needing to move on but not really wanting to we decided to squeeze in one more activity filled day. We booked a tour over to some nearby islands to check out some dolphins, coral, and deadly, (but friendly) red frogs.
We started off by snorkeling some beautiful reefs at Caye Coral. Brooke swam right into a huge jellyfish and paid the price.After we had some lunch at a restaurant right over the same reef we snorkeled. Next we headed over to Isla Bastimentos for a beach day, (It made me miss Stonesteps). Bastimentos is home to these little cute poisonous frogs. We spotted one and promptly took pictures of it. I finished off the day by renting a buckled boogie board from the rental shack. It was about 4ft and breaking right on the sand, I was the biggest dork on the beach and couldn't wipe the smile off my face. On our way back to the boat we spotted a lazy little sloth hanging in a tree about 50ft up. I love sloths.

Bocas Del Toro

Bocas Del Toro 7/6/09-7/8/09
Puddle jumper from David to Bocas=30 minutes orBus ride/water taxi=6hours
Plane.
Bocas Del Toro is a beautiful group of islands of the northern coast of Panama, really close to the Costa Rican boarder. We decided to come here in the initial planing of the trip back home, and we were really looking forward to it as this is our first stop on the Caribbean and our "u-turn" spot in Central America.
When coming to these places you never know what to expect. Photographs don't tell the story at all, you can never really get a feel for it until you are actually there. Flying in instead of busing it is a much better way of getting a perspective of the land. It looked amazing from the air and we couldn't wait to get on .
The tiny airport is only about a two minute walk from downtown and with all the accommodation in that area it wasn't too much of a hassle to be selective about where were stayed. We walked around and checked out almost every hotel. We finally decided on a place called Casa Amarilla--really cool place and it had a refrigerator, so important in this climate.
After we checked in it was only around noon so we grabbed a shuttle to the nearest swim able beach, Bocas Del Drago. We had lunch in the shade at a sand floored restaurant, horrible service, good food. This seems to be the norm in Bocas. After lunch we took a stroll along a beach front path past basking starfish and stingrays.
The next day we grabbed a water taxi and headed over to Isla Bastimentos about a 15min ride across the channel. We relaxed on an idealic yellow sand beach. I had rented a board b4 we took off a was hoping for some waves. It was OK looking, but the water was 82 and clear, hard to resist. I surfed for about 2hrs in absolute slop and had a blast. Later in the day/evening we went out on the town. We discovered a bar called Iguanas, (very original) and took advantage of ladies night. Free drinks for Brooke!
Next day was rained out and we were long overdue for a day of nothing so we decided to just plan the rest of our trip--oh and I think Brooke was a little hung over too...hah!

I Still Like Buses...and Borders

San Jose, CR to David, Pamama

7/4/09-7/6/09

After a long horrible bus ride from Nicaragua to Costa Rica we pulled into to San Jose at about 4pm. Starving we found a great little Indian food place next door to our hostel/hotel and dug in. After we just went back to the hotel and decompressed from the most claustrophobic bus ride ever. All the seats were broken and the would recline all the way back--almost flat. They call the seats semi-cama which means semi-bed, this would have been cool if they worked. So for 10 hours every time the bus speed up the seats flew back, when it stopped they flew forward--it was rad.
So anywho, we went to bed and woke up only to have to get on another bus, this one bound for David, Panama. Yeah! another boarder crossing!
Boarder crossings in C.A. are terrible. This one bordering Costa Rica and Panama is particularly bad.I won't bore you with details but let say they modeled this crossing after a rubix cube. Pay this person $1 walk to a window, pay another person $2.50 walk to the corner, pay the guy in the food stand 75c and so on.... All this with no directions.Actually now that I think about it in hindsight it was kinda fun.
We arrived in David, Panama latter in the day and did the same as the day before--decompressed in the hotel. David is not the coolest city, it's just kind of a crossroads town with nothing much to offer, no matter, we just came here as a stop over on our way to Bocas Del Toro on the Carribean. So we had a day to kill and decided to head out to Boquete, a really beautiful mountain town about a one hour bus ride out of David. Not much to do in Boquete but cruise around. I now see why AARP chose it as one of the top 10 places in the world to RETIRE, not vacation--very quiet and geriatric. There was one awesome highlight in Boquete, an animal sanctuary called Paradise Gardens. It is run by expats from the US and it in inhabited by all native species. Highlights include a Jaguarundi, Toucan, Margay, Capuchins, Tamarins, Anteaters and tons of other cool animals, highly recommended.
Vamos a Bocas Del Toro manana!

San Juan Del Sur

San Juan Del Sur
7/1/09-7/3/09

Leaving Grananda early in the morning we set off for a mildly confusing search for our bus to San Juan Del Sur. After a few shady characters directing us towards sketchy ally ways we found our way to the Rivas, the gateway to San Juan Del Sur.

San Juan Del Sur is a dusty little backpacker/surf town that sits in a small bay. There is no surf in the bay--but many spots are only a jeep ride away. Brooke and I checked into our hotel and cruised around town to find some food and a proper board rental for the next days beach day.
With the entire towns board rental options consisting of softtops I finally found a shop with something under 8 feet--unfortunately it was a 6' fish. This would have to do. On another note San Juan is home to Encinitas expat Tom Eberly, it was strange to see every kid on an Eberly surfboard, a sight that brought me back to the 80's

Later in the evening we tried out a delicious spot for dindin recommended in our guide book. A strange Indonesian decorated restaurant that served good Italian food and sangria. Super good and satisfying we turned in full.

Capital Cites

6/26 to 6/27/09

Leaving El Sunzal meant catching a bus to San Salvador. Not the prettiest of cities. With the assistance of one of our fellow bus passengers, (a women,usually the only trustworthy people in these cities) led us to the bus station that was to get us to our next capital city. We got to our bus station just on time, purchased our tickets and proceeded to to wait for a bus to Managua, Nicaragua. Our bus was suppose to arrive at 8:30am which would put us in Managua just before dark. Come 11am the bus pulls into the station--shit, this puts us in Managua well after dark. On the way to Managua we passed through Honduras--the medias newest favorite latin american country in turmoil. With their President hiding in Costa Rica and riots in the streets we opted not to do anything but pass though. Arriving in Managua we jumped in a cab and hightailed it straight to our hotel. There were signs in the lobby saying to not walk the streets at night, so we had the front desk call us a pizza--our first US style food since we left.

Managua is a gnarly city, not just in the crime sense but it's past is rather sad. The entire city was destroyed in 1972 by a massive earthquake that killed 10,000 people. It was then rebuilt only to be destroyed again by hurricane Mitch in 1998. In between that there has been a massive civil war.As of now there are no plans to rebuild the city and it remains a flattened mess of ghettos and open air markets. So we got the heck out and cabbed it instead of chicken bus to Granada, Nicaragua.

6/27-6/29/09

Granada, Nicaragua

We arrived in Granada late morning and checked into our hospedaje. A nice place run by a scantily clad Nica women named Valeria. We tossed our bags on the bed and went for a stroll around the city.

Granada is a beautiful

500 year old city set right next to Lago De Nicaragua. The town was never destroyed by earthquakes like Managua so all of the old colonial buildings are still intact. The next few days were spent exploring the region. We went to Masaya--a smoking crater of an active volcano, paddled and motored around Lago De Nicaragua and just enjoyed walking and eating the city. Oh and we also got to visit an island in the lake with monkeys--they jumped on our boat, let us pet them, and then stole our stuff.

Spiders, Thunder and Hornets, Oh My!

6/25/09
One would think since a place was named Playa El Sunzal there would be plenty of beach access right? (Playa means beach for all you mega gringos out there). After our hammock session, Micah and I headed to the beach, or so we thought. We walked for a good mile without seeing any sort of beach access. Mind you the walk was along the main highway so semis and trucks loaded with 20 people as it's cargo were flying by honking their horns. We finally found a restaurant that had beach access, so we had a cuba libre and went to the beach.

The beach was so so, nothing too spectacular. We bronzed for about two minutes before the humidity started to get to us, we were drenched in sweat so jumped into the 85 degree ocean to cool off, which did not work too well.

After our mini beach experience, we trekked back to our little hotel for a dip in the pool which was very nice and refreshing. Our bellies were beginning to rumble so it was time for some dinner. We headed across the street to the dirt floored pupuseria. Pupusas are fat little hand made tortillas stuffed with various types of ingredients. Micah and I opted for the bean and and cheese stuffed pupusas which were ridiculously delicious. After our dinner, which was $1.50 mind you, we headed back to our hotel.

As soon as we stepped foot into our rinky dink room, it began to pour rain. We have never In our lives heard thunder crack through the sky as we did that night. The lighting lit up the street light free dirt roads like it was midday. We sat outside for about 20 minutes and watched the spectacular storm. We were sleepy so we headed back to our room to hit the hay. We noticed an exceptional number of hornets in our room but didn't complain, what do you expect for $15 a night? So we laid on the bed in our travel sheets hoping no hornets would take a liking to us in the middle of the night. Little did we know that was the least of our worries.

Micah woke up screaming due to the giant bugs who thought his hair would make a great place to sleep for the night. We flipped the light on and it was like that scene from PeeWee Herman where he gets dropped off in the desert and then he turns his flashlight on and sees tons of animals. We saw hornets, spiders, mosquitos, flies and I'm pretty sure I saw a pterodactyl. We hid under our sheets for the rest of the night and got the eff out of there at 5:30 the next morning. Since the gates weren't open yet, we had to climb under a fence with our bags through the mud. Adios Playa El Sunzal, El Salvador, Nicaragua here we come!

LA-Guadalajara-DF-Guatemala City-Antigua-El Salvador

6/23-6/24
Right now we are sitting in the doorway of our hotel watching the city fly by. We arrived in Antigua, Guatemala this morning after a harrowing bus ride from Guatemala City though the hills to Antigua. We walked around the beautiful old city--complete with volcanoes erupting all around, 16th century old churches, (all were destroyed in an earthquake in the mid 1700's--some restored, some not), cobblestone streets and tuk-tuks--a three wheel transport similar to some I've seen in pictures from India. Not much to do in the city but walk around and check stuff out.

Food here is incredibly cheap and we ate like kings and queens at a really good restaurant that evening for heca cheap. We had some rum drinks, including the delicious coco y limonada con rum; made with chunks of frozen coconut, fresh lemonade and a healthy Guatemalan portion of rum. With dinner was some Andean music accompanied by a strange ginga girl of 18 on a violin--it sounded really good though.

With not much else to do in Antigua but climb volcanoes, (which were kinda erupting) we decided to move on to El Salvador. We booked a private tourist bus instead of jumping on a chicken bus to make our boarder crossing easier. This however was foiled when we arrived at the border. With only about 8 people in line we figured this would not take much time at all--and with or Guatemalan driver to help us get though the line it was going to be cake. After about a half an hour in line we noticed that each of these eight people had 20 to 30 passports in their hand. Needless to say it took a while....

6/25
At this moment we are in El Sunzal, El Salvador swinging in hammocks above our semi-rundown $15 a night hotel. We are happy.

Gracias por su tiempo

Honeymoom Coming Soon...

With Africa in front--almost winning the hosting region for honeymoon we pulled out last minute and decided to make the relatively quick hop over to Guatamala to start our Centro American holiday.

Departing on the 23rd of June, returning on the 23rd of July we will have one month to make our way from Guatamala to Panama--then from Pamana back to Guatamala. We will be traveling mostly on and a little off the PanAmerican Highway through seven countries consisting of; Guatamala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and finally Belize.

Stay tuned for wicked good updates.

Dirty 30 on Mt. Whitney

I know, I know, we lag big time on posting, it's difficult to get around to it but we'll try and be better, we promise!

So, Micah's 30th birthday was August 22nd and what did he want to do? Oh, just climb the tallest mountain in the 48 contiguous states, that's all. What happened to getting drunk and drowning your sorrows in your old age? So, we found out that so many people want to climb the mountain that you must enter a lottery in February in order to get a pass to climb it. So I think this is my out, right? Wrong. They give out certain number of passes on the day you wish to climb to people who just show up to take the place of the no shows. So . . . that's right, we lucked out and got a pass . . . yipee.

So we camp at the base of the mountain on the first night, car camping, so we were in luxury compared to what was ahead. There was a beautiful river running behind our campsite that was filled with fish, but freezing! And guess what likes to eat fish in the forest? Bears . . . can I get another yipee.

So we explored the river and Micah found a rattlesnake, we didn't see any bears thank goodness. The area is really purty, as you can see. Almost all westerns were filmed in this little desert area right out of meth city, I mean Lone Pine, where we camped.

I didn't sleep very well because I knew what was in store for us the next morning, climbing 14,500 feet with a 39 pound backpack. Again, yipee.

To be continued . . . .