White Around The World

And finally, Isla Mujeres

2008-11-26T18:34:29Z

From Valladolid I decided that I wanted to spend my last few days relaxing at the beach. I got the bus to Cancun but decided not to stay and went straight to Isla Mujeres, about a 20 minute boat ride away. After finding a hostel and having lunch I spent the rest of the day exploring the northern end of the island, around the main town and beach. The hostel itself even had its own private area of beach, but unfortunately it wasn't safe for swimming.

the next day I met a few people in the morning and we decided to go on a snorkelling trip. this was really good fun, we went out on a boat to 2 different snorkelling sites, where we saw loads of different types of fish and shellfish including barracuda, starfish and a huge sting ray. After the snorkelling we were taken to a place where you could swim with a shark, but it seemed really cruel to the shark the way it was kept in a tiny tank and constantly handled, so I didn't bother with that. We also went to a turtle hatchery where we saw several different types of turtles, including hundreds of baby ones. After that it was time for lunch. We were given a huge BBQed fish to share between the 5 of us, very tasty. Then we were taken back in to town and spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach until sunset.

Unfortunately the next day it was very windy, so we decided to hire bikes and cycle round the island. despite the island being relatively small and flat, the wind made cycling difficult but it was a good way to get around and see the rest of the island.

For my last day the weather had improved a little bit so I managed to do all the typical holiday things, went to the beach, went for a swim in the sea, a bit of souvenir shopping, had an ice-cream and lay in a hammock. I had met several other people who were flying home the next day so we went out for a nice meal to celebrate the end of our travels.

The next day I had to get up early to start my journey home. A boat to Cancun, to buses to the airport, a flight to New York, a flight to Dublin, a 12 hour delay and finally a flight to Glasgow. Altogether this took about 40 hours, so by the end of it I was very pleased to finally be home.

And finally, Isla Mujeres remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Campeche, Merida and Valladolid

2008-11-16T23:55:29Z

From Palenque I went to the small colonial town of Campeche for 1 night. Unfortunatly I was there Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, when everything was closed so it was really quiet and there wasn't much to do. But it was a nice town and it was interesting to walk around the walls, which were built by the Spanish to protect the town from pirates.

On Monday afternoon I took a short bus ride to Merida, a bigger colonial town towards the coast. I spent the following day in the city. In the morning there was a free tour of the city visiting some of the historic buildings around the centre, including the cathedral which is though to be the oldest cathederal in all the Americas. I also saw the market, and the anthropology museum. In the evenings there were free music and dance performances in the plazas, these were good fun to watch and seem to provide as much entertainment for thelocals as the tourists. The following day I spent the morning in the city visiting the city museum and an art gallery, before getting the busto Vallodolid.

I arrived in Vallodolid late afternoon at the same time as all the day trips to the ruins of Chichen Itza. The main plaza was packed full of coachloads of tourists and people trying to sell the usual tourist junk (even inside the cathedral). But soon they all left and it became a nice place to be. I went to the small museum about the local history and had a nice meal by the plaza. The following day I went to see Chichen Itza. I arrived early and was able to see most of the site before all the huge tour groups turned up and took over the place. It was another interesting day, with several features that i hadn't seen at the other ruins I have visited. In the afternoon I went to see a cenote, a kind of underground lake that is common in the area because of the rock type. The one I saw, the cave had collapsed on one side so it was now half in the open.

Campeche, Merida and Valladolid remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Palenque

2008-11-10T18:26:15Z

From San Cristobal I travelled to PAlenque to see more Mayan ruins. I had a really good day visiting the ruins and 2 waterfalls in the area. The ruins were really impressive, although not as big as the site at Tikal, I found it much more interesting. The buildings were more ornately decorated with glyphs that have been translated and thought to tell the history and important events of the site. There was also a really good museum containing the very impressive sarcophagus of the most important ruler of the area and many other artefacts that have been discovered. In the afternoon we visted the waterfall at Misol-ha and aguas azul, which was a really nice place for a walk and a swim.

There wasn't much to see in Palenque town itself, it only exists as a base for visitng the ruins but in the evenings there was good live music in the main square.

Palenque remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Last but not least, Mexico

2008-11-10T18:17:48Z

I arrived in Oaxaca Friday morning after a very long bus journey. But for once it was a comfortable one, I went in a minibus instead of the standard public transport. For the first 10 hours it was less than half full and for the last 18 hours it was just me and the driver. But the last couple of hours on windy roads I was starting to feel sick so was glad when we finally arrived. Only problem was it wasn´t travel sick like I thought, I continued being sick for the next few days and spent most of the weekend in bed and unable to eat anything. Unfortunatly this meant I also missed most of the day of the dead celebrations which sounded really interesting. Around the town centre nd in most buildings people had made arches of marigolds and decorated them with other plants and offerings to welcome back the dead. All weekend in the evenings there were people walking around in fancy dress. I recovered enough to see some of the sights in the city. I really enjoyed the Santo Domingo Conevent, its museum and gardens. THe museum was excelent, a good chance to learn all about Mexican history and the culture of the different ethnic groups.

By Monday night I felt wel enough to get the overnight bus to San Cristobal. I arrived early in the morning and celebrated finally feeling better again by having a huge breakfast, my first meal for several days. I spent the day explring the city, another really nice place to spend a lot of time wandering around all the plazas, churches and buildings. I also went to the Na Bolam museum, about a tribe that live in the rain forest and were unaffected by the rest of the world until about 1950 when logging started in the area. Interesting to see how they are trying to maintain some of their traditions.

THe following day I went on a really interesting tour to 2 of the neibouring indigenous villages. We had an excellent guide who explained the different cultures and traditions. Visitng the church and finding out about their religion was interesting. The Spanish missionaries built a church but failed to convert the village to Christianity, instead they now have a religon which mixes Mayan beliefs with some aspects of Christianity. They pray to the normal Catholic saints using Mayan prayers. In the church there are no services or a priest, families can go to the church at any time and make offerings to the saints, incuding sacrificing chickens.

The following day I went on a oat trip through Sumidero canyon, a huge canyon which is over 1km deep in places. Very spectacular scenery and a good chance to see a bit of wildlife.

Last but not least, Mexico remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Quetzeltenango

2008-11-03T00:37:55Z

From Chichicastenango I got the bus to Quetzeltenango. There isn´t really a lot to see in the city. The main site seemed to be a very strange museum which had a bit of everything from Mayan pottery to old photocopiers, a stuffed siamese goat with 1 head and 2 bodies and a selection of fetuses (including human).

My reason for coming here was to do a bit of hiking in the surrouding hills. So the next day I went for a hike up Volcano Santa Maria, an extinct volcano not far from the town. It was a really good walk. We set off early in the morning and it was completly overcast but we soon climbed above the clouds and had some atmospheric views over the valley. The clouds then cleared so we could see everything below us. We stopped at the top for about an hour at a viewpoint overlooking Santaguito, a smaller volcano created the last time Santa Maria errupted. It is still active and errupts about once an hour. While we were there we were able to see 2 erruptions, with cloud of smoke coming out of the crater below us.

The next day I got a shuttle bus across the border to Oaxaca, Mexico.

Quetzeltenango remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Antigua (again) and Chichicastenango

2008-11-03T00:28:05Z

I had expected to spend all morning in the banks trying to get some more money, and was shocked to get money within 10 minutes of walking into the first bank. So instead I was able to enjoy the day seeing more sites of the city. In the morning I went to a coffee plantation just outside the city. This was really interesting, on the site they do all the process from the growing of the coffee to the packaging of the ground beans. Also got to try a very good cup of coffe.
In the afternoon I went to a really interesting museum all about the folk culture in the different areas of Guatemala, with demonstrations of the different music, textiles and crafts. I also visited the Santo Domingo convent which has been converted in to a hotel and several small museums, galleries and a nice garden.
The following day I went for a walk up nearby Volcano Pacaya. although I have seen many volcanoes in central America, this was the closest I have been to flowing lava. At some points we were walking on solidified lava and you could see lava flowing underneath.
On Sunday I went to Chichicastenango to see the local market. Apparently its one of the biggest in Guatemala with traders coming from all over the highland area. It was really interesting just to wlak round. Most of the women were wearing their traditional dress which varies with each area. There was an area for crafts made for tourists and then other areas where you could buy anything from household goods, food and clothes. I ended up buying a couple fo things to bring home.

Antigua (again) and Chichicastenango remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Flores and Tikal

2008-11-03T00:25:32Z

I arrived in Flores late in the evening and went straight to a hostel where I spent the night. The next day it was still raining but I decided to go to see the Mayan ruins at Tikal anyway. Because of the bad weather and some political problems the normal sun rise tour was cancelled. And despite it raining on and off throughout the day I still really enjoyed it. The site itself is huge, you could spend days walking around it, exploring all the buildings in the jungle. I had time to visit all the major area. THe temples themselves were very impressive, bigger than the ones I had seen in Copan, and being situated within the jungle made it more impressive. In the rain it was very atmospheric. For me the highlight was climbing 2 of the temples. Although there are steps up them, they are very steep and in the rain very slippery, but the views from the top were worth it. Looking over the jungle seeing the tops of the other temples through the trees, the rain clouds moving in from all sides and monkeys swinging in the trees was a unique experiance.

The following day I changed my plans again. I had planned to go to central Guatemala to Semuc Champey but I had heard the national park was closed because of flooding and the roads were flooded in places so I decided just to go straight back to Antigua. THe bus was suppossed to take about 9 hours but because of flooding it actually took 25, so I arrived the following morning.

Flores and Tikal remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Rain, rain and more rain in Rio Dulce

2008-10-25T22:01:06Z

I arrived in Rio Dulce in the evening, it was dark and raining hard, so I got a taxi straight to a hostel and stayed there all evening. For the next 2 days and nights it rained hard, continuously, and as the hostel was across the river from the main town (over the longest bridge in Central America) we couldn´t really go anywhere. Being in a hostel built half over a river is probably not the best place to be during torrential rain and if it hadn´t stopped raining when it did, I think the cafe part of the hostel would have flooded. But eventually the rain did ease a bit and I even managed to walk across the bridge in to town without getting soaked.
The following day the rain even stopped briefly, so we decided to go out for the day and took a bus out of the town, some way around Lago Isabel. When we arrived it started raining and the bus driver usefully told us to walk in completely the opposite direction to where we wanted to go. But we eventually realised our mistake and found our way to the river and waterfall where we wanted to go swimming. The waterfall is fed by a hot spring and is still relatively warm. Unfortunately you half to swim across the cold river to get there, but it was worth it, has to be the closest thing I have had to a hot shower for a long time. We also climbed up to the top of the waterfall to sit in the warm river at the top.
The following day we decided to leave Rio Dulce and get the boat down the river to Livingstone, a town on the coast. The boat ride itself was really nice, going through a beautiful gorge and stopping off to see a castle built by the Spanish to protect the area from the English. We arrived before it started raining really hard again and we spent the night in La casa de la Iguana, a really nice hostel.
The following day it was raining a bit but we decided to go for a walk along the beaches to the 7 alters, another waterfall and a series of pools in the jungle. It was apparently where the original Tarzan film was made and it was really easy to see why they used it as the setting. We had a nice swim in some of the pools and had fun jumping off the waterfall.
The next day I spent travelling back to Rio Dulce and then up to Flores.

Rain, rain and more rain in Rio Dulce remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Panajachel

2008-10-14T21:02:14Z

From Antigua I decided to go to Panajachel by Lake Atitlan. Although its not that far away, it turned into a bit of an adventure using the public buses here. All the public buses here are old school buses from America, and when packed full of people they aren´t really the most comfortable way of getting around , but squashed on a seat with 3 other people you get to meet some interesting locals. I think it took about 5 buses in the end, despite the conductor on the 3rd bus assuring me it went direct. The guy on the 4th bus said the same thing and so when it ended at a village by the lake I assumed I was there. After walking round for a long time trying to work out why things didn´t really match up with the map that I had, someone told me that the village I wanted was actually another 8km around the lake, so I had one more bus journey to do.

Panajachel is in a really nice location, right by the lake, surrounded by mountains. I enjoyed looking round the village and the old town in the afternoon. Unfortunately it is apparently not safe to walk around the lake alone, so the following day I took several boats to visit a couple of the other small villages around the lake. This was still a really nice day, the villages are all a bit different and are interesting to see the mix of colonial and traditional buildings and the majority of people still wear the brightly coloured traditional clothing. Today I wanted to travel on to Rio Dulce on the coast, but due top more financial problems I have spent all day either in banks or on the phone to the bank at home. Finally I have some money again, so I will be back on the buses again tomorrow.

Panajachel remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Copan and Antigua

2008-10-14T20:49:39Z

I finally started getting everything back to normal when I got to Copan. I spent a nice day here visiting the Mayan ruins. This was the first Mayan ruins I have seen so I was really impressed by them and learnt a lot about the Mayan culture and history of the area.
The following day I travelled to Antigua in Guatemala. A bit of a scary journey as I think the driver was trying to break some kind of speed record on the narrow mountain roads with a lot of lorries. Relieved to arrive safely I found a hostel and spent the rest of the day looking round the town. Its a really nice city, lots of impressive colonial buildings, and ruins from the many earthquakes. I enjoyed looking round the cathedral, from the main square it looks in good condition but in actually fact only a very small part of the building is in use, the rest of it is in ruins.
As I had enjoyed the afternoon there I decided to spend the next day, looking round more areas of the city, including some more ruins and churches, the museum and the market.

Copan and Antigua remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Tela, Honduras

2008-10-11T02:52:13Z

From Esteli it took all day and too many buses to count to get across the border into Honduras and up to the capital Tegus. After struggling to find a cashpoint that worked we eventually managed to get some money and went for dinner. The next day I travelled to Tela, a small town on the Caribbean coast, so it was another day on buses.The following day I hired a bike and cycled to the nearby botanical gardens, apparently one of the biggest in the world. That evening I was walking just a couple of blocks from the hotel to a cafe when i got stopped by 2 guys with a gun, so I just had to give them my bag. Fortunatly I didn't have that much cash on me or my passport but I did loose 2 bank cards and a lot of really annoying things like my guide book and suntan cream. The following day I spent all morning trying to sort everything out. I have 2 other bank cards with me, neither of which would work, so I only had a bit of cash left, most of which I had to spend on the phone to banks in the UK. I was unable to get any money from anywhere, so had to spend the weekend doing nothing as I had too lottle money left. So I was not happy when I went to the bank first thing Monday morning and found that none of them were going to open until Tuesday. Another day of doing nothing at all. I couldn't even just go and sit on the beach because I couldn't afford any suntan cream.Finally the banks opened on Tuesday, and after waiting there for over 4 hours I finally managed to get some money. So I got the next bus out of town. I was trying to get to Copan but as I had spent so long at the bank, I missed the connecting bus and got stuck in San Pedro de Sula for a night. But at least I had got away from Tela. The following morning I got the first bus to Copan and started getting everything back to normal again.

Tela, Honduras remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Learning Spanish in Esteli

2008-10-02T22:32:30Z

From Leon it was what seemed to be a long bus ride further north to Esteli. I arrived in the evening for what I planned to be just one night. I found a really nice new hostel (La Luna)run by an English women and met a nice group of people there. A few hours and glasses of wine later I didn´t want to leave. SO the next morning after having a look around the town I decided to arrange some spanish lessons for a few days. Although my Spanish is good enough to get by, I decided a few lessons would be a good idea to correct all the mistakes I´m making and to get a bit more fluent. I found a really good teacher at the Gallery of heroes and martyrs and have spent the last 5 days having 4 hour lessons every morning. I have learnt a lot but still need a lot more practise, so I think I will carry on with lessons when I get home.

After finishing my lessons I have travelled further north and crossed the border into Honduras. I spent my first night in the capital Tegucigalpa before travelling up to the coast today.

Learning Spanish in Esteli remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Granada and Leon

2008-09-29T21:34:40Z

From San Juan del Sur I travelled up to Granada. Although it seemed like a very nice colonial city I ended up spending only 1 day there. I enjoyed exploring the city but within the city itself there isn´t really that much to see and do. I was there at the weekend and it seemed very quiet, so as I´m getting short of time I decided to move on to Leon.
Leon is another colonial city with some impressive buildings and a very interesting political history. I spent a day looking round the city and went to the museum of the revolution where I had a good guide who explained all the recent political history of Nicaragua. I found it really interesting to listen to the stories of someone who had lived through a lot of it and seen the changes happening.
I also visited Leon Viejo, the original city that was founded by the Spanish but destroyed less than 100 years later by an earthquake, and had been covered with volcanic ash so it was only rediscovered about 50 years ago. It was an interesting place to visit and the site itself was just a really nice place to wander around, by the lake beneath the volcano.
The following day I went on a 2 day hike with a charity called Quetzaltrekkers. They organise hiking trips for tourists and use the money for that to fund various projects working with the local communities to help street kids, improve education etc. I really enjoyed the couple of days I was with them, the volunteer walk leaders were really good, the hike itself took us to some very nice places and the other people in the group were all really nice. It was an early start the first day, we had to meet at the office at 4am, to get organised and get the bus to the start of the walk. First we climbed Cerro Negro, an active volcano that first erupted in the 1800s so is very new. One of the most amazing parts of the walk was when we walked down into the crater, there wasn´t actually any lava, but some amazing rock formations and a lot of steam vents, a very strange landscape. From the top of the crater we literally ran down the side of the volcano, so although it took about 45 minutes to climb up, it took about a minute to get down again. We then climbed another volcano, El Hoyo which also had some impressive features that were really interesting to see. We camped on the side of the volcano and enjoyed a nice night here. Cooking on the steam fumaroles was good fun.
THe following day we got up to see sunrise over Volcan Momotombo and Lago Managua. It was a hot and steep walk down from the volcano to another lake where we spent a couple of hours cooling off and having lunch, before getting the bus to Leon.
In the evening there was a big parade through the city and fireworks to celebrate the religious festival of the Virgin de la Mercad. This was good to see, then I had a much needed early night to recover from the last few early mornings.

Granada and Leon remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Surfing and Rum in San Juan del sur

2008-09-26T15:26:01Z

I decided to spend a few days in San Juan del Sur to try surfing again, as I had really enjoyed the afternoon when I first tried it in Chile, but haven´t done it again since. The following day I had my first lesson at Remanse beach, a little way down the coast from where we were staying. There was a group of 5 of us having the lesson with our instructor Fred from Peru. Within about 10 minutes everyone else had managed to stand up a few times. Hours later I was still struggling to make much progress. But despite swallowing several litres of salt water and ending up very bruised I still enjoyed the day. In the evening I went out with a few people from the lesson and from the hostel and I discovered the common drink in central America, rum. After we lost count of how many bottles of rum we had, we ended up back at the hostel sometime early in the morning. So the nextdaywas spent at the beach recovering from both surfing injuries and a hangover.
After a days rest we were ready to try surfing again. After I had been so bad the first day I decided to have the beginners lesson again. I have no idea why, but for some reason I found it a lot easier this time and it didn´t take me to long until I was able to stand up fairly regularly. So we had another really good day surfing. And despite planning on having an early night to get an early bus the following day, we also ended up repeating the evening before and drinking too much rum again.

Surfing and Rum in San Juan del sur remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Isla Ometepe

2008-09-20T14:18:23Z

I got the bus from San Jose to Rivas in the south of Nicaragua. Despite there being huge queues at the borders it was actually an OK journey. I arrived in mid/afternoon, so just had time for a walk round the town, which was OK as there's not really anything to see here. But I enjoyed it, its very different from Costa Rica which is very westernized and developed. The following day I got up early to get the ferry to Isla Ometepe. I had planned to go to Balgue, a small village in the south of the island, 2 bus journeys away from the ferry. The first one was no problem and the driver said I just had to wait half an hour for the next bus to Balgue. But after waiting a while and asking a few more people, the only person who could give me any kind of answer just said I would be waiting a long time. As the bus stop was in the main square it was a nice place to sit for a while anyway. After I had waited about an hour and a half a parade started around the main square as it was a national holiday. At that point I realised it was going to be impossible for any buses to go anywhere for a long time, so I enjoyed watching the parade then gave up and went and found a hostel for the night. I spent the afternoon walking to a nearby beach and swimming in the lake to cool off.
The following day I decided to give up with the buses and did what the locals seemed to do and cycled round the island. THis was a really nice day, the roads around the island are relatively flat so it wasn't too hard going, except it did feel like I was cycling in a sauna as it was so hot and humid. Luckily I cycled past several nice beaches so was never far away from somewhere to go for a swim to cool off. I made it to Balgue and ended up getting there just in time to see some of their independence day celebrations. Everyone from the village seemed to have gone to the main square for the day to listen to the various speeches. I cycled back to Alta Gracia and managed to see some of their celebrations in the main square. A parade with a lot of drumming and dancing, which everyone seemed to enjoy, including me.

The following day I moved on to San Juan del Sur.

Isla Ometepe remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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2 weeks in Costa Rica

2008-09-20T14:14:13Z

I met up with Sarah and Gemma in Allajuela as its near the airport and they didn´t arrive until quite late. We have spent the last 2 weeks travelling around northern Costa Rica and have managed to see a lot of the country in a short amount of time. As Costa Rica is quite small it has been a great place to see a lot of different things, but I think the main highlight for us has been the wildlife.
On our first day we visited one of the many active volcanoes in the country, Volcano Poas and enjoyed quite a relaxing day doing a little bit of walking near here while we adjusted to the heat and humidity.
Our first stop was La Fortuna. The evening we arrived we were lucky with the weather. After a storm early in the afternoon the weather cleared, so we went on a guided walk in the forest where we learnt a lot about the plants and wildlife. Once it was dark we went to see Volcano Arenal, which is apparently the second most active volcano in the world. At night it is possible to see glowing rocks and lava flowing down the side of the volcano, we were really lucky to get an amazing view of this. Then we spent the rest of the evening enjoying more geo-thermal activity in the hot spring.
The next day we travelled to Tortugera on the Caribbean coast, an area known as a mini Amazon. Its on a peninsula inaccessible by road so it was a long journey by bus and then boat. I enjoyed seeing the Caribbean way of life here, very different from anywhere else I have been so far. This evening was very different from the last as we went to watch turtles nesting on the beach. It was a very strange thing to see, and be able to get so close to. It did feel like we were disturbing the turtles, getting so close to them when they are actually laying their eggs, but we were assured that once they have actually built the nests it is fine to watch them. We watched 2 turtles laying there eggs, covering them then walking back to the sea. For me the most impressive thing was the size of the turtles, they were huge. And almost as impressive as the turtles was the huge thunderstorm we watched out to sea.
After a late night turtle watching we had an early start to go on a canoe trip to see more wildlife. I really enjoyed this as it was a very relaxing way to see a lot more wildlife including caymen, iguanas, several species of monkeys, river turtles and many types of birds. In the afternoon we headed back to La Fortuna and in the boat on the way back I think we saw even more wildlife than we had seen on the tour in the morning.
Our next stop was Monteverde, a small town in the hills that was originally founded by Quakersin the 1950s. The afternoon we arrived we went on a tour of the cheese factory that the original Quakers set up and is still running now. It was actually interesting to see and I enjoyed it because it was my first chance to try some real cheese in a very long time, they even had a reasonably good Chedder.
The following day we went on 2 tours, the first a guided wildlife walk through the forest on a series of hanging bridges. The second part was a canopy tour where we went on a load of zip wires through the tree tops, very good fun. We also had to do a tarzan swing, which in a way was like a bungee jump as the 1st few seconds you were just free falling before you actually started to swing.
Our next stop was Liberia in the north west of the country. Here we visited Rincon de Vieja national park to see some more geothermal activity, hot springs and boiling mud. It was a nice walk through the park and we also saw some more wildlife, huge butterflies, iguanas and monkeys. Liberia itself was a bit of a disappointment though. the guide book describes it as a colonial town and one of the must see things in Costa Rica. It had one street where there were a few old houses, but that was about it, definitely not one of the highlights of the country.
We decided to spend our last few days at the beach, so we went to PLaya Hermosa. This was a very quiet little village, with virtually no one else there. We spent a nice relaxing day there, enjoying the beach and swimming before heading further south, to the resort town of Montezumma. Here was a lot more developed than Playa Hermosa and the closest beach was about half an hours walk along the coast. But we stayed in a nice hostel with hammocks in the garden by the sea. We spent a day here walking to a waterfall in the morning. This was a good walk along the river and had a good pool for swimming under the waterfall. In the afternoon we walked further along the coast to the beach, where we tried to swim, but it wasn't really possible. The following day we spent travelling back to Allajuella. Then our last day we spent at Xandari spa resort just outside the town on a coffee plantation. For me this was a bit of luxury, a very big change from staying in hostel dorms. We spent the morning walking around the site which has 5 waterfalls. on the way we came across a huge snake on the path, at least 1.5m long. LAter we tried to find out what it was and the closest picture we could find is of a snake that is apparently has a deadly venom. After lunch the weather wasn't so good so we passed the time doing a jigsaw, before having a very nice dinner.
Unfortunately the following morning Sarah had to leave very early for her flight home and I wanted to get back to San Jose to try and get a bus to Nicaragua. So I only had a short time enjoying a bit of luxury.

2 weeks in Costa Rica remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Back to the Northern hemisphere, Costa Rica

2008-09-13T23:39:03Z

My first impression of Costa Rica when I saw it from the plane was how green it looked. Everywhere was green with just a few buildings. Everywhere else I have been it has been the middle of the dry season so I have got used to brown and dusty places, here it is very different. My second impression of the country was much it seemed like the states, but a bit poorer, but maybe thats just the capital. I arrived in the evening so just found a hostel and something to eat then was too tired to do much else.

I´m not used to being in such a small country where you can get anywhere within a few hours, so it was hard to decide what to do with the 4 days I had before having to be back in San Jose to meet my friends. In the end I guess I went for the obvious choice and went to Chirripo national park in the south, where there is Costa Ricas highest mountain.
After spending a night in San Isidro I got an early morning bus to the village and park entrance as I wanted to get an early start to avoid the heavy rain that seems to happen every afternoon. After arrivingh at 7am, I then took a wrong turn in the village so it wasn´t until 9am when I actually got to the start of the path. The walk was a steep climb up thtough the cloud forest. To start with I had good views, until the clouds came down, but it was still a nice walk. I reached the half way point after about 3 hours and by then it had started raining heavily but I decieded I should carry on to the top anyway after getting that far. What I thought was heavy rain then got even heavier and I was soon soaked through despite wearing waterproofs. At least here it is still warm even though it is wet. The rain made it hard going, but I eventually made it to the refugio at the top where I was to spend the night. Luckily I stillhad some relativly dry clothes in my rucksack so was able to get changed. I met a very nice group of Costa Ricans who gave me a bowl of soup and a mug of hot chocolate to warm up as because I had climbed to over 3000m it was now pretty cold. THe refugio only has electricity for a couple of hours in the evening so it was lights out at 8pm and an early night.
I got up early again the next morning and was relieved to see the rain had passed. I spent a couple of hours exploring the area of lagunas around the refugio before starting to walk back down to the village. The walk down was really nicer as the clouds were much higher than they had been the day before. I also saw a lot of butterflys and tiny hummingbirds. I made it back to the village in time for lunch and luckily I had just madeit into a cafe when the afternoon rain started again.
Having enjoyed my first few days in the south of Costa Rica, the following day I returned north to Allajuela to meet Sarah and Gemma that were arriving from home that evening.
And now almost a week later I am still trying to dry my boots out after that first days walking.

Back to the Northern hemisphere, Costa Rica remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Quito

2008-08-28T02:07:37Z

We arrived in Quito Sunday afternoon and decided to stay in the old town. After finding a hostel we tried to find somewhere for lunch. The town was surprisingly quiet, the roads were closed to cars and there were a lot of people walking and cycling, but almost everything was closed. Apart from that we liked the old town, a lot of nice squares, impressive buildings and it seemed very quiet and easy to get around for a capital city. For once it wasn´t completly overcast and raining so we decided to make the most of the weather and spent most of the afternoon in La Carolina, the main park in the city. It was obviously the place to be on a Sunday as it was really busy but it was still a really nice place, until it started raining and we back to the hostel. In the evening, it was even quieter and the only place we could find that was open was an internet cafe.

The next day we decided we should go to the Equator which is marked by a monument and a few museums just outside of the city. Although its not far we had a few problems working out the public transport system and it took us nearly all morning to get there. When we finally arrived we ended up going to what is probably best described as the alternative museum. It was set up by a small group of people who have proven that the equator isn´t where the monument and official museum are, but 240m away. They are investgating a pre-Inca arcaeology site which they think was built to mark the true equator. the guy running it told us a lot of interesting information about archaeology, geography and astronomy in the area, he also talked a lot of rubbish as well. After that we deicided not to even bother going to the official museum and went back in to town, a slightly better route than we had taken. We spent the rest of the day looking round the town and doing a few jobs that we had to get done before our flights the following day.

It was an early start the next day as Cathy's flight home was at 9am. My flight to Costa Rica wasn´t until 2pm so I just spent most of the day at the airport.

Quito remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Otavalo

2008-08-28T01:52:57Z

From Latacunga we decided to go to Otavalo for a few days as several people had told us it was a nice place to see. We arrived Friday afternoon and spent a while looking around the market in the main square, a big crafts market, mainly aimed at tourists but used by locals as well. There was a lot of really nice stuff and if I didn´t have to carry so much, I could have ended up spending a lot of money. As usual it started to rain so we gave up and spent the rest of the afternoon indoors. After dinner we went out for a drink and discovered that here you could even barter over a bottle of wine in a bar. This happened completly by accident, we asked what wine they had, were deciding whether to risk it as Ecuadorian and Peruvian wine is really bad and the bar women just started decreasing the price for us, after that we decided to have it and luckily it turned out to be Chilean wine, which they had to go out and buy specially for us.

Otavalo is famous for its Saturday market, so we were expecting it to be a bit bigger than we what we saw the day before but were suprised to see that it almost completly takes over the town as it spreads to all the streets around the centre. People come from all over Ecuador to buy and sell anything and everything. We spent all morning looking round, buying a few things, trying different types of food from the stalls. It has to have been one of the few times I have actually enjoyed shopping for anything.

In the afternoon we decided to go to Peguche, a small village nearby where they still maintain a very traditional lifestyle. The village was very quiet because everyone was at the market but we had a nice walk to a waterfall, until it started raining, so we went back to Otavalo.

THe following morning it was time to go to Quito as we only had a couple of days left before our flights.

Otavalo remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Latacunga and Quilotoa

2008-08-28T01:37:18Z

The bus from Puerto Lopez to Latacunga took longer than expected, after leaving at about 5am we finally arrived in the evening and went to the first hostel we saw. Then we explored the very limited choices of places to eat and ended up back at the Chinese across the road from the hostel. As everything in the town seemed to be shut by 8pm we had an early night to get ready for another early start the next day as we had decide to spend a few days travelling between small villages in the surrounding countryside.
We got another bus to a small town in the middle of nowhere and then got a lift in the back of a truck to the village of Quilatoa. The village actually only consists of a couple of basic hostels, a shop and a small market where locals sell handmade crafts. But the village is in a good location right at the top of a volcano crater. We spent the afternoon walking down into the crater where we hired a kayak and paddled round the crater lake until as usual in Ecuador, it started raining and we walked back up to the top.
Early the following day the weather had improved a bit and we had better views from the top of the crater, across the surrounding countryside to the volcano Cotopaxi on the horizon. We spent the morning doing a nice walk to the village of Chugchilan. It was a good walk that went half way round the crater, down the other side and then into a canyon, which we had to cross. In the afternoon we decided to go horseriding into the cloud forest. Unsurprisingly being the cloud forest in Ecuador we ended up in the clouds yet again, but it was still a good afternoon.
The following day we decided to walk to the village of Isinlivi. The evening before we had met a French guy who had done the walk in the opposite direction and gave us a set of instructions that he had been give. The walk was supposed to take 4-5 hours and he said he had got a bit lost so it had taken him 6. Once we read the instructions we could see why he had got a bit confused, but we thought there would be enough locals to ask if we got lost.

All went well for about the first 45 minutes until we reached a village that was mentioned mentioned in the directions, but on their map it was shown so we carried on. Just to check we asked a girl that we passed, turns out the map was wrong and we shouldn´t have gone as far as the village so turned round. In the village we asked around and found an alternative way to get on to the path we had previously missed. Things went well again for a while, we found the path, went down to the river and followed that for a while and it seemed to fit with the directions (except we didn´t see the small dog that they mentioned). However once we crossed the river the directions got even worse. we were stood in a small field surround by trees and bushes and the instructions said something like walk through the bushes, turn left at a tree, take 2 steps, walk past a bush etc. After wandering round for a bit and find nothing useful we went back to ask another group of people, who told us we should walk back along the river and cross at a different bridge, the bridge that it siad not to use in the directions. We thought we should try it anyway, crossed the bridge and found ourselves surrounded by a barbed wire fence. We spent a while looking for paths in the area and found a few tracks which soon just disappeared. Having already taken us about 5 hours to get what we assumed was less than half way to the village (the walk was suppossed to take 4-5 hours) we admitted defeat and decided to turn back. When we reached the main road someone offered us a lift in the back of a truck to the next town. We spent most of the journy trying to see where the village was or find any route up from the river, but to us it looked virtually impossible, whichever way we could have gone we would have ended up at the bottom of cliffs. After a very dusty and uncomfortable journey we made it to Sigchos where we waited for the evening bus back to Latacunga.

Latacunga and Quilotoa remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Puerto Lopez

2008-08-26T15:46:32Z

After our experiences in Riobamba we decided to change our plans, have a break from the mountains and the bad weather and head to the coast. We decided to go to the small town of Puerto Lopez, about half way up the coast of Ecuador. Our first day here we went on a day trip to Isla del Plata. It took all morning to reach the island as on the way we stopped several times to see humpback whales. At this time of year a lot of whales migrate to the area for breeding. We saw a group of them that came really close to the boat and spent a while swimming around the area where we were. For a while we also were near a mother and a very young calf that were swimming together. Despite only being about 1 month old the calf was huge and incredible to watch as it was playing and kept jumping completely out of the water. When we arrived at the island we had lunch on the boat and sat watching turtles swimming around us. Then we went for a walk across the island where we saw many species of birds nesting, including blue footed boobies and albatrosses. The final part of the day was snorkelling at a coral reef by the island. This was another really good experience with so many different types of fish to see, and it has been something I have missed doing since I left Australia. We finished off a very good day with a good seafood dinner and bottle of wine on the beach. The only problem with the day was that it made me really want to go to the Galapagos, but at the moment that's just far to expensive for me. An excuse for another trip.

The following day we went to Agua Blanca, a small village a bit further up the coast, where we had a nice walk in the cloud forest and a swim in a natural pool which is apparently supposed to be very good for you, but it just stank of sulphur. The village itself was also very nice, with a small archaeology museum and local people selling crafts.

The next day we decided to go to the surfing town of Montanita. Unfortunately our bad luck with the weather in Ecuador continued. When we arrived the tide was out and there were no waves for surfing, but we were promised it would be better in the afternoon. After looking round the town we went to sit on the beach for a bit. Then it started raining, we tried to stay for a bit but soon gave up and went for lunch instead. In the afternoon the weather got worse and the waves didn´t look any better, so we gave up with our plans of surfing and went back to Puerto Lopez.

After a good few days at the coast we decided to head back in land and got the bus to Latacunga.

Puerto Lopez remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Going blind in Riobamba

2008-08-14T21:45:25Z

After an overnight bus to Riobamba we had a lazy day looking round the town, organising stuff for the next few days and catching up with things like doing the laundry. The following day we went to Banos a small toursity town about an hour away. It was a nice place to go for the day but that was long enough. It is in a valley by a river surrounded by waterfalls and overlooked by an active volcano which last erupted about 2 years ago. We went for a bit of a walk up to some viewpoints but unfortunately it was cloudy so we couldn´t actually see the volcano.

The following day we set off on a 2 day trip to climb a 5000m volcano near Riobamba. Unfortunately the weather still hadn´t improved and when we set off it was still overcast and we were yet to see what we were going to climb. The first day was just a walk to acclimatise, as we spent most of the day walking in the clouds, rain and sleet, it wasn´t great and by the time we reached the refugio where we were to spend the night we were all cold and soaked through to our underwear. We got up at 4am the following day and as it was only snowing a bit we decided to try and do the climb. But yet again the weather deteriorated and we spent all day in the clouds and snow. The climb itself wasn´t too difficult, mostly walking, with the top section being a bit steeper, and in the conditions we had it got quite difficult so we were relieved when we finally reached the top. Coming down the top section was as difficult as going up but once we had done that it was relatively easy going back to the refugio. Although the weather did improve slightly for the last hour of the walk, the volcano remained in the clouds so we never actually saw what we had climbed.

We had a relaxing evening in Riobamba with a nice dinner and bottle of wine followed by an early night, or so we thought. When I closed my eyes to sleep they started hurting a lot and this just got worse and worse. After about an hour I realised that I couldn´t even open my eyes anymore as they had swollen up so much. So I woke up Cathy who then realised her eyes were hurting, she went to speak to the guy who owned the hostel and he took us to hospital. Although I couldn´t see anything and didn´t have much of an idea what was going on, the hospital seemed well organised and we were soon diagnosed with snow blindness and given a prescription for eyedrops and much needed painkillers. After visiting many pharmacies we were able to go back to bed and actually got a bit of sleep.

In the morning I could half open one eye and had a bit of limited blured vision. Luckily Cathy wasn´t quite so bad and could still see relatively well, so we were able to go and get breakfast etc. I then spent most of the day blindfolded and by the evening I was a lot better, I could open both eyes and see enough to get by without too many problems. A couple of days later everything is about back to normal again and we have continued with our travels having learnt an important lesson about wearing sunglassses even when its not sunny.

Going blind in Riobamba remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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On to Ecuador

2008-08-08T22:21:30Z

We got a bus early in the morning from Mancora to Aguas Verde, the border town. At the previous stop, a women had got on and said that she was coming with us to help us cross the border and that this was part of the service included in the price of the bus tickets. As we didn´t have to pay any extra we agreed although we didn´t think it was necessary having managed to cross a lot of borders previously with no problems. Anyway, we got our Peruvian exit stamps then were put in a mototaxi for a few kms. Then we had to walk for about 10 minutes through the town until we finally crossed a bridge and ended up in Ecuador. Here we were forced to go to the tourist information where we were given a lot of useless information and told to wait for something, but we didn´t understand what. Next we were put in a taxi with a policeman and taken out of town to a place quite a distance from the actual border, where we finally got our Ecuadorian entrance stamps. We weren´t able to work out whether we needed the police escort for our safety or because they thought we were going to try and escape into Ecuador without getting our passports stamped. Then the policemen escorted us back into town and came with us to a bus station where we were met again by the women from the 1st bus who gave us the tickets for the next bus. That has to be the strangest border crossing I have done and afterwards we understood why they thought we needed help with it.

We arrived in Cuenca later that evening. The city seemed a really nice place, a lot wealthier than places in Peru, modern cars, clean well maintained streets and parks and the average houses looked a lot nicer. But despite all this for some reason no where in the city seemed to have water between 8am and 8pm. To start this didn´t seem to be much of a problem until in the middle of the day we tried to find a toilet. They were all just closed because of the lack of the water. Luckily we found that our hostel still let you use the toilet and `provided buckets of water for flushing. We spent our first day exploring the city, went to a nice art museum and doing various organizational jobs that we had to get done. The next day we went out to the Cajas National Park for a days walking. The scenery and probably more importantly the weather, really reminded us of home and all the hiking we have done in Scotland. Despite the low cloud and drizzle we had a really good. In the evening we caught the bus a bit further north to Riobamaba.

On to Ecuador remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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North Peru

2008-08-08T22:02:07Z

I spent my last few days in Peru visiting a few places in the far north. I spent 2 days in Chiclayo, a big city but it doesn´t have much for tourists. I went on a tour which visited an archaeological site and a couple of museums about pre-Incan tombs found in the area. There aren´t many foreign tourists in this part of Peru, and I was the only non-Peruvian on the tour. For everyone else the highlight of the tour seemed to be when we drove past the house where Miss World 1988 grew up, but I found the museums more interesting. The following day I went a couple of hours further north to Piura, mainly just because I had a spare day before meeting up with Cathy, my friend from home. There wasn´t much to do in the city so I went to a nearby village which apparently has the biggest craft market in Northern Peru. And yes it was big, but practically everyone was selling the same things and most of them were wooden spoons, so I wasn´t too impressed by that.

My next stop was Mancora, a very nice little town on the beach a few hours from the border with Ecuador. Here I met up with Cathy and we spent the following day catching up on the beach, before spending the next day travelling to Ecuador.

North Peru remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Trekking to Kuelap

2008-08-03T18:36:52Z

After a day and a night on buses I arrived at Chachapoyas at about 5am so spent the rest of the day enjoying doing not a lot. Chachapoyas is only a small town and there isn´t really much to do in the actual town itself, but there a lot of pre-Incan ruins to see in the surrounding cloud forest. So I arranged a 4 day trip starting the next day. THe first day we mainly spent in a taxi. We did have a stop off at a burial site where the bodies were buried in a cliff to void flooding and they placed wooden figures at the entrances to the caves containing the bodies. From there the road was just a muddy track, I think the taxi driver was soon regretting agreeing to the job as after getting stuck a few times his car was covered in mud both inside and out. When we left the taxi (with doubts that he would ever make it back up the road without anyone to push) we had a short walk to our 1st nights accommodation in the Valle de Belen. We were staying in a house in the middle of the valley 3hours walk from the closest village. It was an amazing place, so quiet and relaxing with just us and a lot of cows. In the evening we had a fire outside and sat looking at the stars and finding out more about the area from the guy from the village who was staying to look after the cows.

The 2nd day was the main day of trekking. Initially we had to cross the river in the valley and then we followed a pre-Incan path up the other side of the valley to the top. Then we started descending into the next valley and the scenery just completely changed as we entered the cloud forest, which was also surprisingly cloudy after the clear skies on the other side of the hill. After stopping for lunch we reached an area of ruins where a pre-Incan village of more than 3000 round houses made of stone. The government is spending a lot of money excavating at Kuelap, a similar site nearby, so no work has been done at this place, so it was really interesting to see the place in its wild state where the forest has just taken over. Anywhere where you just walked a short way from the main path into the forest you could find more buildings. The area the site covers is huge and in the dense forest difficult to access, so there must still be a lot there which remains undiscovered. The rest of the afternoon was sent walking down through the forest to the village of Congon. As we got closer to the village we saw areas of the forest being burnt and cleared, according to our guide this is illegal, and done because they want more space for coffee plantations.

We stayed in a really nice house in the village and had a nice evening there. We had a good dinner and finally found some half decent coffee in South America. But then we were sat on the balcony watching the owners sort, process and dry coffee beans, so it shouldn´t have been so surprising. In the evening we went to the village shop which also just seemed to be a general meeting place for everyone and had the only TV in the village. Here we tried the local alcohol, some kind of sugar cane rum, as with all the locally made alcoholic drinks I have tried on this tip, it was disgusting but you have to drink it anyway. We also spent a long time playing a game that is popular here that involves throwing metal discs at a board with various different holes in it, worth different values, obviously without much success on my part.

The following day was a long day of horse riding. We set off at 7am, riding up the valley through spectacular scenery. My horse took a bit of getting used to, but after fighting off all the other horses it made it to the front of the group and then calmed down. It was a really steep climb out of the valley on a muddy track that must have been very difficult for the horses. We arrived at the top and went for a walk through the forest to another area of unexcavated houses and a viewpoint looking back over the valley. We had lunch here, at the only house for miles around. Then we had another few hours of difficult horse riding before reaching the top of the pass. Here we left the horses and had a nice 3 hour walk down to the village of Choctamal where we stayed the night.

The following day we went to see the pre-Incan fortress at Kuelap. In a way it has been likened to Macchu Pichu as it is situated at the top of a hill overlooking al the surrounding valleys and is a large complex of houses, temples and other buildings. In some ways I found it more impressive than Macchu Pichu We spent a long time being shown around the site. It was nice to have seen similar unexcavated sites in the previous few days to see what a difference the archaeologists make. Even though only a small part of the site has been restored, the rest of it looked very different from what we had seen before. It was also interesting to see how the site and buildings had been modified first when the Incas took over the area and then later when the Spanish arrived. We ended spending nearly 5 hours there before driving back to Chachapoyas late in the afternoon.

Unfortunatly when we arrived back at the hotel we found that our luggage and things that had apparently been left in the safe had been gone through and some things had been taken, although most of it was of little value. Its a long story and I have written too much already but by about 2am, most of our missing belongings had been returned and a temporary member of staff had been taken to the police, so things turned out OK in the end.

Trekking to Kuelap remains copyright of the author katiew, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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