San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua

Giving Deb a rest so her legs would start to work again we headed for San Juan del Sur. We had heard it was a beautiful horseshoe beach and we got there and soon saw it was. We only ended up staying for a night but Alex found a venomous water snake washed up on the beach..didn't feel that relaxed swimming in the sea!

Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua

We arrived on Isla de Ometepe after a 4 hour boat journey at about 10pm. The island is made up of two volcanoes which have erupted and the hardened lava has joined them together. We found a guide to take us to climb Conception (the active of the two volcanos) the following day, We were told it was going to be a 12 hour hike starting at 5am.The walk to the start of the hike took about 45 minutes. We passed the hut where you pay a fee and were told we didn't have to pay because the guy was sleeping.

The walk up was a steep rocky climb and took about 4 hours 30 mins. It was quite hard work and we were going at a really quick pace.

At the top of the volcano we were surrounded by horrible weather, it was really windy and loads of rain so we couldn't see much and didn't hang around for long. As we started making our way back down Deb realised her legs had packed in and she had full on jelly legs. With no way back but getting down herself she kept having hysterics because she felt so helpless. Using two sticks as crutches, Forest Gump style, she hobbled her way down. We didn't get back until 5pm. I don't think Deb will be climbing any more volcanoes for a while!

Leon and Granada, Nicaragua

We arrived in Leon at night and all the hostels were fully booked, the only place we could find was Hotel America. Dont let the name fool you, we walked in find find about 10 grannies on rocking chairs doing their knitting and crosswords. We walked back outside to see if we walked through the right door and that we hadnt walked into an old peoples home. To our surprise, it was the right door.

We have noticed since that eveybody in Nicaragua is crazy for rocking chairs.

The reason for being in Leon was hearing from people we have met about the Volcano boarding here..... and it was a good as everyone said it was. We had to carry boards up the volcano and then donning our sexy orange boiler suits and goggles we raced each other down two at a time.

GRANADA -

We were moving on down through Nicaragua to Isla de Ometepe to climb a volcano but first we had to get a ferry at Granada, a Colonial town on the banks of the massive Lago de Nicaragua which has bull sharks in it, you know. We decided to stay a couple of nights and on the first night we treated ourselves to a proper hotel room, air conditioning the works.

After a good nights rest we went out and made some friends...

Playa El Tunco, El Salvador

After a long week studying hard we felt like we deserved a rest so headed for the sun and beach in El Salvador. The night before we were due to catch the bus there at 4 in the morning Alex in his true style got absolutely wrecked! He made the mistake of passing out an hour before we were leaving, he woke up feeling so rough and sick. We said our goodbyes to Elyse (well one of us did while the other one had they're head down the toilet!).Luckily the border crossings were easy and we were the only people on the bus. The difference in weather was unbelievable, it was so hot in El Salvador compared to the rain and cold we had become used to in San Pedro.
We slept our hangovers off ...

and then headed down to check out the beach...

We headed out to the beach restaurant and as we sat down a surfer was running out the sea carrying a boy with blood gushing out of his side. We immediately thought shark attack but later found out he had collided with a little sword fish jumping out the water (bad luck)...this is what we got from out Spanglish anyway. We soon forgot the commotion with a beer and a lush sunset when a guy sat next to us with a Boa Constrictor wrapping around his neck. Deb almost ran out the restaurant when he put the snake down on our table even though he told her its only a baby!!

The next day everyone in the hostel ( all 8 of us ) got taken surfing to a beach 10 minutes ride away by the owner of the hostel. It was a lush and quiet beach with a bar on it. After our attempts of surfing we all went to the bar early and got drunk.

After a week of doing nothing it was hard to get ourselves motivated to do anything so we thought it was time to leave and booked our ticket to Leon, Nicaragua.

San Pedro, Spanish Classes and Cocks

A day after arriving in San Pedro we decided to enrol at a Spanish School..as part of the package we moved in with a Guatemalan family for the week to help us practice..it was really weird experience..there was a lot of smiling and nodding at first. Alex knew slightly more Spanish than me so he did his best while I was mute because they cant speak any English!
They lived right by the lake in the heart of San Pedro..they had five children, the youngest is 4..she's wild.. dressing up, running around with loads of teddies and dolls, generally showing off..she was the one that talked to us the most! We spend 4 hours a day in spanish lessons..my teacher is really good, Alex's couldn't speak any English and said he was lazy!ha and Elyses' said "wow" after everything she said and then went on about the amount of drugs he had taken during the fiesta all through her lesson..he was ridiculous.

Our 'mother' got breakfast (cornflakes and bananas) ready before school every morning, then lunch veg stew type thing when we got home from school, then omellette and refried beans for tea. Everything was served with tortillas..we are sick of them! We had free horse riding and Kayaking with the school, it was so funny seeing Al on a horse.

While we were there there was a big fiesta, It was San Pedro day, there was loads of music everywhere and a fairground set up..the fairground rides were more dangerous than those at Porthcawl if you can believe that. The ferris wheels were propped up by bricks and powered by tractors. Obviously health and safety isn't an issue here.

Our Guatemalan family told us to go and watch this Traditional dance in the fiesta.. it is to tell a story about the history of when the Spanish arrived..they all looked freaky in masks.

The festival lasts a week and the women parade around in a brand new outfit (they only have one each year)..and the men just get really drunk..there were grown men passed out on the floor everywhere..just like a Friday night in town.

While we were there, San Pedro had its first ever Cock fight... so of course we had to go and watch. There were Guatamalan Girls in hot pants and bikini tops parading the cocks around and dancing, definitely not a glamourous job! It was brutal and we left wondering why we paid to go and watch it.

Guatemala so far...

As you cross over the border from Belize to Guatemala there is a big difference.. gone are the bright carribean colours and English signs and we are greeted with bumpy dirt roads, rain and roadside stalls, which for some reason was really appealing!

Our first stop in Guatemala was Flores..its an island surrounded by a lake and you just drive over a bridge to get to it. It looked amazing (even in the rain).

The next day we went to Tikal, at the entrance we were met with The Grandfather Tree (you can see Deb at the bottom) - it is set in the middle of a Jungle, we saw loads of monkeys.

The ancient ruins of Tikal were about 70m high, the climb to the top was alright for some but not for one (Deb) but the sweat and tears were worth it, you could see for miles.


That night we went for food with people we had met in Caye Caulkner who are travelling the same route as us... We decided to travel together for a bit, as it seems to be a fair bit cheaper in groups. So the we are now with two Americans and a chopsy Australian girl called Elyse ( she has us in hysterics all the time) so between us we re like the three stooges.

After Flores was the worst journey to date, only 9 hours but 4 of them were in the back of a pickup going off road to Semuc Champey.
Every man and their dog had machettes but they were smiling so they couldnt have been too bad.
We arrived in the middle of the jungle miles away from anywhere with the only building around us... our hostel. As we arrived the owner of the 'Las Marias' was bringing a 6 inch scorpion out of one of the rooms... this did not please Deb at all, but with no where else to go she had no choice but to stay with the creepy crawlies. The hostel cut the power at 10p.m so of course Deb had all of us in the room an hour before bed to make sure that the only living creatures in the room were us lot. Well she didnt have the best sleep in the world, but sleeping with one eye open can
do that to you!
Happy to be alive the next day, we signed up to go caving not fully understanding what we were letting ourselves in for....



We were given a candle and told that we didnt need our flip flops, we wandered into the cave waist deep in water laughing and joking and before we knew it we were in a cross between the krypton factor assault course and The Goonies movie.














Swimming in torrids of water with our candles blowing out left right and centre climbing rope ladders up waterfalls. It was amazing! We both came out with battle scars but they are merely flesh wounds.



We made it out alive and kicking. There was no time to relax though, our guide promptly giving us a tractor tyre inner tube and with a quick bridge jump we were in the water and given the relaxing run down river which meandered through the jungle to our hostel; which was pretty convienient.....

Semuc Champey is a definite recommendation.

Alex as graceful as ever getting into his tube!

He finally gets in and manages to look like he's got fake legs!

Next day we headed out of jungle ready to climb the active volcano about 2 hours away from Antigua. We arrived in the cobbled streets of Antigua, it is very pretty city. We got ourselves settled in our hostel with Elyse and a couple from Kentucky, USA and had an early night ready for the 6am bus to the Volcano.

The Volcano walk was a lot harder than we thought, luckily it wasn't sunny, it was warm enough though.It took about two hours of steep uphill to reach the hardenened lava. It was really weird to walk on. The rock beneath your feet was hot, crunchy and hollow sounding. We walked up further with our guide to try and find some flowing lava, the heat was incredible. We saw lava, but nothing like we were expecting from what people had told us form their experience. The redish colour rock in the photo is actually red hot though and melts anything that touches it. We bought big walking sticks for 50p off the kids at the bottom of the volcano, Alex threw his in the lava, it went straight up in flames. We then had toasted marshmallows..a sugar rush ready for the walk back!

Getting back to the hostel, we met a cool Aussie couple Vic and Mel.. it was Vic's birthday so we started drinking about 4pm and then headed out for some live music. It was a really good night, let off a bit of steam getting drunk..loads of people from the hostel came out...the place we went to was fronted by a library and when you walked through to the back it turned into a bar... it was just like the Roof!

A big thanks and hello to Peter Turley and The Archers for getting the ball rolling on the donations!!

The Blue Hole, Belize

The Blue Hole is a large underwater sinkhole off the coast of Belize. The hole is circular in shape, over 300 metres (984 ft) wide and 125 metres (410 ft) deep. It was formed as a limestone cave system during the last glacial period when sea levels were much lower. As the ocean began to rise again, the caves flooded, and the roof collapsed.

We are still in Caye Caulkner, we got up at 4.30am to go to catch the boat to the Blue Hole it was our first of three dives. After a choppy 2hrs in a speed boat we arrive in the shallow, turquoise water that surrounds the Blue Hole. There were no other boats there. You could not see the full circle but you could see a clear line where the hole drops.
We were briefed on the boat about the dive and told that we may experience Nitrogen Narcosis which is simular to feeling drunk but 40 metres under water.

As we decended into the Blue Hole we were met by stalactites of gargantuan size. They were bigger than you could of imagined... It was BONKERS!!!

After swimming through the stalictites on the ascent were surrounded by 16 Carribean Bull Reef Sharks they were about 3 metres long and had a hungry look in their eyes! Its definitely the best dive we've done so far.

The sharks came so close to us...

Didn't fancy going back in the water here after seeing them go mad for food!

Caye Caulkner, Belize

It feels like the trip has started here in the Caribbean waters! It is a paradise island they're moto is 'GO SLOW' eveyone speaks English, Alex is gutted he can't practice his spanish here.

Spent our first day here snorkelling and lounging on the beach, made friends with a local called Phillip (Al has decided to refer to him as crazy Phil). He was telling us how he feeds these huge island bird with Sardines we didn't really believe him, but we trusted him and gave him a dollar to go and get the sardines. When he came back him and Al stood up on the dock and Crazy Phil started waving his arms around with a sardine in each hand. The birds started flocking around him, and a scared Alex!! very funny. Not content with the birds taking sardines out of his hands, crazy Phil put a sardine in his mouth! One minute Alex was saying "There's no way I'm doing that". The next this you know crazy Phil stood to the side, Alex had a whole sardine hanging out of his mouth. I think the pictures say it all!

Cultural trip to Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico City

We arrived in Mexico after a 11 hour flight both with red wine smiles. I think we drank a few more complimentary wines than we thought....they ran out!

Got to the hotel safe and sound, it was amazing and in a really nice part of Mexico City, El Condessa. It was full of middle class Mexicans we fitted in perfectly! There was a famous singer staying in the hotel apparently she was Mexico's Mariah Carey.

First day of our trip we decided to go exploring the museums...

As you can see we took the whole thing very seriously! The museum was really good but we do get bored very easily.

That evening we decided to head out for some traditional Mexican food. On the plane we made friends with a young greasy Mexican, he said his favourite place to eat was just round the corner from where we were staying. We thought we couldnt go wrong, we thought wrong. We had trouble finding the El Greco restaurant, this was due to the fact that it was actually a kebab shop (imagine Mexico's answer to the Olympus in Bridgend). Alex couldn't believe his luck, so kebab dinner it was!

Mexico City was much nicer than we thought it was going to be, but we got itchy feet and booked ourselves on to a 25 hour bus trip to Belize City. The journey was as you can imagine cramped, hot and a screaming baby; this was meant to be first class. We woke up on the bus to a beautiful sunrise and the Mexican army! we had to get off the bus and they search everyones bags..we were half asleep so it all seemed a bit surreal but it went surprisingly smoothly considering we didn't have a clue what they were saying!

We jumped straight off the bus on to a boat headed towards Caye Caulkner..so nice to be finally getting to our destination, the sun setting as we arrived.