Darkest Peru

We flew from Panama City to Lima, Peru, where Paddington Bear comes from!! so I am now mainly eating marmalade sandwiches! We stayed in a really nice suburb of Lima called Miraflores, it is wonderful, it has department stores, and massive supermarkets! and it´s by the sea. All of my favourite things! The weather is very different down here, we´re now really glad we packed jumpers, and long sleeve tops. In the day it´s really sunny, and quite hot (but not like Guatemala hot), at night it´s freezing! We´ve been on a tour to some Inca ruins (can´t remember the name Panahachca, or something) on the outskirts of Lima, with the guy that owns the hostel (Francis) who´s a real character. He got us into areas of the ruins most people aren´t allowed in! It was amazing. We then took a 21 hour overnight bus to Cuzco near to Machu Picchu! I don´t fancy the 4 day trek up to the ruins cos basically I´d rather get the train!




Can you spot Turtle Island?

Tomorrow we head on an unofficial Inca Trail (which involves buses and trains) and Friday we should be at Macchu Picchu! More photo´s to follow

Panama City

So we last posted from San Jose, Costa Rica which hadn´t had the best reviews from fellow travellers but we really liked it. Found a great second hand book store, a lovely vegetarian cafe and some nice local bars as well as lots of decent shopping for the first time since we left. It jumped to our favourite capital city so far. We then took an overnight bus to Panama City which came nowhere in the favourite city stakes. Plenty of American fast food joints and shopping malls which meant the downtown was rundown and quite nasty. The old town was quite pretty and we spent the day trying to buy Panama hats but none big enough for my head (Kieran writing). We visited the Panama Canal though, that was worth a visit. Luckily we got there as a hefty ship was passing through. The day we left, the city was holding a referendum as to whether to build another wider canal next to the existing one. Ships just keep growing. Lots of NO marches in the city, along with the less vocal YES supporters.

More Volcanoes

Thought we´d post a few more volcano snaps. The first is as we entered the clouds climbing up.



And this is the photo from the top after five hours climbing looking down into the crater lake.

This is Volcan Arenal in Costa Rica (out of sequence) the one we went to see the lava flow at night. (Night photos didn´t work)

And this is back at Volcano Conception, opposite the one we climbed.

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Costa Rica

We´ve now made it to Costa Rica. We´re both really well and will celebrate two months away today with a few beers in 35 minutes when it´s happy hour - beers for a dollar. We´re in a great hostel in San Jose with free internet access so we´re getting bang up to date with the blog. The camera´s out of puff though so we´re using links instead. Here´s the hostel we´re at right now:

http://www.hostelpangea.com/

Here´s the volcano we climbed a few days ago in Nicaragua:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ometepe

And here´s the Volcano we saw last night. It´s active and we watched hot rocks bouncing down the sides at night before heading to the hot springs resort below. Loads of pools of all temperatures with a swim up bar too! It was bliss after all our cold showers and dusty hot bus rides.

http://www.arenal.net/


Also, I haven´t managed to cut my hair since I left so it´s looking a bit like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndrome_(The_Incredibles)

Nicaragua

We had two nights in the beautiful colonial city of Granada before heading to the Volcanic Island of Ometepe on Lake Cocibolca. It´s so peaceful on the Island, it felt like we had the place to ourselves. The first day we trekked up to a waterfall, the second day kayaked to two monkey islands where there are former pet monkeys who have been set free (like the one Ross had on Friends).
Then we climbed the volcano! 1345 metres! to a crater lake on top. Really difficult going but the cloud forest was incredible, the trees were covered in dripping moss and the clouds were so close. We were clambering through the roots of the trees, so steep for so long, it was like being on Dagobah and we had to use the force several times. Julie was on her arse at least six times. It was worth it at the top though, the crater lake was beautiful and I had to jump in for a dip though it was more like swimming through mud.

http://www.starwars.com/databank/location/dagobah/

Granada and Ometepe Volcano Island, Nicaragua

Rattling through Central America

Hello Everyone,
Thanks for all the comments and thanks for your concern about my tan and diet. I am eating too well, eating out almost every meal and almost always a veggie option. I think the flash on the camera is so bright it´s not showing off my tan which is more of a golden brown than appears in the many photos. After the bay Islands we stopped off at Tegucigalpa the capital of Honduras for a night and then into Granada, Nicaragua. It´s a really pretty town and we´ll post some photo´s soon. Tomorrow we´re heading to some Volcano Islands!

SCUBA Divers 2!

We've just finished the course in these photo's and are pretty relieved. Great fun but not easy. A good challenge!

SCUBA Divers!

We did it! We got our Open Water certifications! A bit tricky at first but we really loved the last couple of dives. The reef here is amazing and we saw so much down there. We swam with a turtle at one point and saw all sorts of marine life but no Sharks.
I am now completely deaf!! (julie)

In The Bay Islands

We're now in the Bay Islands, Honduras. On an Island called Utila favoured by backpackers wanting to learn to Scuba dive, which is what we're currently doing!! We're half way through and it's been a bit tricky but we're doing pretty well and go on our first boat dive tomorrow, hoping to spot some whale sharks - mostly harmless but enormous.

Photos of Caye Caulker, Belize

Here's some photos of the Caribbean coast where we went out with the Ragamuffin Tours on a sail boat and snorkelled with Nurse Sharks (that's the blurry wet photo!) we also ate at Rasta Pasta and drank in a reggae bar with swings instead of chairs.

Caribbean Dreams

Blue seas, blue skies and beautiful beaches. We travelled by bus from Flores in Guatemala to Belize City (not very nice), and from here we took a boat to Caye Caulker. It's a fantastic little island in the Caribbean. We stayed here for 3 days swimming, snorkelling and drinking rum!! We have seen loads of amazing fish, we swam with nurse sharks (harmless) and lots of rays.
From here we travelled down the coast to Dangriga and then Placencia. We took a boat to Honduras on Friday morning heading for the Bay Islands!