Travels

We are finding it SERIOUSLY difficult to get on any computers in the US for any length of time but I have managed to get some photos up to keep us going! Enjoy

Hollywood and Chicago photos and details of all our encounters with the stars (including our visit to the Playboy Mansion) to follow!

Been a mad two and a half weeks! Apologies for the lack of posts but it has been really hard to get near a computer!! Since our last post we´ve done a weeks Spanish lessons (helped a lot!), won a table quiz (hurray - at last!), experienced an earthquake (a tiny one... although reports said it was about 5.0 on the scale.. nothing fell off our table so we were terribly disappointed), climbed an active volcano (not at the same time - don´t worry! ), surfed in El Salvador and Nicaragua, swam in a lake in a volcanic crater (cooooool), and we are now living with 3 people we met in Antigua / El Salvador (Shawn, CJ and Claire, just for the record) in a house by the beach in San Juan Del Sur (Nicaragua) for a few days!

Phew! We will flesh all this out in another post in a few days but its going to be a long post and we have no time - must get back to beach house

Take care

Tadhg & Aoife

Just a few photos....

Halloween was a fun night - we didn't manage to get dressed up though due to our VERY limited wardrobe options With great difficulty we managed to drag ourselves out of bed in time to catch "The Hokey Pokey Water Taxi" (great name!) to Mango Creek. From there we caught a bus (see photo) to Belmopan (Capital City of Belize - though city might be generous), and then switched to a bus to San Ignacio (otherwise known as Cayo). Phew! When we got off the bus (probably looking a bit shellshocked) we were approached by a well dressed, well spoken, young man offering his assistance. Usually "Can I be of assistance" (spoken in good english) = "We should get the hell away from this before he rips us off", but Belize being the very friendly place that it is means that we took him up on his offer. Just seems like people are really nice and aren't bothered ripping you off here. Would probably get in the way of their Lilt lifestyle.

Next day we ran in to an English guy we'd met on the bus to Placencia (Richie), and he convinced us to go on a tour of nearby caves and waterfalls the following day with him and what few other backpackers could be scraped together in San Ignacio. Turned out to be a fun day - a bit of swimming by some waterfalls and a bit of a walk around a cavern. Wasn't the best tour ever but we had a good group which made all the difference.

The next day we did another tour (pretty impossible to do anything in Belize without doing a tour) - Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM for short). It was recommended to us as one of the highlights of Belize and they were right. ATM is a cave system that was used for Mayan rituals and sacrifices. The tour consisted of a 40 min walk through jungle (crossing a few rivers on the way), a short swim into the caves, and then a guided tour through the various passages (lots of wee bits of swimming and climbing through crevices) until we got to the main cavern where all the pottery and skulls etc. were kept. We had to take off our shoes and pad around in socks so as not to damage anything. It was all very cool - lots of very gory details on the whole sacrifice business (you did not want to get captured by the Mayans!) and plenty of skulls and bones, and a massive spider to boot (people from Australia wouldn't be impressed but it's the biggest one we've encountered). Highly recommended!! We came out of it all feeling very Indiana Jones.

Yesterday we said goodbye to Belize and made our way to the border with Guatemala. Big difference once we crossed the border! We're not judging the whole country on this but the first person we met was a total scam artist! He was trying to convince us to catch a collectivo (minibus type affair where they pick up and drop off people wherever they want on the way to the final destination) with him to Flores but was trying to charge us 3 times the going rate for it. He followed us around for AGES, totally ignoring the none too subtle signs of hostility towards him. He even followed us from about 10 metres back for 5 mins before deciding to have another bite at the cherry! His story changed every 20 seconds! In the end another collectivo turned up and we hopped on - much to his disgust

We arrived in Flores yesterday evening and got ourselves set up in the very basic, and very cheap Hotel Itza II (so good they made another one..).

Today we went to Tikal - what seems to be the Rolls Royce of Mayan ruins It was a great experience - up there with The Great Wall and Machu Picchu. Lots of massive stone pyramids in the middle of the jungle with a backing soundtrack of howler monkeys and toucans. Cool. The photos say it all we suppose.

Tomorrow we are moving on from Flores (hopefully) to Coban and then onwards to Antigua.

Hoping everyone is keeping well,

Tadhg & Aoife

Snorkeling (really tiring actually - was out at sea and the currents were a killer) and turtle sanctuary were good but have no photos unfortunately - not the sorts of activities that agree with cameras

After Isla Mujeres we headed further down the coast to Playa Del Carmen. It was a nice place - very touristy but not as high rise as Cancun seemed. Nice beach Our only excitement was that we were robbed for the first time on our travels (as far as we know). We had gone to the bank machine that morning and had left 1500 pesos in our room (in a purse in a bag) - bit careless maybe... When we returned after a few tacos we were of mixed emotions. We found a very nice towel arrangement on the bed in the shape of two swans, but noticed that 500 of the pesos (about 35 euro) was missing. It wasn't that nice a towel arrangement.

We decided that the best plan of attack was to go down stairs and say that the money had "gone missing" from our room and that we would need to report it to the tourist police so that we could claim the money back on travel insurance (no mean feat to try and explain in spanish - especially to someone who doesn't want to understand you!!!). Luckily there was a nice guy in the lobby who translated for us. The maid was summoned, and all the shaking heads meant that she was claiming total innocence. While discussions of owner liability etc. were going on, the maid disappeared upstairs. On her return, the owner insisted on going up and searching our room - just in case we had simply misplaced the 500 pesos. She asked where the money had been and Aoife duly showed her. The owner then proceeded to rifle through the front of Aoife's bag (musch to Aoife's displeasure ) despite the fact that the money had been in a zipped purse and would have required a Houdini-esque escape from the purse to end up floating around in the front of her bag. Aoife was now getting frustrated with the intrusions into her bag and started to try and wrest the bag from the owners grip. But - lo and behold!!! There it was. The 500 pesos. Magic. We obviously stupidly forgot that we had carefully stowed the rest of the money in a purse and casually tossed two nights accommodation into the front pocket of Aoife's bag. We are backpackers - not idiots. Anyway... Sherlock Holmes didn't need to leave the house that day as we were perfectly aware of what just took place. We said sorry through gritted teeth (is that just an irish thing to apologise in the wrong so as to avoid an unpleasant confrontation? Nothing to be gained from pointing out the gaping holes in the story - besides, we had lost our translator at this stage.. ) and thanked them. At least we got the dosh back!

Soured a little with the hotel we decided it was time to move onto Belize so we decided to go the next day. We didn't quite make it unfortunately as our resolution to send a package home took almost the whole bloody day. Sending a package in Mexico is a complicated business which involves a kind of treasure hunt to get together the bits and pieces required. Finding a box took almost an hour!!! Either way - we got the package sent and made it to the border town of Chetumal that night.

The following day we got a bus down to Belize city. Another city which surprised us - but in the total opposite way to Mexico City. It's highest building was about two stories tall and it only has 80,000 people living there! It was more Dundalk than Dublin. In fact, the whole population of Belize is only about 300,000 - about the population of Cork City. This might explain why everyone on the bus seemed to be constantly waving out the window at mates of theirs. Its a nice novelty to be back in a country where english is the first language - everyone speaks a bit like Bob Marley (very Caribbean). It's "Seriously Easy Going". Where we are now feels like we're actually in a Malibu ad. We only stayed the one night in Belize City (the fact that we couldn't really find a bar didn't help its chances) and came straight down the cost to Placencia - population approximately 800. The mid afternoon rain has just come in so nothing to do but maybe have a siesta. We're going to hang around for the Halloween party tomorrow night before beginning to make our way to Guatemala.

Take it easy (like us )

Tadhg & Aoife

Hello from the Caribbean! We are coming to you from Isla Mujeres - island off the coast of Mexico (beside Cancun).

The day after our last post we went on an open top bus tour of Mexico City. We stopped off at the Anthropology Museum in the hope that we would see lots about the blood and guts past of the Mayans and Aztecs. There was a bit - but not as much as we would have liked... Our only mistake was paying the $6 for the "Audio Guide" (looked like a yuppie mobile phone from the 90´s) - it was rubbish and we looked like wallies carrying it around and sharing it between us

That evening we went to Plaza Garibaldi. We heard tell that there would be Mariachis there and we were not disappointed We met a Dutch couple and an Israeli girl (they somehow picked us out of the crowd of Mexicans as someone who might take a photo for them without running off with their camera). We all had a few beers and were serenaded by some mariachis ("Guantanamera") for the bargain price of $1.70 (between 5 of us) After a while a TV crew approached us (again - we have no idea how they managed to pick us out) and we were all interviewed about our respective countries. Saying your Irish while holding a beer garners a "wink wink, nod nod, having a beer?? " response... Tsch! Anyway... I then got invited to play this bizarre electric shock game with the interviewer. You basically have to hold a metal grip in one hand and your opponents hand in the other. Then the mischievous man controlling the voltage starts cranking it up until somebody breaks contact. Obviously I won - showbiz people are wussy I´m waiting on my offers from Jackass while my career in Mexico takes form...

On Thursday we caught a cheapie flight to Cancun. Our research about Cancun on the plane yielded the information that we couldn't actually afford to stay in Cancun if we wanted to be anywhere near the beach so we decided to come here instead.

It's lovely here. It's really hot and sunny or really hot and wet and stormy (depending on the time of day). Food is good and the sea is beautiful. Hoping to go snorkeling and to visit the turtle sanctuary tomorrow morning. Will let you know how it goes...

Take it easy,

Tadhg & Aoife

(Btw - included the promised photos of white water rafting)