Octubre, Noviembre y Diciembre

Panama

The canal was impressive, the San Blas Archipelogos beautiful and the Kuna Yale people who lived on them cool. They all sleep in hammocks so we thought they were really cool - despite being a little strange. We got our hammock strung up between 2 palm trees on a deserted island...and ate fresh fish and lobster everyday we were there. Lush.

Costa Rica

This is probably the coolest picture from Costa Rica, although the one of Si stuck in the mud is pretty funny too. Unfortunately it rained most of the week and this was just before it started to storm on our way to MalPais on the Nigoya Peninsula. While we were there we saw heaps of cool Costa Rican bugs, howler monkeys climbing the phone lines, a poor dead monkey floating past our ferry, lots of water/rain and ate pancakes everyday for breakfast.

Nicaragua/Honduras

This was pretty much the extent of what we saw in Nicaragua and Honduras - the Tica Bus which took us from San Jose, Costa Rica all the way to the north of Hondurus. We left at 10am on a Friday, spent a few hours going through immigration at the borders, 5 hours sleeping in a weird bus hotel in Managua, Nicaragua, left there at 5am Saturday and then arrived in San Pedro Sula, Honduras the following afternoon.

Belize

Dangriega was exactly like we imagined Jamaica to be... Bob Marley look-a-likes and everyone singing about ' One Love' while they rode their bikes round town, wearing wife-beaters and cut off baggy jeans. The people were amazingly friendly and no one would pass you in the street without saying hello. We didn't really spend any time in Belize City, but from what we did see, I dont think we missed much.

Mexico

We had one day to get from Chetumal (Mexican-moustached-men-with-cowboy-hats) up to Cancun (American-tourist-highrise-hotel-hellhole) before we had to meet Nick and Paloma on the 26th October...and we thought that afterwards we´d just be on the beach with them for the next 2 and half weeks. As it turned out they wanted to see Mexico, Guatemala and Belize as well. It was all good though, as we got to go back to Belize and chillout on the beach, as well as going into Guatemala for a couple of days - which we hadn't had time for on the way up.

We had a few days on the beach in Mexico in Tulum and on Isla Mujeres - where we drove around in a golfcart (surprisingly good fun) - and saw 1 day old turtle hatchlings in a turtle conservation centre. We went to an eco-waterpark/American-tourist-filled-theme-park for one day called Xel-Ha and had an all-inclusive day of snorkling, eating and drinking. More eating and drinking than anything else, but we got our moneys worth for sure!

We saw Mayan Ruins in Mexico at Palenque, Tulum and Chitchen Itza (one of the 7 wonders of the world) and watched the sunrise over the jungle and temples at Tikal in Guatemala. This was incredible - despite having had to wake up at 3am after 4 hours of drinking beforehand. We tried to see some celebrations for Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) in Merida, but they seemed to be more into Halloween on the eastern side so we ended up drinking tequila and having our own party instead. We went to check out San Cristobal in the highlands, where Marcos and his Zapatistas live... and had to have a police escort and vehicle convoy for our overnight bus to save us from being hijacked - which was pretty exciting/scary.

Belize was gorgeous once again and we spent the last few days on Caye Caulker. We had a hostel on the beach, ate lobster everyday, hired bikes and snorkelled out on the reef with stingrays, pufferfish and moray eels. Irie!

Since those guys have left, we´ve been hanging out in San Cristobal some more, Oacaxa City and now we´re on the beach in Puerto Escondido - home of the famous Mexican Pipeline. The beach is lush, but the waves are crazy so we´ve been just watching the guys surfing and getting hit by 15 foot walls of water. We´ve been trying to eat tacos (or burritos) everyday and the food is spicy, spicy, spicy. McDonald´s do extra pots of jalepeños with the ketchup, spicy sauce goes on your eggs at breakfast and you can´t even buy normal, salted crisps. They´re either Diabla (devil) or Jalapeño flavoured! And so for christmas and our 11th month away, we´ll be on the beach eating fish tacos, drinking tequila and thinking of you all! Arriba!

Mexico Lindo y que Rico! Feliz Navidad Amigos! x