bluegreenplanet

Enjoying a cuppa & bagels in Antigua

Main church in Antigua

interesting candy shop in antigua

Have come back to Antigua to meet up with Daniella, Nitzan and Ben, met them by chance as had mistaken where they stayed.  Made 4 new El Salvadorian friends on the bus there, arrived late in Antigua thanks to the party crowds driving themselves out or into Antigua, Guatemala City is about 1 hour away, so the traffic between is a healthy 2 way.

Met Nitzan at Black Cat by chance, i was lucky to have met her.  I managed to get the last cama (bed) at UmaGuma´s so i´m happy, it´s a lovely hostel with a very pleasant roof terrace and free WiFi, so how can i complain if my mattress is paperthin

Andreas and I travelled to MonteRico 1 day later than the rest, as I wanted to climb a volcan initially(but didn´t) and arrived at the sunny beach town for New Years on 30th Dec.  Found 2 last camas in Johny´s Place, a really chill and nice beach cabanas, there´s blackish grey volcanic sand just like in El Tunco.  But unlike El Tunco, the sand is much hotter, the slope to the water steeper, the waves cuts much closer to the shore, making it impossible to surf or swim comfortably dragging you back and deep into it´s belly!  So all in all, it wasn´t what I had expected.  Thankfully, every cabana in John´s has a small pool in front of it.  Also thankfully, our roomates were cool, we played water volleyball n the pool, ate brunch (desayuno tipico), drank really good liquados(fruit shakes) and tracked every night across the sand to El Animales to party the night away. 

bright lit skies

hundreds of birds flying home over sunset in Monterrico

It was great during the New Years, we had a lot of firecrackers, 10 mins before the new year, a bunch of us decided to walk across the beach to another bar, i lost the rest and greatfully, i had Troy(a friend of Andreas´cousin) with me and we walked back to El Animales to celebrate with Troy´s PeaceCorp friends.  It

NYE dinner

was cool, we just couldn´t stop gawking at the firelit sky with it´s multi spangled colors!

On the 1st of Jan, Daniella, Nitzan, Lee and I left for Antigua.  We ended up staying at Casa Shalom, was great, shopped a bit in Antigua, but as it proofed to be expensive the second time again, we have left yesterday and arrived at San Pedro.  It´s much more chill and affordable here.  Really liked it here now compared to 2 months ago, not so rainy, but nights still proof to be cold especially last night, because 4 of us had to squeeze into the tiny room in Casa Pinnocio and Daniella had the blow up bed, and Lee and I had to share a small blanket!  All good, we have another room today, so Daniella, Lee, Nitzan and I should be able to sleep better Yeahhhh!!! We will goto Zoola restaurant later with the girls, it should be good fun .  Will keep u posted more soon… big kiss X

Hola todos!  Deseo muy Feliz Navidad!!!

It’s 26th Dec, so I guess it’s Black Xmas for most of you in the city with your nice credit cards out there ready to make a killing at the malls… and for the rest of you still travelling or chilling in your pyjamas in front of the tv eating leftovers or takeaways… buen provecho!  and for those surfers out there catching the great waves of Monteñita or El Tunco´s Sunzo waves…. surfs up buddies

Ok it’s been awhile since i last wrote so i won’t attempt to catch up on with long winded details of latin america but will attempt to summarize what has happened since i set off from San Cristobal…

Sept-Nov.

Went to Panajachel, a small town on Lago D Atitlan, a beautiful volcanic lake in Guatemala.  Was there only for 1 night, coz wanted to learn spanish in San Pedro, a hippy town on the other side of the lake.  I ended up taking an intensive 6hrs a day, course over 5 days with my v. good teacher Isaah.  He is very experience and use to own a Spanish school.  Had to close it because he was running a political radio station and got into some legal problems… and so the story goes.  I stayed with a Mayan family for a week as well.  It was a very simple home but clean, typical of Mayan families.  There was a fridge which they kept their homemade tortillas and lots of salsa and fresh produce.   Fresh produce often meant a couple of eggs and vegetables.  They ate very little meat.. they don’t eat meat a lot, i think it’s part diet and part budgetary.   There´s 3 floors to the house.  On the first, there’s a brick oven where they bake all the bread and cakes to sell in Santiago.  Mama Mayan brings it over to the neighbouring town by boat at 4am few days a week to sell them in the big market over there.

I got along very well with the family, they told me that they are my Mayan family… they have 2 young boys who are champion pool players at the nearby bar called Buddha bar.  I played there with them a few times and got to know all the young punks of San Pedro hahaha!  It was fun, but usually i couldn’t stay up too late, had too much homework and needed to revise my Spanish for the next day… but still it was tough not to go down to Buddha Bar and chill out there.

After San Pedro, Mark, Hanna and I left for Antigua, a beautiful colonial town about 45mins away from Guatemala City.  It was nice but it wouldn´t stop raining.  So we only stayed a night there.  Nothing much to do when it rains eh?¿

Next, we were off to El Tunco in El Salvador, a lovely beach spot good for surfing.  Didn’t dare to surf there as the waves were too high for beginners, think 6-8 feet! Mark took up surfing lessons 1 day, i think he managed to stand, but guys are usually good at taking up new sporty things, Hanna and I went to a nearby beach called Playa Mahahual(ring a bell?) and had fun swimming there.  There were only locals there and they kept up to the Latin spirit by whistling and hooting, and we kept on to our female traveler stoicness by ignoring them completely.  Then we saw some stall owners selling turtle eggs… which ignited Hanna and I to start a long lecture about why they should not sell or eat them… unless they don’t want their grandchildren not to see a turtle live ever in the near future!

So after El Tunco, we headed south to Nicaragua, it was a long journey, briefly passing Honduras- stayed the night in Managua but got up early next day to head out to Granada to take the ferry out to Isla Ometepe.  Isla Ometepe has 2 beautiful volcanic mountains.  Was lovely, there’s a really nice natural spring pool there called Ojos de Agua.  Also Hanna and I rented bikes first day while Mark decided to climb the Volcan Concepcion.

After 5 days on Ometepe, I split with Hanna and Mark and made my way back to San Salvador.  But before that, I hung around Granada for a day with my german friend Cony.  We went to the Museo Monastarie, it was amazingly good for a small museum with lots of  Mayan carvings and big tablets found around the islands on lago Nicaragua.

From San Salvador, i flew into Quito.  Quito was nice, I stayed in the hostel Centro del Mundo(Centre of the World), nice hostel with free flow Cuba Libres on Mon, Weds and Fri… too bad i got in on a Thurs.  Missed my flight to Galapagos and had to catch another 1 day later(was so bummed about it), but manage to spend the lost Galapagos day roaming around the old quarters of Quito.  Was very nice, climbed all the way upto the highest point on the Basilica and saw lightning striking the east side of town near the airport.  Read in the papers next day there was a massive flood at the airport… when i got to the airport on Friday, all was dry with not much remnants of the rain before.

Galapagos, what luck, manage to catch the boat which i had miss the day before, they docked near the airport and i jumped on.  Galapagos is amazing!  Lizards coming right upto your feet, funny looking tree cactus, different terrains on a single island (dry arid desert-like, rainforest-moistured air, rocky coastal lines with shy Galapagos iguanas, prairy grassland)! spent a good part of the first day on the boat visiting Seymour Norte and Bartolome. 2nd day I was sick thanks to the crazy guide who brought out tequila, and first time ever did i have the wickedest seasickness while we sailed from Santiago to San Cristobal! 3rd day was spent chilling on San Cristobal.

Met up with lots of travellers and we all hung out on Santa Cruz for almost a week.  There we dived and saw our first Hammerheads(Karish Baticsh as my Israelian friends called it)!!!   Was so very exciting, such gentle and shy creatures they were.  Saw tons of other pelagic  sealife but on everyone’s mind, a  Tiburon  Martillo was what we wanted to catch a glimpse of.

After Galapagos, i went to Montañita, a lovely surf town about 3 hrs north of Guayaquil on the coast of Ecuador.  It’s famous for it’s good surf and equally for it’s full moon parties.  Sue, Avi and I learnt surfing there for the first time.   I also tried my first paragliding. We all had fun there in our own way.  I hung out quite often at Local Point, it’s owned by my surf maestro, Adamar. The last weekend there, there was Ecuador’ s National Surf competition.  At the time I left, Adamar and Mario was at the top and still in the running for the title so all good.

Left with Sue to Mancora after a good week and a half in Monteñita.  Was not easy to leave as I did fall in love with the place!  It was so tranquillo there even tho every night there was a fiesta.  Mancora(Peru) was a lot more peligroso, people were more city like and less friendly.  The beaches were ok, it is sunnier here and bigger than Monteñita, but still i miss the small town feel on Monteñita!

To keep things short, I left for Huacachina and tried sandboarding with Sue.  It was muy bueno, super fun.  After Huacachina, we met Fernando on the way to Cusco.  I went off to join a Jungle Inca Trek for 4 days, while Sue and Fernando went ahead to do Macchu Picchu the day I arrived in Aguas Caliente.  I was lucky to meet a great group for my trek, we kept giving each other support all the way especially on day 2, the toughest day.  Later after Macchu Picchu, Sue left earlier, Fernando and I went onto Arequipa, another colonial town south of Peru.  We went to do a 2 day trek in Coca Cañon.  Wasn’t as impressive as we thought it would be but it was a cheap one and we had a little bit of a view now and then.

Fernando stayed on longer in Arequipa, but i left for Chile and spent a few days in Santiago and a day touring Valparaiso and Viña del Mar.  Next country – Argentina, went to Mendoza and to their famous museo de vino (wine museum) to sample the fine Malbec.  Then off to Buenas Aires… it was very nice in Buenas Aires, so beautiful were their architecture and the people so fashionable that i thought i was transported to some big city in Spain!  Spent a good time in this fantastic hostel called Hostel Nomade, hung out with Nada and Laeticia around town.  Tried a lot of ¨new stuff¨ there… stayed up almost 48hrs once with Laeticia as we decided then, it was a good idea to goto neighboring Uruguay for a day to explore Colonia, a beach town just across the border about 3hrs ferry ride from BA!  Well let’s say we ended up having a great time in Colonia and skipped the rain in BA!  Next day Laeticia and I weren´t so lucky with a museums, a theatre and a rose garden park, was closed for stock taking, renovation and passed visiting hours… in that order.

I went on after a week to Salta, a beautiful town surrounded with lovely grand neighbourhoods, waterfall and nature parks!  After that off to Bolivia, spent a few hours at the border town in Bolivia waiting for my train with a lovely young german couple who have been doing an exchange programme in Salta.  The train ride offered an amazing view of Bolivia´s arid but mountainous landscape.  Arrived at Uyuni in the middle of the night, it was freezing!

Next day, joined a jeep tour of Salta de Uyuni, the greatest salt flat plains in the world.  It was surreal, like a set out of some alien movie… i felt transported to some foreign planet with the white wash view that stretched out onto the horizon.  You see small hills floating on the horizon or water floating on the line where the clouds touch the white plains!  It’s mirage at it’s most creative.  Later i  met a bunch of spanish, italians, colombian travellers, who were all heading to La Paz.  It was one of the bumpiest night bus rides i have taken yet.  I went onto Lake Titicaca with the 2 Spanish girls.  The small town was called Copacabana.  It was nice but I think I was quite tired and cold, so just enjoyed my day trip on the boat to the nearby island on lake Titi… Back to La Paz for a day and stayed at a Microbrewery called Adventure Brewery, was nice, La Paz has a nice Coca Leave Musuem.  Also a very nice modern art Museum too near the park.

Flew off to Bogota next day, stayed in Platypus where i met fun travellers, Tibo, James, Chris and darling Claude.  We all had a great time enjoying the xmas decorations which were stretched from mountain to parks! Amazing lights!  We 5 travelled to Popayan for a day and a night, then through the border to Ecuador with patience just enought to cover our 7 hours wait with the help of a bottle of rum!  It was quite funny, after 7hrs in the cold, we were ushered into the waiting room with a few more meters to goto the imigration, the electricity went out!  So what else but our lovely Claude and her duty free bottle of rum to the rescue to lift our spirits!

Arrived in Quito late into the night.  With most restaurants and bar closed as it was very late on Saturday.  It was nice to meet some locals though.  Next they we all went for the ¨True and ¨¨False¨Mitad del Mundo tours… Centre of the World tours … was interesting to hear that what the French claimed to be the centre of the World was indeed not… according to James version from our 2nd contradictory local tour, the Ecuadorian government must have bribed the French with lots of alcohol to set it there instead of across a busy highway.

15th Dec to 26th Dec

Back in El Salv… it’s nice here, sunnier than2 months ago.  Waves are better for me to learn.  Brad took me out and said catch those big ones! Was not a good idea, bloody tough those ones, knocked off once by Fatima, then my board flew off with a big one dragging me behind and banged into another surfer.  I paddled off to avoid anymore collisions, and tried to catch the bystander surfs, wasn´t very successful as they were too small and too near the rocks.

Later Brad came over and we both walked closer to the rock and i managed to catch a few waves so felt good in the end.  Spent a few days on in Papaya´s lodge, then left with Daniella, Ben and Linda to Juayua to visit Rutas del las flores.  It was very tranquil.  We enjoyed the Gastronimical food fair over the weekend.  Left on Sunday for Sochitoto, where we met up with Daniella’s cousin Nidzan.  Had a lovely time there too with the host family so nice… the father drove us on his pickup to a nearby waterfall, there wasn´t any water but the architecture of the fall was unmistakably unique shaped like a beehive!  Was so so pretty the town.  At night we joined the son, little Jesus, for a candlelight procession.  They had 2 angels, Mary, Joseph but no baby jesus.  Was nice.  Had more street food pupusas!  Back in Playa El Tunco for xmas with papaya’s familiy, was so nice, they cooked a lovely meal for us all from the hostel, we had vino, chicken, turkey and salsa!  Was amazing to see how El Salvadorians celebrated their Xmas, all very low key but so warm and nice!  We had firework show on the beach and music.

Today, 26th Dec, Vanessa, Cynthia and Jeremy left early for Leon in Nicaragua… i think i will stay another day just to chill out here. Will leave tomorrow for Antigua and meet up with Daniella and Ben there !  Will keep you all who is still reading this posted.  Feliz sonrier (happy smiles)

Love gin.

Hola, sorry i’ve been so late in my post because we have had absolutely no time off…. well i’ve been busy taking photos and posting online….

so since last i left off, i’ve just finished turtle camp in xcaret, where i spent 2 nights from 9pm to 4am digging up eggs in Chimuyil, a 3 meter beach strip about 30 minutes on quad bike from the base camp.  It was awesome measuring loggerheads and counting eggs…. there were 6 turtles on the first night but second night 8 turtles came on shore but didn’t lay any coz they could sense the storm. the hurricane has been downgraded to tropical storm so tomorrow we are having a long weekend so i’m deciding to go either to Cozumel or Holbox…. decisions decisions.

will keep you all posted.

big kiss gin.

Belize was out of this world, swimming amongst the stalagtites at slightly below 40m and seeing reef sharks circling metres away in the deep blue was awesome.  there were gigantuous nassau and black garoupers that came by checking us out up close.  after that 2 more dives off lighthouse reef at dive sites called the half moon key and the aquarium.  Lots of cool fishes you hardly see at Punta Gruesa so it was all very exciting to see some of the fishes i have studied out of the books…

today is english lessons at mahahual again.  no show for the children’s workshop this afternoon so we are at casitas checking our emails.   This week is the last week for the 5 weekers, so we are all starting to miss each other and exchanging photos.  It’s been a great past few weeks that passed too quickly. 

We have had a few ‘too-windy’ days to dive past few weeks so everyone’s been busy trying to start monitoring as much as possible and on days when we do get wind, we find it frustrating so it helps to spend the afternoons 2ce a week in mahahual teaching english to the locals.

k gotta go teach soon, big kiss X

it’s our 2nd week teaching english to the kids and locals at Mahahual…. we also managed to get the kids workshop up and running this week   which was cool since last week there was no turnup except 2 very small ninyos at the playa (beach).  We finished off at Cafe Aromas en Casitas, celebrating Jay’s birthday… today’s been crazy busy with baking a cake on base and then photography classes, lunch and rushing to mahahual for the workshop… but still it’s happy dayz  @–>-

Tomorrow we will all goto Mahahual again to play football with the locals!  It will be fun with the works ^cheer leaders and pom pom **  will post pix soon…. promise u

Other then that have bad connections still and trying to get in touch with family but maybe soon.  Weather’s been shitty last 2 days so not much diving… but a few of us will be leaving base camp for Cozumel, Holbox and Belize… I will be leaving for Belize this Thursday with Graeme and JT… can’t wait to dive there.

ok talk soon big kiss and hugs from Mexico xxx

This week was a little slow, we are starting to learn to measure and monitor but haven’t actually started monitoring yet as it’s been too windy to dive consistently.  We had to stop on Thursday and only went to the house reef on Wednesday… it was a spot dive but with the strong surge at 3meters, it was a challenge for us all as we kept banging into each other.  There were lots of juvinile fishes and we saw 2 yellow stingray and a spotted eagle ray swimming by and tons of cool fishes you don’t normally see out.  We had a fun dive yesterday, it was nice, everyone tried out their cameras, but visibility was quite bad.  This past week we also started our english classes.  For most of us, it was our first time and we had a big turnout, so we are all very psyched about it, some of the 5 weekers also went for 3 days to turtle camp near Tulum and they had a great time as well. I can’t wait to do it soon, but 5 weekers take priority, so as a 10 weeker, i can only get to go in about 3 weeks. 

It’s saturday today our off day, a bunch of us are at aroma cafe in Casitas, a small town near our base camp, getting a nice brunch as last night was a late one with our 2nd fiesta lasting well into the morning!  The theme was anything you want… we had a Mayan tribal man, a couple of romans, jungle girls, scuba steve, an arab, hooligans and i was a cuban rebel with my havana cigar which Sky graciously gave me.   We had a blast!  Next weekend is another long weekend.  I have 2 options, either goto Belize to dive in the blue hole or go up north to snorkel with whale sharks in Holbox or dive in Cozumel all 3 sites to 10 in the world… *sigh*decisions, decisions

Ok miss you all a lot and drop me an email ok.  Big hugs!

Hola everyone!  Have been out of touch awhile.  We had a bad week last week thanks to Hurricane Dolly, Mahahual just got the tailwind which made it impossible for the boats to go out for 5 days, so after getting stir crazy on base, all us EMs (expedition members) went to Tulum for 3 days to do some amazing Cavern dives or what they call Cenote diving and some more fiesta and amazing argentinian steaks at a great restaurant called buenas aires

Right now Oihane, Monica and I are babysitting our neighbors house near the base camp.  I’m not diving today so just did 2 jobs – Compressor where we fill up the tanks and radio to make sure we know when where and what the boats are upto when they go out.  There’re 2 boats – Huul Kin and Kaalam Ha.  Here back at base, the weather’s been great the last few days for diving, it’s creme de la crem baby!  Wonderful flat sea can’t ask for anything else.  Saw a huge spotted eagle ray yesterday and passed my first spotting test, 1 more to go then on to Juviniles and measurement test.  Can’t wait to monitor soon

big kiss to all, te quiro mucho xx

It has been a crazy good first week that flew by quickly. All of us have been split into casas (huts), daily duty groups that rotate between kitchen, grounds, boat and communal, fish ID and coral ID pple. I passed my fish test last Tuesday so it was a real relief, now we are doing daily spot dives so we can spot the fish and corals then onto Juvenile fishes and different kinds of other more complicated scientific stuff…. not all fun and games pple… it is mucho mucho hard work.

So far the most interesting thing i have seen has to be the juvenile smooth trunkfish off our house reef, size of a pea, black, box shaped with yellow spots! Big stuff that we see quite often is the Great Barracudas and a 7 foot nurseshark and a few tortugas (turtles), but others have seen loads of great stuff as well like Goliath Grouper, spotted eagle ray and delfin (dolphins) following boats.

All in all, everyone is having a blast and a good dose of mosco bites from those bas%ard flies. We had a soggy and windy fiesta last nite that ended at the beach with 2 of our staff, Ted and Viv on the guitar. Today is our off day, most of us are at Mahahual and looking forward to a good lunch and some good ole chill out time at the bar. Tomorrow we will start week 2 and porridge morning again!

Going off soon. Wish to talk to you guys but it is 130am for you in asia now and all my friends are talking to their family and friends around me so i will probably get desperate soon and dial away to you guys at 130 am so keep those phones by your SIDE!

Te quero mucho y besitos luv g.

Today is muy calor (very hot)!!! we went down to snorkel, the wind and waves were v. strong but it was a very lovely morning.  Spent all afternoon walking down avenida 30 to look for a computer technician to fix my comp… 2 hours later with the help of my 2 fellow expedition mates and translators (eva y oyenas) who spoke perfect spanish, we´ve left it at a shop to fix it and after dinner we should be good to pick it up .

Today there must have been 8 more pple who arrived at our hotel.  There´s the Pez Maya group and the Mahahual group and we will all go out for dinner tonight and i´m hoping to finally get a nice pina colada before we goto base camp… we figured we might as well treat ourselves before we end up having to cook for ourselves over the next 10 weeks.

Learning the fishes now… and wondering how some of the fishes derived their names… whoever came up with ¨slippery dick¨ (member of the wrasse family) must have been sipping on too many margaritas

ok have to go now, tomorrow we leave at 7am…. hasta pronto y besitos (see you soon and kisses)!