Next stop was up in the hills to the huge Lake Atitlan and its little towns of San Pedro and San Marcos. Really pretty with lots of indigineous folk but sadly a place with a few scare stories. We´d heard that robberies often take place on the roads between the various towns so we decided to explore the area on kayaks so we could make a speedy escape over water if necessary. I mean a robber isn´t going to want to get his new steal wet is he? All was going we...

So it was over to Guatemala City where we met up with Big Canadian Ash. Now for any mother who has ever gone on the Foreign Office website re Guatemala City, they might have read something about it being one of the most dangerous cities in the world... So we decided a) to get ourselves a bodyguard (Big Canadian Ash) and b) to get the hell out of there the moment we arrived. So it was onto the nice and safe pretty town of Antigua. Full of tourists (predominant...

Time to dust off the Spanish phrasebook and launch ourselves into Central America. Mexico City is BIG. No it´s MASSIVE. After a while in easy peesy English-speaking countries, we were caught a little off guard in such a crazy place. But a few tacos and coronas later, the Spanglish was just about getting us from A to B. With such a big city, we just had to sign up for the open top bus tour (officially love them) - only Mexico City seems to be clogged with pe...

LA Baby!!! For 24 hours!!! Right how much of The City of Dreams can you do in a 1 day stopover? First blow the budget and check into a classic hotel right on Hollywood Boulevard - The Hollywood Roosevelt. Somehow our ´been on an overnight flight, terrible beard and skanky backpacks´ combo got us an upgrade to a brand new cabana suite decked out in 1970s retro style. Americans just can´t get enough of the British accent can they? Second take a ride up to ...

At last! We can get rid of the van!! Oh it hasn´t been that bad. Just not that great either. In total we clocked up 2 flat batteries (nothing to do with Anthony charging his i-pod of course), 1 episode stuck in the mud, 1 run in with a very nice policeman and a smaller than it should have been speeding fine (oops), a month effectively sleeping on wooden slats and bits of foam and waaaaaaay too much petrol for our liking. Just about managed to get it to 100k...