Hola! Wow, I've exhausted 50% of my Spanish vocab before I even hit the paragraph: Impressive eh? May I apologise in advance for hideous typing & punctuation- those blimmin Mexicans have only gone and rearranged the keyboard on me! Since we last wrote we've been racking up the stamps in our passports like nobody's business! After NZ, we frog-leapt over the Pacific from NZ to Mexico, via Fiji and Los Angeles. Fiji was everything you would expect it to be: Beautiful beaches and perfect weather. We had a bit of a sketchy first night in the city of Nadi, where we made the mistake of venturing out after dark and were followed by all sorts of unsavory types who snuck along after us, pretending to look in shop windows everytime we turned around - it must have all looked a bit theatrical, though at the time we were crapping ourselves! However, it was uphill all the way thereafter. We spent a week staying with a Fijian family on the Island of Mana, where we were really taken under their wing. In between bouts of sunbathing and being stuffed full of good home cooking, we got to do all kinds of cool stuff like spear fishing, snorkelling etc. The Fijians are also rather keen of drinking a little concotion they call Kava: a drink made from the pounded root of plant, which when prepared, resembles muddy water and doesn't taste much better (cross between cold tea and pepper)! Although the taste leaves much to be desired, the ceremony which accompanies it is pretty cool, and no trip to Fiji is complete without partaking in one (or many). All assembled sit in a circle around the Kava bowl and take turns in downing a coconut cup full of the stuff in one. There is a pretty complex proceadure which involves the electing of 'chiefs'and 'bodyguards'and lots of clapping and chanting which adds to the fun. We couldn't handle our Kava too well though, and suffered from the bouts of lethargy that it gives you the following day. Pretty fortunate we had several stretches of golden beach to sleep it off on! We were really struck by the kindness of the Fijian people. Definately the warmest and most amiable folks we have met on our travels so far. The family we stayed with had pretty simple lives free of materialism, but were such happy and generous people - it was a bit of a lesson in values for us! Next up we took a boat back to the main island and travelled to Suva, the capital, where we chilled in a really nice hostel in the rainforest, spending much of our time reading in hammocks. Sounds idyllic eh? Well the people from the tourist board obviously thought so, because they filmed a little clip of us doing just that to put in their promotional film! I'm praying that never surfaces! After Suva we made our way back to Nadi, via the Coral Coast where we stayed for a few days before flying to LA. Los Angeles was a little bit of a disapointment, as my immune system conveniently chose this time to go into shut down and I came down with a stinking throat infection. Unable to afford the scandalous $500 the doctor wanted to give a prescription, I had to ride it through in bed, and was ill for 3 out of the 4 days we were there. We did manage to squeeze in a tour of the City on the last day and got to check out all of the important stuff like the Hollywood sign and even took a cruise through "the hood" (Compton and Inglewood) which really wasn't that bad at all. We are currently in LA, joined for a couple of weeks by our friends Katie and Mike from home for a couple of weeks. So far we've covered quite a bit of distance, working our way from LA to nearly the bottom of Baja California. So far we've been doing some more of the obligatory sunbathing stuff and have visited some really pretty towns like Loreto and La Paz, the capital of Baja. We visited an unihabited Island a few days ago where we got to visit a sea lion colony and see some dolphins frolicking in the surf. Tomorrow we are doing some diving and should be able to swim with the sealions and visit a wreck. Apart from that we've been drinking lots of Corona and Tequila and getting heartily sick of Mexican food - every single meal has tortillas, mushed up beans, chillies and loads and loads of cheese - not matter what you order! It's been wicked to see some faces from back home. Got to dash now, this turned out a little longer than I expected. Hope you are all well. Linda & Paul xxxx