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There we go! Last blog post of my trip!
I can´t believe the time has come... but I still have 6 weeks to update you on. Since my last blogpost I have been to so many different places. I would nearly want to say they were the best of my trip.
I left you in Quito from where I flew to Galapagos. I booked a 6 day cruise with GAP, on their g2 boat. When I flew over the Pacific I saw the first perfect white beaches while listening to All Saints´ Pure Shores. I knew I was going to be in for something good as I heard so many good stories about the Galapagos. The Galapagos are known for Charles Darwin´s evolution theory. When we arrived on the boat our first excursion was to the Charles Darwin research station where we met Lonesome George, the 90 year old giant turtoise who is the only one left of its species. Our main excursions for the next days weren´t on land though. We stayed on the boat the entire time, sailing from island to island and stopping along the way to go snorkeling with seals, and penguins. We saw reefsharks and sea turtles too. They are definitly one of my favourites, they move so gracefully through the water. On my boat there were two ozzies who I spent most my time with. First of all there was Sharon, my snorkelbuddy, and then there was Bob, who was instantly named boatbuddy Bob. Every night we had cocktails in the bar and watched the sunset. It was idyllic. On my final night we sat out to look at the stars when the captain yelled that there were dolphins! They had swam through the bioluminal essence which lit them up and it was probably the most special thing I´ve seen, ever. The pitch black sky and ocean, and the fluorescent dolphins at the front of the boat. LIfe can´t get any better when seeing things like that! It was hard to leave the Galapagos but I had a new adventure to look forward to, on a new continent!
I flew back to Quito and from there I flew to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador in Central America. I met mý friend from home, Sabine, there. We only spent one night in San Salvador as it is one of the most dangerous places in Central America. We went to the coast to a place called Playa El Tunco where went surfing for 3 days. Well, let´s say we tried. After I´d been in the water I finally realised why it was full of experienced Australian and Brazilian surfers. I enjoyed the surfing but the current was quite strong and to be quite honest I nearly cried. It was a beautiful place though and we really enjoyed being back at the beach! From El Tunco we took a backpacker shuttle to Antigua, Guatemala. Unfortunately we didn´t stay there very long, although it is a beautiful place. The town is a Unesco World Heritage place. The colonial buildings are nearly all in character and give the town so much character. A lot of travellers go to Antigua for Spanish classes but ofcourse we didn´t need that... or at least Sabine didn´t need it. And I had Sabine with our nightly Spanish lessons before bedtime, so after a couple of nights in Antigua we were back on the road. Our next stop was Lanquin, from where we went on a day trip to Semuk Champey. This place is known for its natural swimming pools with little fish that eat the dead skin of your body. A little uncomfortable at first, but let´s just say you get used to everything! We also went into the Lanquin caves (sorry mum) which was a little scary! We went into the caves for an hour, with our flip flops tied to our feet, swimming and climbing. I wonder what European health rules and regulations would be for a place like this.... All I can say is that they if they had them in Guatemala they were non existent for all I saw there. It was a very cool experience though, trying not to let our candles fall into the water! After Lanquin and Semuk Champey we took another backpacker shuttle to Flores, together with a Dutch couple we met, Willem & Margot. The shuttles are supposed to make travelling a little bit more comfortable compared to the chicken buses. The chicken buses are old American school buses that are used as public buses in Central America now. They call them chicken buses as they (most of the times) stuff them to the roof with people and luggage. After taking chicken buses and shuttles I can tell you they manage to fill the shuttles even more than the chicken buses. The shuttles are made for about 15 passengers, but at one point I counted 22, which meant my face was stuck to the windscreen for a solid eight hours. Not very comfortable. We made it to Flores safely though. Flores is a little island in Lago Petén. We stayed there to go to the Mayan TIkal ruins. Our bus to the ruins left at 5am, which is a ´normal´ time to leave for any bus or trip in Central America. I think I got up at 4am at least 6 times in the last 3 weeks. The ruins were worth it though. I think they are the most famous of the Mayan ruins. We got there just after sunrise which meant that the monkeys and toucans were still jumping and flying around. I can´t say Tikal was more impressive than Machu Picchu in Peru (Incan ruin) but it was still very beautiful. Incredible how people were even capable of building temples like that without any of the machines we have today. We spent the rest of the day enjoying the sunshine and swimming in the lake. Although I managed to slip and bruise my bum so bad it was literally black for 2 weeks. All thanks to the blood thinning malaria tablets. Let´s say my bruise got a lot of conversations started.
We decided we wanted to go to Belize which meant we had to take another 5am bus to Belize city. I heard a lot of good stories about Caye Caulker, a Caribbean island about an hour off the coast of Belize city. As soon as we got off the ferry it was like we landed in paradise. I know that I can exaggerate, but trust me, now I´m not. It was the clearest water I´d seen in ages, everyone walks barefoot and it is all about going slow!! The real Caribbean spirit. Everything is in English, or Creole, as opposed to Spanish we´ve had for the past months. Nearly everone has dreads (I got one too, just one) and you hear Bob Marley playing on every street corner. Fish is the main meal and it is caught fresh every day. Sabine really wanted to get her dive certification but I wasn´t too sure due to some mediocre experiences in Australia. We went to some dive shops and eventually I decided to go for it, we were going to be Open Water divers! Our course was 4 days and consisted of watching videos, doing knowledge reviews, confined water skills and open water skills. We went to 12 and 18 meters deep where we had to do skills such as removing your mask completely, and clearing the water out of it. We all did very well, even though I had a panick attack on the third dive and Sabine got so sea sick when we had to drive the 400 horse power boat through the 2 meter high breaking waves which nearly made her sick under water. Not very pleasant. We were so happy we accomplished it! We treated ourselves to a nice seafood dinner (like evey night) and enjoyed a rumpunch watching the sunset over the Split, Caye Caulkers main beach and meeting spot. The day after we got aboard the Ragga Queen, to go on a 3 day Raggamuffin sailing trip to Placencia. Margot and WIllem joined us too. It was 3 days of pure relaxation. Enjoying the sun whilst lying on the boat, snorkeling 3 times a day and fishing off the back of the boat for our daily dinner. One guy, Gav, managed to catch a 10lbs baracuda! It was massive. The first night we camped out on a deserted island, called Rendezvous Caye, which wasn´t any bigger than 50 x 20 meters. We set up our tents (which ofcourse led to a hilarious situation when you have Sabine and me try to do it by ourselves) and enjoyed shrimp cevice, baracuda and grouper stew, topped off with 5 gallons of rum punch. That, ofcourse, was between the 16 of us that were on the boat. We had a bonfire and roasted marshmallows, again, paradise!! The next morning we sailed on to Tobacco Caye, which was a bigger island where people live. Again, we camped, sat on the deck enjoying the sunshine and swimming with the turtles. We listened to a Caribean drumband at night too. On our third and final day we got treated to some more tricks by a few dolphins, just before mooring in Placencia. I could do these kind of boat trips for ever! So relaxing. When we got to Placencia, Megan, a Canadian girl who was on the boat too, decided to join us. At first we wanted to stay in Placencia for a day to go diving with the whale sharks but they hadn´t been seen yet, unfortunately, so we decided to leave the next morning for Utila.
The trip to Utila was one I will never forget. Utila is one of Honduras´ Bay Islands. You would think, logically speaking there would be some sort of tourist transportation from the Belizan Caribean islands to the ones in Honduras. We found out there was, although it was one boat that only left on Friday´s. It was a Tuesday so we weren´t going to wait. This meant though that we had to take a ferry to the Belize mainland, a chicken bus to Punto Gordo in the South of Belize, a ferry to Puerto Cortes in Guatemala, from there we took a taxi to the border with Honduras. After the second border crossing of the day we took another chicken bus and ended up in San Pedro Sula, crime capital of Central America. By this time it was 7pm, dark, and the last bus that we had to take had left. We didn´t have a choice but stay the night. The three of us found a nice hotel and wanted to go out for dinner. As soon as we mentioned it the guy from the reception gave us the take away menu and summoned us to stay inside as it was asking for trouble to go out now, even by taxi. We stayed in bed, ate pizza, watched tv and had a nice girly night! We deserved it after this crazy day of travelling. The next morning we had to get up at 4am (surprise surprise) to take the 5am bus to La Ceiba, from where we could take the ferry to Utila. FINALLY: However, when we got to the ferry terminal we noticed they also called this ferry the ´Vomit Comet´. Exactly what we were looking forward too.... We all took some pills and felt fine all the way so no troubles there. It took us two days of travelling but we made it to paradise, AGAIN: As soon as we got off the boat people from hotels and dive schools came up to us to try to get us to go to their place. We ended up going to Parrots hostel, which is also a dive center. I just wanted to enjoy my last week of sunshine and do some fun dives, and so did Megan. Sabine though wanted to do the Advanced Open Water dive course. We walked into the dive shop and got talking to Niv, a dive instructor from Israel, who talked ALL 3 OF US into doing the Advanced Open Water course. He made it sound really good though, I need to give him that one. And, now that we´ve finished I can tell you I couldn´t have made a better decision. For 259 US dollars we got to do the dive course, 6 nights of free accomodation, two free fun dives and basically the best time of our lives. The course included a deep dive (30 meters) to the Halliburton ship wreck, a navigation dive, a night dive, a dive to perfect your bouyancy and a fish identification dive. The night dive was so impressive. It was pitch black and we all had a torch. We saw a giant blue octopus and the bioluminal essence from within the ocean. We all sat down at a sand patch at 12 meters and switched off our torches. After a few seconds all the bioluminal essence lit up and there were clouds of blue and green, it was just like being in Avatar. I was really nervous before the course and was very much in doubt to do it, but Niv confinced me to do it and I can honestly say he pushed me into the right direction to get over my fear of water. I enjoy being in the ocean so much now, especially diving. There are so many people who aren´t able to do and see these things. I feel very lucky. The atmosphere at the dive center was awesome too. It was like being in one big family. Everyone was so kind and enthusiastic. They organised parties at Tranquila bar next door and last Saturday all of us went to the Full Moon Party on the beach. Everyone was bitten to death by sand flees but we didn´t care, we had the best time ever and that´s all that mattered. It was very hard to leave Utila but I didn´t have a choice. I couldn´t have asked for a better ending to my trip. I am even thinking of becoming a dive master now, who would´ve thought that when I left?! The girls and I went back to San Pedro Sula where we spent the night and then we had to go our own ways. Sabine and Megan took the bus to Nicaragua and I went to the airport to catch my flight to Miami. Back to the real world.
I´ve been in Miami now for just over 24 hours and it has been a bit of a culture shock. I have to get used to wearing shoes again and not walking around in my bikini all day. It´s back to having showers and washing my hear. I sat at the beach this afternoon and noticed a siren going by, I hadn´t heard that in ages. People talk fast, walk fast and are in a hurry. Spending time in places such as the Caribbean and Latin America in general really give you a different look at the world. Sometimes you can think it is overrated to take a step back and relax a bit, go slow!, but it really isn´t such a bad idea to be honest.
The time has come for me to go home. I can honestly say I have had the best time of my life and I feel enriched. Someone told me yesterday that every time someone comes back from a trip people can see a glow in that persons eyes. I hope I will have that too and hold on to all my good memories and experiences, from Singapore to Miami, and about all the amazing people I´ve met. All my travel buddies, especially Aniek (snuffert) and Sabine (de duikvrind, oftewel, schatteke), they really have made such a difference. I am so grateful I have been able to do this and from the bottom of my heart I can recommend everyone to just go out there and live life to the fullest. The world has so much to offer and so many nice places to visit. We should all open our eyes sometimes and realize that we can be a little narrow minded from time to time. I hope I can hold on to keeping my eyes open and enjoying life at home as much as I have been doing in the past 7 months. I am so looking forward to seeing my family and friends. 24 hours from now I´ll be on the plane to London, back to Europe, back to reality. Thanks for all your support, emails, comments on facebook, on my photos and on this blog. I hope I have given a good impression of the dream I´ve been living.
I did it. I fulfilled my dream! Time to go home now. See you all very soon!!!!!!!
Love,
Sarah
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