Nicaragua...or BUST!!!

We have been in Placencia for four nights now, and have REALLY begun to enjoy the pace of life here. For fear of wanting to stay forever, we decided that it was high time to get the rock out of here!!!

Our time in Placencia was SUPER chill, in part due to the chill atmosphere here, the cost of the Belize in general, and partially due to a wicked ear infection that Lizzy developed from too much time in the water. Poor thing...apparently the doctor was winging when he took look inside her ear canal due to the exorbitant amount of blood and yuck that had developed and the state of hear ear in general.

Despite those factors, we managed to enjoy our time, relaxing, walking the path into town, doing a bit of fishing, and a LOT of swimming. We ate good food, played with the local children, enjoyed the mellow atmosphere that prevails around here, and generally just CHILLED out after a couple of weeks of traveling.

We decided that it is time to get moving, as we are about 14 hours from Guatemala City, and still have some sites that we would like to visit between here and there. Therefore, we are back on the road on our way north, and eventually west, and then back south to get to Guatemala City and Antigua, where I will meet up with Christina and Lizzy will hopefully meet up with Sean and Erin again for the coming week.

We are staying about 15 feet from the sea under a couple of palm trees on a beautiful stretch of beach just north of the Placentia Center (if you can call it that).

We stayed in San Cristobal for the next few nights, as we got rained on pretty much the whole time, but wanted to be able to experience the area at least a little bit. After a few short sessions in town between rain storms, we finally saw some of what we had come for and hit the road heading north to take in some of the other attractions of the area.

After leaving San Cristobal, we headed further up into the mountains, and then back down the other side to a sweet place called Agua Azul, complete with waterfalls, rope swings, rivers with overhanging trees, etc.

We spent the night there after a long drive, enjoyed the sights and activities during the day, and bolted to head up to Palenque, the Mayan Archeological sight in the middle of the State of Chiapas.

Before heading up to Palenque, we made a stop at an incredible waterfall in the Misol-Ha park, and swam our little hearts out, jumping through waterfalls, off rock cliffs, and around the pool at the bottom of a beautiful 100 foot waterfall in the middle of the jungle.

After a LONG day of swimming and messing around, we headed up to Palenque and found a place near the archeological site to stay so that we could visit it in the morning for a day of tourism! Yeah!

Palenque turned out to be better than we thought, much to our surprise, and with the assistance of a guide that we hired for an hour "quick paced tour" through the site, we were able to invest a minimal amount of time with a maximum amount of "trourism." This turned out to be a good decision, considering the heat and the usual "bore" of archeological sites!!!

After the morning at the site, we made a last minute decision to head to the Caribbean coast and down through Belize before entering Guatemala, whiich would require a long day of driving but allow us to see another country, not to mention another ocean.

With a little luck, we made it all the way to the coast, and to a little dot on the map called Bacalar, which was on a BEAUTIFUL lagoon. We stayed in what was probably the most idealic setting that I have experienced thus far, before continuing north and east to the REAL Caribbean coast.

After doing a bit of laundry and getting things dry in Bacalar, we we set off up the coast and east to a Peninsula that looked to be a piece of heaven. I even had dreams of surf near Majahual, but I soon realized that this was totally unrealistic as we WERE in the Caribbean.

We blazed all the way down the Peninsula to Xcalak, where we stayed for part of the night until we were chased out by heavy winds and forced to move north closer to Majahual.

We had a best a fitful nights sleep, and so Lizzy and I were both motivated to move on from the peninsula, although without the gale-force winds this part of Mexico could easily be one of the most beautiful we have seen.

We shot down to Corozal with the intention of crossing the border into Belize, but we found that we had missed our opportunity, as the mexican Aduana was closed for the day by the time we arrived. It worked out well, though, as we stayed just north of Chetumal on another lagoon, where we enjoyed evening and mornng paddle sessions on the water.

The next day, we were all set to cross the border, but had NO idea of what we were in for...

Despite shenanigans at the border, including about a hundred bucks to get Kenzie into the country, we finally were on our way south to Belize City, with the intention of a night in the city to get our party on!

We located an excellent place to park the truck (thank to Lizzy) right beside the Radisson hotel, which provided us with luxury items such as pool, a/c'd toilets, etc. for the evening and the next morning before we continued further south.

We had a bit of trouble finding a decent place to have drinks, but finally stumbled upon a pool hall that had decently priced beers and some interesting characters to chill with. This gave us the green light to get our drink on, especially with chilled Belikin awaiting us...we paid for it in the morning, though!

Although a bit hung from the night before, we managed to get ourselves all the way down to Placentia the same day, but that is about all we accomplished, aside from finding a camping spot that is right up there with the best. We are staying about 15 feet from the sea under a couple of palm trees on a beautiful stretch of beach just north of the Placentia Center (if you can call it that).

We left the excellent points around Salina Cruz in hopes of finding equally good surf spots to the south, but we were nothing less than disappointed when we arrived in Puerto Arista and found long beaches with no points or decent breaks.

Nonetheless, we did have a good time surfing the next morning with our buddy Antonio, an 11 year old that we leant a board for a morning whitewater session. He really seemed to have some good potential, as he was up and riding on his firsts session...that is more than I can say for me!!!

After just one night there, and with shitty weather on the way, we decided to make the trek up to the mountains to San Cristobal de las Casas for some temperate weather and sight seeing in the mountains.

Now we are here trying to decide whether we should head back to the beach, as Lizzy and I are both missing the ocean (can´t say the same is true for McKenzie...she got her personality back after only one day in a more temperate climate...I thought she had lost it to teenagehood, but it turns out it was just the three months of blinding heat that were affecting her).

San Cristobal is a sweet colonial city high in the mountains, with a cool climate, where pine trees abound. We are planning a few hikes and waterfall discovery sessions before we get out of here and either head back to the beach or further inland to Palenque (archeological sight) and maybe around the Yucatan before we head down to Guatemala where I will meet up with Christina for a week of Guate discovery. Can´t wait!!!

We finally found our combination of good camping and good surfing, although the waves never really set up for us while we were at Playa Chepehua.

After a mellow first night, a group of guys showed up in an identical setup to ours and ended up staying for the next few nights with us. Those nights are still weighing on me, as it was a combination of an Englishman, an Aussie, and an American that LOVED their drink. Although awesome surfers and good guys, we had to head south after three nights on the piss with them to dry out.

I caught some good waves at Chepehua, although it was pretty bumpy and wind affected the whole time we were there. Unfortunately, due to a big night with a bottle of tequila and a persuasive Englishman, I didn't make it out for what turned out to be the best day while we were there...argh!

Definitely good times with Charlie (English), Ben (Aussie), and Nick (American).

Lizzy and I are now on our way south again, possibly to Puerto Arista, but we may take a little trip inland, as the waves are being heavily affected by some storms that are looming offshore of Southern Mexico right now.

Hola from Mexico!

As I have yet to be abducted by a drug baron, I thought I'd take an
opportunity to send you all a note to say hello and an update on the
Central American adventures. I apologise in advance for the group
email and as I haven't done much work on editing the address book,
apologise to those who simply aren't interested.

At the moment I'm writing from Salina Cruz which is about 1200 km
south from where I arrived in Zihuatenajo (Mexico). We had a week of
surfing around Zihuatanejo and I then had an incredible week in the
inland mountain city of Oaxaca where I was able to enjoy some slightly
milder weather (dropping back to the early 30s during the day) and
heal some nasty surfing injuries including a severe case of
water-logged ear. The local contemporary art scene is one of the most
vibrant and imaginative I've seen and the local markets are worth the
trip here alone. I could easily have spent another week bartering
locals out of next-to-nothing for their amazing crafts.

I took a bus back to meet up with my travel partner Nick and black
labrador McKenzie in Puerto Escondido and somehow ended up on one of
the buses normal frequented by villagers moving chickens from one town
to the next. The bus driver masterfully negotiated one hair-pin turn
after another whilst listening to the latest Mexican pop sensation
'Miguel' full-blast, plus chain-smoking and chatting to his friends
for the entire 10 hour drive. At one stage I was sharing my seat with
half of a 10-strong Mexican family. All in all it was quite jolly
until I climbed over Maria the goat to find I had been driven to the
wrong town. Those nasty Mexicans with their non English- speaking ways
had viciously taken advantage of my very poor Spanish and put me on a
bus going only vaguely towards where I needed to be, and then in true
Mexican style, tried to swindle me out of 300 persos ($30 bucks) to do
the 3 hour bus ride to my destination (quite rough, given the original
ticket was only $10). I stomped my foot and yelled a bit which told
them the little 'yellow-haired one' was in charge and got myself back
to Puerto but have concluded the old Spanish needs some serious
polishing.

Anyway we took off southwards again and hit some very famous surf
breaks: Barra de la Cruz being one of them. That night we pulled in
quite late and found the entire place booked out by bloody Australian
surfers! I don't know where they come from given the population of
Australia is only 22 million. Anyway, the place is a protected turtle
preserve so couldn't do our usual beach front park. We found a
building site which was level enough so set up for the night and hit
the hay. At around 2am the first of the Big Storms hit, marking the
start of the wet season. I have never heard thunder so frighteningly
loud in my life; the whole place seemed to have turned into a giant
firework display. McKenzie and I were cowering together through the
night (although she was much more scared than I). We awoke to find the
campervan in the middle of a giant lake and most of our bits either
floating downhill or covered in a thick layer of an intoxicating
mixture of goat shit and Mexican mud. We then found an amazing beach
called 'El Mojon' which translates to 'the turd', where we were able
to dry everything off. We were very glad to meet a lovely English
couple who had an amazing custom-built house overlooking the beach and
being somewhat deprived of civilised company they took in McKenzie the
labrador (and after much whining outside, Nick and I), and and gave us
a shower (bliss!) and even several glasses of wine which, after a diet
of Sol beer and lime, was a true luxury.

We've since headed further south again and will spend 3-4 days surfing
the breaks around Salina Cruz: Punta Conejo, La Bamba etc, until we
head south towards Guatemala. The beaches are absolutely incredible
and certainly give Sydney beaches a run for the money ... I saw a
manta ray just yesterday and the other surfers spotted a bottle-nosed
dolphin. What will really frighten everyone is that I'm waking up at
6am most morning and have even been hitting the hay as early as 9.30pm in the evening.