Bocas Del Toro

Hey folks sadly the trip is wrapping up. It feels like we had just left home, though there is a sense of home sickness in me there is just too much to see and do around the world.

We went to Bocas and it was nuts. Bocas is an area that has several islands all clumped together, to see stuff you have to pay for boat taxis. On our first day we slept, we had taken an over night bus that was made i am sure for midgets. neither me or Byron could fit into the seat and when the person in front reclined it was impossible, so i sat with my legs in the center of the bus and Byron sat across. the next few days include surfing on a beach that was 2 km long and had 12 - 24 people on it, dolphin watching and snorkeling. The hostel that we stayed at was a blast and everyone that we met were super nice. Happy hour was 7-8 with .50$ bottles of beer, we filled tables with them. At a designated time we usually left the hostel bar and went over to the club/bars and twice bought bottles of rum and danced/drank the night away. (more happened and we will have to wait to see if evidence surfaces, until then i have to deny everything)

On friday we caught on of the coolest boat rides from bocas to the Costa Rican boarder, it was beautiful. boat went quite fast up a river and had some sharp turns lots of neat trees and wildlife, certainly the best way to leave a country behind for sure. We traveled to San Jose and had a chill out night and Byron prepared to leave. The next day Byron and I parted ways him to the airport and I to La Fortuna to see the active volcano. Yesterday, a couple of new yorkers and I booked a tour to repel down some waterfalls, and ride a cool zip line.

sigh just a couple more days and I will be home...... see you all then

The Boat Trip

Well i know that there were a few people worried about me and byron on a boat in the high seas. We are alive and were adrift for just six days. it was a really amazing experiance, though there were some hickups the trip was out standing from what we were able to see. There first two days were mostly just sailing, byron and i took turns sailing the boat trying to keep it true. The landscape was amazing and we sailed through a lightning storm, no major waves or rain just a light show!
We stopped at some very remote islands and areas that are protected by local law. Dennis is like family to alot of the locals so we had a really rare experiances at those places. Byron and i both studied alot of spanichiwa, read alot and burned abit on the boat. I was slightly disappointed by not having snorkles, all of dennis's had been stolen and we could not find the scuba shops to get some. On the boat with us were a couple of germans (that were stranded in a small town in colombia with no money), 6 brits, 3 auzies and a Londoner. All nice people, not everyone mixed but as canadians we had fun with everyone.
After we arrived in Panama we took a two hour rollercoaster school bus ride, then had to stand on another passing bus for two hours to panama city. Byron on the bus was talking to a American that was looking for some guys to give him a hand getting his boat through the panama canal (which he failed to mention to me at the time) but declined thinking i would not be interested. shame on you byron. We did some browsing around the commercial center and bought a few things in panama city. It is a very american city with alot of latain flavor. After some food, and much needed showers we went out with the british lads and ripped up the town.

next stop is Bocas Del Toro

Columbia

Today is our last day in Cartagena, we leave today on a Tamaran boat with Dennis (A American captian). Cartagena is really one of the coolest cities, the architecture is what makes it so nice. When we arrive a guy named jose arranged a gathering of people from 4 of the hostels around here to go on this tour\party bus. It was a lot of fun met some really nice people and danced very late into the night. By the end of it, i had a sloth hang onto me, bought a really nice pen and ink image, found a new dance partner, and left byron at the bar by himself. ie, the bus driver wanted to go and didn´t want to wait anymore for anyone. He managed to make it back to the hostel just before we did and then we went out to another local bar. In Cartagena there are alot of sites here to see, yesterday we walked the old fort wall, saw the castle where they kept all of the gold, silver and emeralds, it was huge. We also went into the newer developed area, which is really neat. There are like 12 islands that make up Cartagena, and one is this long narrow one and on it is constructed these really tall and modern skyscrapers. When we flew in it looked kinda like they were rising out of the ocean.
Next stop Panama City

Quito

Well mancora was sweet, we stayed at a really nice place on the beach that was right in front of the break. One of the days the waves were much bigger which ment there was more room and distace to ride. We went out, I am sad to report I didn't get up, I did however get flipped ass over teakettle and subsequently the waves after sent me to the shore. The ocean mistress and I have yet to become friends.
The next day we were on our way to Quito. It was a grewling 20 hours, the bus company told us that is was going to be 15 hours. First the bus was late by two hours, then we had to wait 1 hour because the bus had to eat because no food was going to be served on the bus. By the way even though there are assigned seats there are no assigned seats. There was a couple of people that moved for us but took a bit of discussion. The boarder was odd, for we had to get off the bus and "leave" Peru and have our papers stamped. Then we got on and we had to drive through this large town to the other side and then again had to get off to enter Ecuador. Was the town Peruvian or Ecuadorian? about 2 hours later there was a narcodics stop where we again had to get off and were checked. Happy to say that we carried on.
In Quito we have had some time to chill in the Sheraton, and live in luxary for a bit. We don't have enough time for a Amazon tour but we are going to go out on a couple of other trips and will see just as cool sights.

mancora

alright so this is going to skip a little for we are much further along.
long story short is macchu picchu, aguas caliante, cusco, plane ride to lima, cab to bus station, meet with paula (coming with us to mancora), luxary bus ride to mancora with a mandy moore movie marethon.
Set up in mancora and relax. and that is what we have been doing so far in macora alot of relaxing reading and taking in the sun. and it has been nice just to relax and take in the atmosphere rather then just travel to the next stop. the plan was to surf but the waves have been bad except for today. we had a lesson but if you don´t have good waves you can´t do much. today will be better.

Machu Picchu

it was so awsome. we ended up taking the bus up for it was much easier and thinking that there was so much to explore up there. we were right other than machu picchu, there is the sun gate, the incan bridge, the peek of the mountain macchu picchu, and the far peek wynu picchu. the dutch girls we were traveling with went up the wynu picchu peek and byron and i continued with the tour. the guide was not that great with his english but he was enthusiastic in the way he spoke. after that i went to the sun gate where the inca trail enters the area of machu picchu, then i went to the inca bridge. mom i am sorry but if you are going to come to see this place you have to do do it with out dad. i don´t think he would even make it to the interior of peru, cliffs are way too high and steep.
one thing i did notice is that photos make it look like it is flater then it is. the city is very much along the side of mountain. when i get back i will show the 100 photos i took that day.

Cuzco and Aguas Caliante

As i sit here next to byron i have come to the realization that i am not nearly as funny as him when it comes to writting.

We spent the day in cuzco looking around. We had lunch for we had arrived a 10 in the morning, from a really bad bus ride. byron and i had a short nap then we started to nagotiate for our trip to the valley of the incas and machu picchu. the girls managed to get the price down to 176 us dollars, we later found out that a couple of other canadian girls payed 270 us dollars and they did not get the bus tour of the valley of the incas. hats off to the dutch.

the next morning we left at 8:30 in the morning and went on the tour because we were jumping off early to take the train to aguas caliante, we missed a bit of the tour. Aguas caliante is a town at the base of machu picchu that most people stay off at to make the early trek up. as you can imagine it is quite filled with shops that want you to buy stuff, and restaurants with 4 highballs for the price of one all day. happy hour all day i could get used to that.

next post Machu Picchu....

Nazca II

hey all, sorry about not posting can be hard when we are doing so much.

Day two in Nazca was nice we hung around went on a flight to see the nazca lines. All and all it is neat to see them up close however they are much much smaller than you would expect. we went in a small single engine plane and almost made your stumach turn. ie blow chunks.

That night we had diner with Alex a Quebecer that was at our hostel, and happened to be on the same flight to see the lines. I have noticed that most backpackers are much younger than byron and i. at 7 we went to catch our bus to Cusco. just as we left we checked the tickets and they said 2 pm. woops! At the bus office they looked at our tickets when we plopped them down and said we missed our bus, and said that they were for the day before. double woops! we asked about other busses but they had nothing for two days. Crap!(at this point it looked like we could miss out on machu picchu, for our flight was out of cuzco to lima 4 days later). they said try to check out the other bus depot a block down and we managed to get on one leaving in 20 min.
Yippie!!!!

Wow i have never been on such a swervy bus ride in my life. we were so glad it was night an we were not watching where we were really driving. We did meet up with two dutch girls on the bus that were going our way. we have been hanging with them the last few days. on the bus the kid behind me blew chunks 5 times. i slept 4 hours. the toilet sprayed a mixture of pee and crap on our legs and we could not recline properly (12 hours), the food was okay, it was fun!!

well there are some more details and i don´t have my little note book with me so i will leave it at that. tommorow we make our trip to machu picchu. will not be near a computer the next 3 or 4 days so i hope this satifies everyones curiosity.

personally i think it is wierd that i can write this and email, a half hour bus ride to machu picchu.

Nazca

Well we made it to nazca and are looking forward to seeing the nazca lines and sand boarding. the keyboards a different here so please excuse all of the missing capitals and quoatation marks for it is hard to break away from how i am used to typing. We arrived last night and promptly got ushered to the friends hostel(you can find them on the internet). it is quite slow right now in nazca we have only seen a handfull of other turists, it feels more authentic this way. The family running friends are friendly and helpful, martin from sweeden is studying in lima and has been in peru for a year, poor guy today had his molars pulled out.
we went for a quick walk around and found a bank to get some more money out. it is much hotter here then it was in lima. byrons stumach is feeling better, but he is going to sit today out. i am going to go sand boarding, they say it is much like snowboarding, however i think falling maybe much hotter then i will like. tommorow we are hoping to see the nazca lines and make it to the bus depot to make our 12 hour buss ride to cuzco. Hope i will get some sleep on it.

The Arrival

We have made it to Lima with no problems. Joe and Praticia have been awsome, setting us up in the dogs room for the first three nights we are here. I started yesterday with a really cold shower, followed by a nice breakfast including a chicken tamale, some bread and jam (from berries simular to saskatoon). Joe and Patricia showed us how to catch a local bus and how to get off. Our first stop was to get some local money and Byron left his bank card in the machine (something about the order of getting money and card different here), a very lucky thing was that a woman chased us down and returned his card to him. We then went down to the touristy area and walked around and visited to the lovers park there was some paragliding, but it was to costly. On the way back in town where we stopped at a little cafe and sampled the local drink, Pisco Sours, strong and tasty. 8 solares for the first and 6 for every one after, Carlos joined us a friend of Joes and Patricia, he studied in Canada with Patricia. Lots of laughs at my expense there. We later walked over to visit, Mervie at the dentist office and we got a few funny photos there.

I have to go here. alot else happens including breaking a chair and a cab, drinking games and dancing at a club

We are off

All right boys and girls this is going to be updated when we can, not sure if too many photos will be uploaded but here we go. It is 11 pm on the 6th we leave tommorow! Yippie!!!!! Our Schedule is thus.... Edmonton, Toronto, Lima, Nazca, Cuzco, Machu Piccu, Lima, Mancora, Quito, Amazon, Quito, Caratgena, Colon, Bocas Del Toro, Panama city, Puerto Viejo.