Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama

Wow, a lot has happened since I wrote my last blog so I will try to include as much as I can remember. First of all I will tell you that the keyboard I am typing on has very little punctuation keys, but I am sure you will get the idea.

The last time I wrote, we were in Antigua where we didn´t do much other than eat a lot! We were going to go horse riding, however every day we went, the horses were sick or all booked up. We decided when we were there that we really had very little time to get through all the countries that we wanted. And that it would probably be ncie to be able to catch ourselves up, and spend a little more time in the nicer, hotter, and cheaper countries. So in Antigua we booked ourselves a flight all the way to San Jose in Costa Rica. It was so nice to jump on a comfy plane where you get a meal and be somewhere in under 2 hours. These 30 hour buses are getting a little tiring, ha...all part of the experiece I guess.

So we arrived in San Jose very early in the morning, and caught a bus all the way to the Southern Carribbean coast to Puerto Viejo. This is town is very remote with not a lot going. However it is smack bang in the middle of the rainforrest and has some unbelievably beaches. The people here seem mainly Jamaican and speak very odd spanish, with the odd word of English and Jamaican twangs thrown in there...very off! Joel had a job trying to understand them! You walk down the street and there is reggae beats, tiny stools and wildlife everywhere, howler monkeys in the trees, wild horses walk on the beach, and sloths everywhere to.

It does all sound amazing and it was, but it the food is strangely very expensive for such an undeleloped place. Joel and I stayed in a hostel called Rocking J´s, which is like a tiny hippie village with treehouses and tents, and painting and mosaics done by guests everywhere. We slept in hammocks for $5 each! An interesting experience, but not the most comfortable.

After our second night there, we headed to the border to try and cross into Panama, but found out evry quickly that it was not possible. The whole of Panama´s Bananna and canal workers were rioting, and it was not safe for anyway. I have heard that trees on fire were blocking the roads, 2 people got killed, and 4 police where taking hostage. So we were stuck in Costa Rica for another week.

It seemed that lots of people at Rocking J´s were also trying to get through the border, so Joely and I met up with 4 Australians, and we decided that when we could get through, we would all go together, as this was probably safer. After a week, we were told we could go so we all made our way across the weirdest border I have ever since. It was a bridge, if you can call it tha, that connects the two countries. It was veeery long but not safe at all. It looked as if any the wooden planks would give way at any time. You had to constantly look down as there were planks missing and planks moving...not fun. I have a picture to prove just how weird and scary this was so I will get that up when I can.

Uploading pictures his is still pratically impossible. It seems that everyone has the same problem with the internet being too slow. However one of the guys I have met says he has a special program and I can use his laptop, so I will try that today.

Once in Panama, we headed to a little Island called Bocas Del Toro, it was very very cute, and we did lots of partying, still with our aussie friends.

We are now in Panama City awaiting a Sailing boat to take 4 of us to Cartegena in Columbia. It stops in the San Blas Islands, which are meant to be amazing. We can snorkel, and fish on the way. The boat has Dingys for us to use and they catch us lobsters to eat! yay.

Heading to the Panama Canal today so will probably update again after our week of sailing. Hopfully in columbia I will have the internet a little more than I have over the last few weeks.

I hope that you are all well, I am missing you all looots! xxxxxxx

Week 2

So the last week has been a very interesting one indeed, with some great times and some not so great times.

We were very sad to leave the beach in Puerto Escondido last Monday evening. We really did love it there and we made some great friends, but we were excited to get to Guatemala and see what it was like (also hoping it was a little cheaper). So we hopped on the 15 hour bus to the border. However things did not go quite to plan. To cut a very long and painful story short, it went something like this...

1. Terrible rainstorms caused bridge to be very flooded which left us in the middle of nowhere on a night bus, delayed for 6 hours, one side of the bridge.
2. Jumped into a collective taxi to take us to the bridge which was packed with a stupid amount of people. Joel was clutching onto our stuff for dear life and I have a Mexican man sitting on my lap as they had run out of seats...yes thats whats happens here.
3. Got charged a blatently illegal leaving tax fee.
4. walked straight across the bridge (massive mistake not taking a bus) straight into the middle of a slum.
5. peed our pants a little.
6.Got sold a very questionnable bus ticket.
7. Got taken to the worng place (Guatemala City- one of the most horrible, dirty, DANGEROUS cities ever)
8. Had to stay in a prison like hostel
9. Had to get two more "chicken buses" with more people sitting on my lap, 3 hours to the right place in the morning.

So all in all the journey ended up taking us 45 hours, in which we didn´teat the whole time. You can imagine we were rather grumpy by the end of it. But thankfully we did get to the right place and it was absolutley breathtaking.

We stayed in the "most magical hotel in Guatemala" which is only accessible by boat. Its perched on a cliff face and it surrounded by volcanoes. It must be the most amazing place I have ever stayed, and only $25 dollars for a room.

We are now in Antigua, which is a really cool place. Lost happening and lots to do. Today we are going on horse back to a coffee plantation...very much against Joel´s will. Ha...I will tell you how he gets on in my next blog.

I am having trouble backing up all my photos onto the net, as the computers here are so slow. I have tried, zip files, you send it, facebook, photobucket, flickr. Does anyboday have any suggestions for me?