Study Time!

Hey guys, sorry I've been lacking on the update front. I've been super busy with work, class and general having fun-ness with all these people leaving. There has been BBQ after BBQ, dinner after dinner and party after party with all my friends leaving the island.

I've been studying my brain out for the last week and a half for my Assistant Instructor course. I have my exams today!

What can I report...oh yea! I got to swim with a pod of spinner dolphins for an afternoon! That was so awesome! I've spent lots of time helping out with the Whale Shark Centre and just relaxing and diving as much as I can. I was sick this past week which had me out of the water and because of my course, I haven't been diving for almost two weeks. I should be able to resume diving tomorrow or Saturday! Yay!

I Went Swimming With Whale Sharks!

So Monday, I woke up early to jump on the boat and help out James and some of his fun divers because of the varying certification levels. It was an amazing dive. We went to one of my favourite sites here, Black Hills, a sea mound off the east side of the island. We saw tons (TONS!!) of fish including a couple of trunk fish, two scrawled cow fish having a little fight, a green moray and a scorpion fish! Scorpion fish are really hard to find because they camouflage on rocks so well. After we all go out of the water, our captain spotted a bunch of birds to the north. Immediately, we took off in that direction, much to the surprise of our divers who thought we were going to airport caves.

After a few minutes of them looking confused and all the staff being excited, we finally told them that birds may indicate a boil and that a boil means there is a whale shark somewhere under there. After an hour and a half of searching, he finally surfaced and we all got in the water to watch this creature swim back into the blue.

Later that afternoon, I jumped on the whale shark boat (our shop is affiliated with the Whale Shark and Oceanic Research Centre [WSORC]) to go back to the same spot to look for more. We found two! I spent the entire afternoon in snorkel gear just swimming with these beautiful mammals. I got some amazing pictures as well. I'll try and get them up as soon as I can.

Man It's Hot!

You'd think in a tropical paradise in a slightly rainy season that has been receiving rain every few days, humidity would be lacking. You'd be thinking wrong about Utila. This past week has been a scorcher, with the exception of one day where it was actually a bit cooler (don't hit me for saying 27 C). Most of this week has been in the low to mid 30's before the humidity. Most days I drink 5 litres of water just to stay hydrated.

And the bugs. Oh boy are those sand flies vicious and there is nothing you can do to prevent them from getting you unless you want to walk around this island wearing pants and shoes.

The tropical depression coming up from the south has made the water very unpredictable and it's even difficult to gauge what the conditions are like once out of the harbour. The other day, we could only get one dive in because it was just so choppy. Only two days before the water was almost like glass.

Tonight marks the last day of Carnaval Utila 2008. The festivities include a parade and a ton of loud music going all night. Some people from the shop are all getting together at one guy's place where we shall BBQ, drink and watch from above as Miss Playa and other parade rfom one end of the island to the other.

In other news, this week I've been the only DM at the shop. One guy was helping out at the Lodge, one guy is out sick and the other girl was working at her other job. So that left me. I didn't actually have much to do, which is nice on the one hand. Last night I had a fun diver for a night dive to a site I thought I had been to before. The vis was horrible and I was really worried about finding my way back. I somehow manage to lead a kick ass dive including finding the wreck at the site and getting us back to the boat without a problem. Go me!

Carnaval, Miss Playa and Work

Last night kicked off the beginning of Carnaval Utila 2008, a week long celebration of loud music, food, fireworks and antics. It began just outside the doors of BICD (my dive shop) with a parade consisting of the varying levels of Miss ______ of this year and last. The ladies, accompanied by the Naval Academy Cadets, looked stunning. I felt like I was watching a prom. They were followed by the schools marching band, who are pretty fantastic! It seemed like the whole island turned out for the festivities as it was nearly impossible to walk down the street. As I know two of the people involved, I was slightly obligated to attend and further obligated to take pictures. My room mate was voted Miss Playa 2008, the first gringo in island history to take the title. As well, our shops receptionists' daughter was one of the Junior Miss something or other.

I made my way through the crowd to try and get a good spot at the stage so I could get in a few good shots. While waiting for them all to walk down to the stage, there were two little boys playing with one of the sticky things on a rope that you throw at a wall. I got an amazing picture of them. As the ladies paraded down the "red carpet" and up the stairs, I grabbed a couple shots of all of them and a few extra of Miss Playa. After she was crowned I headed to the bar for L15 drinks (L is limpera, the currency here). Shortly after, I headed home to bed.

Today is my first actual shift working as a Dive Master and there are actually people for me to lead. I'm really nervous. I hope I don't lose the boat!

"For Some Silly Reason..."

"... Lindsay here wants to become a Dive Master. She has finished all her training and passed all her tests, except one. Lindsay will demonstrate how to clear her mask and snorkel. Lindsay, when you are ready, give us the OK."

And that is how my snorkel test began, with my instructor Scott introducing the event as all instructors do. As I sat perched on the top of the picnic bench in the pool room with the mask and snorkel on, I wondered what in the hell I was doing. Here I was, sitting in a bikini, about to consume a ridiculous concoction of rum, coke, beer, pina colada and red bull, staring out at all these people who had shown up to witness this rite of passage. Did I really want to chug back that foul mix and clear beer out of a mask? Did I really want to be a Dive Master?

With those thoughts in my head I said "Let's get 'er done!", put the snorkel in my mouth and signaled the OK. It seemed like an eternity had passed by the time the sickly sweet brew finally came rushing down the snorkel. I tried to take it like a champ and not waste anything. The problem was, I was running out of air. So I did what I have seen no other snorkel test victim did. I plugged the snorkel with my thumb as to not waste what was put in my snorkel. After taking a few gasps of air, I put the snorkel back in to be greeted by two gulps of liquid followed by what seemed like ten seconds of foam. After I sucked in air, I whipped off the mask and snorkel, took the snorkel off and waited for the mask filling.

I sat on that bench with anticipation, the top of my mask lifted off my forehead. All of a sudden, this icy cold beverage hit my face, filling my nose and burning my eyes. I counted to three. I signaled for everyone to watch me. I looked down, held the top of my mask and slowly exhaling through my nose, I looked up, cleared my mask and whipped it off. I was handed the rest of my beer, was toasted and I slammed back that beer like it was the last beer on earth. After two months of nothing but reading, tests, exams, and diving until I couldn't even wake up in the morning, I was finally a Dive Master.

Fires and Snorkel Tests

How long does it take a backpacker to pack up all their belongings?

When there is a blazing inferno next door- less than two minutes.

Monday night, I wandered down the island to a nice little spot for Quiz Night. I had promised some people that I would go, so I did, despite having been up since 5:40am and on the boat all day. My roomie and I had gone for a lovely falafel and enjoyed a brief rain storm as we ran to the bar where we began to get liquored up in preparation for the pain our minds would feel while answering the most random of questions.

As the evening wore on, I grew tired and began the walk home. As I exited the bar, I started to smell smoke and just figured people were burning things as they often do on this island. As I wandered further down the street, I saw a red glow in the dark night sky and noticed it was in the direction of my apartment. My slow meandering quickly turned into a run as I got closer and closer to the intersection near where I live. From there, I could tell that the fire was definitely right where I lived. I ran past groups of people, apologizing in both english and spanish as I bumped into them. With ash and embers raining from the sky, I rounded the corner to see the house next door to me engulfed in flames. At this point, the wind was beginning to change and blow in the direction of the apartment.

I sprinted back to the bar where several of my neighbours were finishing up after the quiz and on the way, ran into my roommate and one of my neighbours. Gasping for air, I told them the situation. My roommate and friend started running in the direction of the house and one of them was smart enough to pull out their phone and call our landlord. I continued on to the bar to tell Sean what was going on before running full speed back to the house. I found my friends and we tried to figure out how we were going to get through the crowd of people, the fire truck and get to our place to get out anything we could.

We ran around an entire "block", going down dirt paths, through backyards and the like. We finally got around to our house where we were greeted by electrical wires hanging down and on our lovely chain link fence. My roommate got her keys out, opened the gate and the three of us sprinted to our apartments to grab our passports, some money and whatever else we could grab. She and I managed to grab almost everything of ours in under two minutes and sat on our lawn watching the flames take over the two houses next door to us. There was nothing we could do until the major flames were out.

After about an hour, most of the flames were extinguished and we started the bucket line, putting out embers and smaller fires. There must have been fifty of us passing buckets back and forth just trying to do our part to help. It was a crazy night.

In other maybe not so exciting news, I am almost finished my Dive Master Training! I need:

-3 dives
-to finish my mapping project
-to type up my Emergency Assistance Plan
-to complete my equipment exchange aka "The Stress Test"

After all that is said and done, I have one final exam that I must pass to become a Dive Master. It's called the Snorkel Test. It consists of a mask (with the lens covered in duct tape) and a snorkel (with an upside down, cut up 2L pop bottle attached to the top). The candidate sits on a bench, chair, stool or counter and puts on the mask and snorkel. The candidates' instructor then shows the crowd the lovely concoction that will be poured down the funnel and snorkel. It usually consists of beer, rum, coke and a few shots of the instructors course. There are also known instances of: raw egg, wasabi, wasabi powder and vodka, hot sauce, chocolate sauce, milk, orange juice and just about anything else that will make it absolutely disgusting. Luckily for me, they want to keep things old school.

The candidate is then asked if they are ready to perform their final exam. Signaling that they are "OK", the instructor then begins to pour the lovely mix into the funnel and snorkel. A good sport will try and drink it all down, while others will signal for them to stop. After effectively clearing this alcoholic nightmare out of the snorkel, the candidate must do one more thing. Demonstrate the proper clearing of a mask. For the purpose of the snorkel test, the mask is filled with beer. The candidate then signals the following:

"Everybody. Watch me." The candidate will then tilt their head down, show that they are breathing in through their mouth and that they should have their fingers holding the top of their mask down. The candidate will then make a point of taking in one last breath while showing that they are to exhale through their nose as the look up, clearing the beer from their mask. Once this is completed, the candidate is finally a Dive Master.

My Snorkel Test is Friday night. I start work Monday. Wish me luck!

Exams

So as most of you who receive my emails know, I have been working on my Dive Master exams. Yesterday, I completed my final one, ending the theory portion of my course. The Breakdown

3- 85%'s
2- 90%'s
1- 95%
2- 100%'s

Now all I have left to do is all the water portion which should be Monday or Tuesday. Unfortunately, I have a bit of a stomach bug so it's delaying that.

It's been an interesting week here in Utila, what with Canada Day and Fourth of July celebrations taking place. Canada Day was spent making poutine, wishing we had Canadian beer and watching Deadliest catch most of the evening. Fourth of July was accompanied by copious amounts of alcohol, fire works and hot dogs. And passing out early because we were super tired.

I should be finished my course in 2-3 weeks which means that I will once again be traveling around, exploring the world, and maybe picking up a job somewhere since diving has definitely left a bit of a whole in my pocket.

New Apartment

I moved into my new place on Tuesday! It's a nice two bedroom with a nice sized living room and a kitchen. It's actually only a little smaller than my apartment I had back in Toronto which is pretty cool. And it came fully furnished.

My buddy who I was crashing with left on Wednesday much to my sadness. He and I became really good friends while I was here. But there are still lots of cool people around.

I passed the exams I had to write and only have the practical remaining for my Rescue before I begin my Dive Master exams and such. Sunday is Sunday Funday which is two dives on the North side (great diving) followed by a BBQ and some drinks!

I think I'll end up sticking around here until August/September and then continue my adventuring. I've had some cool offers from people to go so many places so I guess I'll see when I get there. So far the coolest sounding ones are PNG and Oz.

Another thing...do any of you actually read this or am I posting in vain?

Ceviche and Ceiba

So I made it to Ceiba early Saturday morning. Scott and I checked into a pretty nice hotel, went for a nap and then headed up to the mall to go shopping. The mission: boardies, sunglasses, a bikini and body wash for me and boardies and a hat for Scott.

Then we decided to go catch a movie, Indiana Jones. It was alright, not as great as I was expecting. Then we headed back to the hotel, took another nap, went out for some dinner where I tried ceviche for the first time. Good news, I wasn't sick. Then I even had some shrimp with dinner. So yay! I can finally eat seafood!!!!

Slept in today, missed the morning ferry and spent the morning wandering around looking for sunglasses (which I finally found a decent pair of) and trying to figure out how to kill time until the 4pm ferry. Hence why I am sitting here updating this.

This week I should be spending a ton of time in the water, working on my rescue course and starting my DMT by the end of the week.

Hyperbaric Chambers!

So if any of you have been following my blog or reading my emails, you would know that I am currently diving. One of the awesome things about the shop I'm diving with is that they have the only hyperbaric chamber on the island. What the chamber does it recompress you if you screwed up bad during diving, wither by going too deep, for too long and coming up too fast. it's most commonly used by saturation divers, ocean videographers, etc.

So today I got to play in one to see what its like to be decompressed and recompressed. It was pretty cool.

In other news... I kind of, sort of met a guy. It's nothing serious that I know of. We've been whatever for about a week now. I know, I'm so descript but hey, I have to give you guys some news and most of you know that it was probably bound to happen, considering I'm sticking around here for awhile.

Anyways, I thought I'd give you all a brief update on life. It's pretty good. We're going to try and get the bar to pick up by bringing in some awesome new things.

Sharks?

So I've been on Utila for almost two weeks now and I am loving it here. Great people, great diving and finally, more great weather. For a week we had rain every single night due to the tropical storm that started on the Pacific side of Nicaragua.

For those of you who do not receive my email updates, it looks as if I am stick around this island for a good while. I completed my Open Water and Advanced in 5 days (4 in the water) and I am currently working on my Nitrox specialty (allows me to dive longer), my Emergency First Response and my Rescue Diver course. As I am a bit sick I am only doing the book work. As of Sunday, I'm pretty much diving every day except for maybe Thursday as we are organizing a pub crawl (10 bars) on Wednesday. I know Wednesday seems like an odd night, but its one of the crazy party nights here aside from Friday and Saturday. Conveniently, the bar I'm working at is closed Wednesdays. Definitely not a coincidence.

Sunday is Sunday Funday where we do two dives on the north side (wicked sites), cruise around looking for whale sharks and then go to the dive shops private beach for beach volleyball, BBQ, beer and rum games! Monday will be training dives for me, probably Nitrox as Tuesday we are doing a dawn dive as a going away party/gift for one of the guys here, Ben. Ben is also the one who has been nice enough to let me stay at his place for free until my apartment underneath him opens up. We should be descending into pitch black to hopefully see some hammerhead sharks during their feeding time. We are going to two of the best sites on the island and we'll be back by 8am!

I should begin my Dive Master Training next week which means I get to dive for free, jump on any boat that's going out and when I'm finished, I'm guaranteed a job as a ton of the staff are leaving and I've done all my training here!

Belize to Honduras

I've been enjoying this past week sailing on a boat, camping out on small (very small) islands, snorkeling and fishing on the Caribbean as well as relaxing in Placencia, Belize while waiting to catch the ferry to Honduras tomorrow. I should be in the Bay Islands by Saturday!

I have a travel buddy, Gareth, for my journey to Honduras and provided the boys I were hanging out on Caye Caulker hopped on the sailing trip that left Tuesday, I should have even more traveling buddies!

Funny enough, all of them are Brits. I think there is definitely some weird trend going on here. Maybe the Brits just love my shining personality! Gareth is a police officer, Ben is a dentist and I'm still not quite sure what Rupert does but I am definitely the odd person out if you base it on careers. Either way, all of them are traveling south on similar time lines, so once again, I will be in good company for a good period of time.

I forgot to mention in my last entry that I did run into my first Brits, Hass and Richard. They ended up staying at my hostel. I'm pretty sure it's the last I'm going to see of them. Sad times.

The rest of the people from the sailing trip aside from Gareth have left. There were quite a few of us sticking around for the past few days but the girls Imogen and Eve have left to go home to London and Albert has headed back up to Caye Caulker to meet some friends.

The longer I spend in Placencia the more it grows on me. It really is a cool little place. Oh! And I had a celebrity sighting: Shannon Saussaman from A Knight's Tale and 40 Days, 40 Nights. Pretty cool. And no, I didn't get any pictures. I respect the privacy thing that she was probably going for.

Again, I hope to have up pictures shortly but finding a memory card reader is proving harder than originally thought!

I'm Sailing Away

Alright, so I don't have much to add today but I figured I'd throw down something since I may not have internet access for the next week and a half and I wouldn't want anyone to get abandonment issues.

Oh! I actually have a wicked awesome story about an adventure I took the other day. It went a little something like this:

I had been on this island for over a week and still had not seen the entire thing. It's a really small island too. Like a kilometer tip to tip. I decided to rent a golf cart as that is the only mode of transportation aside from the heel-toe express. So I grab some people, some rum and coke and we set off on our adventure. We found the church, the school, the little airport and then...and then...we found this jungle/mangrove area where we were sure we would see crocs. So we're cruising along at a whole 15 km/hr when we see this sign that says "Trail" with golf car tire marks going the same way. Now, this is where it gets tricky because when most people see a sign like that, they take it and it works out pretty well. Not so much for us.

It began with the mosquitoes and not just any mosquitoes. They were more like super mosquitos. So we decided "Screw this! Let's get out of here!" And then we came to a bridge-a footbrige- aka a no golf cart bridge. So we see tire tracks and think to ourselves "Beautiful! There is a way out of this blood donation clinic!" So we go that way for a whole 100 meters before realizing that we can't go any further. And that when we saw "the frogs". They were all over the place. Hopping, scurrying. And I bet you're thinking to yourself right now "frogs don't scurry". This is correct. But crabs do. As we looked to the ground we saw hundreds upon hundreds on crab holes and crabs just waiting to pounce on us and right then, we knew we had to get out of that swamp area. So we turn the cart around and we get going when all of a sudden we weren't moving anymore.

So to recap: we are being eaten alive by mosquitoes, there are freaking crabs all over the ground and a wheel of our golf cart has now sunk into a swampy, marshy sink hole. As we fight over who has to get out of the golf cart to push us out, we realize that we have to get out or fierce the evil wrath of mosquitoes who have not seen a human, let alone four of them for probably decades. After about five minutes of lifting, we finally freed ourselves of the sinking ground and began escape. Until about 5 feet later when we sunk again. This time we sucked it up and moved the sucker as fast as we could. As we tried to escape the clutches of this insane world, hordes of more mosquitoes were coming for the buffet.

After we finally arrived back in the no mosquito zone we accessed everything. Each of us was and still are covered with a minimum of 40 bites (none are small) and the golf cart was a disaster. We took the cart to the hostel to wash away the evidence of our excursion and returned the cart.

I hope you all enjoyed this little story! I'm off sailing tomorrow for the next little while and I'll update when I get back!

And I will try and put up some pictures then but some places don't make it easy.

Hockey, Trivia, Poker and Karaoke...

No wonder I lost my voice the other day.I blame the karaoke though. Because karaoke is evil.

I do apologize for my shitty updating. I could give you every excuse in the book like that I was playing in the sun, swimming, checking out ruins, sleeping and just enjoying being away from all this technology and the need to check in but they are excuses. Real ones, but excuses none the less.

In all honestly, laziness has gotten the better of me. I mean, my hostel is right behind (or in front) of the internet cafe. The swimming beach, bar and grocery store are all farther away than here. I’m also cheap. It’s like $7/hour here for internet. Yes, $7. That almost 3 beers or 6 rum and cokes during happy hour. See what I mean?

If it makes you guys feel better, I haven’t updated my paper journal since the 5th of May. And that thing was being updated like crazy. Oh! And I’ve yet to take any real pictures here. Go me!

The best thing ever: there is a sports bar that shows hockey! Yay for watching semi’s!

San Cristobal

I managed to make my way out of Zipolite. I didn't want to but I did in the interest of time. I should be in Belize by Thursday or Friday and thats mostly because I don't want to travel tomorrow as its 5 de Mayo!

San Cristobal is pretty cool, but its cold here. After spending all that time on the beach, having to wear things like pants, sweaters, socks and shoes are a foreign concept.

Zipolite

I've been playing in beautiful Zipolite, Oahaca, Mexico since Sunday. Yes, I knwo I was supposed to make it over to Playa del Carmen but some wicked awesome people I met while in Puerto Escondido persuaded me to come cheap this place out. And obviously, I love it. I am definitely going to make time in the trip to stop here before flying out of Mexico City in November/December.

As for what I've been doing (since I've been bad with updates this week-but I have a good excuse)...I've been swimming in the ocean, dining by the ocean, tanning, hanging in hammocks and just relaxing and enjoying myself. No sun burn so far but I did come down with a wicked cold that has me hacking quite nicely. Oh, and this lovely little town has no power from 9am to 4pm daily because of some work they are doing in the neighbouring town.

I'm thinking the reformed plan is to head out to San Cristobal on Sunday on thr midnight bus and be in Belize by nexy Friday. Simple enough if I stick to night buses. I save money and time. Go me!

Anyways, I do have to jet because we need to gather wood before dark for our bonfire.

Puerto Escondido

I've arrived alive in Puerto Escondido and have spent the past few days doing the following:


-lying on the beach
-sleeping on the beach
-drinking on the beach
-eating on the beach
-lying in the sun
-lying in the sand
-tanning
-swimming
-floating in the ocean
-boat rides
-eating
-drinking
-drinking games
-sleeping
-bar hopping

Essentially, I'm doing nothing all day, everyday. And it requires a lot more effort than most of you would think. I have to make hard decisions such as:
-which beach to go to?
-do I lie on my towel or rent a chair?
-what I'm going to eat?
-what I'm going to drink?
-what bar am I going to start in and what one am I going to end in?
-what bikini to wear?
-SPF 8, 15 or 30?

See? Tough decisions. I'm kind of jealous of all of you back home =P

I should be heading out to Playa del Carmen around Wednesday. I'll keep ya posted.

Cuernavaca and Acapulco

The boys and I headed to Cuernavaca for the weekend to meet up with Jono and his mates. We spent about two hours looking for a (cheap) place to stay before one of the many taxi drivers we commissioned took us to this home just outside of the zocalo. It was a pretty decent place. I had to share a bed with Richard, who thought that I made a fantastic human pillow.

After dropping off our gear, we went in search of sustainance. What we found was, in my opinion, the best burger I have ever had. It was like a flattened piece of steak, cooked to perfection on a lightly toasted bun with mayo and lettuce and this fantastic oil, herb and shallot dressing. After that, we found a bar that was selling cases of Sol for $330 pesos. Super cheap. We played a drinking game and ended up polishing that off in about an hour. We all stumbled back to the place we were staying and Jarrod, one of the Aussies, decided he was heading back out for some more fun. He doesn´t even know where he went or how he managed to get back.

The next day we headed up to Jono´s friends place after wandering the city for about 4 hous, getting lost a few times. The family he was staying with was really nice and even arranged another place for us to stay. We ended up going for dinner at this place with the most amazing tacos. Afterwards, we headed to a bar where we continued to play the drinking game that we will now call "Hass". Why you ask? Because we like to make him drink a lot. After that we headed to a lounge/club type place where more Hass ensued. Even the owner was getting into it and taking pictures of us making Hass drink. (I´ll explain this game to you guys when I get back home. It involves a cigarette pack and lots of beer)

The next day we headed off for Acapulco. Not a huge fan of it. Reminded me too much of Toronto in the summer, smog, humidity, shitty beach and all. I have no idea why people come here and think that it´s paradise. The only difference is that here its ocean and tons more hotels.

The first night we stayed I slept all night while the boys went out partying. They found a great bar that we ended up going to last night. We spent most of yesterday sleeping before finding two rooms in a 4 star hotel for $126. For both. Yes. You read that correctly. Super cheap. We spent the afternoon by the ocean, showered up and grabbed a bit before lying down to get some ZZZ´s before partying all night. We headed out to Paradise and scammed some all you can drink. I was $20 and the boys were $30 each. They thought they could scam us buy giving us one drink at a time in styrofoam cups. The joke was on them. Seriously, giving a Canadian, two Brits and two Aussies all you can drink? We drank. A lot. And danced a lot. I ended up dancing with this 27 year old American with braces. Why? I can´t even tell you. Did I mention we drank a lot?

Today I got up, laid by the pool, checked out the beach, hit up Starbucks and watched a bit of the soccer game. Then myself, Hass and Richard took a cab to the bus station to find out our bus doesnt leave until 11pm. And this is why you are getting such a long entry. Because I still have 3 hours and about 15 minutes left before we go.

We are heading off to Puerto Escondido for some surfing. We aren´t sure where we are going to stay but we shall figure that out in the morning.

Sex Plazas, The Jonas Brothers and Spanish Rock Bands

Yesterday was a pretty eventful day. Some of the Brits, Aussies and I decided we would go find the Plaza Sex Capital in Mexico City. And we found it! Except most of the stores were closed, as was the sex museum. We were a little upset. Afterwards, we grabbed some Mexican street meat and started browsing through the streets and shops.

Then we decided we were going to find a witchcraft store. Sadly, even with knowing the intersection and asking the locals, we were unable to locate it. But on our mission to find it, we wandered through this huge four block market with everything, including pigs snout. It was pretty crazy!

After that, the boys wanted to find the soccer stadium, Estadio Azteka. So we hopped on the metro on Line 2 to the very end and then hopped on light rail to the stadium. However, on the way down, we found out there was a Jonas Brothers concert. And a bunch of girls there thought one of the Aussies was one of them. They all wanted picturs with him!

We then journeyed back to the hostel to get some money and food. We then went to this wicked concert with a spanish band. Apparently they were nominated for 2 latin american grammys and had an MTV nomination. They were great.

Today Im heading off to either Puebla or Oaxaca, whereever we decide!

Metros, Galleries, Strip Clubs and Ruins

Hola!

I have arrived safely in Mexico City!

My journey so far:

I got to my hostel, made a friend 20 miuntes later. We hopped on a red double decker bus for a tour of the city and its cool buildings and monuments! That was about three hours of wicked coolness. Then hit up the Nomadic Gallery which was a free art exhibit of photos. It was stunning.I retired to bed early Monday night due to barely sleeping Sunday.

Tuesday, I got up and had my free breakfast and had to head to the bank to get some pesos. After that I spent a few hours wandering around the city. Almost every street is dedicated to something. One has ball gowns and wedding dresses, another is all clothing, another is beauty supply, etc. I decided to be brave and hop on the metro. It was waaaayy better than the TTC and only $0.20!

Later, I met some Aussies and Brits on the rooftop patio. We headed out for a bite and decided to hit Zona Rosa, the club district and the sketchy district. We found a 2 for 1 bar where I had tequila and beer. Go me! Then we hopped into a cab to go to the cetral part of Zona Rosa where we wandered into a strip club. What a rip off though. Clothed for two songs and then half way through the third song do you see anything. And they only do three songs. Oh well.

After that we headed back to the hostel for a few more beers before hitting the sack. Today we are venturing out to the Sex Plaza and to go check out some murals!

Thinking of you down in Mexico

So as some of you may know, I leave for Mexico on Monday to begin my eight month journey through Mexico, Central America and South America.

The plan? Get my PADI Open Water in Playa del Carmen, Mexico and dive my way down the Caribbean coast until I hit Costa Rica, where I will pick up surfing until I hit Colon, Panama. After which, I should be hopping on a boat for a four day sail down to Cartegena, Columbia.

From Columbia, I'm either working my way through Ecuador or Venezuela (probably Ecuador) to partake in a two to three week excursion on the Amazon. I'll be partying my way through Brazil and checking out Iguazu Falls, which boarders Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

At some point, I'll be heading down to the most southern city in the world, Ushuaia, Argentina. I'll also try and get some skiing and snowboarding in while in Chile, check out Machu Picchu, Nazca, Cuzco and Manu in Peru before working my way back up, trying to hit Venezula if I have the time.

The I should be working my way through the Costa Rica I didn't see, parts of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and back into Mexico.

After that I plan on hopping a plane to Tennessee to see my sister, if she's available, if not I'm going to play in L.A. for a few days. Then it's off to Whistler for a week of snowboarding instruction and playing before heading back home for the Christmas season and my birthday.

I'll try and be a lot more diligent with updates this journey!

The Great Debate

So, I'm not too sure about the whole Europe thing. I really don't want to wait to travel more and I don't want to wait for a visa.

So I have one of two things in mind:

1) Europe (3 months), East Africa (2 months), Southeast Asia( 2 months), Australia/New Zealand (1 month), a week in Whistler and then home again.

2) Central and South America, a week in L.A. or Tennessee, a week in Whistler and then home again.

Here's the thing, as awesome as #1 sounds, it's going to cost me almost $12,000 to do it the way I want to, for the length of time I want to (either trip is almost 250 days, even at $30/day, that's almost $7,500). Plus airfare, entry stamps or visas. This doesn't even cover insurance and unexpected costs. So yes, pure awesomeness I know, but do I want to spend that much with nothing coming in?

#2 is going to cost me about $9,000, but I know I'll have no problem finding cash under the table jobs at hostels, call centres, etc.

I've got to figure it out this weekend.

Louging on Beaches and Living In Jungles

Last week I disappeared from the beautiful beach life to enter the jungles, hence, a good lack of correspodence recently.

By the time many of you read this, I will have left Nicaragua and headed back to Costa Rica. Yes, Nicaragua. I decided after Santa Teresa to head up to Tamrindo which was gringo (American) city. I spent two days there, which was probably two too long, had it not been for some awesome people I met there.

After that, I decided to chicken bus it to Nicaragua to save me some money as Costa Rica isn´t as cheap as I thought it would be. I decided to stop in San Juan Del Sur, a beautiful beach/surf town just north of the Costa Rican boarder.

There I met some really awesome people. Jazz (Jarrad) from Australia; Marielle from Holland, and Kim from France. The four of us decided to head to Ometepe, the large island on Lake Nicaragua. While on the bus we picked up a fifth person, Simon from Montreal and headed out on our journey. When we got off the ferry we were greeted by numerous taxis, aka pick up trucks. The five of us piled into the back of one and decided to head for Finca Magdelena onthe north east side of the island. (A Finca is a farm). We hiked up Volcan Maderas, and inactive volcano with lots of cloud cover and rain. We came back down caked in mud.

After some very rowdy card games, followed by a drinking game instigated by me, we called it a night. The next morning I woke up and Kim and I decided to go riding. We scored two extremely healthy horses for only $4 an hour, with no guide so we had complete and total freedom. We rode to some petroglyphs, on the beach and to a beautiful laguna. We came back, we all played cards and Simon and I decided that we would hike Volcan Concepion, the largest of the two, not to mention the active one.

We got up super early to take the 6am bus to Altagracia. We found a hostel we wanted to stay at in with in 5 minutes we had arranged a guide and ordered breakfast. The entire trek up the mountain was 9.5 hours thanks to me being a chicken shit and busting up my knee part way down. At the top it was very clear. Peering into the crater all I could see was smoke. I sat on the edge and the ground was so warm.

Our plans afterwards consisted of dinner, a nap and then the midnight ferry to Granda as we were both trying to get to Managua (the capital of Nicaragua) to get me to Costa Rica and him to El Salvador. We ended up bumping into Kim and Jazz , who we had left behind at the Finca, at a restaurant. It turns out that they had missed their ferry to the San Jorge and decided to try and meet us. So we all napped and got out to the ferry for 11:30. W started boarding around 12am which was great except for the fact that it had aleady started in another port and was full of people. And we had even paid extra to be upstairs with seats and less people. So we found a nice little spot on the side of the ferry to chill with our bottle of rum (we were pretending to be pirates). The ferry took so long to load that we didn´t leave until 3:15ish and we got into Granada around 7:30.

It was really cold on the lake and we were sleeping on the floor, all four of us cuddling for warmth and we all made decent attempts at sleep. After arriving, we dropped our stuff of at a hostel for free, grabbed some breakfast, made a bank run and explored a bit of the city. Then we parted ways with Jazz and Marielle. It was such a nice littel colonial town, but very touristy at the same time. I finally bought a hammock!!! After, Simon and I grabbed some lunch and headed out to Managua, where we hav found a hostel, with internet. We are currently running on the 5 hours of sleep from Monday night, the 45 minute nap Tuesday, and whatever random bits we got while on the ferry. We have to be up at 4am to catch our buses, his is at 5am, mines at 6am, but we are leaving together to be safe.

Next time I update (and hopefully with pictures) I will be back in the jungle in Monteverde, Santa Elena and La Fortuna in Costa Rica.

And just think, a week tomorrow and I will be heading home.

Buenas!

So, I'm finally putting some pictures up. Sorry I haven't been updating, the internet is super slow down here and it took me a good while before I figured out how to get the @ sign to work on these Spanish keyboards. My Spanish is coming alone alright, I can manage a day here.
And here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure!

I have safely arrived in Costa Rica! Heading to Jaco tomorrow. Will update more when there are less people trying to use the free internet!

Leaving on a jet plane

So by this time tomorrow, I will be in beautiful San Jose, Costa Rica. I will try and update this as soon as I get in and have found a hostel to stay in!

Here's my version of Leaving On A Jet Plane, Costa Rica style:

My bag is packed
I'm ready to go
I'm sitting here
Waiting for the Superbowl
I'd hate to see the Patriots lose this game.

I've got my passport
My travellers cheques too
My guidebooks, socks and hot bikinis
Landing in San Jose 25 hours from now

So stay here in the snow
Have fun in the bloody cold
I'll be playing in the surf, sun and sand

Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I come back on March the 6th
Oh, I know I won't want to leave

Theres so many things to see and do
Surfing, macaws, some drinking too
I will take lots of pictures to show you all

Every place I go, I'll be in a hostel
Every wave I surf, I'll fall on my ass
When I come back, I'm going to be so tanned

So stay here in the snow
Have fun in the bloody cold
I'll be playing in the surf, sun and sand

Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I come back on March the 6th
Oh, I know I won't want to leave

Jaco, Paquera, Montezuma
Santa Teresa, Tamarindo
Just a handful of the places that I'll go

Samara, Nicoya, Puntarenas,
Monteverde, Santa Elena,
Santa Cruz, Liberia, San Jose

So stay here in the snow
Have fun in the bloody cold
I'll be playing in the surf, sun and sand

Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I come back on March the 6th
Oh, I know I won't want to leave

I'm leaving on a jet plane
I come back on March the 6th
Oh, I know I won't want to leave

Leaving on a jet plane
Leaving to Costa Rica
Leaving on a jet plane
Leaving to Costa Rica...

2 days left!!

Things left to do:
-Learn Spanish (all week! I'm sucking at this)
-Clean my room so my roomie can show it to people since I'm moving out (so much effort. Might do it this afternoon or tomorrow)
-See peoples (tonight!!)

I've emailed my parents any and all information I could gather in the hopes that they might worry less, which won't happen, but hey, I try.

This weekend is going to rock. It began yesterday when I got to leave work early. I hit the bank and got my travellers cheques and US money. I have a new $10 bill:

I then lazed around, packing, unpacking and repacking my awesome backpack:




Went for a late dinner at the Keg, one of my last normal meals for the next month. Had some drinks and good times.

This morning, I got everything else I needed, except ziplock bags because I couldn't find them at Zellers. I got my money belt thing and currently have it packed with the essentials: money, passport, expedia itinerary for my flight.



Tonight I'm going to the Leaf game, followed by drinks at The Drake. Tomorrow is the Superbowl!! Party it up!!! And then I try and sleep, wake up super early and head to the airport for my 7:35am flight!

The only thing that will make this weekend even better? Wins by the Leafs and the Pats. But I'll settle for the Pats!

(Sorry for the crap quality pics, I'm using my laptops camera)

Planning, planning, planning!

Six days until Costa Rica!

Here's what I have left to do:

-Pick up my passport (tomorrow)
-Print off my intinerary (Friday before I leave work)
-Pack, unpack, re-pack, repeat (every single day!)
-Get travellers cheques and American money (Thursday or Friday)
-Transfer all my notes to the smaller journal
-Learn Spanish (all week!)
-Clean my room so my roomie can show it to people since I'm moving out
-Buy SD and XD cards, and get batteries
-Mull over getting a money belt thing (I'm still wondering if I should bother)
-Play in my hiking boots so they don't hurt my feet
-See peoples!!!


I have a lot of it already figured out ie: the hostels I'd like to stay in, what buses I have to take to where, what direction I'm moving it, approximate costs.

Here's hoping!