sorry for the long break - been too busy!

So we went to the South of Italy for 6 days, headed to Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast.

*Sorrento was great, very beautiful seaside town, headed to the island of Capri, bit of an adventure, got stuck on the island as it was too rough to get the ferry back, so had to catch a bigger ferry to Naples and then ferry from there to Sorrento. What should have taken 40 minutes took about 2 hours! Also because of the rough weather we couldn't use the chairlift or get into the blue grotto which was disappointing. Went to the best Gelati shop - so good even the Pope has been there!

*Almalfi coast weather was much much better.  Went on a walk called on the "Path of the Gods" (http://www.amalficoast.com/primopiano/resort/amalfi-coast-1/the-path-of-the-gods-amalfi-coast-1824.aspx) which had the most amazing views. This is the sort of view - http://images03.localidautore.it/dbimg/primopiano/the-path-of-the-gods-praiano-417.jpg
We also went to the Smeraldo Grotto (Green Grotto) - http://www.amalfitouristoffice.it/images/percorsi/blu/grotta-dello-smeraldo.jpg

We then headed back to Rome for a day where we went and saw some catacombes, where St Peter was imprisoned and a Salvador Dali exhibition which was pretty cool.

Have spent the last few days in Florence and we have been flat out every day.  We've been to galleries and churches galore, seen Michaelangelo's tomb, done lots of shopping, went and visited Sienna. Did a cooking class last night, made fresh ravioli, panna cotta and also an entree which I can't remember what it was called.

Hope everyone is well.

The last couple of days spent in Barcelona were good fun.  We ended up doing a walking tour of the city which was really interesting. Funnily we learnt about Barcelona drivers having an accident every 10 seconds, and that they always park with their handbrake off because everyone touch parks!  We also went to the Picasso museum, the works there are amazing, also an extra interesting museum as he actually put the collection together himself, so quite unusual for a collection like this to be put together before the artists death.

We arrived in Rome and it is quite noticably colder here.  We spent our first day wandering around, walked down to the Colloseum for a look, pretty funny for a 2000 year old MCG!  Yesterday we caught the bus around the city looking at all the sites, went to the Trevi fountain and did some shopping ( 5 new Italian shirts!).  Today we went to the Vatican, it is huge and the Sistine chapel is incredible.  Tomorrow we are doing a tour of the Colloseum and then heading south for the next few days.

Sorry  for the lack of updates been so busy haven´t had time to get around to writing one.

So here is the shortened version of the last 10 or so days.

PARIS

• Arrived late night at had an awesome nutella crepe right beside the hotel
• Visited the Eiffel tower. Unfortunately lift was only working to the 2nd floor so didn´t get to go all the way to the top.  Still was amazing and crazy to think it was only temporary
• Walked the Champs Elysee, very interesting. I pretended to be Cadel Evans.  Funnily enough there was not much of a mention of the Tour de France.  I expected to see something there.
• Moulin Rouge was amazing.  The dancing was fantastic and the costumes phenomenal.  Even a scene in a tank that rose from the floor where one of the dancers swam and twirled with 3-4 pythons.
• Went to the Louvre (http://www.louvre.fr/en/homepage) mainly of course to see the Mona Lisa.  We got there really early and were one of the first in the room and spent ages in front.  I´ve heard of others who get to see it for a really short time because there are too many people there.
• Went up the Arc De Triomphe and saw the tomb of the unknown soldier
• Took a train to Versailles to see the palace of Versaille - http://www.monuments.ws/upload/palace-versailles-1.jpg An incredible place, and so much history.
• Went to Sacre Coeur - http://wa2.www.artehistoria.jcyl.es/ciudades/jpg/ABI29552.jpg;pv538d5412ce5e7a98 and the Montmarte artists area and had a portrait drawn of us.
• Went on a massive walk around the streets of paris and looked at the apartments and buildings
• Tried the french delicacy of snails!

We then caught a fast train to the South of France.

TOULOUSE

• Here we spent time with Bec´s family friends Miriam and Adrien
• They toured us around Toulouse and took us to a great restaurant above a market, where they use all the fresh foods from the market below.
• They also took us to a town called Albi.  Which has been listed as world heritage site by UNESCO. It can be traced back as far as 51BC and was home to the artist Henri Toulouse-Letrac and the discoverer Laperouse. They also have an amazing church - http://www.albi-tourisme.fr/us/pagesEditos.asp?id=8D9CB513&IDPAGE=133
• Next stop flight to Barcelona

BARCELONA

Spent the last couple of days with a friend of Bec´s from England.

Went and saw La Pedrera an apartment buidling designed by the famous architect Antoni Gaudi. http://www.lapedreraeducacio.org/eng/index.htm

Went to Park Guell. A park designed by Gaudi also, the houses at the entrance look lkike gingerbread houses. http://www.parkguell.es/en/gal.php

Walked the famous La Ramblas

Went to La Sagrada Familia. Achurch that is not at all like a church - http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/docs_instit/images.php

Went and saw FC Barcelona vs Sporting De Gijon play. Highlights here - http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xp7cii_barcelona-3-1-sporting-gijon_sport

having an amazing time.  A couple more days left in Barcelona before we head to Rome.

Andrew

Sorry for the delay.  Been super busy in Paris and there are actually not that many Internet cafe's around here. Many many more Internet cafe's in the 3rd world countries!

Paris is great - will write up about it properly in the next day or two.

So the last time I wrote we were about to head in to pick up our tickets for the Carnaval parade. Let's just say that was an adventure.


So we got up Saturday morning and decided to head to another Bloco (Street Party) this time on Copacabana beach, as with the last ones it turned out to be just as crazy, the dancing and music was already pumping when we arrived at 9am.  We decided that it was a bit early for a dance and headed into Centro to pick up our Carnaval tickets.

We jumped on the train to head in. (Great train system by the way) and this is where the fun began.  We walked out of the Centro train station and walked smack bang into the middle of another Bloco.  Unfortunately for us this time around it was one of the oldest and biggest bloco's - Bola Preta started in 1918 and last year they believe there was around 2 million people there!
here are some photos from this years:
http://sobreisso.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Bola-Preta.jpg
http://f.i.uol.com.br/folha/publicidade/images/1106595.jpeg
http://www.paraiba.com.br/2012/02/18/33470-bloco-bola-preta-arrasta-25-e-bate-galo-da-madrugada-como-maior-do-mundo (click to enlarge)

we battled our way through the crowd and finally made it to the office where we had to pick our tickets up from.  We had to queue for about 45 minutes (Brazillian's love to queue - I think it is a sport to them) and finally got our tickets.  We decided to then go to another train station and avoid Bola Preta, but of course there was anopther Bloco going on that we had to get through first.

Saturday we decided what else could we do - Go to another Bloco, so we headed back to the main avenue where the beach was and there were another 3 bloco's there, so we danced and partied until we had had enough.

Sunday we spent relaxing and getting ready for the parade.  Lazed by the pool and went for a walk along the beach. There is only one way to describe the parade - UNREAL!

Firstly we arrived at around 8:30pm and it was still 30 degrees.  It was so so hot and the parade ground is a street with a massive concrete grandstand on each side, so after sitting in the sun all day they were really hot. Anyway we got in and found a seat amongst all the locals and a really great time.

The first samba school started at 9pm (or just a bit after) and pretty much everyone stands and dances the whole time.  You sit for about the 10 minutes in between the end of one school and the start of the next.  Each school has 1 hour and 20 minutes to get along, + the breaks and their were 7 schools to see. So for the mathematicians - it went for a long time!  We ended up leaving after 4am and only the 5th school had just started.  I also think that most people were still there!

The costumes and dancing was amazing though and we are so glad we went. have so many photos, but they don't really do it any justice.  The floats that you see are enormous and the costumes that samba dancers wear are incredible.

We then flew out on Monday to Paris.  We had a stopover for the day in Zurich and headed into the centre of Zurich for the day.  It is a really beautiful city. very very old and very cold (ice and snow around). We arrived in Paris around 9:30-10.  Our hotel is a beautiful area, since we were late we grabbed some dinner and a nutella crepe and had a big sleep in thanks to very little sleep after the parade and then on the plane.

Been very busy since, spent today up the Eiffel Tower and then headed to the Palace of Versailles.

Since the last update we have moved on, experienced our first real taste of Carnaval and had lots of fun.

We spent 4 days on Ilha Grande which is a beautiful island about 3 hours south of Rio De Janeiro.  No cars and no banks on the island.  Funnily enough we stayed at a place called Jungle lodge, abouta 15 minute hike into the jungle away from the beaches! Amazing place and weird experience to have such beautiful beaches just below us. We took a boat cruise to Lopes Mendes beach - http://lh6.ggpht.com/_cMBmul_HcrY/TVnqFXAPvmI/AAAAAAAAAcw/Cr_SOihxTxE/lopes%20mendes.jpg

We snorkelled the blue lagoon. - http://www.hotel-ilhagrande.com/data/391/tour_913/230_lagoa_azul_1.jpg
http://lh3.ggpht.com/-hlqpbgF10tY/SiBMF2fvXAI/AAAAAAAADq8/haXKPxNOAoI/IMG_2909.JPG

After that, as Peter Allen said - I go to Rio - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODHHvAG67fI

We then headed into Ipanema (suburb of Rio) for 2 nights.  The beach at Ipanema was amazing. We did not find the girl from Ipanema (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWGRO9KH8Mc) however apparently she does exist. Spent ages one night just watching some guys skimboarding, there was one there who was 10-12 years old was awesome, but as someone described it is their playground.

Had our a bit of fun when we went to check out of the hotel. We went to check out and talking to reception about our next stop - "Oh that is a long way away", anyway the place that we had booked (months ago from Melbourne) in Rio for Carnaval turned out to be about an hour away ($100 taxi ride)

Anyway after some fun and games, some slightly stressful moments, we have cancelled the place and booked a new one in Copacabana so we are in the action!

So now we are in Copacabana for the next few days until Monday when we fly to Paris.

Since we moved, we went on a day tour of Rio -
Christ the Redeemer Incredible views, and an incredible statue - 38 metres high - http://www.espacoturismo.com/blog/wp-content/gallery/rio-de-janeiro-turismo/rio-de-janeiro-turismo-10.jpg
Sugar Loaf mountain - you can´t really see in the pic, but you ride a cable car between the mountains - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/PaodeAcucar.JPG/280px-PaodeAcucar.JPG
Maracana Football Stadium - currently being renovated for the world cup and olympics - it used to hold 200,000 people but now will hold less - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Maracana_Stadium.jpg
San Sebastio cathedral an amazing church, with the strangest design - http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/2219/catedral.jpg
and finally to a favela, which is the slums of Rio, the shanty towns.  There are 27 of these and only 16 have police in them.  The other 11 are run by the gangs to protect the illegal activities in them. There are no roads between the rows of houses so if you live at the top you have to walk or get a motorbike-taxi. - http://frugalchristianliving.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/favela.jpg

Yesterday we got our first taste of Carnaval with 2 Bloco´s. We still cannot figure them out, but the best way to describe them is a massive street party, with lots of music dancing, costumes and drinking.  They start at 9am in the morning and happen in all different suburbs and you just go from one to the next one. We even got interviewed for TV while there! Loads of fun and the drum band in the yellow shirts where really good.
http://di.imguol.com/carnaval/2012/02/17/folioes-lotam-as-ruas-de-santa-teresa-centro-do-rio-no-desfile-do-bloco-das-carmelitas-1722012-1329506130325_956x500.jpg

Today we heading into the centro to pick up our tickets for tomorrow night´s parade. Heading to another couple of bloco´s and probably rest on the beach for a bit too.

Ok so here´s the next update!

We flew to Brazil, of course silly us, the only chep flight we could get was 13hours and took us via Bolivia. This meant that we actually arrived in Sao Paulo, Brazil at about 4:30am. Not a particularly pleasant time to arrive anywhere.

We spent 1 day in Sao Paulo, we found out that by 2020 it is predicted to be the 12th largest city in the world! Which is not really surprising - it was a huge city.   We were actually very lucky as it just happened that there was a tour guide standing at the desk whenwe were trying to speak English to the non-english speaking staff.  He spoke English and gave us some great tips of places to visit in Brazil.

We left Sao Paulo on Saturday morning and headed to a place called Guaruja  a beautiful seaside town.  We actually booked a place owned by a guy who had lived for 9 years in Sydney!  We spent our first day there on the beach, had a luau down at the beach that night.  The second day we headed off to a seculded beach (or so we thought) only to be surrounded by 100s of Brazilians on the beach.

Our travel fun in Brazil continued as we found out when we went to leave that the only bus to our next location was at 10pm. So off we headed and arrived at the next location at 2am.  Which is where we are currently we have spent the last 3 days in a seaside town called Paraty (para-chi).  An amazing very old, but very happening town.

We have a fantastic place we are staying, the hosts are really great and have given us some great things to do. There are even monkeys who come to the back door each morning for breakfast.

Day One we headed off to a beach in a town called Trinidade.  We were given the direction how to get there on the local buses, which was an experience in itself, but fun!  This beach was amazing.  It was actually 3 beaches, a calm laying doing nothing beach, a surf beach and a natural lagoon created by a ring of enormous rocks.  We walked all the way to the lagoon and were amazed, fish everywhere and so calm and relaxing.  We were also very lucky MTV was in town to record a concert by Jorge Ben Jor (links Below) and a few other special acts.  We were told that the concert was essentially the equivalent of the Brazilian Mick |Jagger showing up.

On the second day we took it a bit easier and relaxed a bit, wandered around the town, but as expected it got so incredibly hot we had to leave.  We headed home and were about to go to the beach, when the owner said, hang on do you want to go to a waterfall instead?  So off we headed and he took us to a waterfall all the locals use (not a tourist in sight).  Was heaps of fun and so relaxing, we sat had a couple of drinks and fish for lunch.  Later that night we had anoher concert apparently by a Brazilian superstar - Ana Carolina (links below).  She was also very good, buyt a bit hard to understand in Portugese!

Today we ended up going out on a cruise around the islands nearby, a fantastic day and some amazing scenery.

Next stop is Ihla Grande or the big island.

Still getting used to Brazilian time.  They do everything so late here.  It´s not unusual to eat lunch around 3-5pm and then dinner at around 10-pm.

In brazil apprently nobody owns a stereo, everyone owns a car - that is if you feel like a party with some music, you just pull your car up as close as possible, crank the car stereo and leave the doors open.

Current temperature is 35+ everyday and it seems that the hottest part of the day runs from about 10am-4pm.  We have been told the Rio (our next stop) will be even hotter around 40 degrees!


Jorge Ben Jor (This is the actual concert)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt1GSwHlu4E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMn4ZacrUSQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Wrot_dS3s

Ana Carolina(This is the actual concert)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKtIpPyvy-g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwhc2CduVbM

Sorry for the lack of updates lately!

We spent a couple of days after the Inca trail in Cusco.  A really interesting old city that was considered as the centre of the world by the Inca´s.

Funnily enough we actually ended up catching up with a girl who lives 2 days down from us - the wonders of facebook.

We also did a free walking tour which was really good and learnt a lot about the city.


One story that I thought that was worth sharing before we left Peru -

The two days that we left Peru, I saw a little girl who I thought was probably 5-6 years old, she was selling on the street near the markets.  She was dirty, looked homeless and wasn´t making many sales.  On the second day I got up the courage to go and buy something from her and ask if I could take her photo.  She was more than happy to let me take her photo and I have some great photos of  her.  The funny part of it was what she was selling was $1 peruvian, I handed her $10 Peruvian. She looked at me with a huge grin as if to say-
a) I can´t give you change and
b) I´m not going to give you change.
Which was ok, as I ws going to give the $10 to her.
Through the language barrier she told me that she was 9 years old.
The photos of her holding the $10 Peruvian is amazing with the most massive smiles.  Bec and I then walked 10+ metres down the road and looked Bec to see her still grinning and admiring the note I had just given her (another great photo).
How easy to make someone happy for $4 Australian!!!!!

As to what I bought off her - she was selling what I would consider like eating a rock! (Sorry Emma!)
She was selling a treat in Peru, they dry roast broad beans and then roast them in the oven.  They seriously have no flavour and break your teeth if you bite them too hard....

Will do a Brazil update later - has been amazing so far. Incredibly hot 35+ degrees, Rio is expected to 5 degrees hotter too!

SURVIVED

OK so we have survived our trip into the Amazon jungle and the Inca Trail.  We are very smelly, sore and ready for a long massage!

The couple of days we spent in the jungle were interesting and we both had a really good time. Our trip to the lodge was one something similar to this photo - http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/assets/0711/0000/0180/boat_on_amazon_mid.jpg
We saw a lot of animals and had a good time, including a tarantula which was pretty exciting.

We then left and headed off on to begin our Inca Trail.  We both the most amazing time and both pushed beyond our limits to complete the 48km trail. Keep in mind when I mention distance and times that these are not walking on flat stretches, a lot of ups and downs, slippery steps and uneven paths.

The first day is considered the easy day.  Only a 13km walk in 5 hours.  It is actually a reasonably easy walk.  We only climbed 300m (from 2400 to 2700m above sea level). Camp One was at Wayllabamba.  Feeling fairly positive after day one, some small ruins on the way.

Day Two is the challenging day.  Not only is it long, but the hardest physical day and also no ruins to speak of so it is a full day of hiking, without much stopping.11km in 6 hours today, today we hit our highest peak 4250m above seal level and then back down to 3800m for camp..  Today turned a little worse for wear about 20 minutes from camp I rolled my right ankle fairly badly.  Of course when you in the middle of nowhere, there are no icepacks - so my icepack was to sit with it in the river.  Funnily enough it was so so cold it was probably better than an icepack.  It had swelled up that night and badly in the morning, but the solution - strap it and walk another 16km!

Day Three is described as the unforgettable day, it is the longest day (16km) and as I mentioned a fairly slow day with a sore ankle.  It took about 8 hours, which I was kind of happy with.  today we dropped back down to 2700m above sea level and it really is unforgettable there are a number of ruins on the way and you start to get the feel of the knowledge of the Incas and start to prepare for the final day!

The last day was really great, we awoke at 3:30am and headed to the checkpoint which opened at 5:30.  We were the first group there and when we finally got through the checkpoint we were the first group to get ot the sun gate and also to the fabled city of Machu Picchu.  All in all our arrival was slightly anti-climatic, the morning was very cloudy.  However in hindsight it's wuite funny looking at our photos as the day improved massively (we got sunburnt) and we were able to get some great photos and have a really nice look around.  It is amazing that the Spaniards never found Machu Picchu and destroyed it and we are so lucky to have been able to visit it.

We are both very sore and tired from the walk.  To add to the adventure, trains got cancelled due to a landslide so we couldn't get back, eventually sorted and we got back 12 hours later than expected.

The porters and chef were amazing they carry 20-25kg and almost run the trek.  I struggled to carry my day pack and they beat by at least an hour every day. Our oldest porter was 60.

We had 2 boys (sons of the chef) comeon the trek with us.  They are 9 and 11 years old, they looked like they had done the trek 100s of times, but it was actually their first time.  They too were incredible how quickly they did it.

Still having a really great time.  We are spending a couple of days in Cuzco (The Incan capital) and then fly to Brazil on Thursday.  We are flying to Sao Paulo and are making our way up to Rio for Carnival.

ok, since the last update no real news.

We had a couple of days in San Jose (against everyone's recommendations).  It was a nice place, simply a very big dirty city though.  Everyone there is very safety conscience.  We visted the national museum, gold museum and national theatre while there.  I was really surprised to find out that SJ was the 3rd city in the world to have electricity (after New York and Paris).

We then took our flight to lima.  We wandered around central Lima yesterday and it is a really interesting city.  Today we took a tour through the old city and went to a monastry and catacombs where they believe 25,000 people were buried. 

Meet up with tour group tonight, turns out only 2 others in the group.

If I don't get a chance to email before hand, i'll update again soon after the Inca trail.

Ps.  Leg is fine, antibiotics and some cream and it has almost completely gone.

Ok so on Friday we tooka 3 1/2 hour bus ride from San Jose to La Fortuna.  Apparently times don´t really work in Costa Rica as it turned out to be a 5 1/2 hour bus ride instead!

The 2 days in La Fortuna were really good.  We walked up the dormant volcano (which we never actually saw due to cloud cover), went to a waterfall, swam in natural hot springs from the volcano.  We also got to see the funniest bird on our walk theMontezuma Oropendula, the call of the bird is hilarious - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5QX5cDUk0o . I´m sure I´ve missed stuff from Fortuna but I can´t remember what else we got up to.


On Sunday we decided that we were going to move on from La Fortuna and we got a jeep-boat-jeep to our next stop of Monteverde.  Again what was meant to be a 3 hour ride turned out to be slightly longer, this time however it was because of a landslide we had to go the long way around, that being about 200m longer! When we arrived we decided to do a couple of things straight away, in the afternoon we went on a coffee/sugar/banana plantation tour. This was really cool and we got to make lollies out of the sugar syrup at the end.  We then went straight to our next stop which was a night forest walk, we met our tour guide Danilo who took us through the forest and showed us some really amazing stuff.  We got to see an active sloth, opossums, lizards, loads of insects and spiders and a side striped pit viper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bothriechis_lateralis) sitting perched and ready to strike.  I think Bec was most impressed by the leaf cutter ants, which were kind of nifty and also the huge nests that they make.  We then got back for dinnerat a really beautiful little restaurant, where the owner spoke no english, so the combination of that and our no spanish made ordering a little fun. We both had delicious meals and then at the end the owner and her 2 daughters came out with a cake and  to sing happy birthday to Bec in Spanish - turned out the owner of the hotel had told her when she booked the restaurant for us.


Yesterday we went into the cloud forest. We had the same tour guide and we were really glad about this, he was so knowledgable and you could tell he loved the forest and everything about it.  We laughed afterwards that he was like an excitable child whenever he found one of the animals.  We were again very lucky today with the animals we got to see white throated monkeys, the rare and beautiful quetzal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzal) we got the most amazing views both front and back of it and also another side striped pit viper.  Funnily enough we got up close with this one, about 5 in the group walked right past it (including the guide) and another member of the group spotted it, it was only a small one sitting beside the trail coiled ready to strike and yes Mum they are venomous.  We then went and had a traditional Costa Rican meal - Casado, we then spent the afternoon wandering around the town.  At one point we were very lost at the edge of the town, looking slightly lost a guy says to us "are you looking for is love?" we said no just lost, then he kind of dragged us on.  I thought that he was dragging us into his shop turned my bad interpretation was " are you looking for sloth?" and there was a sloth perched right there on the edge of the shops.

This morning we were waiting for our transport and Luis (The owner of the hotel) came and asked us if we had seen the sloth near our room. Of course not, right there in a tree no more than 10 metres from our room was a sleeping sloth.  I´m looking forward to getting home and watching it after dusk. We have just been on a jungle treetop walk through hanging bridges and looking at different types of Costa Rican reptiles.

K, so a few days since the last update so here is what we have been up to!

So we arrived in Tulum on Friday afternoon, a really nice little town and sweet owners of the hotel.  We went for a wander around the town when we arrived and decided we should go check out the beach.  What we thought was 3-4km walk turned out to be more like a 8-10km walk, eventually in the heat we gave up and decided to grab a taxi and what fun that was.  No more than 200m down the road, the taxi driver pulls over "uno momento" as the taxi begins to overheat and he frantically tries to get water into the radiator, he really didn't want to let us go but eventually we just walked off and got another taxi.  When we got to the beach, it was stunning, Bec described it as the most beautiful beach she had ever seen.  The sunset was amazing.  We sat at one of the beach bars, mind you on a swing at the bar, very peaceful way to relax.

Day two in Tulum we decided to take a trip to a place called Xel-HA (Shell Ha), it's half theme park, half nature reserve.  I think essentially it is a theme park that has been dumped right on top of a nature reserve.  We made sure we go their nice and early to avoid the crowds.  The first thing we did was went snuba diving, this is a combo of snorkeling and scuba, scuba mask and the oxygen tanks are floated on a raft above you.  This was really cool and we got to go all around the bay and feed all sorts of different fish that live there.  Had a great day at Xel-Ha.

Sunday in Tulum we headed off to the tulum ruins, even though starting to be a little ruined out, these were again interesting as they are built on a cliff obviously to have control of the seas and see who approached.  We then went to the Grand Cenote, the cenotes exist all around this part of Mexico and are a series of underground rivers and caves that the Mayan people used for water.  Essentially all cenotes are linked and you could swim between them all, they have the clearest water and we timed it perfectly as the afternoon sun shone into the Grand Cenote.  We swam between two of the caves, and as we swimming through bats flew above us, a strange kind of experience.

We moved on Monday to a tiny little town called Akumal Bay which is Mayan for home of the turtles and we soon found out why. Akumal Bay is actually 2 bays - Akumal beach and Halfmoon bay, on Monday when we arrived we lounged around on the beach for a bit, then went snorkeling on Akumal beach.  Akumal beach has an enormous reef which means it is quite protected and calm at one end and then at the other end is open so good waves for surfing.  We snorkeled around for a while with all kinds of fish and enormous sea urchins - luckily I had spotted the spanish sign telling us to be aware of them.

Tuesday morning we went into Halfmoon bay. In Akumal Bay turtles lay their eggs in both bays, but what really makes it home of the turtles is half moon bay.  The turtles are not laying eggs at the moment, but the adults always return to Half Moon Bay, the bay is made up of one small reef and the rest is all sea grass - which the turtles love and come back to eat.  We saw 4 turtles while we snorkeled around, as we floated above them, they happily ate the grass from the bottom below us.  We even head one swim up to check us out and poke his head out of the water right in front of us. Amongst a variety of tropical fish we also got to see a stingray as well.

We then caught a collectivo (These are like a 12-15 seat taxi, but make frequent stops to pick up or drop off others, but at $2.50 for any distance they are too good to pass up) to Playa Del Carmen.  Everyone had told us that Playa was very touristy and it was.  Heavily American influenced, but at the same time a really nice place, again great beaches and 5th Avenue (the main shopping strip) was a hive of activity and almost a zoo of "have your photo with" - monkeys, boa constrictor, baby lions, tigers or pumas. 

Day 2 in Playa Del Carmen was spent lazing around the beach, we deliberately tried to make the day as lazy as possible as we wanted to come out later in the night to see how much the street and town really livened up, unfortunately our plans were thwarted.  We headed back into the town around 6pm found a nice bar for a drink and then went to start wandering the street to find somewhere to have dinner and it started bucketing down, we hid ourselves in one of the shops while we waited for it to pass. Unfortunately the storm didn't let up for about half an hour.  We got talking to one of the workers and he told us that most of the shops would simply shut as there would be nobody out shopping anyway!

Thursday was spent flying to our next destination - Costa Rica (With a stop off in El Salvador too), can't really tell much about Costa Rica just yet as we only arrived at midnight after a 4 hour delay on our flight.  Today we are heading to a town called la Fortuna where there is an active Volcano and often at night you can see the embers and lava flowing from it.

hope you are all well.

OK so it's been a couple of days since the last update, but really we haven't been quiet.

On the 2nd we took a 4 and 1/2  hour bus ride to a town called Merida, the largest city in the state of Yucatan.  It is a smallish city inland built in between the two Mayan ruins sites of Chichen Itza and Uxmal.  A really interesting town and certainly by far the most authentic Mexican experience so far.   Whilst I have called it a city, just over a million people, it is really funnily like a small town.   The first night we arrived we heard there was a big band playing and dancing down in the town square, so we wandered off for a look and low behold there was a big band playing plusseveral hundred people dancing, not as a demonstration just for the joy of it, was quite funny joining in with all these Mexicans, not understanding the instructions and making up our own dances.  Last night at midnight fireworks started a big celebration as it is the 470th anniversary of when Merida was conquered by the Spanish - seemed a weird one to celebrate.

The first thing we did was head to Walmart - weird I know..... but Bec's bag decide not to work so we had to go and buy her a new suitcase.

We then had a day trip off to see Chichen Itzma, one of the new seven wonders of the world and then another day/night trip to Uxmal.  Both of these are ancient Mayan ruins they believe dating back to the year 500, so roughly 1500 years old.  Both were really amazing places, according to the locals Uxmal is equally as important as Chichen Itza, however we much preferred Uxmal, far fewer people and you could actually climb the ruins! Which was actually quite scary, one pyramid which was built for the king to sit on a throne at the top had the steepest stairs, was very slow coming back down.  We stayed at Uxmal for a sound and light show in the night, where they told a story about the history of Uxmal and all the ruins were lit up at different points.

We also had our first experience with Mexican police! Not us, but the bus driver at least.  The police are everywhere and funnily enough drive with their lights on everywhere.  The police set up road blocks and randomly pull people over to check for drugs/guns, last night on the way home our bus was waved in and the driver questioned for his paperwork and torches shined in the bus to make sure that there was nothing dodgy going on!

Next, today another bus trp to a new town, back to the beaches of Tulum.  The buses here are excellent, they even have different classes of bus, ours a 3 star bus with a toilet and just 3 tv's on board to the 5 star bus with wifi and tv's for everyone.

hope you are all well.

Andrew

New Year´s Eve

Well, what a surreal experience! The town square was where we went and partied with tourists from around the world and local mexicans.
We danced into the wee hours to aband that can only be described as an 11 piece Mexican boy band a bit like human nature, with some crazy dance moves - They even had one guy who just danced, no instrument, no singing just danced! A very strange experience dancing away to words that we did not understand!

All in all a really fun night, that started with all the locals cramming into the church for a new years eve service before finally finishing and starting the NYE celebrations around 11:50. Locals who did not go to church did not arrive in the square till after 11 - everything happens late here and in what seems in true mexican style, the fireworks went off at six in the countdown. People were still partying at 10 this morning when Bec and I awoke.

 Other things from Isla Mujures
* This is the place to be in Mexico, just beautiful and so so relaxed, sad to be leaving.
* Tacos should be soft not like CC's

Hope you are all well.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well it's already new year for you guys but we are just about to start
celebrating the new year here. We have become very mexican already and had a
nice siesta this afternoon to prepare for the evening!

We are currently on Isla Mujeres a most beautiful place, very relaxed,
friendly people. Has beautiful beaches and is really amazing.

Today we spent the morning out on a snorkeling tour, we snorkelled over reefs
with amazing fish, coral and other underwater gems. Even as we were getting in
the boat for the last time a 1-2metre stingray swam under us. There is also an
underwater "art museum" (http://www.news.com.au/travel/world/human-statues-for-cancun-and-isla-mujeres-underwater-art-museum/story-e6frfqai-1225940715381)
which was interesting. The sunken VW beetle was pretty strange.

When we got back we hired a taxi to take us around the island (remember the
island is only 7.5km in length!) so in one hour we had traverlled the whole
island, stopped many times for photos and even called into the taxi driver's
house so he could see his family! The real reason for the trip though was to
see ancient Mayan ruins.

Having heaps of fun and amazing weather.

The adventure begins

The adventure has well and truly started! Actually it started at Melbourne airport when we went to check in and they asked if we had our USA Visa - No! Thanks Travel Agent.....
Anyway made it safely to the US, spotted Jason Segal (How I met your mother) at the airport.  Mexico city was really nice - The real Mexico.  A lot like St Kilda or Brunswick in Melbourne.  Had real tacos - tacos have a soft shell not hard like we are use to.  Wandered around Condesa this morning, interesting place and then flew to Cancun.  Cancun is a lot like the Surfers of Mexico, very heavily US influenced and lots of tourists.  We asked someone where we should visit in Mexico, their answer - "Not Cancun".
We leave tomorrow to head to Isla Mujeres, we just found out that the Isla is only 9 kilometres  in circumference, sounds like a might have a long walk ahead of me.
Hope you are all well.

Moulin Rouge

Very excited that Moulin Rouge is all booked! Thursday 23rd February here we come! Hoping that I get to see Kylie Minogue while we are there!

So now it gets real

Well Thursday was the last day of work, now we can actually start to pack, plan, get nervous and more importantly get excited about the trip. 
So where are we going:
Melbourne
Mexico
Costa Rica
Peru
Argentina
Brazil
Switzerland
Spain
Italy
France

What is this site???

Well, this is the start of Andrew and Bec's big adventure and this is the little space on the Internet that we can try to update with all the highs of our trip.

Who knows how regularly we'll update, but we will try....

So today marks the start of the unofficial countdown - 81 days till we take off and I figured out earlier today that we will be away for 15 weeks!

As we make more bookings we'll try and add them to the calendar below to give at least some idea of where in the World we are, but plans are also open to be changed.