The End of the Road

6 months, 12 countries, and 10,000 kilometers later we are finally back in the UK. Our amazing trip is over, which is kind of sad, but is also quite satisfying. It's a nice feeling to be back at home, sitting on your couch with a GOOD cup of tea, and know that you really did do the thing you've been saying you were going to do for four years, and that it was just as great as you thought it would be.

Now all we have to do is chill out for a week or two, before moving on to the next part...namely getting a life of some kind. Scary but also really exciting!

Anywho, thanks for reading our blog and for posting all your comments! We hoped you liked our photos, there are 8000 more of those we've got to sift through now. That should keep us busy during our unemployment!

Take care all,
Becky and Pete x

Underwater Photos

As promised here are a few of the underwater photos of the Whale Sharks I had developped. A bit blurry, but you can still make it out!

Oaxaca

Between the two beaches we took a detour to Oaxaca which is a very nice colonial city a bit further inland. It´s a very pretty place to walk around and do our last shopping spree. It´s also the place where we had the unfortunate task of extending my visa (as the guy ticked the wrong box when I entered the country). Sadly for me this was not straight forward, and we spent 4 hours running around the city trying to find things in order to satisfy the terms of the migration office. Slightly ironic as all I really wanted to do was leave the country, I had half a mind to ask them to deport me - would have been simpler!

From Oaxaca we also visited our last ruin of the trip, Monte Alban. It´s not quite as grand as some of them but had some great views.

More Beaches

We had two more beaches on our hit list, Zipolite and Puerto Escondido. Both lovely Pacific beaches although swimming isn´t quite as good as the Caribbean due to the Mexican pipeline (very big wave) found in this area. Anyway very nice place to soak up our last few sun rays and sit in our last few hammocks. I also mangaged to do my final goal of this trip, horse riding along a beach at sunset. I even got Pete on a horse too!

San Cristobal

Spent a good few days in San Cristobal as we thought it was so lovely. We loved the slightly cooler mountain air, and exploring the pretty pedestrian streets, churches and markets and the like. Also, I had my very first proper coffee all to myself (seeing as it's the land of coffee here so I thought I might as well try to fit in). It was alright, although I found found that sugar is definitely the key.





We also went on a tour to see some of the villages in the surrounding hills. One of them, San Juan Chamula, is particularly traditional and is the only remaining community to use a completely Mayan governing structure (according to our guide). It's an interesting place, with the highlight being the church, which you aren't allowed to take pictures in by law. Its floor is covered in pine needles and there are candles everywhere, and the rituals go on pretty much all day, which is part of the reason you can't photograph it. From what we understand, they worship Mayan gods but using Christian symbols (in order to keep certain missionaries happy). For instance, the sun god seems to be masquerading as John the Baptist.



Anyway, moving on to the beach (again) now!

Cities, ruins and beaches

Since the whale sharks we´ve been fairly busy but not too good at updating the blog! We left Isla Holbox very early (4:15 am) and got a ferry and then a bus to Merida on the western side of the Yucatan Peninsula. Merida is a fairly big city and while quite pretty in the centre there wasn´t really a whole lot to do there. Luckily we stayed in a very cool hostel with a pool and they gave Becky and Jenny a free salsa lesson. After a little relaxing in Merida we set off to go to Isla Mujeres back over on the eastern side of the peninsula as Jenny was catching her flight from cancun in a few days.


On the way we stopped at Chichen Itza which is supposed to be one of the new seven wonders of the world. It´s a mayan site but from a bit later on than most of the others and is apparently quite influenced by the toltecs. In all it wasn´t quite as impressive as some of the other sites we´ve seen tho it was still pretty interesting. It had a lot more emphasis on human sacrifice with skulls carved around the place and carvings of people being decapitated. Also interesting was the massive ball court where they used to play some kind of game where the loosing team was decapitated and sacrificed!



We later got to Isla Mujeres and spent a few days relaxing at the (very touristy but nice) beach, and also visited a little turtle sanctuary.





On Tuesday we saw Jenny off in the morning and later on we caught a night bus down to Palenque to see some more Mayan ruins! These were much more interesting and impressive and unlike Chichen Itza they were still surrounded by dense jungle and you were allowed inside a few of the pyramids to see the tombs.





We´re now in a really nice little town called San Cristobal de las Casas. It´s very interesting and less touristy too and thankfully it is much cooler as it´s quite high up in coffee country. It is nice to not be sweating constantly!

We´re all about the Marine Animals....

So continuing with the trend of ´things I´ve always wanted to do´ (which I realise has a lot to do with swimming with aquatic animals), we have headed to Isla Holbox, a few hours north of Cancun. This time of year is the perfect time to see whale sharks (which for those of you who are not in the know, are the biggest fish in the world). Now some might say that knowingly getting into the water with an eight meter long shark is a stupid idea, but luckily these ones only eat plankton. They come really close to the surface here because it´s where the Caribbean meets the Gulf of Mexico and the currents push the plankton to the surface (or so I´m told anyway). Oh and by the way - eight meters is actually a small one, apparently they can get to 20!!



So anyway, we took a tour to go and snorkel with them. They are fairly well protected which is good, and it meant that only three people including the guide were allowed in the water with it at once - which was nice because snorkelling tours can get very crowded! I was practically hopping up and down with impatience waiting for my turn. When I finally got in I was totally blown away. You can see it from the surface because it comes up and you can sometimes see the top of its mouth as it feeds (see photo), and it looks pretty big - but in the water it looks just enormous! It´s so incredible to be allowed to swim along with this enormous animal in its natural habitat. You kind of feel like an intruder, it´s quite awe inspiring really. It´s so magnificent and graceful, and they´re so hard to see everywhere else, I felt really really lucky.

Unfortunately for us, our trip was cut short because a guy accidentally hit his head really badly on the ladder of the boat, so we had to take him back. I was pretty disappointed just because I´ve been waiting so long for this, so I decided I would go back the next day as well. This turned out well for me, as we saw two more and I got much longer with them as well. The guide even pulled me over the top of it so I was looking down at it! It was so incredible - I could have stayed there forever looking at it.

Anyway, I took some photos with my little underwater camera, but I have to wait to get them developped (very old-school I know), so I can´t post them here I´m afraid. The photo at the top of the page is the best - the fin you see is only its dorsal fin - the whole shark is twice the length you can see! The second photo is the top of it´s mouth from the surface.



On the same tour we also saw a manta ray (above) which was about 3 meters across, and we saw some flying fish, dolphins, two turtles, and snorkelled with a big group of smaller cow-nosed rays. I know I´m gushing about this a lot - but it made me so happy! If you ever get the chance to see these things - do it, and then do it again!

DOLPHINS!!

So yes it might be a total splurge and not within my budget plan, but I DON´T CARE! I´ve always wanted to swim with dolphins, and although we sort of did it in Bolivia, they were wild river dolphins that are very shy of people so we couldn´t get that close. So Jen and I decided that now was the time, and we all went for the day at this really cool marine park not far from Tulum. It´s quite a big, very beautiful cove that´s seperated from the caribbean by a floating bridge. You can snorkel around the bay all day, and visit cenotes (pretty little water holes), and all your food and drink (and alcohol) is included in the entrance, so of course we made the most of that!



Anyway, by far the highlight was the dolphin swimming of course. We were in a group of six, plus one trainer and two dolphins. We got to stroke them, and hold them and ´dance´ with them (where you hold their flippers in a dance-like fashion while they wriggle around a bit - very cute). They also give you a dolphin kiss! Then we did this foot-push thing, where you lie in the water and they come up behind you and push one foot each with their noses. Provided you keep your knees straight, you then get pushed forward out of the water really fast (like superman). Word to the wise - very well fitting clothing recommended if attempting this particular activity.





At the end we all lined up and four dolphins jumped right over the top of us. It was all so cool!! Felt like it was over too fast of course, but in my opinion definately worth the slightly crazy expense.

Tulum

We´re in Mexico! Quite nice to be in our final country with no more border crossings to do! We´re in a very small little beach town called Tulum which is on the Yucatan peninsula so it´s got beautiful turquoise caribbean sea to swim in and awesome really fine white sand. The town is also pretty chilled out which is good. It´s also nice to be somewhere where they take a little more pride in their food, ie everyone´s heard of Mexican food but who´s heard of Guatemalan or Nicaraguan food? (not that it´s that bad but here is better!)



Anyway we´ve spent our days chilling out by the beach, getting a little sunburnt and looking round the Mayan ruins which are right on the beach which makes a change from being in the middle of the jungle.

Rio Dulce

After Tikal we went down to Rio Dulce in the south east of Guatemala. We stayed at a very nice jungle eco lodge (again) although this one was really cool because you could only get to it by boat, as it was down a pretty little waterway coming off the main river. The cabins were all connected by boardwalks over the water.

On our first day we met a few other people from the hostel and we all went to the Finca Paraiso, which is a really beautiful spot in the jungle where a hot thermal waterfall flows into a cold lagoon. It´s so surreal standing in the forest having a hot shower, with your feet in a cold river. Was really gorgeous. Only problem was that the little fish kept trying to eat Jenny because her back was peeling from the sunburn!



The day after we took a trip along the river to Livingston. It was a very picturesque trip because the jungle rises in huge cliffs on either side of the river. It´s very Lord of the Rings. We stopped at a cute little place along the way where the water is covered in lily pads, and there are green parrots in the trees.

Tikal

In Guatemala now and today we went to Tikal. If you havn´t heard of it, it´s one of the most impressive and intact Mayan ruins in the world. We set off from our hostel at about 4:45am to get there by about 6:30. Because we weren´t on a guided tour we were able to walk straight to the grand plaza before most people got there so we had it practically to ourselves for about 20 minutes before the groups started arriving. The grand plaza is very impressive, it´s two big pyramids facing each other with a alter thing in the middle, and to the sides are smaller pyramids and carved stones and buildings.



We spent quite a while wandering round the enormous site going up the biggest pyramids and having amazing views. The site is very deep in the jungle so when you´re at the top of the pyramids you can see nothing but jungle in every direction except for the tops of a few pyramids pointing out the top!



The jungle is pretty impressive and we saw a howler monkey on the way in as well as some toucans and parrots. Throughout the day you can hear the howler monkeys in the jungle which adds to the atmosphere though they sound more like a dinosaur (I´d imagine) than a monkey.

Caye Caulker

We took a flight from San Jose to Belize City, and somehow we managed to accidentally end up with first class seats! We felt so out of place sitting there in our walking boots and shorts, people kept walking past us into the econmomy section (which we now call the commoners section) giving us puzzled looks. When the stewardess came over to us I was so ready to brandish my ticket because I was convinced she was going to ask us to move - but she just wanted to offer us free drinks! Anyway, enough about our first class experience...



Got to the airport and met Jenny about half an hour later. Took a water taxi straight out to an island called Caye Caulker, which is a very tiny, very sweet little caribbean island surrounded by a beautiful barrier reef. On our first afternoon we didn´t do too much other than organising our snorkelling trip for the next day. We opted for a full day on a sailboat stopping at three different sites to snorkel. We hired an underwater digital camera but sadly it wasn´t working properly so no photos! The trip was amazing though. We swam with manta rays, stingrays, nurse sharks, reef sharks, moray eels, barracudas, and lots of fish from Finding Nemo! The best bits though were the manatees and the turtles! Both so cool to see them swimming about in the wild. We saw them so close up too, which was really lucky. On the boat trip back we sat out on the deck and drank (slightly weird) rum punch, and listened to reggae whilst dolphin spotting. All in all a pretty cool day!



Had one more day to relax here (see hammock photos!)whilst Jen got over her sunburn from the day before, before heading to Guatemala via a stop in the Belize Jungle near San Ignacio. Stayed in a very lovely little eco-lodge with very cool jungle cabins, complete with composting toilets and rainwater showers!