helpful hints for travelling in coastal areas.

So, as I only have until next Thursday before my flight home from LA (I arrive back in Hobart Nov 28th!) I'm currently relaxing by the Panamanian seaside (Bocas del Toro). It is a well known fact that you haven't really been travelling unless you come home with a super awesome tan and too many hippy things tied to your writes and ankles. So I'm spending my days busily trying to conform.

A few tips for backpacking by the beach:

• Headscarfs are essential. They help to give you that hippy/ traveller/ I'm so confident look, whilst also hiding your greasy/ salt watery hair. Score!
  

• Bracelets. Muy importante! especially when travelling in developing countries. don't be an amature and travel with empty wrists. It looks like you've come right off the plane, which is not cool. What you're trying to go for is the 'I've been travelling all my life look'.
  

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  The tan. Soooo necessary! You really don't look like you've been travelling unless you come home with a good tan. And I mean a few shades darker than you would possibly ever go at home. So you'll have to share your time wisely between actually seeing stuff in the local area and laying on the beach. I found that you have to be creative on the beach if the clouds come over or the wind is blowing too much to enjoy lying down and reading.

• or alternatively you can just hang out with really white people. It makes you look way darker, so therefore way more traveller like. I personally tend to go with both these tanning options. ;)
  

Yes, there are many unwritten travelling rules. These are just some beachside starting essentials. Any other hot tips?

Two-toed Sloth Hunting in Costa Rica

Costa Rica, is a mystical land in Central America. It feels very different to the other central American countries in that mass-tourism has most definitely arrived, things were noticeably more expensive and the US influence was sometimes just a little too much. BUT, it is also home to some beautiful rain and cloud forests and volcanoes, and rare animals - including, yep SLOTHS!

So even though I felt a little out of place without my zip-off chino's, college sweatshirt and hiking boot combo (sometimes even coupled with the dreaded bum bag) I ventured into the Cloud Forests of Monteverde to search out the illusive Sloth! (even though, let's be honest, I had no idea what a sloth was or did before I went hunting them out in Costa Rica!)

Steph and I with our excited Sloth hunting faces on

Steph (my English friend who came out to meet me for 2 weeks, yey!) and I forked out the extra dosh and had our own private guide to increase our chances of spotting one. Plus he was a little like the Steve Irwin of the Costa Rican cloud forest world...so even if we didn't see anything, he was totally worth it!

But guess what?? We did see a sloth!

We were told that it is quite rare to spot them during the day because they like their sleep. So even though it was hard to see without the binoculars, we spotted one! (and yes, our fearless guide assured us that this is indeed a sloth and not a stuffed animal that someone placed in a tree as a joke!) He is facing away from the camera..shy little thing.

On the trek we also saw 3 rare Quetzal birds and humming birds!

I am so David Attenborough.

(although I don't think he gets to travel to the forests in an old school bus!)

Caribbean Diving Love!

The last week of October I was diving in Utila, Honduras! I really wanted to upload the 10 min awesome video of fun highlights from my course...but blogger really doesn´t like uploading big things :( So photos will have to do! Unfortunately I don´t have an underwater camera so they are all from above the water.

The week of diving got me really hooked! And learning in the Caribbean sea just happened to add to the pot of awesomeness! The trials of the week were having a permanent mask mark on my head and a Rudoff red nose from too much sun!

I completed the PADI Open Water Diver qualification, and went from the idea of diving making me nervous, to absolutely loving it and not wanting to leave!!

...and I had a great course group and instructors to enjoy the experience with.

Plus, Utila was also the place for discovering the Super Baleada goodness. Sarah and I lived on these for the week! Here is a particularly scary photo of me enjoying my last Honduran Baleada on the ferry back to the mainland.

Days that change days

´It was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it and think how different its course would have been. Pause, you who read this, and think for a long moment of the long chain of iron and gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on that memorable day.'

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Thanks for that coffee in Oomph this time two years ago Hayley. For me, this was one of those 'life-would-have-been-different-if-it-wasn't-for-that-day' sort of days.

this was not actually the Oomph coffee day, but the Florence, Itlay coffee drinking day. close enough!

It's always the end in sight that makes you think back to the beginning. And from the beginning to the end, I've been humongosly blessed :)

3 weeks and counting!

Volcano boarding!

Yes folks, you heard it correctly, Volcano boarding! and it is pretty much exactly as it sounds!

I´ve just arrived in Nicaragua, which I´m love love loving! just for you ;) and I had to try out the craziness that all Central American backpackers are raving about!


Step 1:

Find a Volcano and a ute with a crazy driver...

Step 2:

Climb said active volcano *this bit requires all the work, especially when having to drag a board with you!*

Step 3:

Admire amazing views, smell the sulfur, get scared looking over the edge of the 41 degree slope you're about to board down, then suit up in gorgeous orange protective suits and goggles!

Step 4:

Find someone with a speed gun and grab a partner to race against, sit on the board at the top of the volcano and gggooooooo!!

NB: If your racing partners happens to be a crazy Dutch girl who gets up to 69kph (as opposed to poor me who only managed 30kph...I just couldn't stay on!), a bit of love and bandaging could also be required!

Nicaragua is shaping up to be a very cool country!

PS. I've come back from spending a week diving and generally relaxing in Utila, Honduras. I have a fun video of a few of my final dives that I'm trying to upload and share if blogger will only let me. It's been loading for over an hour now, umm...crossing fingers and toes!

Mayan family homstay

My last two days have been some of the most humbling and rewarding I've experienced. I stayed with a local Mayan family in a small village on Lake Antitlan in the highlands of Guatemala. The village has just started a 'homestay' experience with some of the local families, so we stayed and slept and ate with the local families for two days. It was amazing, but also very confronting! I have been in a lot of countries with poverty and where the way of life is very basic, but actually living it for a few days really made the reality much more real.

I stayed with the Piatz family, who live in a simple concrete/ corrugated iron house. They have electricity, but no fridge, hot water or running water in the kitchen.

But they have the sweetest kids, Ingrid, 6, and Daniel ,6 months, (plus heaps of cousins who live upstairs) who were so excited to play with us! They were especially excited when we gave them some small gifts and Tasmanian souvenirs!

One of the highlights was dressing up in the traditional dress and having a special dinner with the different village families who had us 'gringos' to stay. It was fantastic, and the kiddies are just sooooooo cute!!! (Hayley you seriously would have melted!) ...Plus I got to feel like a giant for a few days ;)

Sometimes adjustments take a while.

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but I still love you sweet blog!
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It's just over the last two and half weeks I've had to start adjusting to poke-your-eyes-out super sllllloooooowww internet or way too expensive internet that my traveller budget can't stretch to, or just no internet access at all. I am adjusting. slowly.
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But stay tuned, cause I've been up to too much excitement not to share! The week in Cuba was crazy amazing and but I'm now thanking God I live in a capitalist country! I celebrated my 25th birthday smoking Cuban cigars, drinking mojitos, driving around in a big 'ol 1950's American car and of course, *trying* to dance salsa! I've beached it up on the Mexican Caribbean coast, snorkeling with sting rays, manatees, dolphins, sharks (the non people eating kind) and lots of fish and coral off the Belizian coast, and now feel half Latino/ Caribbean African when I sing along to too much Bob Marley with the Caribbean air blowing through on the Belizian buses
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Yep. I do love Central America. (and that's even though I missed out on caving through Mayan cave ruins here in Belize today cause I had the yuckiest of yuck tummy/ bowel problems. Damn you San Ignacio chicken burrito.)

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** and sorry about the silly full stops between the paragraphs. blogger is being funny and if I don't put them in it won't leave me a space there. investigation needed.**

Letters from the typewriter return...

wearing practical footwear and fake RayBans on a bench with a fast-food-junkie turtle in Mexico City.

Dear ugly practical footwear,
I know that I do need you in the wet season and humidity of Central America, it´s just that it takes a little time to adjust to you being not so streamlined and a little too obvious. But then again, I do like that you are kind of pink.


Dear Yougurtland,
I fell hard for you in San Diego, I think you should get talking to some Tassie franchisers about opening a shop in Hobart! Ummm, self serve gourmet frozen yogurt with everything on top. Bliss with so much less guilt!


Dear Tassie friends,
I cannot wait to see you all very soon! I´ve finally booked my flight home and arrive back on the 28th of November! yippe!


Dear aching muscles and cough that sounds like I have smoked a-pack-of-day for 20 years,
You have exactly 12 hours to go away, cause you will certainly not be welcome with me in Cuba!


Dear boat guide at the Sumidero canyon in Mexico,
Thanks for guiding our boat through the most beautiful Sumidero canyon on Tuesday. It was magical! But next time if you could possibly not suddenly yell from behind me to point out the crocodile on the shore. I know it´s not your fault, but it gave me a fright and my trendy fake RayBan sunglasses fell off my head and into the water. Yep, so I´m now back to two.


Dear future perfect job,
Just letting you know that you can arrive anytime around the mid December/January time. You´ve been on my mind a fair bit lately and I´m quite excited to see what you actually look like!


Dear 25,
Ok, so I know you´re coming up really fast and I´ve been a teeny bit tepid about your arrival. But I´m just letting you know that I am now fully ready and waiting for next week! Even though you really are part of the 'mid twenties' group (and the next tick box), every year so far has just been getting better, so I have total faith that you will be no different :)


Love from Mexico,
Bridge xx

Viva Mexico!

Think of every Mexican stereotype possible......got it? Ok, now this is exactly what I was confronted with when I arrived in Mexico City on Tuesday afternoon! But these were real life Mexicans playing out the scene! Because Tuesday just so happened to be Mexican Independence Day eve!

Did anyone say parrrrtaaay (oh, and shaving cream, fake bushy mustaches, Latino-hip-jiggling music, sombreros and fireworks!)

Such a fun introduction to Mexico!

Then Wednesday was Independence Day proper, I watched the parade with other friends from the hostel. I think being Australian has tainted my view of a national day, I was expecting fun floats and school children, but instead it was pretty much a display of the Mexico military power - tanks, guns, thousands of solders marching, fighter jets, but there was a very cool marching band :)

Viva Mexico!

*ps. Mexico City is nothing like I'd expected, it's clean, safe, modern and the people are uber friendly!

New Glasses!

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Travelling with a backpack doesn't allow you to have too much variety with the wardrobe, so for me accessories have become essential to mixing things up and not feeling like I look the same in every picture! (exciting note: I have now gotten my pack weight to below 14kg! My back is loving me!)

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Soooo. this is all justification, cause I just bought my 3rd pair of sunglasses! They're Big and Red!

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So the new sunglasses reminded me of these ultra cool glasses I had fun trying on at a street market in Barcelona.

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Yep, I'm bringing in a whole new kind of trend!