Entry to Jamaica, Mon

After Cuba, we’ve now arrived in Jamaica (for 10 days). We are planning to meet our friends Ena and Cónall here and looking forward to it :) Cónall has given us his address:

“22 University Crescent...but there are several 22s on University Crescent so go to the one with the red gate”.

We’re guessing this is going to be another interesting country!

The Rest of Cuba

Since we didn’t have access to reliable internet during our stay in Cuba, we’ll summarise the rest of our trip briefly....

Varadero - 23km of white sandy beaches and crystal clear water. This is what Varadero is all about....so this is what we did for 4 days. Beach :) This included a fantastic half day snorkelling around a beautiful coral reef and cave. Oh yeah, and Kadi opened the shower curtain one day and a frog jumped out and into her hair. Scary stuff!

Vinales - A beautiful scenic mountainous area. During our time there, Livan (the guy from our Casa) took us to a local (illegal) cock-fight hidden in a discreet location in the valley. There was makeshift ring erected and the place was a frenzy of activity. They actually cut a toe off the cocks and tie a piece of sharp plastic (or a blade) to the foot in its place to enable them to fight better! Quite an interesting experience to watch one cock fight another (to the death!) and to watch how absorbed the locals are in it, but a bit unsettling after a while.

Stan! – By coincidence, on the morning of our departure from Ireland, we discovered that Conor’s old skydiving friend from Slovakia, Stan Kostka, would happen to be in Cuba at the same time as us. So we met up with Stan (and his travelling companion Martin) in Vinales, and stayed with them for the rest of our time in Cuba.

Trinidad – We spent our final few days in this old Colonial town. It’s a really pretty town built 500 years ago and still well preserved. Scattered forest fires in the mountains around the town provided a spectacular sight in the evenings. On the last morning, we took a horse ride out into the countryside leading to a secluded waterfall. Here, we finally met the first Irish guy on our travels, and of course he was the one jumping off the 8m cliff edge into the water...so we had to follow him :)

Che Guivara – Everywhere we went in Cuba, Che was watching over us. He is everywhere. T-shirts, postcards, murals, books, artwork, souvenirs, etc. We’ve never seen a country latch onto an icon the way the Cubans latch on to Che Guivara. On a few occasions, we’ve had people try to sell us 3 peso bills of their local currency because it has Che’s picture on it.

Havana

Mexico was nothing like we expected. But Cuba was everything we were expecting. Salsa music is playing everywhere. Cubans are very proud of their cigars, their rum, their wall murals, their music and Che Guevara and this is especially evident in their Capital city, where each are found in abundance.

Conor’s Dad had asked him for a Fidel Castro t-shirt (because Che t-shirts are just too common) but in all our searching, we couldn’t find any. It appears that Fidel t-shirts are non-existent. (We later asked a taxi driver why this was and he explained that Fidel just wouldn’t be in to having his face on a t-shirt....we’re sure there’s more to it than that.)

Although it is a busy city with a population of 2-3 million people, we found Havana to be a nice calm, relaxed place compared to Mexico and this was a refreshing change. People are happy to sit around in parks and on the street and just chat or play dominos (a lot of dominos!) Very few people trying to sell stuff to you. The city is full of old 1950’s cars from USA and many of them are in remarkable condition (as well as a fair proportion of old Russian Ladas). These old cars seem to add to the relaxed slow pace of life that would have existed back when they were new....almost like a timewarp.

Welcome to Cuba

We’ve learned that things work very differently in Cuba: For a start, there are two currencies and the tourists use a different currency to the locals (we’re still trying to understand that). The ATMs don’t accept (our) debit cards and instead, we’ve had to make cash advances with our credit card (and even then, the credit card was stopped after just initial withdrawals because the bank figured some Cuban was making fraudulent withdrawals). The internet is off limits for Cubans and as such it’s very difficult to get access anywhere (hence lack of blog updates recently). There are no hostels and backpackers instead tend to stay in “Casa’s” i.e. in people’s homes. These factors contributed to make our time in Cuba a little more interesting than we had expected.

Our entry into Havana was a bit surreal to say the least. We had no Cuban currency and intended to withdraw from the ATM when we got there. However, the three ATMs in the airport were out of service so we changed what little Mexican money we had left into CUCs (Cuba’s “tourist” currency) and took a taxi to Nelson’s house. Nelson is a local who offers his Casa to backpackers and was recommended to us by Nora (Conor’s sister) who had been there a few years ago. We arrived on his door, without a reservation and with practically no money. He proved to be a very helpful and interesting guy.

He was about to rush out to his weekly musical fix – not Cuban salsa but rock n roll surprisingly – and suggested we go along with him....even though we had no money, he offered to look after us. So after only a few hours of arriving in the country, we find ourselves in a city centre Night Club with blacked out windows (to block out the strong Cuban afternoon sun) dancing away to a fantastic live band playing perfect renditions of 50’s and 60’s rock n roll, with a guy we just met buying us beers. Afterwards, he loaned us some more money and sent us off to a local restaurant to go and get some dinner.

The next morning, Nelson gave us a map, a guide book, and helped us work out what to do during our 2-week stay in Cuba. He then set out a suggested walking tour of Old Town Havana.

You can imagine, we liked Cuba immediately :)

Nelson!

Cuba Without Internet

We've arrived in Cuba with very limited Internet access. We have been writing the blog as we go, and came here (to one of the few internet outlets we've found) to upload it but....oh well...can't do it. Stay tuned until we find a proper internet connection. Everything going well otherwise and we're having a great time in Cuba. Off to Jamaica at the end of next week.

Chichén Itzá (not Chicken Pizza)

Chichén Itzá is one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. It’s the biggest and most famous Mayan City and covers an area of over 25 square km (a lot of it is still to be excavated and is closed to the public). Mayan people settled there around 500 AD and for reasons not fully understood by historians, they completely vacated the place around 1200.

Its centrepiece, El Castillo, is its most famous structure. A large step-like pyramid type building reaching 30 m in height, with various features representing different aspects of the Calendar year (for example, 91 steps on each of its 4 sides side, plus the platform on top...adding up to 365 days of the year). When they excavated it, they discovered that the building itself, was built directly on top of an older pyramid (and that older one was also build directly on top of another even-older pyramid).

The Mayans must have been talking to their cousins in Newgrange because twice every year (on the spring and autumn equinoxes), when the sun goes down, the large steps cast shadows on the walls by the stairs creating a zig-zag pattern that looks like a snake. This is no coincidence as they’ve even sculpted a snake’s head onto the wall at the bottom, which completes the effect.

Thanks to our great guide, the whole place was actually very interesting learning about the rituals of the people....a big event on the ancient Mayan scene was a ball game, where the captain of the winning team (yes the winning team) would be sacrificed to the Gods....aswell, to show upper class from the lower classes, they used to tie plates tightly around the foreheads of the young children and leave it there throughout their growth to give their heads a long deformed shape.

We came back later that evening and were treated to an elaborate light show projected onto the large pyramid walls. It was all the more impressive because it was set against the backdrop of a full moon!

On the bus now to Cancun to catch our flight to Cuba tomorrow.

Onwards through Mexico

As we have just a week to get from Mexico city to Cancun (1100 miles/ 1800 km assuming you go direct, which we aren't), we figured the best use of our time would be to cover the long distances between the cities by using overnight buses. Mexico surprisingly has one of the most developed bus networks in the world, including a large fleet of luxury buses...akin to first class on an airplane, with only three (extra wide) seats across the bus. However, we discovered that no matter how comfy the bus is, or how far your seat goes back, it's difficult to get a good night's sleep when the bus spends most of the time on windy bends and accellerating and decellerating between regular speed bumps.

Nevertheless, after the 12 hour trip through the night, we eventually arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas, a surprisingly flat area high in the mountains of south east Mexico. We had read positive stories about this town from the various guidebooks but were a bit concerned when practically the whole bus emptied out in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the stop 1 hour earlier. Our concerns were further compounded when we spent 3 hours strolling through the unimpressive drab run-down town that appeared to have little character other than a local market selling cheap junk and dodgy food. No decent eateries in sight. Was this a glimpse of how our trip is going to be? We've been told that the only way to enjoy travelling was to get off the beaten track but this was ridiculous.

However, we subsequently relaxed when we found that our earlier misdirection was the result of a map-reading malfunction and we soon found the "real" old-town San Cristobal that the guide books had been raving about. It turned out to be a lot more charming than our morning exploration had uncovered. Colourful buildings. Plenty of nice little bars and restaurants. Interesting shops. A great little band of street performers. Unfortunately we didn't spend the night there as we were keen to make progress towards our next destination - Merida - another 14 hour bus ride away through the night.

Health and Safety - Mexico Style!


So the next morning, we eventually arrived in Merida with Kadi on constant verge of travel-sickness throughout the journey - thanks to the erratic bus driving. Merida is a fairly large city, built over an underground river and is a popular tourist destination since it is often used as a hub for visiting the various beaches and historic Maya sights nearby. We had planned to spend two nights here for a bit of a rest after our earlier bus journeys, but we should have stayed in San Cristobal. Although it was nice to be in a more Cosmopolitan place again, we were not paticularly impressed with Merida as it had no character and just seemed to target the tourists. The restaurants were overpriced, there were too many gift-shops, tour companies and too many people hastling us to buy their junk. We were fairly happy to move on eventually.

We did discover one unusual local fashion accessory: dressing real live beetles with elaborate stones (think beetles with a coat of armour) and attaching them to one's clothes with a small chain thus turning them into living brooches. Bling-bling....pimp my beetle! A bit freaky when you see shiney brooches crawling around in their display case.

¡Hola Mexico!

Our trip so far has been more like a holiday than backpacking in foreign lands, but that changed as soon as we left USA. We arrived into Mexico City late in the evening. We weren’t even sure where we were gonna go next but were not keen on staying in the kidnapping capital of the world. So we immediately found a bus station and for reasons unknown, decided to go to Oaxaca, about 6 hours south.


When we arrived in Oaxaca, we originally thought it was a bit of a ghost town, but to be fair, it was only 7 o’clock in the morning. A few hours later, the town was buzzing with life. It appears the global credit crunch hasn’t quite hit Oaxaca as the large markets in the centre of the town were bustling with activity. There were plenty of useful and useless things to be bought with people constantly coming up to us trying to sell us earrings / hats / blankets / nuts / dresses / fruit / chillies / weird things made from straw and more (we’ll get to that).

It turned out to be a very colourful and entertaining place and you could just sit around the central plaza and watch people for hours.....there were those traditional Mexican musicians (you know those ones with the hats and guitars, like in the movies), a mime act (which Kadi got dragged into), bad saxophone players, singers and a band playing on stage. There was always something going on.




Oaxaca is known for two particular culinary specialties....chocolate and grasshoppers (not together)! Their local chocolate is very popular and you can go into a number of different shops and see them make it, and you can then buy different types in various quantities. They eat it in pure form, they drink it, and they mix it into their local sauce (Mole) along with various other spices to go with meat – an interesting taste. As for the grasshoppers (they didn’t look delicious enough for us to try them).

We were very happy to have stumbled across Oaxaca. It turned out to be a very traditional Mexican town without too many (other) tourists around. When we were leaving, there was a free open-air concert kicking off in the park near the bus station and we would have liked to stay for another night but our schedule in Mexico is fairly tight.

Oh yeah...while we're on the topic of food, here's a picture of a mother changing a baby's nappy on top of a fruit and veg stall :)

LA and San Diego

We didn’t particularly want to spend any time in LA, but since we were going that way anyway (dropping the RV back), we spent a day there (mostly at the Six-Flags theme park) and then strolled the tacky Hollywood area that evening. Six-Flags was great, with 7 extreme roller coasters and a number of other cool moderate ones. Because we visited on a quiet week day, there were practically no queues for any of the rides.

We spent our final few days in USA in San Diego. It’s a really nice, clean, laid back city with well kept streets and a nice waterfront. Our guide book said this was the second biggest city in California but this is very hard to believe as it was very quiet and had a real small town feel to it. We found a great hostel in the city centre that actually provided free breakfast and dinner too :) We just spent our time there chillaxing and planning the next stage of our trip into Mexico.

...and here we are now, on the plane to Mexico.

Goodbye to the RV

After driving 2,200 miles / 3,500 km in the RV, we were sorry to finally hand it back in L.A. It served us well over the last 2 weeks and it provided a certain freedom where we could pretty much go where we wanted and sleep where-ever we were.

There are a few things which we won't miss however.....the mysterious hole in the wind shield that sprays water over the driver's face whenever it rained or whenever you put on the wipers.....the annoying gas detector that sounded an annoying alarm on a regular basis, even when we weren't using the gas cooker......driving the the boxy thing across open desert when there is a 40-50mph/65-80kph cross-wind. During the 2 weeks, we've been in various diverse environments from windy mountainous roads, to long straight flat empty desert roads, to the busy city streets of Las Vegas and L.A. We've needed snow-chains in one place and air-conditioning on full in others!

Aswell, the thing drinks fuel like there's no tomorrow! It holds about 95 litres, but you can only drive 240 miles / 385 km on a full tank of gas! That is a bit worrying when driving through the Mojave Desert and fuel stations seem to be on average 240 miles / 385 km apart!! On the plus side, it did cost an average of $55-$65 to fill which was cheaper than the cost of filling Conor's old Opel Corsa (which only had a 45 litre tank....although the Corsa could drive 400 miles on a full tank!)

During our ownership of the RV, we managed to put a nasty scratch on the back bumper during a midnight 3-point-turn on a dark country road near Yosemite. We were very thankful that the RV collection place missed this scratch on her inspection and we didn't have to pay for it :)

Grand Canyon

After Las Vegas, we spent a few days in the Grand Canyon. Kadi had been there before but only on a quick bus tour that brings you to a few lookout points before you taking you away again. She really wanted to go back again, and into the Canyon this time.

We are pleased to say that on this trip, we pretty much did the full Grand Canyon experience :)

After checking out the many viewpoints on the first day, we decided we were up for something a bit more strenuous, so the next day we figured we'd hike down a bit into the Canyon. Having just met a few guys who had hiked from the rim (7,200 ft/2,400 m) right down to the river below (2,500ft/830m) and back again, we decided we were up for the lesser hike down to the mid-shelf and back up (the canyon has a couple of levels and the mid-shelf looked a bit easier...ie not right down to the river at the bottom).

So we set out the next morning with a busload of others, and were pleased with our progress as we passed more and more people on the way down (and no one passed us going down). The conditions were pleasant and it was actually fairly easy to keep the pace up. We came across a few groups getting carried down on mules, and we laughed to ourselves "look at those lightweights!"

About two hours later we arrived at the mid-shelf. At this point, our original plan was to cross the canyon at this level and start climbing up further on. But we couldn't really find the way across and deep inside, we wanted to go down to the bottom where the river was. Plus we were still feeling very fresh so we decided to keep climbing down. We should make you aware that there are warning signs everywhere advising against climbing down to the river and back in one day. Apparently 400 people are rescued from exhaustion and dehydration every year.....what goes down must come up!

When we did get to the bottom another 1.5 hours later, we noticed that there weren't so many people down here (apart from two crazy ironman runners who were running down and up). We knew the rule of thumb was that it takes twice as long to get up as it did to get down (remember, this is the opposite to climbing a mountain as the hard part is climbing back out). So 3.5 hours decending would mean another 7 hours going back up. We never really considered this but it turned out to be roughly correct. So, all-in-all, we spent 9hrs 40mins on the full round trip. We calculated later that the total distance was 18 miles/29 km, with a total descent of 4,700 ft/1,570 m over rough uneven terrain. If we had worked all that out in advance, we probably wouldn't have done it. Needless to say, we were absolutely shattered afterwards but delighted we weren't one of the 400 people who get lifted out, or one of the lightweights on mules who got carried out!

The next day we would have been very happy to sleep in but needed to get up at 5am to go white-water rafting on the Colorado River through the bottom of the canyon (don't worry, this time we were driven down to the bottom). The rafting was fantastic and we had a great day covering 50km on the river including about 7-9 rapids along the way with a fun group of 4 others. We also stopped along the way to explore a cave with a waterfall coming out of it. We figured we might get splashed a bit from the rafting, but again, we underestimated the canyon and got absolutely soaked! A great day all the same which finished on us getting lifted out of the canyon by helicopter! It was a cool lift out right by the canyon wall :)