Bula Vinaka, Fiji!

5 hours after landing in Nadi, one of two big cities in Fiji, (the other one is the capital, Suva), we were safely installed in our dorm at Mana Island, as a part of the Mana Lagoon family for 4 days to come. The staff at Mana Lagoon really did treat us like family. We ate what they ate, and joined in on their kava-drinking traditions at nighttime. Kava is the national drink of Fiji. It's not alcohol, even though it is said to get you drunk. It is in fact a root of some sort, that tastes exactly like it sounds.. in other words; not very good. Since Mana Island was the "party" destination for us on Fiji, we joined in on the activites in the evenings, like a cross-dressing party where we won free kayakrental for a day, not bad! Pablo (Marthe) strikes again!

Dave and Pablo

Traditional dancing was one of the highlights of the Bula-evenings!

Flameboy ;)

Photoshoot on a deserted beach.

We shared dorm with a norwegian boy called Hadle. He studied in Australia for one semester, and was now on his way home. Hadle was a very nice boy and we had a lot of fun with him! Mana Island is not to big, so one day the three of us decided to walk around the Island, following the beach. It turned out to take us a couple of hours after all.. We saw baby sharks swimming around a stony beach, and passed by some beautiful resorts which looked like the place to have a honeymoon. We also found our way to the top of a hill where we had an amazing view over the entire island. On our way back it started to rain again (we had a couple of nights with heavy rain already), and we saw a double rainbow!!!! We also did 2 dives here, our 2 first dives as certified divers! One was at day time, and it was so much beautiful to see in the fiji waters. The second one we decided to do at night time. It was quite scary actually... All we could see was the light from our flashlights right in front of us, and if we saw an other way it would be completely black. All of a sudden a shark comes into our lights, and surrounded by total darkness we followed the reef shark swimming all around us.  Exciting experience!!

Hadle from Stavanger in the first picture, double rainbow in the other! :)

After some fun days at Mana Island we went by boat to Malolo Island! Here we stayed at Walu Beach Resort, a beautiful resort with swimmingpool, free kayak and snorkeling gear, buffet for every meal and very nice lodges! We spent the days by the pool, in the hammocks, snorkeling at the reefs just outside the beach, playing loads of volleyball and kayaking. One night when it was bula-time at the resort, everyone were gathering together to drink some kava. We all introduced ourselves by names and where we came from. The first guy to start were from the mainland in Fiji and told everyone about his weekendtrip to Malolo with his girlfriend. They had gone snorkeling and he had hidden a ring inside a shell which she found, and then proposed to her. Everyone went; Aaaawwwwww.. That was so cute!!!

Hammocktime!

Our last night on Fiji was 17 of May. Norways national day!! We stayed at the mainland since our flight was early next morning. Here we met some other norwegians and decided to celebrate Norway together. Two dutch guys, Justin and Stefan, came along aswell to Hard Rock Cafe where we had delicious dinner and a couple of beers. One of the norwegian girls had a deck of cards with pictures of Norway that we showed to the dutch guys and fijians working at Hardrock. We ended the night with Norways national anthem, a big hit :) Early the next morning it was time to set the clock to New Zealand time.

Ja Vi Elsker!

California baby!

In Hollywood :)

We landed in San Francisco, where the first thing we did was to sleep at the airport (becoming quite the habit it seems..). The following morning it didn't take us long to get down to Union Square using the easy public transportation, and finding a hostel called Globetrotters In. It was a clean hostel, and even though $20 is alot for budget-travellers used to $2 hostels in South and Central America, this was definetly one of the cheapest ones in SF, and it even included breakfast; the american style, toast with peanutbutter, and coffee. The second thing that happened was that we met Avior, Ido and Denny, 3 israelian guys that was on a spontaneus 1day trip to SF from LA, where Avior lived and studied. 5 minutes later we had arranged our first couchsurfing experience when we got to LA, saving us money for hostels, and making new friends.

Day 1 in San Francisco we shopped till we dropped; literally. (Tina fell asleep at 7pm.) We spent hours in stores, and spent well over our daily budget, so the couchsurfing couldn't have come at a better time. In the afternoon we went walking in Chinatown, and not being able to resist the temptation of a good laugh, we walked into a place where the sign read "psychic". Tina, according to her tarotcards, is going to have great success with both her career, and her lovelife. Exciting, huh? Marthe found out that she was born with 7 stars (whatever that means) but missed 4 of them, leaving only 3 surrounding her, disturbing.. She told her new card-reader (the first one got a call on his cell-phone and walked off), that what she was telling Marthe didn't match with what the other guy wrote, trying to confuse them, which ended in both of them being really offended, and more or less kicked us out. At least she didn't have to pay. Haha. After this we ate taco-salad at a mexican fast-food place, before we went back to the hostel, and fell asleep.

Day 2 we rented bikes down by Fisherman's wharf, and bicycled across the Golden Gate Bridge. We stopped at lot of places to talk to people, and take pictures, so when we finally made it across the bridge to Sausalito, the town you arrive in where most people take a ferry back to SF from, the ferries had stopped going back, leaving us to bicycle back to SF as well, in the cold wind. But it did give us some great pictures of the sunset, and we met a funny american guy hanging out with an enthusiastic german girl, so it was all worth it. :) After that we went to see Fast5 at the cinema. It was a really entertaining movie, and we had a lot of fun. A wonderful day.

The next day we bicycled back down to Fisherman's wharf to hand in our bikes. On our way we found a hairdresser, and met the sweetest hairdresser ever. His name was Trevor, and we were bestfriends by the time we left the salon; all pretty-looking. We had lunch at In'n'out burger, a delicious burgerplace, said to be where all the celebrities in california go when they want burgers. That night we met up with Amy, a lady that Tina and her family met 2 years ago in Greece. She took us to the "crookedest street", a really narrow street filled with so many turns it just looks like a spiral, and to the Coit Tower to watch the sunset.



Us at the Alcatraz with view over San Francisco :)



Our last day in San Francisco we went to the Alcatraz, the famous prison on "the rock". We both enjoyed the tour that took us through the prison where Al Capone, and many other famous criminals had once been locked up. That afternoon we went to the park with two guys from our hostel, and watched the sunset, and the evening lights over San Francisco. Tina played soccer with a bunch of short mexican guys, while Marthe taught Ray about Norway, before we both taught the coolest hippie ever to say "Du er pen, min lille smule", which means "you are pretty, my little crumb" and was the sentence he learned from each language, to say to the girls he met. The menu this evening was easy: it read Burger King, and beer with the guys at the hostel. However, the ultimate failure from Burger King occured when Marthe, starving, saw that her hamburger missed the essential; the burger. Who the hell forgets the burger, when they work at Burger King? That's what they do...



The hippie we met in the park :)



We went by Amtrack on the coastline going to LA, which took us almost 13 hours. It was a nice journey, where we saw whales playing in the ocean. Avior came and picked us up at the trainstation, and made spaghetti bolognese for dinner. The next day Ido took us sightseeing in Los Angeles while Avior was at school. We walked down The Walk of Fame and got a tour in Beverly Hills to see all the celebreties' houses. Later we went with Avior to the Observatory where we had a great view over LA and the Hollywood sign. In the evening we made dinner: real norwegian food for the guys, they loved it, but found it weird that we use jam on meat. Avior, Ido and an american friend of theirs, Matt, drove to Vegas that night. So now it was us and Aviors room mate, Aviv, left in the appartement. Since the public transport obviously suck in LA we decided to rent a car. Trying to find Universal Studios we spent 3 hours on and off the freeways, all lost. When we finally got there, the ticketsale was closed... But we still got to eat a good dinner and went to the cinema there to see Thor, which was really good! :)

Marthe is making the meatballs :D

Avior - Our nice couchsurfing host :)

Our last day in LA we drove down to Santa Monica beach and spent the whole day there since our flight didn't leave until 11.30 pm. We went walking along the promenade, doing some gymnastics at the beach, taking a few rollercosters, listen to kids singing and watching hot guys playing volleyball. Later we met Matt, Hannah (a cute couple we met at the train from SF) and their friend Cody for dinner. We hung out with them till it was time to return the rentalcar, and go to the airport, flying to Fiji!!! :)

Cody, Matt, Hannah, Tina and Marthe. Our last night in California :)

Open water certificate & two nasty hotels!

After a long day by boat, bus and taxi we came to La Ceiba in Honduras, the city where you take the ferry out to Utila, the island we were heading for. Famous for cheap, and great diving. Because we arrived in La Ceiba late at night, the last ferry for the day had already gone, so we had to find somewhere to spend the night. We arrived here when it was semana santa (easter), and La Ceiba seemed like the place to be, because all the hotels were full, except one hostel. We checked in there to a tiny room, with faded wall painting, a broken toilet, a fan and a small tv. After an unpleasant shower we watched Pirates of the Caribbean in spanish and went to sleep. Waking up the next day we found loads of people sleeping at the balkony on mattresses and on the floor, there was vomit everywhere and some people were walking around and it looked like they hadn't gone to sleep yet.. Funny experience!

Arriving at Utila we went into the first Dive Centre we found: Captain Morgan's dive centre. They signed us up for starting at the same day and shipped us out to a little, nice island named Jewel Key. It was so relaxed and nice there. The hotel we stayed at had a sundeck with hammocks right outside, and to walk from one end to the other of the island took us 5 minutes.

Day 1 of the course we had to read a lot and watch some diving movies. Later that night we went to one of four restaurants on the island and had a fishplate for dinner. Day two of our course we learned how to pack and organize the diving equipment, and we did some training in shallow water just next to the sundeck. It was a strange but very cool experience to be able to breathe under water for the first time. Our diveinstuctor was a girl from Spain named Elena, she was a really sweet girl and a good teacher which we had a lot of fun with.

The hotel and the sundeck.

Marthe, Tina and Christopher.

Day 3 and 4 we went out with the diving boat and did some deep water diving, that was awesome!! We saw barracudas, morenes, a turtle, and loads of other amazing aquatic animals and plants. On our last dive we also saw a shipwrek, played with a torpedo and we danced the macarena under water! The whole team of dive instructors were really friendly and cool people. We also got to know a guy who lived on the Island, Cristopher, who sometimes joined as a captain on the diving boat. He was a really nice guy and taught us about the culture in Honduras and about the 7 (?) different churches that was on that little island.

On wednesday 27th of April we had our last day here, and before taking the ferry back to the mainland at 2pm we had two fundives that was included in the course. Since we had a flight from Belize City friday 29th April we didn't have much time to get there. So we took the ferry at 2pm to La Ceiba, hopped on a bus to San Pedro Sula, and another bus to Puerto Cortes where we had to stay for the night, still in Honduras. Here we found a hotel in the middle of nowhere, with no chance of searching for better options. So we took it, got to our room ready for a shower after a long day with dirty and hot busses. A shower however, seemed more dirty than skipping it, after we opened the showercurtains to display a used condom! On top of it all, we only had one pillow and there was a huge hole in the mattress.

The next day we hopped on the bus and got to the border of Guatemala, and took the bus again  to Puerto Barrios where we took a boat to Punta Gorda in Belize. From Punta Gorda we had a 6 hour bus trip in the so called chicken bus. The chicken buses are old american school buses, and the reason for the name is that the locals often bring chickens on it, which we didn't experience on this ride. We were thinking of just spending the night at the airport when we arrived to Belize City, to save some money. But since we had been traveling for two days and felt really dirty we decided to spend the night at a hostel. We found a hostel where it was actually cheaper than the one with the condom in the shower, it was breakfast included and our room was clean and looked like a proper hotelroom with a big, nice bathroom. We really appreciated to be able to take a nice and warm shower, and we were ready for California baby! :D

Guatemala

Hi everyone!

Semuc Champey

After voluntarily spending a night on the floor in the check-in area of Guatemala City airport, the only reason being laziness to find a better option at a late hour, we decided to skip Guatemala City all together, and took a taxi straight to the bus-station, heading for Semuc Champey, outside of Lanquin, in north-central Guatemala. Semuc Champey must be one of the most beautiful natural sights in the world. Semuc Champey is said to mean "Sacred Water" in mayan, but some people (and also what we were told) said that it meant "Where the river hides beneath the earth". So basically it was a big river flowing underneath the natural pools, and the pools itself came from mountain water, not the river Cahabon, which flows underneath. It is made up of 6 natural "pools" that fuse together by small, or big, waterfalls, creating natural waterslides, or big jumps into the next pool, which ever you'd like.

Up there we slept :)

The hostel, El Portal, where we stayed in the roof of one of the dorms, (yes, in the roof) sleeping on mattresses, was a delightful hostel with young, energetic staff that didn't want any payment for "sexy"-dancing with you all night, even though they were 12 years old. It must be the central-american blood.. Worth mentioning that these guys only were cute, not annoying like earlier-mentioned south/central - american guys.. :) Definetly a must-see if you ever go to Guatemala! We were also on a tour inside of a huge cave, with no other light than a candle, that you had to swim with in one hand when the water got deep. The cave involved everything from swimming, to climbing, to letting yourself go from small waterfalls, sorrounded by stone close arround your body. Quite thrilling!

This is where the river goes under the pools.

Also a must-see is Livingston, especially if you are a backpacker. And if you go there as a backpacker, you should definetly stay at Casa de la Iguana, in one of their hammocks, or one of their bungalows. This area of Guatemala is just like being in caribbean, all of the sudden, and it's beautiful in every way; the scenery, the people, and the laidback way of living.. The first night there we were witnesses to a proper caribbean storm, thunder bouldering down 1 second after the lightning, and the rain so heavy you had to shout to hear each other. Pretty cool! Despite the weather our first night was awesome, with fun drinking-games sorrounded by fun people, and great music at the hostel bar.

The Cave

The best beer-pong team!

Day 2 in Livingston we went for a boat trip to a beautiful beach, where we mostly lied down sleeping because of late night yesterday. But also the weather was still a bit bad, it was cloudy and you could feel the rain was on its way. So it wasn't really a beach day. We were supposed to go The Seven Altars (which is a bit like Semuc Champey), but the rain started to really poor down and the sea was getting a bit rough, so we decided to drop it and head back to the hostel. Returning to the hostel soaking wet without even having taken a swim, it was nice to relax with the movie Bruno, Wifi, and french toast with maple syrup that day. ;) The original plan was to travel for a while longer in Guatemala, before going to Belize, but in a heartbeat we decided to go to Honduras to do our Open Water Diving Certificate instead, which is our current location. We will write about that next time. :)

Eating dinner at the beach.

Cuba - rum, salsa, and cigars..

We were so ready to get to Cuba, drink Cuba Libre, dance salsa and chill on the white sandy beaches.. On our way from Peru to Cuba we had to change planes in Costa Rica, and after hours of waiting and writing our diaries, found out the plane didn't leave till the next morning. At first we got disappointed, but it turned out great in the end, for the two of us anyways. Instead of running around in Havana at midnight looking for a place to sleep, we got a free night at a nice hotel, a double bed each, and a free 3course dinner! Sweet! We even got new toothbrushes

Our "mom" in the cuban house we stayed in.

 

The first 3 nights in Havana we slept in a Casa Particulare, Cuba's version of a Hostel, which is basically to move in with a cuban family. Which we did.. A sweet lady that cooked for us as well as her family, her daughter, 37 years with downs syndrome, her husband, and her husbands mom. So she was used to looking after people. It was a nice experience, and we got to eat authentic home-made cuban food! Delicious :) 

As we were walking around Havana Vieja, on our way to find a taxi home, because we didn't feel safe to walk around Havana at night (the first place on our trip where we have felt that way actually), two guys approached us and told us both how linda (beautiful) we are. We decided to give the locals a chance, even though we were sick of being treated as tourist atractions all day, being blond, and obviously muy linda.. So we went and had a couple of beers with them, and they invited themselves to go to the beach with us the next day. And the whole next day we laid on the beach, not relaxed at all, and listened to Roberto, which was the one that could speak english, talk about how poor he was. Interesting? Not.. We figured out the only reason they were hanging out with us was that they wanted free meals, and free beers, so we told them to stick it. Was interesting to hear the local people talk about Cuba though..

 

For our last 3 nights we stayed at a hotel, with Eivind and Gunhild from back home. We had a lot of fun, nice to hang out with norwegians again.. so with them we chilled out on the beach, had cuba libre, and smoked cigars like proper cuban tourists! We went to the museo de la revolucion, and half-way interested read about the revolution, till we came to the last room, which interestingly enough, was not about the revolution, but about all the bad things the U.S have done to Cuba, so they had basically made a we-hate-the-U.S room.. Weird..

Ernesto Che Guevara, one of the revolution's most important men.

Our last night in Cuba, the 16th of April, we celebrated Tinas 21th birthday. We dressed up and went out for dinner in Havana Vieja and ate some delicious food. After dinner we wanted to find a place to dance and have a couple of drinks. On our way a cuban guy came and wanted to help us find a club, and after a while of walking we come to this place, and it's closed! He said he knew another, but it costs 10 dollar for the entrance with a "free" drink. We told him thats a bit expensive so we wanted to find a place ourselves. Then he got really pissed of and just went without even saying goodbye, so it was quite obvious he was trying to take advantage of us as well. We spent the night at the hotel bar insted, drinking cuba libre and smoking cigars! :)

Birthdaygirl :)

Havana was beautiful, full of old, classic cars, charm and nice buildings, and the casa particulare was really nice to try, but we also learned that Cuba is an interesting, complicated country, which you need more than 7 days to understand.

Lots of love from the fantastic 4! :)

From Bolivia to Peru, and all the places in between..

This blogarticle is dedicated to Tina's grandparents, and will therefore be written in Norwegian! :)

Fra Tupiza i Bolivia dro vi på en 4-dagers tur gjennom ørkenen i de sørlige fjella i Bolivia. Vi fikk se alt fra fantastiske fjellformasjoner, til varmekilder, geysirer, og verdens største saltørken, som helt klart var høydepunktet. Vi dro i en jeep ilag med 2 engelske jenter, Izzie og Lucy, som vi ble gode venner med, og møtte igjen i La Paz, hovedstaden i Bolivia. Bildet ovenfor viser de fantastiske fjellene på starten av turen. Fjellformasjonen blir kalt "salen", fordi det er formet som salen til en hest.

Her er bilde fra Salar de Uyuni. Verdens største saltørken, som også befinner seg i høgdene i Bolivia. Saltørkenen dekker 12000 km2. Vi var her når hele greia var noen CM under vann, og fikk noen utrolige refleksjoner på bildene våre. Vannet var iskaldt å stå i, og saltet vondt å gå på, men hva gjør man ikke for bra bilder? :) Vi sto opp 4 om morningen for å dra hit tidlig nok til å se soloppgangen, noe som var helt fantastisk. På grunn av vannet sine refleksjoner så man ikke horisonten, det var vanskelig å skille mellom hvor saltet endte, og himmelen begynte. Utrolig kult!

Etter 4-dagers turen dro vi med buss fra Uyuni til La Paz, hovedstaden (verdens høgste hovedstad vel å merke) i Bolivia. Her tilbragte vi noen dager å møtte Izzie og Lucy igjen, og møtte mange andre mennesker fra deres hostel. Utrolig kjekke dager. Her dro vi også på sykkel ned langs verdens farligste vei, kalt the Death Road, utenfor La Paz. Den begynner på ca. 4000 m, og vi sykler ned 64 km, til vi er på rundt 1000 m høyde. Ganske ekstremt! Gøy med adrenalinkick igjen! :D

Tradisjonelle, men samtidig urbane bolivianske damer tjener til livets opphold i La Paz. Å selge frukt, smykker, armband o.l er helt vanlig her. Etter rundt 1 time i hovedstaden konkluderte vi med at kvinnene her var akkurat som kvinnene fra landsbygdene i Bolivia, bare at de går fortere.. :)

Så gikk turen videre over grensa til Peru, og til Cusco, en av storbyene i landet.. Nå sto Machu Picchu for tur, etter 2 dager med avslapping i byen. Tina var sjuk, så hun var litt slakk, og ringte hjem til mamma Unni og til Lene, bestevenninnen. Marthe dro på sightseeing alene om morningen, og oppdaget merkelige måter for de lokale å tjene penger på. Bildet under er ett eksempel, da Marthe måtte betale damene for å posere med dem. Hehehe.

Så dro vi videre til Aguas Calientes, landsbyen nedenfor Machu Picchu, der vi sov før vi sto opp 5 om morningen for å dra på Machu Picchu. Bare landsbyen i seg selv imponerte oss, da den var bygd på begge sider av en stor foss, og det var mange broer å krysse for å komme seg fra side til side.

Machu Picchu var virkelig ett syn! Så stort, og majestetisk, virkelig imponerende. Hele landskapet rundt, med de høge fjellene dekket i tåke, og tynne skyer. Bildet ovenfor og under er fra toppen av Waynapicchu, ett fjell 1 time med gåing over Machu Picchu. Når tåken letter her får du en helt fantastisk utsikt. På dette fjellet er det kun lov med 400 personer daglig (pga bratte og smale trappetrinn oppover), så det er førstemann til mølla med gjennomsnittlig 2500 personer på Machu Picchu daglig.

Nå går turen videre til varmere, mer lavtliggende strøk, til strendene på Cuba!

Hasta pronto :)

Last days of Argentina, and the start of Bolivia

Hola!

20 hours by bus can be fun, if you have the right bus assistent named Mariano on it. He served us some lousy food, but some funny jokes, and made it all worth while. We finally arrived Salta, and after walking from one full hostel to another, we finally found a simple, cheap, but nice one. We desided to share rooms to get to know new people, and ended up in a dorm with Andres from Colombia, and Lio from France. Salta was a nice town, however, we didnt make to much out of it. We took a cable car up to a small mountain with a good view over the town, and went out for drinks with our new friends. And of course made them a real backpacker dinner at the hostel. After 2 days here, we hopped on a bus further north, to Jujuy.

In Jujuy we met Walter, a guy from Argentina, that could speak Norwegian! Not often that happens. He had worked as an artist in Kristiansand in Norway for almost 4 years, and his Norwegian was quite good. He invited us for after-work drinks with his friends where they all worked, a skater/biker/surfer/tattoo and piercing shop. So we went to the shop after hours, and had a couple of beers with them, before we all moved on to a nice bar, where we drank some more beers on the roof terrasse. Meeting the locals is always cool, since as a backpacker you often just meet and hang out with other backpackers. Marthe struggled a bit since her Spanish isnt exactly fluent, and our new friends didnt know English to well. But with hand gestures, drawings, and improvising, you can communicate with anyone! Tina is excited to get to use her Spanish skills again, but can notice that its been a while since she went to a Spanish speaking country.

In Jujuy we signed up for an excursion, but because of the low season, it turned out it was only the two of us, and a driver. He took us for a whole day to the sorrounding areas of the town. Its famous for many villages, like Humahuaca, and Purmamarca, in the mountains sorrounding the town, ancient Inca fortresses, and multicoloured (7 to be exact) mountains. Beautiful! Well spent 200 pesos each.

The next day we hopped on the bus (again), and drove to La Quiaca, and Villazon, the border of Argentina, and Bolivia. We expected it to be a hastle to go across, but everything went smoothly, and after half an hour, we were in Bolivia. Its easy to be Norwegian abroad. We drove 2 more hours, watching beautiful scenery, to the town of Tupiza. Today we have been horsebackriding for 5 hours, with a guide called Louis, he was 16, and had worked with the horses from the age of 13! It was a wonderful trip, and we both felt excellent about moving away from the streets, and into the wilderness again, if only for one day. We visited sights like Puerto el Diablo, said to be the gates to the devils house. The horseback riding took its toll, and after a couple of hours relaxing and looking at pictures in our hostel, we are now writing our blog, before going out for dinner at the Alamo.

Tomorrow we are going on a 4 day trip, ending in Uyuni, the largest salt pan in the world. We will be going with two english girls, and to be honest, we are quite excited to hang out with girls again! We will write again sometime after the trip.

Hasta Luego! :)