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! :)

Buenos Aires!

We have now been in Buenos Aires for 5 days, living with Christine Schwaz, a friend from Florø who is studying spanish here! Even though we haven`t seen as much as we maybe hoped for (the two first days we had jetlag), we discovered that Buenos Aires is a beautiful city with a rich culturelife.



 

Here are some pictures from the friday, we had a bbq party at their roof terrasse, and met a lot of people there, quite a nice crowd of people, most from Scandinavia, and some from Argentina. 

From the balcony where Christine lives we see people bbq`ing and playing football in the streets.  We have been to La Boca to see the famouse coloured houses and sat down to eat some real Argentin meat.

Us at La Boca :)

Today we are traveling further up north. After 20 hours on the bus our destination is a town called Salta. After this we don't really have a plan on what to do, so we will basically do whatever we want, traveling through Bolivia and Peru for 3 weeks. So whatever happens, we will write about it next time. :)

Hasta Luego!

Hi everyone!

Here it comes, the update on the last half of our Safari. Our tour from our last update has brought us from Spitskop to Johannesburg, the final destination. On our way we have discovered true harmony in so many of the beautiful camp sites, and calm, peaceful people that we meet there. Some of the places (if you would like to google) was Spitskop bush camp, Etosha National Park  and Ngepi camp in Namibia, Maun desert camp and Okavango Delta in Botswana, and of course Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.

In Etosha National Park we saw many wildlife animals, such as Zebra, Giraffe, Elephant, Lion, Springbok, and last but definetly not least, Timon and Pumba! We were also on a real safari trip with a guide named Andy that took us by foot looking for rhinos. We learned about footprints and Tina even touched the poop to feel that it was fresh, and that we were on right track. A real bushlady!

In the Okavango delta we went by Makoro, a traditonal canoe with a guy standing in the back, pushing us with a stick. Cool!  On our way we saw hippos and an elephant. That night we made dinner outside, with a proper thunderstorm upon us. It was raining really hard and the lightening in the horizon lit up the whole sky. Amazing! 

We stayed at Victoria Falls for two days, and had time to do our own thing. We went tandem on a gorge swing, 70 meter free fall! What a rush! Shitscary though.. Then we went to look at the falls itself. The magnitude and the power of it struck us, as we thought it was raining because of all the water splashing up on us from the falls. In the evening the whole group had a party with two other drifter groups which was at the lodge as well. The pool at the lodge was well used the whole evening.. ;)

Our last night camping was quite dramatic for Marthe. Tina was sleeping in the truck, and Marthe slept outside with the two other norwegian girls, Katja and Cathrine + the guide Karel. During the night Marthe woke up and had to use the toilet. Katja was also awake and had to go, and was on her way out of her mosquito net as we heard something growl. Marthe had heard a baboon being chased and killed earlier that night, so she woke the guide up, right as the animal growled again. Karel jumped up, and started stressing as we understood it was a leopard quite close to where we were sleeping. We were all scared shitless, and was talking loudly to try to get the leopard to go away, before we quietly got ourselves into the truck and slept there for the remaining 2 hours before sunrise and our long drive to Jo'burg.

Now we are at the Drifters lodge in Jo'burg, just relaxing in our room as the rain is pouring down outside. We went to a huge shopping centre earlier today, and got lost as we were trying to find our way out of there. So tonight we are just gonna relax and get ready for South America! Flying to Buenos Aires tomorrow, and we are staying with a girl from Florø, Christine Schwarz for a couple of days. So our next update will be from somewhere along the way in South America! :)

Cheers

Safari - The real Africa



Climbing Table Mountain!



We have now been on the Safari for 10 days. Even with 14 days still left we have already experienced so much cool and exciting things. We have been camping in the middle of nowhere in Namaqualand, surrounded by nothing but ants and beautiful nature. We crossed the border into Namibia and stayed at Felix Unite, an amazing camp next to the Orange River which we spent a whole day canooing down with our riverguide Donovan, only 21 years old, and already so mature and experienced.

People down here is so far from the people in Norway, we meet so many people our age, that we think is alot older just from the way they behave. We have walked along the Fish River Canyon, the second largest in the world, 27 Km wide and 160 km long. What a sight! After that the plan was to head for the Namib desert to Drifters desert camp, but our truck broke down early in the day, so we had to spend the whole day and night far from anything you can call cvilization. It was not that fun when some of us got stomachproblems without proper toilet, shower or springwater. But we kept our mood up! The next day Sean from the desert camp came and drove us to his camp that was 5 bumpy hours away. Our guide Karel had to stay behind with the truck to wait for the mechanic. Drifters desert camp was nothing like we expected with its mountains in black and red from the sand, and a panorama view so amazing it felt like heaven.

Our lodge even had a small pool to cool down from the 45 degrees boiling hot sun. We stayed here for 2 nights and had a couple of safari drives with Sean around the camp to look at the nature and the animals. Karel came back with the truck after a night alone where we stranded. After he had got a good night of sleep we were back on the road. Sossusvlei, the largest sanddunes in the world, was next stop. We climbed up one of them and had an amazing view over it all. Now we are in Swakopmund, a town known for it's extreme sports and adventures, with the Atlantic Ocean to one side, and sandy desert on the other. Yesterday we went duneboarding, which was a bit harder then snowboarding, with the heavy sand, but a really fun thing to try out. In the afternoon we went skydiving. That is the most extreme and coolest thing we have ever done. The guides was pretty cool and relaxed also, so we had a really good time with them as well as the skydiving itself. What an adrenalin rush! :D Today we're leaving Swakopmund towards Spitskop and new adventures.