Author: travurple

Monday (6 May) A Bank holiday, spent the day finalising the packing, much easier as we now have the car, so we are taking far to much. Lunch out with family, coffee with friends, then an evening relaxing.

Tuesday, drove to Nostell, a National Trust property, in West Yorkshire. Walked around the grounds, the lakes and a quick canter through the house, lots of Chippendale furniture.

Continued our drive to Widnes to visit friends, the rest of this week has passed with eating and drinking.

Wednesday, met more friends for lunch at a local pub.

Thursday, we went to “The Wine Club” in Rainhill for lunch, great pizza and a glass of wine for £10!!

Friday we visited Rufford Old Hall, another National Trust property, in Lancashire. A 15 century timber framed hall, with a stained glass window including the three legs of Man (the national flag of the Isle of Man), as there is a family connection between the Hesketh family and the Stanley family, the Earls of Derby, historically who “ruled” the Isle of Man. (15th-17th Centuries).

Saturday, We walked to “The Unicorn” pub for lunch and a pint, then walked back ‘home’ via the ‘Four Topped Oak’ pub.

In the evening we watched Eurovision, obviously another drink was required.

Sunday, back to “The Wine Club” for a Eastern European wine tasting, and another round of wine!

Back ‘home’ for more wine and a Thai green curry.

Another two week blog this time and not many photos either, sorry.

Monday (22 April), as we had a 4:15am alarm set, neither of us had a good nights sleep. An Uber prebooked for 5:00am, by 4:40am was sitting outside waiting for us, so, as it was there, we left early, we were 3/4 of the way to the airport by 5:00am.

We still could not check in online, and had not heard from the Travel Agent, so had to join the check-in queue, which was not too long. The AirCanada check in staff were great, there was obviously a problem with our booking in their system, but they just dealt with it and printed our boarding passes! Time for breakfast.

6 minutes before boarding we received an email from the travel Agent, informing us they had reissued the tickets. Great timing! At the Boarding gate, our boarding passes made the scanner beep! They had re assigned our seats, unfortunately not together! However, when on board, Rog was sitting in a row on his own, so Nic moved.

An uneventful 5 hour flight to Toronto, in order to transit we had to go through security again, this time they didn’t like the small knife in a camping cutlery set we have carried through Heathrow, Toronto, Panama and San Jose airports, but what can you say, you can’t discuss it with them, once they have made a decision there is no going back! So lost the knife.

Our flight to Heathrow was shown as leaving from Gate E65, but there were no signs showing gate E65, so they then changed the boarding gate to E67, as they have a stand E65, where the plane was parked, but no boarding gate E65! Confusing eh!

Thankfully another uneventful flight, we both managed a couple of hours napping.

As we had no check in bags, and there was no queue at passport control we were through Heathrow really quickly, so we stopped for a coffee to ‘land’ properly.

Then the underground into London, a meal (not sure whether it was breakfast, lunch or dinner given the time difference), at All Bar One, then the train down to Kent to family.

We both fell asleep on the couch for an hour or so, despite builders working on the house.

Wednesday, just a day to recover from the flights.

Thursday, we headed back up to London, went indoor skydiving at the O2 arena, which was good fun, but a lot physically harder than we thought it would be. After dinner and drinks at the O2, we saw Take That in concert! A great night!

Friday, we got the train to York, and the bus to Pocklington, and checked into an AirBnB for 11 nights.

Then spent the next few days seeing family and sorting our stuff out again, prepping for a summer of UK travels, including volunteering at some festivals, Glastonbury here we come!

We had to pitch the new tent, to check that

A. we could do it &

B. all the bits were there,

thankfully it was a yes to both.

Wednesday (1 May) we collected the car that we bought back in February, for those interested in cars it is a Volvo XC90 2.4 R design, All wheel drive 2010 year, and for those really interested in cars it’s Black.

Thursday, local elections for the Police and crime commissioner, we haven’t voted in the UK for 20 plus years, so we exercised our democratic rights! We saw more friends and family, including swapping stories with someone who travelled through Central America in the 1960s.

Friday, we helped out at a coffee morning held in aid of the Marie Curie charity, we ran the tombola stall, everybody else had done the hard work of labelling all the prizes and dealing with all the tickets, we just persuaded people to buy them!

The evening saw a couple of drinks and food with family.

Saturday, helped out again at a Marie Curie plant sale, took the leftover Tombola, and sold the rest of the tickets!

The Tombola made £165 in total. No final total for the whole events yet.

In the afternoon Rog went to Bradford Salam Rugby club to watch Pocklington play in the semi final of the local ‘plate’ competition, Pock lost 43 – 12, it was a brutal game as some of the Bradford players were BIG.

Sunday, start of the packing up process ( to leave on Tuesday), then a walk round Burnby Hall Gardens, plus coffee.

Monday (8 April), still in Sarapiqui, on the way to breakfast we saw brightly coloured frogs, right outside our room.

Some of the group did whitewater rafting and the floating river Safari. So we had another walk around the hotel’s forest walk, and saw lots more wildlife.

We then headed off to pick up the rest of the group from their activities before driving to Puerto Viejo.

There was a total solar eclipse across the USA, however as we are so far south the eclipse was only 12%, given the brightness of the sun you couldn’t really see it.

Tuesday, we headed out of the hotel, in the rain, for breakfast before going a local tour. As we approached the cafe there was a large turkey vulture sitting on a street light, 5 mins later there was what we first thought was a gun shot and the bird fell on to a roof! We then worked out that it had actually electrocuted itself, and fused the electrics for half the town, including our hotel, and the laundry we were hoping to use, but thankfully not the cafe we were in for breakfast.

The rain continued for most of the day, on our local tour, we went to the indigenous village for a tour of the medicinal garden and a chocolate making demonstration. Then we headed to see a waterfall, but we couldn’t get close as there had been so much unseasonal rain the path was flooded, the guide told us that the last time he had seen that much water it had rained for 5 days solid, but it had only been raining for about 18hrs!

After lunch we were supposed to be walking in the national park, so at lunchtime there was lots of discussion as to whether we should call it off! However the guide said we should at least go to the national park and speak to the rangers. Just after lunch the rain stopped, so we were able to walk and see more wildlife.

Dinner was included in our tour, a local dinner at a local house, Caribbean cuisine, cooked by a man whose family had originally come to Panama as slaves working on the fruit farms, before eventually moving to Costa Rica.

Wednesday, we headed for the border to cross into Panama, a relatively short minibus journey, then a walk across the border, after paying our exit fees at the local mobile phone shop!

Into another minibus for a transfer to a boat to take us to Bocas del Toro on Isla Colon.

Bocas is an up and coming touristy town, it still needs some infrastructure work, most of the roads were unmade, and there was evidence of upgrades to drainage being under taken. Two of our fellow travellers, from the middle part of our trip, had already been on Bocas for a few days, so we took the opportunity to meet up for a couple of drinks with them before our group dinner.

Thursday, after a disturbed night, thanks to the local disco….and the few drinks we had had…. We set off on a boat trip around the local islands, we spent time snorkelling on the reef, dolphin spotting, then lying on a desert island beach. Then headed for a local fish restaurant for lunch, before heading back to Bocas.

We decided to have a quiet dinner away from our group. We headed back to the same restaurant as the night before, good job too, as Rog had been there looking for his umbrella earlier in the day, no sign of it the staff reported! As soon as we arrived for dinner, the waitress who served us the night before came and put the umbrella on the table !! We ordered our meal, then watched the local floor show! First a ‘lady’ arrived looking for customers amongst the single men in the restaurant!!! The police were called and she made a quick exit before they arrived, then the rain started, followed by a short power cut. We did get our meal, Rog’s meal was not great, school boy error of ordering something other than pasta or pizza in an Italian restaurant! The local dogs arrived to sleep under the table, and the cats to be fed by one of the other diners.. all in all an interesting evening. Back to the hotel for another night of listening to the disco next door.

Friday, we had mostly a free day today. Great brunch in a local cafe, followed by a walk to a local beach, black sand covered by a thin covering of white sand, plus some interesting shells to spot. A lazy afternoon on our balcony, monitoring the efforts of the local tradesmen to get our hotel power and water back on. Thankfully they managed it just before sunset! We had an early dinner before setting out on a boat at around 9pm, to see the bio luminescent algae and plankton. We felt very brave getting into the water to snorkel in the dark to get a better view. It was a magical experience, if slightly nerve wracking hauling ourselves back into the boat afterwards.

Saturday, left Bocas to head for the mountains of Panama, from the ferry we saw the remains of a building following a fire overnight, the building was only about 200 meters from our hotel! Thankfully everyone got out and nobody was injured.

Some of our fellow travellers had been feeling under the weather with tummy upsets, so we enlisted to help of our tour leader to change from public transport to a private minibus, for a few extra dollars, well worth the money. We arrived in Boquete, after a stunning scenic drive, in time for a late lunch, a walk round town, then a couple of beers at one of the local breweries.

Sunday, some of our group were up at 3am for a tour to a volcano for sunrise, we opted for a lazier start to the day, and to save the $125. Instead we headed out for breakfast at a slightly tricky to find spot in one of the hotel grounds. We had a taste of cold brew geisha coffee, as the owners were from Belgium and were also running coffee tours. Geisha coffee has a very floral taste, developed for those who do not like the bitterness of coffee. It is very expensive, but failed to impress either of us, Nic said it still tasted like coffee, Rog said it did not have enough punch for his morning brew, but it’s always good to try these things.

After a bit more of a walk round town, we headed to a local bakery for fantastic sandwiches on rye bread, before heading out for a trip to some geo thermal pools.

The pools were accessed by a short and rocky trail, with a river nearby to cool off. Most of us headed straight for the river after the walk to get there, then tried out the 3 different pools, with varying temperatures.

Back to the hotel for a quick shower, then off to the other local brewery for a drink and a listen to the live band. Then across the road for dinner, very nice food and to celebrate the birthday of one of the group.

Monday (15 April)

Early start….5am on a private bus to head for Panama City. Despite some very bumpy road surfaces we made good time until hitting the city traffic. We had one stop to see the original Panamanian hat making, not to be confused with the more familiar Panama hat. Then had a stop at the Canal locks for a video presentation, and to watch the ships passing through. Arrived at our hotel at about 6pm, then off to dinner at a local restaurant, where the waiters were wearing the Panamanian style hats we had learnt about that day.

Tuesday, Off on an orientation walk with our tour leader. After a brief metro ride we explored the old part of Panama City. Lovely buildings and a great view of the modern city skyline. After lunch at the fish market, lots of ceviche consumed. We all split up to explore, then walked back to the hotel. A bit of a trek in the heat, necessitating a stop in an air conditioned cafe for very expensive bottled water! Worth it for the air con.

After a dip in the hotel pool, then a shower, we met a few of our fellow travellers for a last brewery tasting, before navigating the local Uber to get back to the Old Town for our farewell dinner with our group. Another good restaurant choice and a lovely end to the trip. Lots of hugging, then back to the hotel.

Wednesday, quick pastry for breakfast at a local cafe, then into an Uber for a trip to the airport, one of the three that Panama City has. Arrived nice and early, sorted out a slight query with the way our luggage was listed on our boarding pass. Then a 50 min flight with Wingo, back to San Jose, Costa Rica. Those of you paying attention will remember we had booked the flights out of Costa Rica, before deciding to head all the way to Panama. Easy Uber into the city, after a kind security lady directed us to the right pick up area.

Easy check in to a studio apartment on the 26 floor, close to where we stayed before. A great advantage to be able to easily seek out shops and restaurants.

Whilst having a rest mid afternoon, the earth moved! There was an earthquake.

Thursday, We found a butterfly garden marked on Google maps, so decided to use that as a destination. Reasonably priced, it had a lovely enclosed space to see lots of species, plus information about the life cycle. Then a woodland walk down to the river as part of the admission fee. More butterflies and birds, right in the heart of the city.

Friday, Today’s destination was a park created from an old airport. With an Art gallery, free to enter, and useful as a toilet stop! Interesting walk through the heart of the shopping district to get there, as we had an early ish start, the noise level was reasonable. It is a thing they have in Central America, a salesperson, at the door with a microphone and speaker, telling shoppers what their deals are, it makes for a full on sensory experience when they are all at it.

Saturday, Nic found a farmers market advertised, so we headed off there. Stalls of Organic produce, and loads of food stalls. Very busy, so after a walk round we bought a pineapple and headed back.

Lunch spot today, close to our accommodation, was a Harry Potter themed pub. Really well done, good food and lots of fun.

Sunday, our last full day in Central America, so have had a reasonably lazy day, a short walk, then packed our bags, ordered an Uber for 5am tomorrow, tried to check in online, but again to no avail, so tried to contact the online travel agent to check our tickets, again to no avail, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow when we turn up to the airport.

Dinner out at an Asian restaurant and then an early night.

Monday (1 April), we left Granada, Nicaragua heading for the Costa Rica border. Leaving Nicaragua was not too troublesome. Another 1km walk across no man’s land to the Costa Rica entry point, after a 45 min queue in the sun, we finally got to Border control, which is where the trouble, at least for some of our group started. To enter Costa Rica you have to proof you intend to leave. For some that was easy, they were due to leave the Intrepid tour in San Jose, Costa Rica and have a flight booked out of the country to return home. Some of us were lucky and were not asked for this proof, that thankfully included us. Other were asked, and the only proof they had, was a letter issued by Intrepid stating that they were on a tour and leaving the country overland. Despite this being acceptable previously, today the border control decided it was not acceptable. So dealing with that and arranging onward travel documents took and additional 2 hrs!! Thankfully we were being met by a private transfer with air con, so we were just sat in air con waiting for our fellow travellers, who had a much more unpleasant wait!

Eventually we were all in Costa Rica, but we still had a long drive to Monteverde, which is in the mountains with not the best roads. We didn’t arrive at the hotel until after dark, though we did see a lovely sunset en route.

Tuesday, Monteverde is in the cloudy forest, Nic walked the ‘hanging bridges’, a network of 6 bridges up in the trees, plus interlinking trails. We had a guide who spotted wildlife, and used a telescope so people could get a better view. We saw loads of birdlife, Nic’s pictures seem to be mostly of plants !

Rog did the zip wires, including a mile long zip wire, longest in Central America, and a jungle swing with a 40 metre drop. It was also amazing ziplining above the trees!

Wednesday, we left Monteverde and headed to La Fortuna by bus and boat, another interesting day travelling through the mountains, then across Lake Arenal.

The bus driver stopped so we could take photos of the Coati.

Our hotel in La Fortuna was out of town and set in lovely grounds, so we spotted lots of wildlife. There were no dinner options at the hotel, but the owner also owned a restaurant in town, so he ferried us all there. Rog ordered smoked ribs, which were really good.

Thursday, we did a River Jungle floating safari down the Sarapiqui River. Which was basically sitting in a small 4 person (plus a guide) inflatable boat, floating down a very calm river looking for wildlife. We saw lots including a howler monkey swimming across the river (he didn’t look happy swimming) a cayman, turtles, iguanas, other lizards and lots of different bird species.

Back at the hotel we spotted a sloth in the garden.

Friday, taxi from the hotel to the local bus depot to catch a public bus to Quesada, a quick change of bus to San Jose. Public buses are always an interesting experience.

An interesting hotel, right near the railway line, thankfully our room was still reasonably quiet

Had a orientation walk around San Jose, then a final dinner for the second part of our tour, 9 of our fellow travellers are leaving us here.

Saturday, a free day in San Jose, so we wandered around the city centre, had lunch in the local market and coffee in the National Theatre cafe, built with the Costa Rica export taxes on Coffee.

Another welcome meeting, with another change of guide and only two new travellers, plus the 7 of us traveling on. Had a group dinner, our old travellers were in the same restaurant so we all joined them on a big table!

Sunday, taxi to a different bus depot in San Jose, to catch a bus to Sarapiqui (back to where we did the river safari from La Fortuna), we had delay on the bus as there had been a fatal accident.

Got to our hotel, another one out of town in its own grounds, so we went for a walk, spotting more wildlife.

After dinner we joined a ‘night walk’ with a local guide, who spotted lots of wildlife including lots of frogs, toads, spiders, insects, birds and a couple of snakes. (Don’t worry – no snake pictures).

Monday (25 March), we are still in Suchitoto, El Salvador, we were awake reasonably early so we headed out for a walk around the town and stopped for breakfast.

Later we walked to ‘Cascada Los Tercios’, a waterfall, but with no water. The waterfall is an interesting rock formation made from the same sort of rock as the Giants causeway in Northern Ireland.

There was also wonderful views over lake Suchitoto. By the time we were walking back to town it was getting very hot, so we flagged down a taxi for the rest of the journey in to town. The taxis are tiny little cars!

Tuesday, we drove down to Le Cuco, a beach resort on the pacific coast of El Salvador. We arrived in time for dinner and an amazing sunset and moonrise.

Wednesday, started the day with sunset, we spent the whole day at the beach resort, some of our fellow travellers walked/ran/taxied to the local town, but we did absolutely nothing, except eat, drink and sit in a hammock, It was great to have a rest day! All this traveling is hard work! (Don’t worry we are not expecting any sympathy 😂)

Thursday, another early start, 4am bus first to the El Salvador/Honduras border, which was not too bad. Then a drive across Honduras to the Honduras/Nicaragua border. Leaving Honduras was not too bad, then we had to walk with all our luggage the 1km to the El Salvador border. This one took a lot more time for our guide to deal with all the required paperwork, but eventually we got through and on our way to León, a Spain colonial town.

Friday, again we were awake early so headed out for a walk around the town of Leon, stopping for breakfast at the “Pan & Paz” bakery. After a little more wandering we found ourselves at the San Juan Church, which had a small procession in the grounds of the church, carrying an effigy of Jesus. In Nicaragua the traditional Easter processions around the towns have been banned by the current government. (We are not going to make any political comment here). But it was nice to see the tradition being continued in the grounds of the church.

We headed to the Mirador rooftop bar to watch the sunset and have a beer or two, Nic found a new drink called Hard Seltzer, which appeared to be water with booze in it.

Saturday, we moved to Granada, stopping off to see traditional El Salvadorian pottery, we watched the process of making a pot, then looked around their showroom, some beautiful pieces.

We then called at a viewpoint over a dormant volcano crater lake, with our next stop Granada in the distance.

Checked in to our Granada hotel, another lovely hotel with a pool, the accommodation on this ‘basic’ Intrepid trip has been much better than we expected.

We headed out for a orientation walk and a group dinner, we got adopted by a local dog, it followed us around the walk and even came into the restaurant and sat under the table at Rog’s feet, then followed us as we walked back to the hotel, finally someone else showed it some attention and we were dumped, it trotted off with them. It has to be said it looked like a healthy dog and was wearing a collar, so it obviously just likes to adopt tourists for a little walk round town.

Sunday, Lots of optional tours are available today, but we decided to stay in the town, and do our own walking tour, via lots of the churches, the port, the market, the main square.

Most of the group went of a combined tour including a boat ride on the lake, which appeared to turn in to a rum cocktail fuelled “party boat”, so glad we didn’t cramp their style.

A group dinner was planned, however we decided not to join them, as the party was continuing, we must be getting old and boring. However we had a very nice meal in a fish restaurant, one of the best ceviche we have had.

Monday (18 March), an leisurely start in Panajachel, then a slightly choppy boat ride across lake Atitlan to San Juan La Laguna.

We visited a coffee shop with its own small coffee plantation and roaster. Good coffee!

We then visited the gallery of a local artist, interesting Guatemalan art showing the development of styles.

Next a medicinal garden with a local Maya guide, showing us all the plants and explaining what they are used for. Most we had heard of/use in the UK, but a few didn’t even have English translations for their names.

We then moved on to the local female weaving cooperative, where we had a demonstration and the chance to buy stuff! We resisted…. Lovely though it was.

Tonight our accommodation was a home stay with a local family involved in the weaving cooperative, an interesting experience in a very basic home, outside toilet, cooking over a wood fire. The family spoke little English, and with the family’s first language being Myan, we relied on Spanish and Google translate to chat. Then it was time for an early night. Good job too, as the cockerels, local dogs and Lent fireworks at 5.30am were our wake-up call. After maize tea and local breakfast, eggs, frijoles (beans) and tortillas, hand made by our host’s mum, we headed back to the village church to meet our group. With time for Rog to take a few pictures of the murals on the way.

Tuesday, the weather, and visibility, was a lot better today for our return lake crossing back to Panajachel. We could see all the surrounding volcanos. A 3 hour bus trip back to Antigua, and back to the same hotel, we made a quick stop at a local house, where the 80+ yr old grandma made traditional pottery by hand. She had been making it since before she could remember, and it was amazing to watch her skill and dexterity.

Back in Antigua, we went with fellow travellers to a local wine bar, the more glasses of wine you had the cheaper each glass got! Just the two of us then went for dinner at ‘La Fonda de la Calle Real’ which served traditional Guatemalan dishes, and had a fabulous oxtail stew.

Wednesday, a free day in Antigua, we went for breakfast at Cafe Condesa, a recommended restaurant.

We wandered around the town, visited the local craft markets. In the afternoon we had an interesting chocolate making course at the Choco Museum. We made our own chocolate bars, then had to ask the hotel to store them in the fridge for us so they didn’t immediately melt.

Cocktails with some of our fellow travellers before meeting the rest for our final dinner of this section of the trip, 4 were leaving us, but the other 9 are going on at least until San Jose, Costa Rica.

Our guide had arranged a table at a ‘closed door’ restaurant called ‘Montague’ after Lord Sandwich? Anyway it was really good, especially the prawn and bacon tortillas, but the caramelised onion ice cream for desert was interesting!

Thursday, another free day in Antigua, waiting to meet the 7 new travellers for the next section of the trip to San Jose, Costa Rica is fully booked at 16 of us.

We walked up-to the Hill of the Cross, a viewing point above the town, had lunch and a beer flight on the roof terrace of the Antigua Brewing Company.

Had a welcome meeting, and then dinner with our group and new guide.

Friday, per the itinerary we were supposed to have a 4:30am start, thankfully this was pushed back to 7:30am. We had a long day drive to Copan, Honduras.

The bus driver drove around the town looking for a route to the hotel, he avoided one low archway, but then tried to go under another one, which proved to be also too low, so after some horrible scrapping sounds, he reversed and set off looking for another route, finally flagging down a TukTuk driver, who agreed to lead us to the hotel, however he also missed a turn and had to reverse!! We finally got to the hotel on the top of the hill. Once checked in Rog went on a group walk to the chocolate & tea house, then the fort. Group dinner at Cafe Via Via. Good local selection.

Saturday, we are in Copan mainly for the Maya archeological site, the southern most Maya city. Which also has the most surviving carvings, as it is built from volcanic rock, rather than sandstone used further north.

The site had Scarlet Macaws, the national bird of Honduras, which are just beautiful.

Back in the village after a quick dip in the pool we went out for some lunch. There was an amazing waitress who was able to balance food, or drinks, on her head to navigate the stairs to the area where we were seated.

After a lazy rest of the day, avoiding the heat, Rog went out for drinks and dinner. Nic didn’t feel great so stayed at the hotel.

Sunday, another long day on the bus, we left Honduras, back into Guatemala, then drove straight to El Salvador, in a bus with dodgy air conditioning, so windows open and the guide stopped to buy us all a cold drink!

We arrived in Suchitoto, El Salvador mid afternoon. After a very welcome rest in the air conditioned room, we headed out for a walk in the town. Stopped off to see an Indigo workshop, really interesting to see the process of natural dying. Again managed to resist buying lovely things from the shop. Nic’s tummy was still a bit unsettled, so she bought a fruit smoothie and headed back for some TV, downloaded from good old bbc iPlayer before we left. Rog went out for dinner.

Monday (11 March) we left Caye Caulker this morning, our guide reminded us that in Central America we must travel with ‘flexibility and Patience’, today we have to walk to catch the ferry back to Belize City, get taxis across the city to the bus station, then catch a public bus to San Ignacio, with another Intrepid group so a total of 27 of us! It is also a bank holiday (National Hero’s day), so our guides were a little bit stressed out. However it all worked out perfectly, they even managed to talk the bus driver into dropping us right outside our hotel, rather than us having to walk from the bus station.

Tuesday, we did a trip to explore the Actun Tunichil Muknal caves (known as the ATM caves), an amazing day first we had to cross three rivers, the water was reasonably low, but the deepest crossing was chest height. On entering the cave we had to swim 50 metres, as the river flowed out of the cave. We spent most of the next two hours scrambling and climbing in the water, to reach the dry cave which was used by the Maya to honour their gods including with human sacrifice. There was lots of artefacts still in situ in the cave, slowly being calcified by the water. It was an amazing challenging adventure. Unfortunately there was no photography allowed inside the caves, thanks to previous visitors dropping equipment on some of the precious items!

Wednesday, we visited the national park of Tikal, which includes the largest Maya archeological site in all of Central America, we visited many of the temples and the central plaza with a Maya guide who explained all the history and symbolism of the site. The guide also had an interest in wildlife and managed to spot, and point out, lots of species including spider monkeys, howler monkeys, toucans and brown jays.

Tikal was used in the filming of Star Wars IV A New Hope, the scenes before the rebel alliance attack on the Death Star. Great to see.

Thursday, we left Tikal and drove to Flores the state capital. Flores is on a small island on a lake we crossed the bridge to visit it. They had just opened an exhibition of the local dance costumes which we were invited to visit.

After Flores we drove to Rio Dulce, then took a boat to our hotel. Lovely wooden huts with shared bathrooms. But also a great pool and cocktail list !

Friday we took a boat trip to Livingston, calling at the Spanish Castle of San Felipe of Lara, bird island, the mangroves, hot springs and finally Livingston, a town that can only be reached by Boat. Had an amazing Fish soup for lunch.

Saturday, up at 3:30am to drive to Antigua, via Guatemala City, where the traffic is notoriously bad! We spend most of the day on the road, thankfully our bus driver was doing all the hard work!

We stopped off in Guatemala City to see a large 3D map of the country.

We got to Antigua (not to be mistaken for the Caribbean island) in the afternoon. Antigua is a old Spanish colonial town, a grid layout around a main square.

Given the early start, a nap was required before exploring the town, luckily we still managed to see the end of a parade as towns in Guatemala stage numerous processions in the run up to Easter.

In a couple of days we’ll be back to Antigua for 3 nights, so today was just a short taster!

Sunday, another private minibus first to Chichicastenango to see the market and the church, some murals depicting the ‘civil war’ and visiting a local Maya spiritual leader (‘shaman’) then on to Panajachel on the banks of Lake Atitlán. Unfortunately due to local bushfires the view of the lake and the surrounding volcanos was a little obscured. Panajachal is a nice town, a little bit touristy, but for local Guatemalan tourists. As it was St Patrick’s day, the bar adjacent to the hotel was having a do! Luckily the they closed at 9pm, so no sleep lost!

Monday, our last full day in our Tulum hotel, we headed out to lunch, but the restaurant we wanted to try was not were Google maps said it should be, so we went to a very local taco “restaurant”, the chef Simon was very happy we were there and introduced himself, showed us all the taco options and the meat on the grill. We ordered chicken tacos, they were good. Simon then brought us a shot of local booze, not sure exactly what it was, it was a bit rough!

We filled the car with fuel for the drive back to Cancun tomorrow, at the fuel station the attendants cleaned all the windows, they were getting very dusty. They also wanted to check the oil and water, Rog had to kindly decline – ‘it’s a hire car!’

We had dinner at the hotel sitting by the pool.

Tuesday, we check out of the hotel, and drove the hire car back to Cancun airport. We returned the car which confused the hell out of the car hire staff because it was not the car on their paper work!

At the car hire depot, a couple had returned to try and hire a GPS system, which they couldn’t do, so Rog helped them out and told them how to download “offline” google maps to use.

We then got a transfer back to the airport to catch a bus to Playa del Carmen. It was obviously a quiet day for the taxi firms as they offered US$60 to Playa del Carmen which is at least an hour!

However we stuck with the plan and got the bus for 250 pesos each (£11). We arrived too early to check in at the hotel where we were to join our Central American Tour, however we did drop our bags off, and went for a walk into Playa del Carmen. It’s very touristy with souvenir shops and bars everywhere!

We met our fellow travellers at 6pm then all went out for dinner with our guide.

Wednesday, was a ‘free’ day on the tour, so we got up early for a walk around Playa, very different at 8am most of the shops, restaurants and bars were not open. We did do some shopping at the local Walmart, replacing sun cream, bug spray etc.

We walked to the local ruins, they were not very impressive, and were just in the middle of a housing estate. Previous visitors to the sites had built cairns of stones all over the ruins, we did wonder what the Mayans would have made of this !! As we were walking away from the site, through the estate, our eyes were drawn to a group of trees with loads of different birds, about 6 different species, some of which we recognised, others which were new to us, lovely to see.

In the evening we headed to a local eatery famous for Cochinita Pilbil, a local slow roast pork dish served in tacos, yummy with a beer and margarita next door afterwards to wash it down.

On returning to the hotel we were greeted by a raccoon on the stairs!?

Thursday, we headed south to Chetumal, near the Belize border. On route we stopped at Bacalar for lunch and a boat trip on the lagoon. A very shallow lagoon, we swam/stood in the lagoon. There were also stromatolites, our second stromatolites in 3 months, these stromatolites were more impressive than the Australian ones.

In Chetumal, went out for dinner at a local restaurant, our last Mexican dinner, struggled slightly to understand the menu, but managed eventually to communicate with the waiter, and the food was good.

Friday, we met up with another Intrepid group to cross the border together, so a short bus transfer in Chetumal, with time to fill in the paperwork, then another bus to the border.

A quick Mexican security check;

Everyone off the bus to go through Mexico exit, a passport stamp and pay the US$45 exit tax;

Back on the bus and drive across no man’s land to the Belize entry;

Everyone off the bus, with all the luggage this time, and queue up to enter Belize;

Another passport stamp;

Back on the bus, and into Belize.

It all takes time to get a bus load of us through, but thankfully apart from us the border was quiet.

Another 3 hours on the bus to Belize city. We missed our intended ferry to Caye Caulker, so we had time for lunch before the next one! We found a local Chinese/ local restaurant who were mostly serving take food. However we were asked if we wanted to eat in, which meant moving the plastic screen and table blocking the doorway and entering into a darkened room with a couple of tables, a couple of our tour group were already there too! The chicken chow mein was good, it was recommended by a local as we queued outside!

A one hour water taxi ride took us to Caye Caulker, a small island an hour from Belize city, white sands palm trees, no cars a beautiful place.

Saturday, we had a day trip snorkelling on the ‘Miss Moneypenny’ catamaran, 3 snorkelling stops on the reef, some amazing marine life, fish rays, sharks and coral.

Lunch and a few cocktails! A great day!

Sunday, another free day with no organised plans. We were awake early so went for a walk before the heat for the day, walked most of the island. Breakfast was a local delicacy, a fry jack, fried bread stuffed with your choice of filling, we had bacon egg and cheese. We had been warned of the size and decided to share!

Spent the afternoon at ‘Sip & Dip’ a bar on the quay with tables in the water! A nice way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon!

Had dinner at the Happy Lobster, but no lobster, it’s out of season.

A slightly different format to this weeks blog, as we have spent a few days chilling out, relaxing and not doing anything ‘bloggable”.

So these are the highlights, when we did do something interesting:

Tuesday, Visited the Tulum Mayan ruins, they are unusual as they are right on the coast. We got up early to avoid the busier times and the height of the sun.

In true Mexican style first you have to run the Gauntlet of parking, as we were early that was not too bad, there were no guys on the main road trying to flag you in to their ‘official’ parking, according to Google there are about 4 parking lots called ‘official’, we are not sure any of them are actually official.

Ok so we paid our 100 pesos and parked up, now we have to get into the National park, that the ruins are in, a wrist band to buy, but that doesn’t get you in to the actual ruins. Then a 10 minute walk to a dodgy looking portacabin to buy a ticket for the ruins, then another 100 yards and a man checking that ticket!

As we wandered around we noticed that there was lots of building work going on, new paths being laid, new entrances being built. It was nice to see the ticket money being spent.

The ruins themselves are not that big, but interesting all the same, a main temple right on cliff top, a building over the top of a cenote (you couldn’t get in to the cenote, they were rebuilding the path). We did some iguana spotting, as there were plenty of them catching the early sun on top of the ruins.

We were glad that we made an early start, as on our way out of the site there was now a long queue, and loads more people making their way from the parking areas.

Thursday, a day for Chechin Itza, the most famous and most visited Mayan ruins in Mexico. So after doing lots of online research, we decide that we needed to get there early before all the tour buses arrived, it opens at 8am and it’s 2 1/2 hrs drive, so we were planning a 5:30 start☹️, however an almost throw away comment online mentioned the 1hour time difference between the state of Quintana Roo (Tulum) and Yucatán (Chechin Itzá), Strange but great, an extra hour in bed, so we left at 6:30am and no driving in the dark!

Again the parking, we had vowed to use the actual official parking, however when we got there there was a queue for the official parking, so we parked with some trepidation at an unofficial parking lot, saving the grand total of 20 pesos (£1), and hoped the car would be there when we returned! (Spoiler : it was).

Chechin Itza is an expensive archaeological site in Mexico. The site itself costs 95 pesos (£4.25) however the State Authorities in Yucatan also charge 468 pesos (£21.75) so you need two different tickets, but just for further confusion the 95pesos ticket you can only buy with cash but the 468 pesos ticket you can use a card! but only at different ticket booths!

We were there nice and early, all the stall holders were queuing up to get in with all their wares.

The first thing you get to as you walk into the site is “El Castillo” the largest pyramid, worth the entrance fee, it is an amazing sight.

So, using a lesser known fact, that, in general, the majority of people will always turn right we turned left and managed to get to a number of the other sites with nobody else around! We’ll include more photos than usual and put the details in the captions

All the stallholders were still setting up their stalls, as we wandered around, so they were focused on that rather than trying to encourage us to buy! After 3 hours there, it was starting to get busier, but not too crazy as the size of the site can absorb a lot of people.

Then for the long drive home, Rog is the only named driver on this hire car, as they wanted more than the cost of the original hire car to add an additional driver.

On the return journey we did drive through (rather than around) the town of Valladolid, a nice looking town, we didn’t stop, just drove slowly down the main street.

Got back to the apartment mid afternoon for a well deserved beer!

Saturday, we moved to Rubi Tulum Hotel, the original hotel we’d booked for our 22 day stay in Tulum, but you’ll remember from last weeks blog that there was a mix up with the booking and we were put in an apartment, which actually worked better for us. So we have 3 nights here before returning the hire car to Cancun and joining a 44 day Central American trip through all 8 countries Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama

So stay tuned for hopefully much more “bloggable” adventures

Monday (12 February) following the expensive taxi from the airport to the hotel, this morning we got an Uber about the same distance for less than an eighth of the price!! Ubers are not allowed to pick up at the airport.

So we collected a hire car, surprising the staff with Nic’s exploding water bottle, after she filled it with sparkling water, put the lid on then forgot. As she went to take a drink, the bottle cap flew through the air, missed one of the staff and hit the ceiling, falling to earth in 2 irreparable pieces! Ah well, it had served a Nic well, after we found it lying in a field during a walk when we were spending time on the canals in 2021.

Hire car all organised we then drove south to Tulum, an interesting journey for our first time on Mexican roads. The road was OK, the odd large pothole, armed police visible at checkpoints, lots of huge trucks and beaten up cars, luckily ours was not pristine either! In order to deal with the traffic conditions, we coined the phrase ‘drive like a Mexican’, it is being used frequently now! 5 hrs later the car hire company WhatsApp’d Rog to ask for a photo of the key fob so they knew which car they had given us.

We got to the hotel, who thought that we were due to check in on the 18th (not the 12th! ), and were fully booked, after about 15 mins they had come up with a plan for us to have the owners apartment, for either all of our stay, or until 18th when they will have space for us in an upgraded room.

Our original booking was dirt cheap, so much so that Rog emailed the hotel to check the price of the booking (after we’d booked) they are standing by the price. They admitted that their booking system had had a glitch, lucky for us! And that we were the last of 7 bookings who had got an eye watering reduced price!

As it turns out the apartment probably works better for us as we are here for 3 weeks, a little more space a better kitchen, a large pool in the complex and a small pool on the roof terrace. What’s not to like !

When we finally got into the flat, we went shopping, the ‘roads’ around the accommodation are terrible rutted dirt tracks, as there is not any buildings around at the moment, mostly jungle with a fare few building slights.

Tuesday, given all the recent excitement, we decided to have a relaxing day, a dip in the pool, catch a few rays.

Wednesday, we return to Chedraui supermarket for a big shop! It all takes longer than you think to drive to the supermarket, find everything you need, queued up, remember to get your parking ticket scanned in store, load up the car and drive back.

We then spent a couple of hours back at the hotel around their pool before returning to the flat for dinner.

Spoke to some good friends via FaceTime, who were on a much deserved holiday in the Canary Islands.

Thursday, another lazy day, spent a couple of hours at the hotel pool.

Friday, our first big adventure out, we drove an hour to Cenote Taak Bi Ha, a stunning cave cenote. It was a reasonable price compared to some we had researched. It was also reported to be managed by 7 local families, which appealed to us. It was not too busy, so we spent an hour or so there, Nic had a snorkel mask to get a better view of the underwater stalagmites , and small fish. When there were less people around we also saw some sizeable bats flying round, and were able to see where they were roosting.

Saturday, we drove the Tulum beach road south as far as the entrance to the Sian Ki’an national park. After reading reviews of the drive into the national park we decided not to bother as it is up to a 4 hr drive to the interesting stuff, and the road is even worse than the ones we have already driven.

At the public beach in Tulum (a lot of beaches can only be accessed via hotels and beach clubs, who charge a hefty fee), we watched Brown Pelicans fishing at close quarters, really magical to see.

Sunday, we stayed in the flat, it rained a lot!

Monday (19 February), we braved the puddles in the roads and visited the Mayan ruins at Coba, about an hour’s drive from Tulum. A nice site as it is still surrounded by jungle which gave welcome shade.

At Cobá we heard a surprising number of French voices amongst the tourist visitors.

Tuesday, another shopping day, we tried to go to a different supermarket. But as we pulled in to the small car park which was full, the army arrived and started getting animated with some of the cars blocking the car park, so we quickly drove out again, going back to the Chedraui supermarket instead.

Also did some washing. Rog managed to find poles to fashion washing lines on the sun terrace to dry everything.

Washing and shopping – a truly glamorous day!

Wednesday, we walked to a local restaurant, “Chencho” for lunch, lovely tacos and burritos. Our first Mexican meal out.

Thursday we drove south down the main highway as far as a town called “Felipe Carrillo Puerto”, a local Mexican town, had a walk around, not touristy at all.

Friday, we walked to a hotel with an “Art Walk” in its grounds, with statues, murals and unfortunately a lot of insects resulting in a few bites. Coffee at the Nuud cafe on the walk back to the flat.

Had drinks on our roof terrace and watched loads of Yucatan Jays flying about.

Saturday, went back to see the Pelicans at the local beach.

Sunday, a quiet day at the flat, it is Sunday after all.