The Galapagos Islands

The Galapagos or the Enchanted Isles as they were formally known conjures up many images- giant Galapagos Tortoises, hammerhead sharks, penguins, fiery volcanoes and last but not least it is where Charles Darwin first penned his thoughts on his "Theory of evolution" on board of the Beagle. We both decided very early in our planning that the Galapagos Islands was going to be one of our highlights. ITs not cheap to get there and as a welcome present you have to pay 100$ entrance fee, but in the end it's worth every penny!
After some research we felt our best option was an 8 day voyage of discovery on Board of the cruise ship Eden - we weren't to be disappointed...The Itinerary of the cruise consisted of mostly the eastern side of Galapagos- this included the isles Genovesa, Bartolome, Santa Cruz, Floreanna, Espanola and lastly San Cristobal. Each island has its own draws. In the far north Genovesa was our first stop. Its famous because its one the few islands that has no introduced species from Humans ie Rats!. With the absence of the dreaded rat there are huge colonies of blue footed boobies, red footed boobies, frigate birds etc. Genovesa is also where I had my first encounter with a Hammerhead shark snorkelling (it was swimming right besides Uli) They truly look like an alien and are pretty damn big (5 meters approx) but they are not an aggressive animal towards humans, at in Galapagos....
On Santa Cruz we visited Lonesome George in the Darwin reserach station. Sadly, he is the last of his sub species of Giant Tortoise who was in fact tought to be extinct up until he was discovered in the 1971 wandering all alone on Pinta Island. During our stay we hoped to find a pretty "Georgina" for George in order to extend our holidays for a few months: There is a reward of $10,000 for the discovery of female for George, which will save the subspecies. Of course no luck :( But back to the Galapagos (Giant Tortoises): Nearly 1/2 of the species of Giant Tortosies have been wiped out. Unfortunately, before the Galapagos Islands were allocated National Park status there was no protection for these amazing animals. The Islands for centuries were used as rest stops for Buccaneers which was not good news for the Giant Tortoises as they a great source of fresh meat and easy prey. In fact they had been known to stay alive for up to a year stored on boats without food or water. So they were welcomed food on months long sailing trips....Even Darwins attempt to bring some tortoises home for research failed because they were eaten by the crew....

Of course we also had to try our luck scuba diving on the Galapagos. Surely it is one of the most beautiful and also most demanding places to scuba dive in the world. The water is so cold that we had to wear two diving suits, a hood, booties and a weight belt of 10 kilos!!! We felt more than astronauts rather than divers with all this equipment. And we were lucky, on our big day the waters of "Gordon Rocks" were calm. Normally, the diving spot is also known as the "washing machine" and nothing for beginners... The demanding dive rewarded us with turtles, sting rays, manta rays, Galapagos sharks, hammerhead sharks etc. & this all in ONE dive :)

Galapagos - what a beautiful piece world....In the 1930ies it was nearly leased to the United States for a 100 years for a couple of Millions$ - as the Ecuador's economy was doing very badly. Thanks to the not consent between politicians (some things never change) it remained Ecuadorian property and a paradise holiday destination.

Sea Lions -Galapagos

Guateeeeeee

Guatemala had always a special meaning for me because of my two friends Guido and Jorge :) Unfortunately I broke one of the biggest travelers' rule; never read the safety advice of the Foreign Affairs Department as it is similar to the side effect brochure of a strong medicine: quite bit of exaggeration. So scared of Guatemala's safety situation I was not really sure if we should go and I drove poor Adam mad about it. In the end, we went and it was one of the best things we could have done during our travels..besides of the endless hours in these minibuses ((although the distances are tiny you spend hours and hours for transport))....we absolutely loved Guatemala.....
Our first stop was the beautiful colonial town La Antigua. Antigua is a place where you could spend months without getting bored. The tiny streets and the many colonial buildings, churches and monasteries are abs. beautiful and if that was not enough you can expect various food "orgasms" in several places in town...talking about food we have to mention here Latin-america's best beer: La Cerveza Gallo. Thanks to this magic beverage we had some lovely and happy hours with our Chapin friends!!!! PROST
From Antigua we got a private shuttle (organised by Escalante Tours) to Guatemala's Capital: Guatemala City. After seeing the Palace and the City Center, where we also met Guatamala City.s Mayor, we were quite impressed by two huge shopping centers which were more modern and more comfortable than any other shopping center we had seen on our travels so far.... We also enjoyed there nice food, of course some nice Gallo beer and great company....
Antigua's famous volcano Pacaya was next on our programm. Although we didnt see the promised lava rivers, it was still very nice on top of one of the 36!!!! volcanoes in Guatemala, we even got surprised by some Marshmallows up there.
Later on we continued our travels heading to the east side of the country. We got to a small town named Coban. We liked it much less than Antigua but we didnt have another choice than to stay there in order to get to the magical place Semuc Champey. What sounds like champagne is in real life a natural wonder consisting of many small ponds and pools. The colour of these pools is between blue, turquoise and green, that means it is awesome to look at them and even better to swim in them. We had some kind of crazy guide (he said he was 18, but looked like 9) who jumped, climbed, slided and walked us from one pool to the other....believe me we had a great day there....
We saved the best till last in Guate...Tikal. Not only is it an ancient wonder of the world but it is also a tropical jungle teaming with life surrounding it.
We found howler monkeys, spider monkeys, crocodiles, foxes and even tarantulas as we passed from one ancient ruin to the other. It was amazing considering that jungle was completely cleared during the Mayan reign, but now the jungle has reclaimed the land within a relatively short time span. This means that only a very small minority of the 5000 buildings in the Tikal complex have been cleared and restored. There is still a lot to discover and a lot of money to spend,,,,,
Summing up: Guatemala is def. a place to visit !!!

Mexico

The first thing in our minds OR better said our- "bellies" is certainly the extraordinary good food...... hmmmmm and the simplest things were best: nice guacamole with cilantro, cheesy quesadillas (only with Oaxaca cheese please ) , cerviche and of course icecold Corona with a piece of lime. Heaven couldnt taste better. ....
Apart from the delicious food we enjoyed the fantastic beaches around Tulum, the very nice scuba diving in Cozumel and the impressive ruins in Chichen Itza. However, the very biggest thing was certainly the whale sharks in Holbox Island (please see the video below) No mum, they were not dangerous at all :) :) Of course we had to get some more diving in too.
We did our first cavern dive in a Cenote (sinkhole) which was surreal experience sometimes. It felt we were floating in space with complete darkness and amazing visibility in the fresh water. On a historical note cenotes were the single biggest reason of the success of the Mayan empire in the Yucatan Peninsula, as they were the primary source of fresh water!
All in all Mexico is a very easy to travel country, at least in the south. Also thanks to ADO bus services. One of our favourite places was surely San Cristobal de las Casas en Chiapas. This small colonial town in the middle of an array of mountains doesnt lack of authenticity. Little streets full of nice bars and restaurants, very friendly people and this all for a very good price,,, makes it to a traveller's favourite. In the surroundings we could also enjoy the amazing Sumerido Canyon. A daytrip brought us to this nice piece of nature, the high walls of the Canyon were quite impressive. The only bad side was that the river was full of waste and old plastic bottles, which even reminded me of the Ganges in India :O)

USA - California

the UNITED STATES left a deep impression. the first one we got though was not the best: three hours at immigrations. Apparantly, there was an error in the system ?! But later on we found out that it always takes soooo long to "immigrate". However, once we got our asses out of that huge horrible queue we jumped on our little beautiful escape camper van. Millions of people admired our vehicle, asked us if they could take pictures etc. and Adam always assured them that he did
the graffiti arts himself :)Our baby drove us around for 2300 miles, a proud number in only 13 days. The first few days we were on the BIG SUR, popular for surfers and nature fans. So we saw these really cute and huge elephant seals, getting their names of their funny noses. The landscape was really nice, reminding us a bit of good old Ireland...In these first days we also tried for the first and the last time wildcamping. We spent a night at a Walmart parking lot, together with 5 other campers. We found it a bit scary though and for this reason we only did it once...
Next stop was the biiig huge Redwood forest park. It was just incredible to see these huuge big trees, comparedto our car which looked super tiny. We did some nice nature walks, but once we had enough from the big fellows we went to foggy San Francisco where we met our friends Birgit and Tobi. Of course we wanted to celebrate our meeting with a nice cold beer. Adam picked for this special ocasion a nice Irish bar. But although our faces are full of wrinkles, our hair and beards are grey and getting white, the guys didnt believe that we are older than 21 and without a "plastic" ID NO drinks (not even alcohol free beer). I never saw Adam that disappointed in our
trip. At least in China town we could enjoy a beer together in a fancy cHinese restaurant.
After two days in San Francisco we had to find out that it can get bloody cold even in summer and that sunny california should get rather the name: foggy california - at least on the coast.
At least in the interior it got a bit warmer, when we went to the Yosemite National Park, our really favourite place in California. It was so beautiful that we thought we must be in a Walt Diseny park for nature. Unfortunately, we are not the only people who think that and for this reason the park was endlessly crowded. We even got once stucked in a Traffic jam for one hour ??!!! Uuuups....We would have rather expected that in busy Las Vegas, which was our next stop....Post continued by Adam

Las vegas believe everything you have heard...New York, Venice, the Eifletower everything can be found in this exciting oasis.For me it was even more exciting, what better place than vegas to catch up with my brother, his girlfriend and of course Adrian. This meant sunning by the pool and drinking beer all day long (it was 45 degrees). It was some craic and yes it was pretty easy to spot the paddies. You lose track of time when you are inside one the mega hotel casinos.. especially when you have consumed a gallon of beer.

Alas we only really had one evening with the guys its was far too short but cest la vie and it was back to LA at 4am to drop off the rainbow coloured campervan. We spent a couple of nights in Downtown LA - yeah you were all right guys, it was a bit rough but not quiet as bad as we expected.There seems to take place a renewal of some kind some hip coffee bars have just opened also some decent bars and are a hostel was
quirky which is always cool. Our final destination was Venice beach, yep it really does have your above average amount of freaks they even have a walk in freak show (i kid you not!) some other fine examples of daily life was a guy advertisng- with a ripped piece of cardboard "kick me in ass for $5" the next day he had progressed to " kick me in the nuts for $10 " yeh you get the idea but it had an endearing quality the place.Next Destination is central America...cant wait

Mexico Holbox- Whale Shark

Its not quite "the blue planet" production quality but you get the idea. Our budget for the underwater camera was 50 euro hehe! this gut was relatively small only 8 meters.. Wow.

Indonesia Part II

We still dont know HOW, but in the end we managed to leave the Gili's We heard about travellers who were stuck on the Gilis for even 6 months!!!! Anyhow, we were still "thirsty" and we wanted to see more of Indonesia.

So we decided to get a bit more adventurous and we went to the less touristy island Flores. It was a bit exhausting to get there though: a 27 hours bus ride and two ferries. Our "chicken bus" was not only loaded with chickens, but also with construction material and on top: a MOTOR BIKE, that means inside the bus, directly next to Adams head. At this moment we were not

sure if we make it alive to Flores....But the tough journey was worth it. Flores is vey wild and rich in the variety of animals.

So we visited for example the Komodo National Park in order to see the world famous Komodo Dragons. The worlds biggest lizard. Jesus, we felt like in Jurassic Park. These

creatures get to a length of 3 meters and very important they are NO vegetarians. On our Komodo Dragon walking tour we heard about six victims eaten by dragons (also one Swiss tourist) in the last few years. Of course we got a bit nervous when one of them was following us. Please watch the video...Our second experience with the wildlife were the Manta Rays. We met them on a diving/snorkling tour and for sure it was one of our most exciting moments.... Having a group of seven giant manta rays about four meters wide swimming around you was pretty cool! They glided in formation one after the other spiralling tumbling and twirling all in sync like they were showing off! They did a little dance formation for us.

Our next stop was back in civilisation in Ubud, Bali. We spoilt ourselves with several Starbucks Coffees, nice massages and really good "western food". these were our last days in beloved Indonesia until we got to California, but this a another chapter....

Indonesia

30 days ..thats all they give to visit Indonesia and me for one intially didnt grasp its vast size. That was until undertaking a 33 hour nerve wrecking bus jouorney in Java, just to get to Bali I started to understand "hey this is a bloody big country!"You may ask why we put
ourselves through that sort punishemnt,(yeh i know we wont get much sympathy!)well quite simply its the unglamrous side backpacking and making sure you stay on budget and as other hardened travels would say "how much can you see from an aeroplane".

But of course the epic bus journey was all worth it, although our first stop- Kuta is a bit of shit hole. Yeh its fine if your going on the piss for a week thats true. So we got the hell out of there after just one night and started an other not so quite epic journey to the gili islands. The Gili islands can be best described as a place where you just cant escape once you get there -its meant as compliment :). But we did manage to to actually get off the Island
and be a little more adventurous -we climbed Mount Rinjani. It consisted of 3 day and 2 night
trek and was pretty damn cool. I doubt there are many places in the world were you can see a
Volcano island within giant Volcano Rim!

The Gilis really were the closet thing to paradise we have come across on our travels nice beaches, great accomdation, good value, great food, nice snorkeling/scuba diving and most important thorougly great people.