The Holidays

After landing in Guayaquil on our return flight from the Galapagos, we had a little more than a week to make it to Lima. We spent Christmas in Cajas National Park – it was a lovely day adjusting to the altitude, hiking around the largest and closest lake and pulling together what we could for Christmas Dinner.

After a few days in Cajas, we made our way to Cuenca, what was supposed to be our last stop in Ecuador before crossing into Peru.

We got a late start leaving Cuenca, and had the impression that the border was closer than it was, which shouldn’t have been surprising. Now we’ve known since extending our temporary permit that canceling our vehicle permit out of Ecuador was an important step to avoid fines if we ever wanted to enter the country again later. So when we arrived at the border we knew we needed to find the Ecuador Exit Aduana. At the Ecuador side we asked a guard and he told us that it was at the next set of buildings about 5k ahead. When we arrived there we looked around, asked a few people and then waited in a line to get our stamps to, we thought, exit Ecuador. Turns out it was the line to enter Peru, from there we asked someone else and they told us we needed to go back to the other set of buildings 5k back. We jumped in the car, drove back to the first set of 5k buildings, and there they told us we needed to go to another building another 5k back. We drove another 5k to a set of ramshackle buildings and asked yet another guard if we were in the right place. He confirmed that we were and so George waited in another line. When he got to the window, they told him he needed a copy of his paperwork. So he ran across the street and made a copy and then came back, the guy then told him that he was in the wrong place and needed to go to the buildings 5k ahead.
At this point it was getting late and close to dark. We were running the risk of getting stamped out of Ecuador and not being able to check-in to Peru, thus leaving us parked on the side of the road in no-mans land for the night. We opted to find a place to stay close to the border, for which options are never good. First try was a gas station, it ended up being under construction which we decided was dangerous. Then we both saw it at the same time; a love hotel.
Since Mexico, on the outskirts of every town we have been seeing love hotels. They have great names like Casa de Amor, Corazon, Tiempo por Amor and the classice, Love Hotel. They were all private and secure looking. They have big walls around them, all the views from the road are blocked, and each “accommodation” has a garage that the client pulls into. The fancy ones have a bedroom attached to the front of the garage with a bathroom and a shower, the not so fancy ones have only a bathroom. At first I was horrified at seeing them, thinking it meant that everyone had a mistress and therefore every town needed them, but then the more we learned about family structure and families all living together, we understood that was the only place many people could go for privacy. Either way it wasn’t on the top of my list for places to stay, but we laughed back in Mexico that it would only be a matter of time before we had to stay at one. Our card was up, and thankfully this one fit the van inside and was tall enough for us to pop the top. Since they charge by the hour, this would be our most expensive campsite to date.

We were almost asleep when throughout the entire building the sound track to porn started playing. It was so loud and so terrible that all we could do was shake our heads and laugh. Chalk it up to another day living in a van, driving through South America.

We departed first thing in the morning, on our way out the little old lady that worked there gave us a gift of a huge bowl of mangoes, she clearly understood that we were not the typical customer.

We made it through the border and the insane traffic in Tumbes and pulled into crazy Mancora. With the loads of people in Mancora for the holidays we decided to check out Lobitos, on our way there we came across a surf competition and talked to a few people that convinced us to head back to Mancora. We were stoked to run into our friends AdventureOnTap that we met back in Ecuador and that night we had a great dinner out on the town with them.

We motored across a crazy desert, stayed at a farm with seven dogs, and spent New Years in Huanchaco. We enjoyed amazing ceviche and met a fabulous British family of four driving around in Mercedes 508D – an ex-German military ambulance, you can check out their amazing tumbler feed here. We cheered the New Year with them, went to bed, and attempted to sleep while the party raged on around us.

The next morning all the locals urged us not to drive, they told us that there were too many drunk people on the road and that it was very dangerous. Weighing our options, it seemed more dangerous to stay right where we were, in the middle of the drunken party. Turns out the whole country got the “don’t drive memo” and we had the roads to ourselves as we made our way to Canon del Pato. No hangover and the open roads to ourselves - it looked to be the perfect start to 2015!

i love Colombia

The city of Cartagena and Colombia for that matter are stunning. There is an electricity and sense of life in the air in Cartagena that I have never felt anywhere else. The city is drenched in history; you can almost hear the cannons fire or see pirate ships out in the bay as you make your way around the city. And the people, wow – truly kind hearted, patient and overwhelmingly helpful and nice. One of the best examples of how different Cartagena was showed itself when we went to collect the car (you may remember the Panama City experience from here). Sharply dressed people buzzed around the busy port carrying briefcases, paperwork and showcasing security badges. I waited in an air-conditioned white marble room with huge floor to ceiling windows with a view of the bustle while George and Dean, being the owners of the vehicles sat inside security at a conference table with offers of hot coffee sifting through and signing paperwork. The nice lady in charge of the security badges in the room I was waiting in chatted me up and helped me with my Spanish while I her with her English. When we left she said, “Welcome to Colombia, I hope you enjoy your time here.” It was actually a pleasant experience. After 5 days in the city I kept declaring, I love Colombia and especially Cartagena.


Colombia has only continued to impress us from there. In San Gil, we went class 5 rafting, ate cheap amazing food and drank delicious micro brews, took in the town, George went budget bungee jumping (not for me, thanks), and I took a dance class. We met up with a couple from Australia that we’d met on the sailing trip you might remember from here and another couple from Colorado (CragginWagon). One night we all adventured together to play the game of tejo – where you throw a metal puck at a clay board with the goal being to hit the ring in the middle that’s lined with explosives which explodes and sounds like a gun being fired. Yeah, it was amazing.

From San Gil we made the decision to do the long drive to Park National Natural El Cocuy. George said it well, “we didn’t drive all this way to skip the hard to get to places.” In the end it turned out to be two days worth of driving through some of the most amazing mountainous landscapes we’d seen. It made our first overnight at a gas station seem not so bad. Clean bathrooms, 24 hour security, and quiet night were right up our alley after 10 hours of driving.

Some times it’s time to jump ship or cut bait.

With 9 countries north of us, six months of time spent eating, drinking and surfing through countries, a van locked and loaded in a container bound for Cartagena, Colombia and a backpack full of sunscreen, bathing suits and booze we loaded a couple of pongas and headed out to El Gitano Del Mar, a 54’ catamaran, to sail through the San Blas Islands for three days before a 36 hour open water crossing into Cartagena to meet Dolores. 

We had dreams of an incredibly romantic sailing trip. We were sailing with our friends, Sara & Dean (that were also our shipping partners) and Katie O, who’d come to visit us. All along we knew that there would be other people on our boat, but we didn’t know that there would be almost 20 other people on our boat. Originally we understood the max booking number was 12. In total there were 23 of us (5 girls and 18 guys – yikes!). So the romantic idea of sailing was confined only to the stunning views of the islands -boat life with 23 people was not so romantic.

The 3 days of bouncing from one little uninhabited island to another, snorkeling, drinking from coconuts and taking in the clear water of the Caribbean was stunning. The highlight of the trip for Rachel happened when we were fishing during the open water crossing. We were trolling a few lines and finally caught a few fish. We had two on that were being reeled in when a third fish hit. As the crew turned their attention to the reel in the third line she was looking out at the water to see if she could tell what we had on. Right at that moment a huge shark flew about 5 or 10 feet out of the water to gobble up whatever we’d had on the line. It was like was watching National Geographic, but big and loud and real.

Sailing into Cartagena through the bay we encountered fleets of multiple countries’ old war ships as a US Coast Guard ship flanked us to our starboard. After a quick dinghy ride to shore the Captain handed over a bag of passports to the Immigration office and away we went to explore the city with our new Colombian passport stamp. Why can’t all border crossings be this easy? We quickly found a hotel, freshened up and hit the streets for food.

Cartagena felt that it had more history, life and passion than any place that we had visited before on this journey. We finally came back to a land of spices, sauces, and creativity. We sampled empanadas, arepes, kabobs of meat, sausages, fried cheese balls, tinto (black coffee), and more! Cartagena easily won us over with its organized chaos and friendly vibes. This town has renewed our sense of adventure for the trip and has us stoked for the rest of Colombia. If the rest of Colombia is half as awesome as Cartagena then it may be one of the best places on earth.

And Now We're Birders

The cooler mountains of Boqute, Panama were exactly what we were hoping for. The sun was warm during the day, but nights were cool and you needed a sweatshirt. Oh, and there was an amazing bakery, Sugar & Spice, that had free coffee refills and some of the most amazing muffins I’ve tasted in a long time.

We took full advantage of the weather; ran in the mornings, tried to hike up volcano’s, found hot springs and played scrabble. Yes, Katie beat me, but don’t worry I returned the favor and was undefeated at Yahtzee. 

We met back up with our friends Sardinetaco, who also had a traveling companion, Dean’s cousin Cara. Suddenly there were enough of us for a party!

One afternoon we decided that we’d hike up to a waterfall outside of town and that was when it happened. About half way up the trail Sara stopped and pointed. To all of our amazement there in front of us was one of the most sought after birds in all of the birding world. The Resplendent Quetzal. Not only was there just one female, but five of them. At that moment we were all so excited and decided YES we were all birders! The waterfall became a distant second goal of the hike. Now that we’d seen the females we were all on high alert to scope out one of the males with one of their long blue tails.

We made our way up to the waterfall, which only held us for a while. After all, we were birders now. As we made our way down the trail we were moving a bit slower and still attentive to our surroundings, looking for the male Quetzal.
As the hike was winding to an end, we thought we were lucky to see just the females and that would have to be that. However, Sara, again with her spotting luck, stopped us all on the trail to point out another Quetzal and to our surprise it was the male with the long blue tail that we’d been hoping for. We stood in silence as it sat up there and stared back at us. YES, again we were all really excited about being birders!

After the hike we scoped out a spot to set up camp. After a little debating, the fairgrounds parking lot would be our abode for the night. In the brisk evening we enjoyed a campfire and Katie’s famous curry. At some point we were all discussing our paperwork and shipping the cars, and we all had paperwork out to compare numbers, etc. It was then we made the startling discovery that George’s passport number was wrong on the van importation paperwork… Bummer, this meant that we were headed back to the border the next day to get it corrected. Good thing the roads were in good condition and it would be a relatively easy drive…

Tourist Tank Tops

We don’t typically do this, but for this particular post you’ll see no pictures. In the moments described in the last few paragraphs, there was no time for photos.

After deciding that El Salvador wasn’t really for us because of a few crowed surf breaks, both of us getting sick, and an empty lake, we set our sights on Nicaragua. I’m sure there are a number of wonderful things about El Salvador, but our exploration didn’t unearth any of them. We crossed in and out of Honduras in a day without incident and although long and hot it was a fairly pleasant day of travel.

We arrived in Leon, Nicaragua in the heat of the afternoon and after checking out a few different places to stay we found ourselves parked in front of the BigFoot Hostel. Here we spent the night sweating through our first “stealth camping” experience. Other overlanders know this as boondocking, or to be completely transparent, sleeping in your car and being undetected by the outside world. Now when I say it’s hot in Leon the full effects of that statement might not fully sink in. It’s feeling parts of your body sweat that you didn’t know could sweat, watching your shins sweat, mind numbing, even cold beer doesn’t help, hot. During this heat we slept in the van with all the windows and doors closed with our little 5in fan blowing on us. To say it was the hottest night of my life would be an understatement. It made the hottest night of my life to date seem like a dream.

The next morning feeling “refreshed/refried” we watched the crowds of people return from volcano boarding. For those of you not familiar with the sport, you hike to the top of a volcano and ride the pumice or sand down on a sort of toboggan. You are dressed in a fashionable orange jumpsuit and science class like goggles for the ride down. Having not done a single organized tourist event during this trip, we decided it was time to indulge a little.

Because of brilliant marketing we received tank tops when signing up for this adventure that would take place the following day. Yes, that’s right awesome black tank tops that taut the awesome volcano boarding experience. For George receiving the tank top was a pretty big deal as it was the first one he’d ever owned. In all honesty the tank top was nothing George would wear – it was too big, with flashy fonts and colors and footprints all over it. He made me laugh when he wore it.

That night we received news that we needed to be in San Jose, Costa Rica the following day. We stopped by the hostal in the morning to see if we could return the tank tops and get a refund. Unfortunately, it was too early for the safe to be opened so they couldn’t refund our money. So we didn’t feel too slighted, we decided that George was wearing his tank top during the long drive that we had that day.

We pulled into Managua, the capitol of Nicaragua about 9am feeling pretty good about the time we made from Leon. We both commented about how after 5 months on the road we’d become pretty relaxed about driving in Latin America cities with their organized chaos. Not five minutes after saying this we encountered a merge lane where in most places cars would trade off entering the lane. When it was our turn George made his way into the lane of traffic. The taxi driver entering from the left looked up at our car and from a full stop accelerated and drove into the drivers side of our car. Now you may be saying to yourself, that seems odd that he would accelerate from a full stop, are you sure he saw you guys? The answer, yes, I’m sure he saw us and saw gringo dollars flying out of our ears. Now back to the moment of impact; George, stunned by the horrific noise of our house being crushed by a Nicaraguan taxi, tried to get out of the van. Meanwhile the taxi driver kicked his passengers out of the car and got out of his vehicle. George was not able to get out because the taxi was pinning the drivers side door closed so instead he was leaning out the window trying to make sense of the situation with phrases in English, Spanish and Spanglish. All amounting to, WHAT THE HELL? YOU JUST DROVE INTO OUR CAR? The driver’s response? A shoulder shrug and hands in the air like, what’s the big deal? Simultaneously, his car rolled backwards and revealed the minimal damage that had been done to Dolores. His car, which was far from being pristine before the impact, including the bumper being tied on was not damaged.

Seeing this and hearing the mounting orchestra of horns from behind us prompted George to decide that driving away was probably the best way to deal with someone who intentionally drives into your car. However, little did we realize that only made him want to cause a full-blown accident. Yes, this crazy man started to chase us at full van speed through the mean streets of Managua. At one point he was parallel with us on the shoulder and pulled so sharply into the passengers side that George had to pull into oncoming traffic to keep him from sideswiping us. It was Fast & Furious meets Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Maybe…? Either way it was fast and had us a little more than on edge.

During our high-speed chase we decide two things. 1) This guy was not going to just give up & he’s a taxi driver so he knows the roads. 2) A public spot to pull over is probably our best option.

Low and behold ahead we saw a Pizza Hut with a few people sitting in front of it. We pull in and he screeched to a stop close behind us preventing us from leaving if we wanted.

Now keep in mind George is wearing his awesome, fully gringo, tank top. As soon as all vehicles are stopped the guy casually gets out of his car, looks at us and smirks. At that George for lack of a better term, chest bumps him. Yes that’s right, George chest bumped a large 250lb taxi driver in Managua while he was wearing an awesome tank top.

In that moment, the driver realized that he may have messed with the wrong gringo and he took a step back. Hands started flying in the air with Spanglish accounts of what had just happened and whose falto it was. Then there was mention of the police which we were more than obliged to entertain, until of course we realized we still had about 7 hours of driving to do to reach San Jose before dark. These shenanigans continued for what felt like way too long and the police didn’t show up. He waited us out and we paid him $20 for hitting our car and to move his car so we could all go on with our day. The finest of gringo taxes.

During our time at the Pizza Hut we made friends with the guys working there. We all agreed that the guy was simply trying to get a bribe out of us, not actually trying to hurt us and further more that he was likely not sober. All in all, we made it Costa Rica before nightfall in one piece with a pretty good $20 story and a memory of George’s first tank top that will always make me laugh.

Running from the Rain and Other Things...

In San Ignacio, we spent two whole days drying out different parts of the van from the rain storm at the school which you might remember from here.  We scrubbed instant mildew spots that appeared from the rain and prepared for our border crossing into Guatemala.  Although we’d planned to cross after two days, the protesters blocking the road in Guatemala had other plans for us.  The border stayed closed for two days, but we weren’t upset about spending more time in San Ignacio. We met up with a few old friends, The Brits, Stephen and Jonni, and made new friends, Breena and Spencer of Straight Six Straight South.

Note the large patch of hair missing above his side-burn - one of many hysterical details

San Ignacio seemed like the perfect place for George to get his much wanted haircut.  The above pictures should tell most of the story, but the best part was when they guy at camp said, “it looks like Mr. T cut the Bay of Honduras on the side of your head!” It should speak volumes when you ask a sleeping old man with two cataracts and an empty barbershop what type of haircut you should get and he replies, “one that suits you.” Perhaps sometimes you should do a little self reflection and walk away content with the haircut your loving wife gave you with dull scissors in the jungle.  Sometimes you get a slice of culture and sometimes you simply get a bad haircut!

Once we received word that the border crossing was clear we caravanned to Tikal and enjoyed a few days deep in the jungle.

Tikal was huge and still deep in the jungle.  Exploring the ruins was just as much about the history as it was about the wildlife.  We saw spider and howler monkeys, tucans, pacas, and tons of flora and fauna.  From Tikal we jetted to Rio Dulce where we checked out the sailing lifestyle.

 
Guatemala overall has blown our minds.  The landscape is unbelievable and the people are friendly and kind.  Yesterday we set out for Sumac Champey and discovered a number of things:
#1. Maps are not always correct.
#2. GPS’s can’t always tell you where you are.
#3. Villagers may or may not be able to tell you where you’re all at on a map.
#4. Dolores can go up ANYTHING it may however result in a dented oil pan and a slice in the coolant line, which further results in roadside repairs in the jungle.  Good thing we’re traveling with awesome people that have a shower so we could wash up before carrying on.
#5. Sometimes the best adventures land you right back where you started.

UnBelizeable and Last Min Mexico Surprises

It’s laughable how many times we’ve started to write a blog post and then other things have stolen our attention.

We wanted to write all about, Sandro and Gina, the friends that we made in Tulum, Mexico that let us ride around in their ’71 VW truck. We adventured to places like the Dos Ojos cenotes and went to catch up with one of Sandro’s old friends in a Mayan village where we hung out with the kids, stingless bees and a tehun named Lala.  Sandro and Gina also made the wonderful habit of launching Chinese lanterns with all the kids.

When we made it to Chetumal, Mexico we set out to write about the above events and prepare for our border crossing into Belize, but we met Aquiles and Alice.  They convinced us to abandon our writing duties and join them for dinner at one of their favorite places.  After choosing from a large platter which red snapper we would like for dinner, we enjoyed the best fish of the whole trip! Following dinner we drove around in their kombi and moved a bed across town for some of their French friends that ended up making us amazing apple crepes.  After three days we wrapped up what was supposed to be a 12-hour stop in Chetumal with new friends and double the fun that we thought we’d have.

After crossing the border into Belize we headed straight for the Belize Zoo.  All the animals at this awesome place are rescued; they have been injured or removed from illegal private collections and are not fit for survival in the wild.  We spent the whole day in awe of how dangerously close we could get to these creatures and enjoy them in their natural habitat.  We fed Macas, were stunned by how huge the black jaguar was, held baby possums and laughed at the tapiers and their long noses.  From the Belize Zoo we cruised to Hopkins and jumped in a boat with a couple locals for a fishing and snorkeling tour of the Cayes.  We barbequed our catch of barracuda and made fresh conch ceviche on Tobacco Caye, watched the sunset and headed for shore just a little too late arriving well after dark. The next morning we drove to Placencia, not digging the vibe we made a U-Turn back north towards San Ignacio.  Along the way we found a river that looked like the perfect place for an afternoon dip in the heat. Turns out the Sibune River was also a lovely spot for the night.

As the day passed with chores, we met a local family doing laundry on the bank of the river and suddenly the children were excited to climb all over the inside of our little traveling house.  The next morning, the family brought us a wonderful breakfast of oranges, agua manazanas, a guava like fruit, fried Paca (a small rodent) and homemade flour tortillas.  While we were making orange juice from our morning treat and doing laundry our friends, Ingrid and Matti, from Argentina drove over the bridge with another couple from Costa Rica.  As soon as they jumped out of the car the sky opened up and it began to rain.  The six of us huddled in the van contemplating our venture to “The Blue Hole” down the road – a cenote and cave to explore.  Finally during a break in the rain, we decided to go for it. With the day coming to a close we had only a few options for camping for the night.  We ended up camped next to a school, you can imagine the distraction to the children… But the principal was from Colorado and welcomed us warmly. The rain continued through the night and into the next morning forcing us into the higher terrain of San Ignacio, Belize.


All our photos from The Belize Zoo can be seen here.