LAX - home

Day 40: Friday Dec 17th (SJO - PYN - LAX)

Free Food!

We were up early to avoid the traffic so we weren't stressing out. Upon checking in, it turns out to get back into the US, I needed to once again fill out some paper work. Luckily our plane was delayed so I had time to go to COPA head quaters and fill it out online. After leaving Lisa sitting at the check in counter, she was not too impressed when I appeared an hour later. 

Our flight ended up being rescheduled for 940, which if on time left us 15 minutes to catch out connector. We were assured there was plenty of time. COPA was once again further delayed and we arrived at the same time as the connector, ran through the airport to find that COPA's only on time flight was the one we were supposed to be on. We scammed food vouchers for the day at the airport as well as a free hotel upon arriving in LA. This took a little more arguing, we were told that a COPA representative would meet us upon arrival and it'd be all sorted. We had a 7 hour wait in the airport, which when we finally left at 7pm Panama City time, we would arrive in LA, 330AM Panama time. Before boarding the flight in Panama, they took my bottle of expensive rum that I bought at duty free because I apparently wasn't allowed it on the plane... which made no sense to me. I got angry so they said they would put it down below and I could to claim it on the other side... never to be seen again!


We were extremly tired and worn out when arriving in LA, we made it through customs without any major problems. As we feared there was no COPA representative. We made our way to the COPA desk, only to deal with regular joe's. We were promised to be able to speak to the manager, who took forever. Apparently Panama forgot to write anything down, so we were told to get a room and they'd reimburse us for the cost (fat chance!).  After a long day of traveling, we had arrived, back in the US finally. 


Don't ever fly COPA, they are the hugest joke ever!


-Jason

Day 41: Saturday Dec 18th (LAX - Palmdale - Redding)

We stayed in the fancy Holiday Inn last night, and figured that since we didn't make it in till about 3am we would get our moneys worth and stay in the hotel until it was check out time.  We slowly made our way down to the reception to check out and decided to ask the guy at the front desk the best way to make it to Palmdale. For the same price as taking a shuttle from the airport, we could take a town car from our hotel straight to where we needed to go. The choice was simple and we even got to watch a great American film, Chronicles of Riddick. Once we got to the storage place we tried to start the van, and just as we predicted we needed to get the front desk lady to give us a boost. But after that Andy was back on the road! We drove back through LA traffic and headed out onto the I-5 for a night of driving. The rest of the night was spent getting as far as we could make it until Jason was too tired to drive. We ended up making it to a very exotic Home Depot parking lot just outside of Redding California and called it a night.

-Lisa

Day 42: Sunday Dec 19th (Redding - Albany)

Andy likes the right lane

Waking up in Home Depot was wonderful. We got away at a decent time, using Central American time to our advantage. After teaching those pesky American's a thing or two about driving in the snow we pulled over at a grocery store in Ashland up in the mountains. Jokes on us... the van wouldn't start. A quick call the BCAA to get a jump and we were on our way. After BCAA's lack of assistance when we got stuck in the desert, I was happy to call them whenever possible (opinion has now changed, Thank you). After driving another couple of hours, we pulled over for gas... and the van wouldn't start again, so we got a nice local to give us a jump. We then proceeded to get backed up in traffic waiting for the pass the open. Not knowing how the roads were going to be, we were pleasantly surprised when we got to drive through, the roads were fine. Another couple of hours down the road, when we were through the passes, a tire blew out at full speed. This time it exploded and we were riding on the rim. It was pouring with rain and getting dark, with traffic blasting by a few feet away it was sketchy to say the least. Luckily, the state trooper showed up after I finished driving andy up onto a log so I could get the tiny jack under the van. Once again, our horrible jack burns us... we needed leverage. The state trooper convinced me just to call BCAA... this was kind of pointless because I had the tire off but why not get your money's worth. I wasn't about to argue with him. After an hours wait, the tow truck showed up to tighten my lug nuts and laugh at my jack. Once on our way, we drove until we were just about our of gas, in Albany. We figured the battery had enough time to charge and was safe to stop... Turns out that we were wrong. We filled up and then couldn't jump the van to get it going. God bless to locals for helping us late on a Sunday night... but they were driving a tiny ford escort which didn't have the power for a jump. We called it a night and pushed the van into a parking spot and slept. We were starting to get a little frustrated with out position, 800km's to the border.

-Jason

Day 43: Monday Dec 20th (Albany - Langley)


We didn't get too much sleep last night because the gas station we were parked in was open all night with their big flood lights glaring into the van. We got up early this morning and tired to call a mechanic that one of the workers last night suggested but their was no answer so we went to our fall back plan of BCAA. It took them over an hour to get to us but the guy that came specialized in batteries and knew what he was talking about. He did a few tests, figured out that it couldn't be the alternator or the starter and that it had to be a battery issue. The guy ended up having family in Terrace, so Jason and him ended up being homies and he didn't even try to sell us a battery once he sent us on our way.  We  had a full tank of gas from last night so we just keep driving the whole time, only stopping for burger king and to go to walmart to pick up a jerry can, one of us staying with the turned on car the whole time. The tank of gas took us all the way to Mount Vernon where it was now time for us to use our tricky operation of filling up the jerry can, leaving the van on and filling it with gas. We did this twice and it was probably one of the more sketchy things that we could do in the dark. If people saw us they must have thought that we had just siphoned gas out of some other car. Dodgy operation, but it worked out for us. Just when we thought that we had made it home clear of problems we arrived at the border. Let's just say that they had a few questions for us. And of course we were bringing over Jason's weapon, his machete, and we weren't willing to turn off the engine while we were at the booth. They gave us a yellow slip and sent us on our way, to the border room so they could have a bit longer of a conversation. We emptied out our pockets, had a little chit chat about our trip, what we were doing down in Central America, how we made enough money to go down, how we knew  each other, have we been arrested...just the regular questions. They swabbed our passports and told us to drive safely. We were on our way home finally! The only problem was starting up the van. We called BCAA for what we hoped would be the last time, waited for a while in the building which wasn't too bad for Jason because Sports Centre was on and it was heated. The BCAA man jumped us and told us good luck getting home. 10 minutes later we got to my parents house, with a home cooked meal waiting for us. They were pretty relieved that we made it home in one piece after not hearing from us all day and after a very vague email I had sent the night before quickly explaining our car problems. Its good to have a hot shower and not worry about anyone waiting to get in there right after you.  

-Lisa




Day 44: Tuesday Dec 21st (THE END) 

Finally arriving back in Canada was a relief. We could finally take the battery in and get a working one. It turned out that was the only problem, one of the cells of the battery wasn't working so the battery couldn't hold a charge. So the van once again runs like a top. With a few phone calls, I found the cheapest place to park the van ($33/month) because the odds of making it over the Coquihalla were heavily stacked against me. It's the dirty dog (greyhound) tomorrow and I'll be back in Kelowna. Home comforts await... kind of excited! 

We made it! But the van died!

Van fixed and in storage! Battery unhooked, lesson learned.

-Jason

South to SJO

Day 35: Sunday, Dec 12th (Utila - Tegucigalpa) 

Well apparently we were staying t the party central of hotels, because there was a bar right next door that was blasting their music till 4 am. So after another night of not sleeping, it was time for Jason and me to say our goodbyes to the Island and more importantly Taylor. After our 6 am wake up call with Tay Tay I think we were all still a little too groggy to feel the sting of what was actually happening. We barely had enough time to catch our ferry and then it was an hour long bob on the ocean to get back to La Ceiba. We caught a cab that took us to the bus station and that was how the day went. About two hours outside of Tegucigalpa we got to take a pit stop, so Jason told me to go out and get some food while he stayed and watched our bags. I came back after buying us some lunch, when I noticed that the door was locked. I tapped on the window to a confused looking Jason and got him to come up to the front of the bus for me. He couldn't open the door, because the driver had locked it, so I slid him his lunch and went and sat and enjoyed some fresh air while he cooked in the steaming hot Honduras bus. 15 minutes later we were reunited when I realized that he had been sitting on the bus by himself the whole time. Crazy gringo. We made it to the cap city and then went straight to the hotel. Can you say luxury. TV, HOT water, air con, just living the high life. We went for dinner at the chinese restaurant next door because we weren't adventurous enough to leave our comfort zone and Jason choose his customary random dish and I tried to order vegetarian chow mein. What ended up coming out for us was a noodle plate with veggies and hot dogs for Jason, and the biggest plate of veggies, mostly broccoli for me. You win some you lose some I guess. But tomorrows another day of what we like to call extreme traveling, so nightie night. 

-Lisa

She's eating!

Day 36: Monday Dec 13th (Tegucigalpa - Managua)

A good nights sleep and we were up early to catch the bus. Running low on cash we had to only book the first part of our journey (Teg-Managua) and not all the way to San Jose. After booking the bus for today, Lisa waiting with the bags and I ran off to find an ATM. As we sat in the bus station we contemplated extending our bus trip for an extra $20 all the way to SJ... it turned out to bite us in the end. The bus from Managua-SJ was full when we arrived :( We met a finnish girl in the bus station and shared a room with her... by the bus station in Managua is pretty sketchy and we had been in the exact area so we didn't mind helping her out. By missing the connecting bus, we had to settle for the executive bus for $35 which was 'scheduled' for noon the next day or wait an extra day in Managua. Because we didn't have to get up early we went out to explore a local mall, have dinner and see a movie. All of the big block buster movies are in English with spanish subtitles so we luck out that way. But the titles are in Spanish, so we were unsure on what we were going to see. Turns out we'd (I'd) seen the movie and also bought a spanish pirated/filmed in the theater version of the movie but it was still nice. The movie theaters are just as nice or nicer. The locals truly ruin the movie, one couple brought there toddler to an R rated movie, not that she could read most of it, but let her wander around crying because the movie was loud and there was lots of fighting scenes (we watched The Town) another guy sat there and talked on his phone in front of us during the theater. Tsk Tsk!

-Jason

Day 37: Tuesday Dec 14th (Managua - San Jose, Costa Rica)

Our Finnish friend left for her bus super early, but she literally did not make any noise or turn on any lights. We didn't get woken up until the confused hotel manager came to our room twice trying to wake me and Jason up because he thought that our bus was an early one too. I managed with my broken Spanish to explain that we didn't need to be at the bus station till 11. We had a good laugh then went back to bed for a few more hours, knowing what our day had in store for us. We got to the station super early thinking we could just drop off our bags and then go out for breakfast, which of course wasn't the case. We waited around till 11:45, dropped our bags off and then had to sit in the room, thinking that our bus was leaving at 12. No, that was the "tourist" bus and ours was coming... almost two hours later. Once we got on the bus we were crammed on with the already 50 passengers who had already been traveling since El Salvador. Lunch was provided: chicken, rice, and zucchini mixture. Jason got to feel a little bit better paying more knowing that he is eating double what everyone else is. Rode the bus in traffic for what felt like forever and finally made it to the border. Brought back memories of over a month ago when we had crossed this border on foot. Decided to try our luck with more DVDs, Hot Tub Time Machine, RED, and expendables. Crossing into Costa Rica was kind of different. They made everyone take their checked bags off the bus and we all stood in a line, open the zipper to our bag and then really just looked for one second and then we had to put our bags back on the bus. Seemed kind of time consuming. Nothing too special happened for the rest of the bus trip, except when we were in Liberia dropping people off we stopped off at Burger King and everyone was given a cheesey burger, and yet again Jason got to have double his helping and get his moneys worth. We didn't get into San Jose until after 10:30, and we weren't feeling too adventurous enough so we just stayed at the Tica Bus hotel. Not exactly in our price range but not really worth risking anything in our last days taking a cab in downtown San Jose.

-Lisa

Day 38: Wednesday Dec 15th (San Jose, Costa Rica)


The Tica Bus hotel was nice, but too expensive to stay for a couple more days. We decided to find a nice hostel so we could set up a shuttle as well as book a canopy tour through them. We lucked out and found by far the nicest hostel of our journey. Equipped with a pool/lounge area, bar, full massive communal kitchen, theater room and 6 computers. It was slightly more expensive then the cheapest hostel in town, so it attracted a slightly more mature crowd which was nice. Nearing the end of our journey we wanted to get rested up before we get ready to live in a Van again.

After relocating, we found that we were right downtown near the business district. Nothing was really close, but everything that you could possibly need was within walking distance and it was safe to walk around. We walked around, found a nice vegetarian restaurant for lunch (by luck) which was really good and embarrassingly Lisa pointed out, the first one of our entire trip (Sorry!). After lunch we headed to the  artisan market to grab some last minute souvenirs and to give me another chance to haggle over prices before heading back to Wal-Mart shopping. We had been opting out of buying too many things earlier in our journey because we were all pretty maxed out on space. Bad news is, Costa Rica is a lot more expensive then Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. We were so limited on space I had to buy a new bag to put my newly acquired possessions in.

-Jason

A little trick I learnt from TQ

Day 39: Thursday Dec 16th (San Jose, Costa Rica)

Today being our last day in Central America, we decided that we didn't really want to spend the day hanging around the hostel or the city so we booked a canopy zip lining tour. The bus picked us up at 8 and took us to tres rios (not to be confused with trois rivieres). We stopped at a restaurant a little up the mountain to wait for the other 2 that were going to be coming with us. We started off by hopping into an old 80's chevy suburban that the driver had to do a rolling start down the hill to get it going. After that they drove us part way up the mountain and we had to do the rest. This was really the first kind of exercise I have done since I was sick and the first 10 minutes really hit me hard. My heart was beating so hard I thought it was going to pop out. After what seemed like an eternity we had walked as far as we needed to. They set us up with our sweet gear that made me feel like Lara Croft and then it was time for the first zip. I didn't get the whole brake thing and went full speed into our guide the first couple times we went down. Just when they brought us to a really long one I was about to give up. I wasn't getting it, but the guide just told me to calm down and enjoy it, but don't lean back so much and I finally had it. The rest of the lines were good. We got to see a lot of different trees and a waterfall. We even did a few where we didn't have to brake at all and then would bounce you around the whole time you were going down. All was going good until then brought us to our surprise, a nice little rappelling free fall. Jason was the brave man and went first. Like the rest of the day he was cool, calm and collected. I was second. Not so cool, calm, or collected. I didn't weigh enough to do a true free fall so there I was hanging in the air up 90 feet and the guy was telling me I had to hand feed the rope myself. I was not too impressed, I was like Taylor's friend from Wendy's who was telling him it wasn't funny anymore. Finally with all our feet back on the ground we had a few more zip lines to do, a really long on and then of course the day ended with another free fall. Shorter but still intimidating for my poor heart. The guides thought they were pretty funny shooting me down a couple seconds then all of sudden stopping me. Jason thought it was pretty hilarious too and said if he had had a video of it the tour would have all been worth while. We got back to the restaurant, had a typical Costa Rican dish then waited for our driver for over half an hour. Once back in San Jose we had a little siesta time and then headed back to the market for last minute things and then back to the veggie restaurant. NOT as good as yesterday. I still like to keep the memory of it good though :)

-Lisa

The dreaded free fall platform 

Day 40: Friday Dec 17th (SJO - LAX - Free Andy)

Honduras

Day 28: Sunday, Dec 5th (Caye Caulker, Belize)


After a good days snorkeling we decided to hang around for one more day of R&R before we headed onward south. The bad news for us was the weather suddenly turned grey and the Caribbean paradise as we knew it quickly turned into a small limiting island. With Lisa feeling a little under the weather, we thought a little rest would help her bounce back. 


-Jason

* we didn't have any new pictures so I thought I'd put up some snorkeling

Bad news, many of our under water pictures were on a red setting

Day 29: Monday, Dec 6th (Caye Caulker - Placencia, Belize)



We woke up early, said our good byes and headed out on the ferry back to Belize City. I think we lucked out weather wise for our snorkeling trip because it was raining once again and we heard locals grumbling that it would be miserable for the rest of the week. The water was rough which didn't make things easy on Lisa. To make matters worse, we went directly from a choppy boat ride to our taxi driver cutting off the bus so we could board in a hurry for a 5 hour 'non-direct' chicken bus ride. He even got out hopes up and said we could catch a boat which runs daily from Placencia - Honduras and avoid paying the exit tax leaving Belize ($20 US). Turns out the jokes on us, the ferry runs 1 way Monday and the other way friday. After this disappointment we decided to call it a day and spend the night in one of the weirdest little towns yet. It's considered a 'Caye' but it's the only one connected to the main land with a newly constructed road (2007). There is no main street because of this... it's a main walkway, a tiny cement path way. Everyone lives on the coast as well and now they are developing the local area into a tourist destination and are halfway though building condo's with canals between them. The locals aren't taking to kindly to the tourists, there were anti tourism posters everywhere :s  


-Jason

Main Street

Day 30: Tuesday, Dec 7th (Placencia - Puerto Barrios, Guatemala)


The whole, newly developed road in came into play again. We had to take a water taxi to the next town to catch a chicken bus inland then down to the next town which took about 4 hours in total to go not very far. We are quickly finding out that along the southern coast, roads that appear like they would be there aren't always. We finally arrived at Punta Gorda, Belize in time for the last ferry across the Bay of Honduras... and unfortunately have to pay the exit tax and the ferry ride is expensive. We were thankful to be leaving Belize because all of our travel expenses were adding up. To make matters worse, Lisa was feeling sicker then ever, even after the TLC from the local ladies at immigration, we had to board our tiny jet boat and go mach speed across the choppy bay. 


We ended up meeting a couple that lives in Utila (the closest of the Bay Islands) which helped us get a hotel and showed us where to catch the bus the the border. They were nice enough to give Lisa some medicine to help her deal with her illness. Turns out they are dive masters and left us with a brochure in case we headed that way... Unfortunately, the water has a tendency to randomly shut off in smaller towns in Central America and this was the case which did not make matters easier. 


-Jason

The ferry

The pesky bay of Honduras

Day 31: Wednesday, Dec 8th (Puerto Barrios, Guatemala - La Ceiba, Honduras)

We were awakened nice and early by a local guy we met briefly getting off the boat. He had arranged a shuttle for us to the border which for about $5 we gladly excepted. We quickly and easily made it over the border (which on foot can sometimes take a good couple of hours) at 7am. We ended up running into the a the same diving couple again who fueled our curiosity about Utila which was now our new destination. We hoped on a chicken bus which took us to the next main center (2 hours), then jumped on a direct shuttle (2 hours) to the biggest bus station I've ever been to. They had huge coach buses going every where in Honduras very regularly. We climbed on a direct bus to La Ceiba (5 hours) where we would have to spend the night and take the ferry to Utila in the morning.  


The saying in Honduras is... Tegucigalpo does the thinking, San Pedro Sur does the working and La Ceiba does the partying. We had no intention on partying but were pleasantly surprised when the hostel that sounded most appealing was almost 100% unoccupied. A sound nights sleep for everyone. 


-Jason

Crossing the border on foot carrying the wounded soldiers bag, my only condition was that she took a photo of it.

Day 32: Thursday, Dec 9th (La Ceiba - Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras)


A final ferry and we were had finally arrived at Utila! Utila is the cheapest place to scuba dive on the planet... and trust me, this little island is crazy about scubba diving. The deal is, if you are diving, then you can stay at the dive shop... which seemed hoaky. But every dive shop owns a hostel and they let you stay the first night for free to make up your mind. Sounds like a fancy business idea.


We ended up at the parrot which was the shop that the couple we met worked at. Luckily we had run into what appears to by reputation to be the best place on the island (we also checked out the shop right next to it). After getting a run down of how the open water certification works Lisa and myself decided to take the option because we are pressed for time and she still wasn't feeling 100%. The only bad/good thing about the hostel is that literally 10 feet away from our room was the bar and it was loud until very late every night. To add to the problems, the water shut on and off through our whole stay and the windows had no well windows... so it was loud.

-Jason

This might make our journey make a little bit more sense. We started at at the island at the top of the page across from
Belize city, then Placencia (Big Creek) down to Purto Gorda, across to Port Barrios, over land to La Cieba and then
finally by ferry to Utila, the smallest closest island. 

Day 33: Friday, Dec 10th (Utila)


Unfortunately the weather was fairly dismal and we were pretty worn out/sick from traveling hard for a couple of days so we just had a low key relaxed day. There are very few things to do on the island other then scubba diving.. literally every tourist is scubba diving. We walked around and checked out the town. Turns out because it's an island, there are limited roads and therefore people are ripping around on ATV's, dirt bikes, golf carts, bikes and the occasional truck. The road is slightly bigger then one lane which all of the traffic, including pedestrians occupy. At night, Taylor and myself headed out to check out the world famous tree fort bar. It's literally a tree fort... which when we showed up around 10 o'clock was jam packed with about 150 people and bordering it's structural limits. I think we're getting worn down from our journey because we were back at the hostel fast asleep by midnight. 


-Jason

Compliments of the internet

Day 34: Saturday, Dec 11th (Utila)


Finally Lisa was starting to feel better so the plan was to head back to the mainland so we could have some time to do a few things we missed on the way up. It was getting pretty close to the time when we had to catch the ferry when I was feeling deathly sick. I hadn't been feeling to hot all day but didn't want to say much because Lisa had been traveling like a champ when she was sick. Also, I thought it could be the irish flu even though I only had a drink or two. At literally the exact time we had to go for the ferry I became violently ill and we got stuck in Utila for another day. Taylor's open water diving course finally started, they tend to start whenever they get enough people (6) and because accommodation is free, nobody seems to complain. 


-Jason


Day 35: Sunday, Dec 12th (Utila - Tegucigalpa) 


Well apparently we were staying t the party central of hotels, because there was a bar right next door that was blasting their music till 4 am. So after another night of not sleeping, it was time for Jason and me to say our goodbyes to the Island and more importantly Taylor. After our 6 am wake up call with Tay Tay I think we were all still a little too groggy to feel the sting of what was actually happening. We barely had enough time to catch our ferry and then it was an hour long bob on the ocean to get back to La Ceiba. We caught a cab that took us to the bus station and that was how the day went. About two hours outside of Tegucigalpa we got to take a pit stop, so Jason told me to go out and get some food while he stayed and watched our bags. I came back after buying us some lunch, when I noticed that the door was locked. I tapped on the window to a confused looking Jason and got him to come up to the front of the bus for me. He couldn't open the door, because the driver had locked it, so I slid him his lunch and went and sat and enjoyed some fresh air while he cooked in the steaming hot Honduras bus. 15 minutes later we were reunited when I realized that he had been sitting on the bus by himself the whole time. Crazy gringo. We made it to the cap city and then went straight to the hotel. Can you say luxury. TV, HOT water, air con, just living the high life. We went for dinner at the chinese restaurant next door because we weren't adventurous enough to leave our comfort zone and Jason choose his customary random dish and I tried to order vegetarian chow mein. What ended up coming out for us was a noodle plate with veggies and hot dogs for Jason, and the biggest plate of veggies, mostly broccoli for me. You win some you lose some I guess. But tomorrows another day of what we like to call extreme traveling, so nightie night. 


-Lisa

She's eating!

Belize

Day 26: Friday, Dec 3rd (Caye Caulker)

We arrived in the rain yesterday, so we were excited to wake up to the scorching heat and headed right down to the beach. Funny enough, the beach is located at the channel which was recently created by a Hurricane that separates the island into two pieces. It's literally 50m's make but has a bit of a current due to tidal movements but it also has a nice spread of sea creatures. We watched a guy snorkel and catch lobsters which he then turned around and sold the local restaurants. The local restaurants all have outside bbq's going all day with the fresh catch of the day.

We met some locals the night before at the bar, which have later turned out to be straight bullying hustlers trying to get a cut of everything on the island. They were able to set up a night sunset tour on the coolest reggae boat with a nice captain for $5 US which is nothing as long as we brought the booze to share with everyone. We had a gang of about 10 of us which he provided dinner of chicken and fresh fish to make sandwiches. Later in the night, we were talking to the captain only to find out that these guys took a cut of the profits, drank and sailed for free against his will. He basically said they run around as a gang and do whatever they want, are friends with the police so nobody can really stop them from doing anything. The cruise was a blast but it was a bit disturbing to get a little insight into how things work around here. We also booked a tour for the following day to go out sailing and snorkeling.

-Jason

Day 27: Saturday, Dec 4th (Caye Caulker)

This morning we woke up semi early so that we could go and size our masks and flippers. Then we had to wait around until 10:30 for the boat to leave. It took us about an hour before we got to the first snorkeling spot. I can't believe how blue the water is. None of us have ever been to the Caribbean so it quite the experience and nothing like we have ever seen before. We got to the first stop and they threw us right in with the sharks and the sting rays, no baby steps I was kind of intimated at first but there were two guides in the water with us. It was pretty crowded with the 20 of us that were on the boat in the water at the same time, and there were a lot of fins to the face. It was pretty crazy to be that close to the sharks. The next spot was a little bit away and it was right in the middle of the coral reef. We were split into two groups and then we went off with our guide. We took us around and through the channel and in a line and at the end we got to see a sea turtle, which might have been the highlight of my trip. We then hopped back into the boat to go to our last spot. In the end only me and Kristin went into the water to snorkel, so the two of us ended up having a photo shoot of us. On the way back we had unlimited rum punch and some seafood ceviche. We finally made it back to the mainland when the sun was setting. I ended up straining something in my back and was pretty much out of commission for the rest of the night, which sucked because it was still super early. I didn't end up waking up till 9 and the night was over.

-Lisa

Group shot, we've been traveling together since Tikal.
Back left and right, Dino and Dom from London, who have suprisingly done almost the same trip as us
Mike from New Zealand who's on a 8 month trip, hitting 37 countries. His hair gives you and idea what Taylor will look like when he comes home
Kristen from Ontario, who is attending UVIC in Jan and has been for the last 5 years

Day 28: Sunday, Dec 5th (Caye Caulker)