TravelStream™ news feed for member canook on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/canook en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 08 Oct 2009 06:14:29 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1241212320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1241212320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1241212320/tpod.html Thu, 08 Oct 2009 06:14:29 -0400 Good Times with Gloria

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Esteli, Nicaragua


So, we left Roatan on the 30th
of April ready to leave our island paradise and it seems weird, but
it would be awhile until we realized how great a time we had.

Out trip back to the mainland was cool
because we actually were able to go on the barge with Gloria. Definitely not normally allowed, but since the boat capitan said we
could and since it saved us the expense of taking the passenger ferry
there was no way that we weren't going to do it. A few other locals
were catching a free ride on the ferry as well, but the thing about
free rides is that they take a lot longer.

Once finalizing the paperwork with the
shipping company we hopped in the van and drove straight to Tela.
Bryan and Liliana, our friends there, put us up once again and this
time it was in there own house. Man it's good time have such
hospitable friends.

Early the next day we started off eager
to make it to a new country and thankfully we had a specific spot to
get to. While in Roatan we met some peeps that were taking a quick
vacation from their place in Esteli, Nicaragua and I don't remember
if we let them know that we were coming to visit, but it didn't
matter because we were. So, after a long day of driving and an easy
border crossing we rocked up outside there house. That parking spot
became our home for the next couple of days during which we enjoyed
visiting, playing ping pong, and some crazy conversations with our
new friends.

Next stop the beach and hopefully some
surf!

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1235095320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1235095320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1235095320/tpod.html Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:31:01 -0400 Good Times with Gloria

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Roatan, Bay Islands, Honduras

ROATAN!!!Amazing that we spent more than two whole months on this beautiful Island!
At first we weren't planning on shipping our van over, but once we were told about the prices of the taxis on the island we quickly changed out minds. Some friends that had just sent there vehicle to Roatan explained the procedure for shipping the van to us, but we got it cheaper. Yeah!
So now with our van on the island we had to find a place to stay (besides our van) and a dive shop to do our dive master internship at. Since we already had some friends on Roatan, namely Melissa and Tam, we went to there place to hang out and we ended up liking it a lot. It was a good location for us and about what we were looking to spend monthly, but we were unsure if we could take it over once our friends left the following week. In the meantime we found a dive shop, West End Divers and one of the owners,Jim, had us stay at his place until we found something to rent. Acouple of days later we got confirmation that we would be able to rent the same house our friends were in when they left and around the same time the fourth member of the van boyz arrived, Ryan Sanders.
From there we did pretty much the same thing everyday. We went to the dive shop at 8 every morning and took courses, helped out around the shop, assisted with other people taking courses or just dove. Daniel and Tyler started with open-water, then I did my advanced with them, then rescue, which was awesome, and finally we started our Dive Master. It was a lot more intense than any of us thought it would be, but in the end we all completed the requisites (and we didn't even get kicked out, but just barely), which means that any one of the four of us could be leading the next dive that you decide to go on. The small amount of time not dedicated to diving was used, you wouldn't say wisely, but we had fun anyways. A lot of rum and pineapple was consumed, which is now our beverage of choice, and we did our best to hone our volleyball skills. We also tried to spend as much time as possible with the local English congregation in the ministry, at the meetings and just hanging out.
Some other highlights include a crazy fund raiser for a charity that we helped out with, that pretty much turned into a battle of the dive shops for supremacy. And guess who came out on top? That's right, we did. The barbecue that the dive shop put on was sweet, it pretty much shut down the street for the entire afternoon. However, the best part of the contest was obviously the grand finale. A hot dog eating contest (which I got third in, but only because the guy who won cheated and I am still bitter about it),a strong man contest where the guy who could hold a beer case over his head the longest won (Dan got second and Ryan, well you'll have to ask him), a belly flop competition where older dudes who got naked made up the bulk of the competitors, but which Tyler dominated of course, and a couple other events that we weren't in made up the grand finale. How we did it, or what all these events have to do with charity, I have no idea, but regardless at the end of it all we walked away with the Golden Buoy as the supreme dive shop and I'm sure the underprivileged kids got something out of it too.
The only thing that we missed while on Roatan was surfing, but that was soon to come.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1245564026/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1245564026/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1245564026/tpod.html Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:49:09 -0400 Good Times with Gloria

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Medellin, Colombia

hello ash....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1245563872/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1245563872/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1245563872/tpod.html Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:47:34 -0400 Good Times with Gloria

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Santa Marta, Colombia

habajabaju
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1245563699/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1245563699/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1245563699/tpod.html Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:46:42 -0400 Good Times with Gloria

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Cartagena, Colombia

coming soon.................
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1244333130/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1244333130/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1244333130/tpod.html Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:07:00 -0400 Good Times with Gloria

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Colon, Panama

just left the panama city and am in a place called colon, on the caribbean sideof the contry. today started out as a very bad day when we left panama city, we found out that the shipping company we are using to send our van over to Columbia was closed, it was also rainng very hard but still hot enough to be sweating, not good for the smell of the old van. also the town here is very sketchy and very poor, run down, and our travel book says we would probably be robbed. having no contacts here we looked up where the kingdom hall was in the phone book. getting there was hard as well because there aren't any street signs, so we asked some military officials, and they ended giving us an escort on there suzuki 650 drz, both men fully equipped with a hand gun and an assault rifle. found the hall, no one there so we asked around and found a brother that lives just around the corner, he told us that the spanish meet tonight and the english meet in the morning. he also kindly offered for us to stay with him and his family, which was nice because we had planned to go to the beach 30 mins away and sleep there, in the rain. Very nice family here Dom, Gloria, and there son Sergio. Off to the meting tomorrow, then dinner and a little dance party gota practice the salsa, then we take care of our shipping endeavours on monday, hoping to be in Cartagena Columbia on tuesday.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1243535495/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1243535495/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1243535495/tpod.html Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:15:50 -0400 Good Times with Gloria

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Santa Catalina, Veraguas, Panama

Santa Catalina a very nice little town with some of the best surf in central america, because of the rockey point that creates a nice right hand wave. funny story, we didn`t realise that there wouldñ`t be a bank machine in the town, so tyler and dan had a combined total of 30 dollars minus 6 for tyler´s surfboard repair. this had to last the 4 of us about 2 or three days. luckaly we had food and water in the van, but finding a place to stay was tricky, there weren`t any places to stay on the beach unless we paid $10 each a night, way out of our price range! we ended up findind a spot beside the beach just out of the reach of the hight tide mark. our days consisted of surf in the morrning at the point which was one of the best waves on the trip about 6-8 high lots of power, tyler broke his board again unfortunatly. Then of to the beach were we could drive onto the sand and find a nice spot to spend the day, diging for little clams, and picking oysters of the rocks at low tide which went well in our pasta that night.. there was alot of reading going on aswell, we all got a book from the library in town(which was free) and were anciously trying to read it in the 2 days we spent there, durk pit seemed to be the favorite
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1242160380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1242160380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1242160380/tpod.html Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:40:53 -0400 Good Times with Gloria

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Jaco, Province of Puntarenas, Costa Rica


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1243881305/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1243881305/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1243881305/tpod.html Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:33:57 -0400 Good Times with Gloria

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Panama City, Panama


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1243362195/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1243362195/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/canook/1/1243362195/tpod.html Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:24:51 -0400 Good Times with Gloria

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Zancudo, Puntarenas, Costa Rica


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