TravelStream™ news feed for member tphilip75 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/tphilip75 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:49:54 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1197381600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1197381600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1197381600/tpod.html Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:49:54 -0500 South American Odyssey

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Ometepe Island, Nicaragua

We caught a chicken bus to the town of Riva ... it was the most crowded bus caught and most of us had to stand, a real local experience! We had to wait for an hour for the next ferry across Lake Nicaragua out to Ometepe Island. The journey took about an hour and we could either sit on the top deck or underneath. There wasn't much seating on the deck but most of the group sat up there, while a few of us went below. The seats on the lower deck were old bus seats and they weren't attached to the floor! It was a rough ride and water kept sloshing under the doors and all over the floor.

Once we got to the Island we had a 20 minute drive to our hotel which was on the shore of the lake, it was a lovely setting. We went to a nearby water hole, but it was getting a bit late by the time we got there, and the water was a bit fresh. The boys found a rope swing which provided them with hours of entertainment. We had to drag them away as it was getting dark so we could go home!

We had a very early start the next morning as we had decided to climb one of the two volcanoes which are connected to make Ometepe the largest island in a fresh water lake in the world. Conception is an active volcano and we were told that was a 10 hour hike and you had to be extremely fit to do it, so we chose the other volcano, Madera. It was still supposed to be a 6-8 hour hike with a reasonable level of fitness required.

As we waited for our cars to arrive, a monkey came down the hotels driveway, snuck into the kitchen and stole a banana! We had breakfast at the bottom of the trail, then started our 12km round trip walk up the volcano.

The first part of the walk wasn't too bad, but it got very steep very quickly. The view over to Conception was lovely, even though it was covered in clouds. Once we hit the trees, things went from bad to worse. It was steep, rocky and it got muddier and muddier with each step. We all tried very hard to stay clean but it was impossible. By the time we reached the top of the volcano and decended the 100 metres down into the crater, I think we were all wishing we were somewhere else. We had read that you could swim in the lake that we in the crater of the volcano, but it was cold and so cloudy that we couldn't see the other side of the crater ... needless to say we didn't want to go for a swim. The lunch the guides provided also left a lot to be desired ... stale bread and dry peanut butter did not satisfy the appetite!!!

The trip back down was just as difficult as the trip up and even less fun, although once we had reached the bottom we all felt like we had achieved something ... and we needed a shower desperately!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1199023200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1199023200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1199023200/tpod.html Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:48:05 -0500 South American Odyssey

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Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

We arrived in Vancouver the day before New Years Eve and settled into a hotel for 7 nights ... the longest we have stayed anywhere since we moved out of our apartment back in August!

I had never been to Vancouver before, even though we were going to settle here ... and I like it a lot. We spent New Years Eve with our friend Danielle and her sister, it was great to see someone from home! There was perhaps a little too much rum consumed, and New Years day was a complete write off.

We spent the following days exploring in the freezing cold, trying very hard (but unsuccessfully) not to spend money and looking for a place to live. Chrisso had a job interview and I met up with my new employers ... looks like we won't be unemployed for much longer!!!

We also got tickets to a Canucks ice hockey game ... Chrisso has been a fan ever since he was here a couple of years ago and went to a game, so we had to go at the first opportunity! I have to admit that I love to watch it live ... it's really fast paced with the puck flying everywhere you can barely see it and playings staying on the ice for only a minute or so before switching with someone else. There is also a giant blow up Orca which is fan propelled which drops prized into the crowd during intervals. I want to drive him! Oh, and the Canucks won, so Chrisso was very happy!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1200060000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1200060000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1200060000/tpod.html Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:42:26 -0500 South American Odyssey

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Calgary, Alberta, Canada

It is a short drive from Banff to Calgary, just 90 minutes. We drove into town and went to lunch at the Unicorn, as suggested by Bozza ... great food! But too many TV's with sport on them for my liking! After lunch we walked around town a little, then went up the sky tower. Luck was with us again and it was a beautiful clear day so we had a clear view of the Rocky's in the distance.

We spent the night at Dan & Lascia's house, who we met on our Central America trip. Lascia surprised us with tickets to the Flames v's Oilers ice hockey game at the Saddle Dome! They were great seats too, much closer than the seats we had at the Canuck's game the week before.

They fed us a lovely breakfast before we jumped in the car and drove half way back to Vancouver & stayed in Revelstoke for the night. Originally we had planned to drive all the way home on the Sunday, but we had no desire to repeat the drive from Vancouver to Banff again!

So we arrived back in Vancouver and moved into our new apartment and I started my new job. Chris got the job he interviewed for before we left and will start very soon too.

So we have settled down in one place for a while and that is the end of our adventure ... for now!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1199628000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1199628000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1199628000/tpod.html Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:35:28 -0500 South American Odyssey

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Banff, Alberta, Canada

The last leg of our adventure!!!

We picked up our hire car (upgraded to a fancy SUV!) very early on the Sunday morning and drove all the way to Banff ... it took 12 hours all up, and was not a very pleasant experience. The day is only light between 8am and 5pm, the roads got slushier as we got higher into the mountains and our headlights got so dirty they barely penetrated the dark. We made it in one piece though and were very happy to arrive at the Rim Rock Resort in Banff, where our friends Janai and Bozza work and we would be staying for the next few nights. It's a very nice hotel, and the view from our room was spectacular (so we would find out the next day when the sun finally came up!)

We went up to Norquay to snowboard on our first day there, as both Janai & Bozz had to work. Norquay is the closest ski area to Banff, only about 5kms away. It was an amazing day, with barely a cloud in the sky and being the first Monday when school went back, there was hardly anyone on the slopes. We stuck to the one run all day and practiced our rusty snowboarding techniques and had a lesson in the afternoon. I had some amazing stacks during the lesson, and although I didn't do any permanent damage, I was pretty sore by the end of it! We have decided that we don't need any more lessons, we just need to practise and perfect everything we have been taught so far.

Both Bozz & Janai had Tuesday off work, so the four of us drove to Sunshine, which is about a 20 minute drive east of Banff. The weather wasnt nearly as nice, it was gray and just a little bit snowy! First we caught the gondola to the ski fields, then spent the morning going up the Strawberry lift and doing the various runs from there. They were great for us all as none of us are very experienced boarders ... very powdery, something we don't have in Oz, with a few challenging bits! We were falling over on purpose, it was so soft!

In the afternoon we went up a really long chairlift, nearly to the top of one of the mountains. I have never been so cold in my life, there was a biting wind which whipped through every piece of clothing we had on and there was no escaping it. We did a few runs up there, but it was too cold for us in the end and some of the runs had too many flat bits which I couldn't get up enough speed to board over. I had a pretty average board and I am scared of going to fast anyway!!!

We were lucky enough to see a giant elk by the side of the road on our way home ... they are massive, with very dangerous looking horns ... do not approach an elk under any circumstances, they are crazy!

We had an awesome dinner and went to a few bars that evening with the Bozzas, and ended up seeing a band that one of their colleagues had recommended. They were ... unusual. Their music was a 60's swing on modern rock, they were very enthusiastic but they probably should have kept their shirts on. They weren't very pretty. Everyone in the band had a go at standing on the cello. Strange.

I was too sore on day 3 to go out on the slopes again, so Chrisso & Bozz went out again. Poor Janai had to work. Yes, I am a bit of a whimp. I picked the boys up later in the arvo and on the way back we ran into another bit of wildlife ... a big horned ram was just standing in the middle of the road! Why are all the animals in Canada so big and dangerous???

On our final day in Banff we went for a beautiful scenic drive to Lake Louise. Along the way we stopped at Johnson's Canyon to see the frozen waterfall ... as Janai said, it looks like Narnia, you expect a half goat half human to trot out from behind a tree at any moment! Lake Louise was very pretty too. I have only seen the lake in summer before when it is bright blue and hot. Instead you couldn't even tell there was a lake there, it just looked like a meadow of snow! Right in front of the giant hotel they have built an ice rink with an ice castle in the middle. We had a wonder around the hotel lobby, but we didn't stay long as it was cold and we wanted to get back to Banff before dark.

We had such a great time in Banff and it was awesome catching up with our friends!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1198850400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1198850400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1198850400/tpod.html Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:03:31 -0500 South American Odyssey

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San Francisco, California, United States

The weather was very ordinary while we were in San Francisco ... until we left of course!

The first night we had an awesome italian meal and sat outside under some heaters and an awning watching the rain and traffic go by.

During our only full day, we walked for miles, through Chinatown, up to Lombard St (the Crookedest Street in the World), went to Ghiradelli Square and tried their amazing hot chocolate, and to Fisherman's Wharf. We had lunch at Joes Crab house and watched the Bushman in the street below. He is this dude who busks by sitting on an over turned tub and hiding behind some leafy branches until unsuspecting soul walks passed, then he jumps out from behind his bush and scares the life out of them. He scared a dog so much that it tried to attack him! We overheard a conversation at the next table saying that he has been doing it everyday in the same spot for years. It was pretty funny and he makes more money than you would think! We had a lovely indian dinner and an early night as we had to be at the airport by 9am the next morning.

We got up early & drove to the bottom of the Golden Gate bridge where we saw the sun rise on a beautiful day and illumitate the red bridge and the city in the distance. We could see Alcatraz clearly too, the day before it was just a dark blur in the distance. Then it was off to the airport for the final flight for a while!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1198764000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1198764000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1198764000/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:31:22 -0500 South American Odyssey

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Yosemite National Park, California, United States

We stayed in a tiny town called El Portal just for one night so we could have a quick look at Yosemite National Park. It was beautiful, and we didnt expect it to be as snowy as it was!!! It even snowed overnight, covering our car in a light dusting of white.

We went into Yosemite village and on the way had a look at El Capitan and some of the scenery along the way. We saw a coyote by the side of the road and some deer as well. The next day we had plans for a bit of a hike, but it was so cold and we were very ill prepared, so we did a little walk to Bridal Veil Falls. It turned out to be a bit of a laugh, because my hiking shoes had no traction on ice and I kept falling over every few steps, and ended up walking at snails pace!

It is definitely a place we would love to come back to in summer, but we have been told tales of it being jammed with people.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1230040800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1230040800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1230040800/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:25:58 -0500 South American Odyssey

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Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

We stopped in Barstow on our way to Vegas, there are lots of factory outlet shops there, but it wasn't as good as I remembered from previous trips. Although I did get a proper engagement ring finally! It`s much nicer than my $20 fake one I have been wearing since the proposal in Peru!

There was lots of traffic on the way to Vegas, so it was dark when we arrived. We were staying at the Mandalay Bay, Chrisso had booked our room there months ago so it was pretty cheap for the fancy room we stayed in. Talk about luxury, there was a TV in the bathroom so you could watch it while you were in the bath! It's a tough life, this backpacking!

We were very busy during our time in Vegas, Chrisso hardly had enough time to gamble! We wandered up and down the strip countless times, went to a few shows, visited the Freemont Experience (a street in the old downtown district with a huge overhead screen in a mall), walked around with huge frozen margaritas and ate very well. The first show we went to see was Steve Wyrick, a magician. He did some amazing things, made an aeroplane appear from nowhere, a girl appear in a huge aquarium and replaced a two poodles (one black and one white) with a dalmation. How did he do that???? But he was a bit soppy all and talked to much to make the show spectacular. The second was a Cirque du Soleil show called Zoomanity, billed as "the sensual side of cirque du soleil". They had a drag queen as a MC, and most of the content was of the adult variety, no under 18's! It was very funny, they had some amazing performers and there were lots of boobies on display so Chrisso was happy!

On Christmas day our present to each other was a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon and the city of Las Vegas. Although it was really cold, it was a beautiful clear day and we were lucky to get in the front seat of the chopper next to the pilot. Four others were squished in the back and had to look at the back of our heads for the whole trip! It took about 40 mins to get out to the canyon and on the way we saw the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, it`s a very pretty setting. The Canyon is pretty spectacular, even though this was my 3rd visit and second time over it in a chopper! On the way back we flew over down town Vegas and the strip, which I had never done before. You wouldn't believe how much construction is going on, they are building a whole new complex consisting of condos, casinos and shops right in the centre of the strip called City Centre which our pilot advised would generate over 12,000 jobs once complete. How can it possibly get bigger???
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1198072800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1198072800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1198072800/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:21:41 -0500 South American Odyssey

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Los Angeles, California, United States

Our hotel in LA was downtown across the road from the Staples Centre (Lakers fans will know what that is) near what we think was Little Mexico ... it was like we didn't even leave central America, even all the signs were in Spanish! We felt like sushi for dinner and there was an area of downtown called Little Tokyo, so we caught a train a few stops and tried to walk to the area indicated on our not very accurate map. We got a few blocks away from the Metro station and there were more and more homeless dodgy looking people on the street so we turned back and found a little Vietnamese restaurant in a safer part of town. I was so happy to have proper Asian food, a bowl of Pho, yum! Chrisso wanted to catch the metro home but we were still too far from the station, so we tried to get a cab. There are no taxis in downtown LA of a night time ... the whole area is completely deserted!!! We kept walking and were almost half way home by the time we got a cab ... I was not a happy camper! But probably needed the exercise, tee hee.

The next morning we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain ... a gigantic roller coaster park, and had so much fun ... we are such kids! We went on every scary ride they had, some more than once! All in all I rode 14 coasters ... Chrisso did an extra run without me because I was feeling way too dizzy and just a little bit sick from being thrown around on these rides. They were great fun though ... they have normal coasters, standing ones, ones with tracks above your head and ones where you are flying like superman.

We spent 6 hours there and left at about 4pm to drive to Redondo Beach to visit our friend from home, Caroline. It took about 3 hours to get there through all the LA traffic ... the city has very little public transport and is definitely built for cars, so many freeways, overpasses and underpasses! Caroline has only been living in the US for about 4 months, but has found herself a lovely place to live at Redondo Beach and showed us around the beach area ... it was really cold and rainy, but we could imagine how nice it would be in summer!

The next morning we went to Santa Monica to do a bit of shopping ... finally I could get new clothes so I don't look like a dirty backpacker any more!!!

We went out with Caroline again that night, this time to the next beach called Hermosa Beach. It is very popular with lots of restaurants and clubs ... in fact this is where Ben Cousins had his binge weekend a few months back! We went to a place called the Dragon which we thought was just a dodgy chinese restaurant but turned out to be a pretty trendy club which served food. It was really packed with youngsters by the time we finished eating so we went up the road to another bar called Sangria which played good music and was lots of fun. We headed back to Redondo to another pub after that for a while too.

The following day after a late start we headed to Hollywood! First we drove around for a bit and found the Viper Room, then went to Hollywood Boulevard. We had breakfast and wandered down to Graumans chinese theatre to see all the foot and hand prints of famous people, then walked down the avenue of stars and visited tacky souvenir shops.
In the afternoon we went to Venice Beach. It`s full of very interesting people! There were lots of market stalls along the boardwalk selling unusual bits and pieces, but it was more fun people watching than anything else. There were a few people working out at muscle beach and many playing basketball and some weird form of squash which you play with only your hands, no racket. The sunset there was very beautiful as it was such a clear day.

We had a quiet night that night as we wanted to get an early start on our way to VEGAS BABY, YEAH!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1197986400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1197986400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1197986400/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:17:39 -0500 South American Odyssey

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San Diego, California, United States

We had a 4 hour flight to Dallas from San Jose which was pretty uneventful ... until we had to go through immigration into the US with a reasonable 1.5 hours connection time to our flight to San Diego. We were still in the queue waiting to go through immigration when our next flight left! Only 5 immigration officials were on duty with 15 international flights arriving around the same time ... welcome to America!

We just managed to get on the next flight and arrived in San Diego only an hour late. We picked up our hire car and took ages to find our hotel as it was in the middle of nowhere, it was dark and raining and we were driving on the wrong side of the road to what we were used to at home!

Unfortunately the weather was a bit poo when we woke up the next day, but we headed to San Diego Zoo anyway ... it was the main reason we were in San Diego, apart from Chris wanting to do a lot of Anchor Man quotes ... something about an old old wooden ship and a whale`s vagina ... you have to see the movie to understand!

Despite the clouds and occasional rain, the zoo was fantastic. The have put a lot of work into making most of the habitats as natural as possible and they have animals from pretty much every where, probably the most diverse range of animals I have seen anywhere before. The polar bear enclosure was great, two of them were playing and we could see them wrestling under water! The Panda`s were pretty good too, and there were lots of jokes about PANDA WATCH (another Anchor Man reference!)

We had a leisurely drive to Los Angeles that afternoon and checked out some of the Californian beaches along the way ...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1197554400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1197554400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tphilip75/adventure1/1197554400/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:14:54 -0500 South American Odyssey

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Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

The trip to San Jose wasn't very exciting, with a little bit of a delay crossing the border but no other problems.

San Jose isn't the prettiest city we have been in, in fact, it was very dodgy! Val took us for a walk through town and we had our final dinner on tour at a lovely restaurant across the road from our hotel. Since it was our last night with the group we went out after dinner to a strange entertainment district not far from our hotel where there were about 30 different restaurants, pubs and clubs to choose from. We went to a few different places but it never really got busy, even though we stayed there til after 1am. Most of the gang went home at that point, but some of us felt it was too early. Val suggest that we go to was a pub called Key Lago. It was a nice enough, with a live band playing and people having fun ... there was something strange about the place though ... all the ladies could be hired out for the night, if you know what I mean!!! One of the waitresses spoke English and asked me many questions, then said she was just curious about me as usually ladies don't come to that kind of place! We went across the road to the casino and hotel which was part of the same establishment after a while, and it was more obvious there that the ladies were hookers. All the boys were too scared to make eye contact with anyone because they didn't want to be approached by the ladies! It was definitely an interesting experience!!!

We had finally finished our tours and were on our own ... we were pretty happy about it too! We had been on tours for about 100 days in total, so it was nice to be able to do our own thing finally ... although we did have a great time on the tours!

It was a bit of a slow start after our strange night out, but once we were finally ready, Davo, Glenn and the two of us headed to the bus terminal to go to Manuel Antonio for a few days.

The bus terminal was notorious for thieves, so we had plans to keep all our gear in sight and safe. As soon as we arrived we ran into Susan, who had been on our tour from Mexico to Guatemala, and she had just had her day pack stolen with her passport and cameria inside. Problem!

The bus took longer than expected due to road works and an accident or two, so we arrived in Manuel Antonio in the dark. It was raining too and we didn't have any accommodation booked. A guy met the bus and took us to his hostel to see his rooms, but I am a bit of a spoilt princess now and couldn't possibly stay in something so basic! He recommended the hotel across the road which was much closer to the standard to which I have become a custom! We had a quiet night, went to the pub for a few drinks then to bed reasonably early.

After a sleep in, we went for a walk into town, had some breakfast, then went to the National Park which the town is named after. Although it is very small, it is the most visited national park in Costa Rica as there is so much wildlife. We were on the look out for two toed sloths which the park is famous for. First we did a walk to a lookout point through the forest, which was beautiful. We didn't see much in the way of monkeys or sloths though we were looking very hard! We saw lots of lizards and hermit crabs though. It was pretty hot in the forest and the best beaches in town were in the national park, so we took advantage of them. They were pretty sheltered so very little swell, but the water was lovely and refreshing.

We wandered through the forest some more and found a bunch of monkeys playing in the trees. There were about 20 of them and they were very playful, jumping from tree to tree, climbing on the electricity poles and generally having a good time! While we were watching them a raccoon appeared, as did a gigantic lizard, and yes, Glenn also spotted a sloth!!! So much nature!

It was happy hour soon after that so we had a few drinks and an early dinner. We had a nap, then decided to go into the nearest big town called Quepos for a night out. First we went to a pub close to our hotel, but that wasn't really happening, so two locals we met suggested we go to Arco de Iris in Quepos. It was a big club and there when we arrived we were the only gringos in the place!

On our final last day in Manuel Antonio, we just relaxed. We ate nice meals in the local restaurants, swam and relaxed on the beach. Unfortunately it started raining in the afternoon, but we had hired a beach umbrella for the day and it was still warm, so we stayed put.

The next morning we caught the local bus into Quepos and luckily got on a bus straight away back to San Jose. No delays this time, and we got back in time to explore the city a bit before night fell. We had a quiet last dinner with Davo & Glenn at the hotel, then went to bed for our last night in Latin America ... off to the USA tomorrow!!!
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