Around the world

oh yeah!!! bus day, boring day! On the other side, the lodge we found was a good choice! It is in the mangrove and we have our own bungalow!!! The owner are swiss so they have Rösti on the menu…

For the ones who do not know Szonszo (Mattia Sansossio) well, he his one of my best friends BUT receiving an email from him is rarely related with pleasure… even less pleasure is derived by a mail labeled URGENTISSIMO (very very urgent). Lets give some background information: he is the guy that “runs” the youth section of the mountaineering club of Bellinzona and I’m the one programming their website. Logical conclusion: his emails = web troubles. And today they were big, Really BIG! Due to a bug in a software that we had on the website, we had been victim of a spammers attack that blocked the website. And of curse I had to fix it quickly… costed me almost the all day and night… and I was supposed to go to bed early to be fit for the interview…

Seams like we are getting really lucky with the places we stays and eat lately. After a long trip we got back to Antigua and, not knowing where to go eat (remember, Antigua is a restaurants paradise) we decide to check out Panza Verde, astonishing place with a swiss (Lausannois) chef. Before going in we do the standard check: will eating here kill our daily budget!? Yes it will, BUT they have Fondue!!!

“The place where the river goes under the earth”, that is what Semuc Champey means, pretty appropriate but IMHO the name should be “The beautiful place where the river goes under the earth”. It is a phenomenal karst bridge, the river eroded its way under the rocks forming a cave and on top of the cave (the bridge) there are plenty of turquoise 25°C pools. Really Really cool! Back in Copan we go to the pretty hotel again and have another amazing meat dinner!

Short bumpy ride to Lanquin and again no doubles at el retiro, a really nice place along the rio Lanquin. We decide to visit the nearby caves around 5 pm so that we’ll be there when thousands of bats will flight out for some food. Really impressing, it’s crazy how many of them live in there, ok, the cave is supposed to be 72 Km long… not bad huh!? The dinner is a culinary desaster: pizza with fries… and they are proud of it… no comment.

we actually wanted to go to Nebaj and stay there but seen the weather we decided to keep on going and to go to Coban. 9 hours after leaving Xela we get to one of the prettiest house we have been. Unfortunately the have no double rooms and we take a dorm. The dinner is delicious, we go for grilled meat with a bottle of wine… mmm sooo good and on top of it we are in a colonial patio lit only by candles…

So, finally in our inbox there could be a date for the embassy appointment… and there it is: all November is full then sometime in December… S*ç%)(+!T no good. Luckly around 10am THE GOOD NEWS is there: Dear applicants, you’ll be interviewed on the 19th Nov. 2007 at 13.00!!! YESSSSSS FINALLY!!! now, of course we think that we are all done but it is not so, we’ll spend the whole day going to the bank, filling e-forms (of course being a male between 16 and 46 doesn’t help –> one more form where they ask me among other things where I’ve been the last 10 years… as if i knew!) and sending everything again. For dinner we want to celebrate the appointment with a raclette at the local Swiss restaurant… closed on Monday and Tuesday, guess what day is the 13th!? You say Monday!? No, is Tuesday… whatever.

After some hot dipping we leave this beautiful place towards Xela for what is going to be maybe a travel day. As we get to Xela we have to go and check if we got all the infos from Steamboat in order to fix an appointement with the embassy… it almost happened… but only almost. 2 Hours later we finally had everything and we sent it in, but it is too late now to move further and we decide to pass another day in Xela.

YESSSS! That was 4 am when we left the camp! We had to climb only less than one our to go to the top. We were finally feeling kind of warm again.(even if we had to stop every 10 min to wait for the turtles.. It was only 5 am when we both broke our record (4220m) and unfortunately the sun was coming only 30 min later! We wrapped ourselves in a sleeping bag and hided behind a small rock avoiding the wind.

Here is the plan. Today we have to climb till the camp at 4000m where we gonna spend the night. And tomorrow at 3.40 am we will do the rest to the top to see the sunrise.
First of all we had to take tree buses to arrive at the starting point. The ascent was not to difficult. Even if we lost 2 American guys from L.A on the way (Too much air probably.. )and that we had to break every 20 min.. then came the setting of the camp (OK, still active) and the night. Beautiful by the way, as always in mountain when it is not cloudy, you can see multitude of stars. But in the other side, it means as well that it is going to be cold! And cold, it was. Very. Just imagine that we carry only summer staff with us. I had a t-shirt, two pullover, a king of polar jacket that a just bought for 4 us$ the day before, and a wind jacket. I was still cold. I pass that memorable/unforgettable night in the sleeping bag (comfort zone 6 °c but it was freezing..) without a minute of sleep just waiting 4am to wake up and finally move.

Nothing special, we just chilled and signed up to climb the Tamajulco volcano, 4220m, highest point in Central America the next two days.

We did our third move on the other side of the lake to San Pedro la laguna. It is a bad choice. Should be bohemian but it is just disappointing. The good new was that we got a positive answer from Guatemala city embassy. We can finally be interviewed there to get our visa for Steamboat!! HIHAAA!

Well…it was….refreshing! We had a 7mm full body wet suit plus another 7 mm shorties! After 45 min, your are happy to feel the sun again! Marco’s point of view gonna be probably different but there weren’t much to see. A few crabs and fishes. The highlight was probably at the end of the dive when at some point we could dig with our hand for a warm earth. Delightening

We heard of some possibilities of diving in the lake, so we headed up toward on hostal-diving-school called “La Iguana Perdida”. The location is wonderful and there is a nice backpackers community. We signed up for the next morning dive. It is going to be my first dive in a lake…will see…

As you can see on the pictures, the biggest market of Guatemlala: Chichicastenango is amazingly colorful. Here, You can find everything made of the famous rainbow color material. And it is not only for the tourist. 95% of the women are still wearing traditional costumes. And this is really nice. We personally bought 10 hats..yeahh.. you know..we gonna start a new business this winter…
After that we went to Panajachel, on the Atitlan lake. Soo beautiful! We felt at home. The only difference is the shape of the mountain that are actually volcanoes!
Have a look.

chill out today, we just stroll around Antigua and go to the weekly market… buy of the day 5 DVD’s –> the whole first season of Rome for 10 UD$.

This afternoon, we ( and 100 other persons) climbed the active Volcan Pacaya. It was…No comment, the pictures speak for themselves!

Today we began the cultural part of the trip. Our first Maya ruins…Copan. We had decided to take a guide, which is much more interesting than reading the bible Lonely. And you know what, he speaks French!! and really well. The site (post classic maya period) is beautiful and we are waved by the few people visiting the ruins, the Uff-ta-ta band and some local people recognizing the Hero, already knowned as Lo Suizo, the beer drinker…
We caught then the mini-bus to Antigua, full of ….schwytzerdütsch!! AHHHGR

Finally we can leave La Ceiba, destination Copan Ruinas with a super direct-20$-bus not bad uh? NO, BAD BAD BAD! The super direct bus stops for 3 hours in San Pedro Sula… F()*(çERç*çK!
Whatever we get to Copan in the afternoon and we discover that the same evening there will be an Oktoberfest!!!
After some rest we go to the fest… Volksmusik, Weisswürste, Sauerkraut und Bieeeeeerrrr(you can buy a 1 liter Krug) ! Echt Spitze! Later in the evening the Uff-ta-ta (the band) starts organizing games with the public… the last one being drink-your-one-liter-as-fast-as-you-can and having myself as a participant… as i get on the stage the 3 other concurrents ask me about my drinking habits and I say that as I was young (asterix times for the ones that can recall these days), I used to drink a “bit” but now I just drunk few beers some times
anyway 3…2…1…go! Jug… jug… jug… jug… I’ve to breathe… jug… jug… jug… jug… I’ve to breathe jug… jug… jug… finished… man I’m not used to that any more, but the locals have still half Krug and everybody is screaming LO SUIZO, LO SUIZO, the band stands up and says PROSIT, boys jump around, Ladies are crying, girls are throwing their bras at me and two naked Swedish twins run to me and start kissing me… Ok, Ok, a bit exagerated but the Lo Suizo part is true!
My stomach is really upset with me and I go for a walk and subsequent sleep… ah btw I won a Krug that sais Oktoberfest Honduras! As if I didn’t have enough stuff to carry around!
Cheers Marco

well, not to much today beside the fact that I had to spend almost 2 more hours in the morning and 1 more in the afternoon with my new dentist… but all in all she did a really good job… Let’s see who’ll find the difference.

5.45am i run to the dock to see if the ferry is running… 6.13: YESSS! Despite the bad weather we can finally leave.
In La Ceiba we catch a desert storm cargo bus to go to a lodge on the rio Canjrenal where we’ll raft and spend a relaxing afternoon and night recovering from the Utilean party effort. After a short briefing we hit to the river and start… praying :-/ Litteraly we all hold hands and our guide asks for a safe trip and clear guiding… mmm let’s hope!
We start doing some playing in the chilly river: crossing, swimming, jumping, climbing and diving. The highlight of the upstream training is a 10m cliff jump, only difficulty is the way to get there. First a 5m height jump in the river, then swim hard to the other side and finally get a carabiner hocked to the live vest or, as it happened to our beloved hero, get it straight on the front tooth and break it in halves… not bad uh!? Check the smile!!! (hockey fans don’t I recall you Keith Fair!?).
After floating back to the raft we start our paddling, we have some really cool class 3 and 4 rapids to pass and the river is much narrower then back home. Our raft takes only 5 peoples so the ride is much more agitated and rough. Really really cool!
Unfortunately we cannot spend our relaxing afternoon there since it seems like I’ve to go to the dentist… I’m lovin’ it!
4 hours later I’ve my tooth again and another appointment for the day after to have the tooth nerve extracted.

25 – 28.10

so so, we came to Utila to dive the continental trench on its north side but the weather seams to have other plans for us… apparently it’s the worst week since months. Strong wind and heavy rains hold the diving boats on the south side of the island too bad. Since the bad weather doesn’t seem to give up we decide to leave the island… no way!!! the ferry to the mainland is not running and we are forced to stay on the island. Luckily at our backpackers there is a good group of funny people (among others an English-man called Mark that lived for 8 years in Geneva) with whom we have a good time waiting for the ferry, playing cards (some strange Israeli games) and having parties.

Meeting point 7a.m, it was raining cats and dogs and wasn’t really the sexy cliché of the Caribbean. At all. Let’s go to bed again. New meeting point : 12.30p.m. The weather seemed better so we decided to go. The dives were nice, lots of soft corals but not so many fishes. During the second, the light was really dark as it was pouring again so much that the captain was completely lost. He couldn’t find his way back to the shore…

Transit day: two buses, a ferry and 25 people welcoming you on the island and inviting you to stay in their hostel! Yes we want to dive and yes we are already certified. Here are the deals: 205$ for 10 dives and 5$ p.p for overnight. Not bad. Tomorrow we are going to dive again…coool!

We were supposed to catch a “collectivo” (which is pick up used as a bus by local workers) to reach the national park, 14km further up. According to the Bible Lonely planet, it is really easy as they are numerous. We start hiking through the village at 6.20a.m, thinking that we will hijack one of them on the way. Well, one hour and a half (and a river crossing) later, we had seen only one car…in the wrong direction. 1 hour after we could hear a noise…is it a car?…where does it come from? YYYYEEESSSS. This one is for us. Well, kind of. We probably did 60m before it stops for fixing the engine. A few attempts and we moved…for 100 more meters. One of the tires is flat. And we had to fix it. 20′ later the car bring us to his destination which is by far not our yet. The guys told us that we missed about 4km. Sounds correct. Let’s go further. 2 hours and a half later we finally got to the entrance!! From there we took a 3.7 km trail trough the pristine cloud forest. Highlights of the trail: we saw a toucanette and some rodent after 50m and walked the rest without seeing anything else. 13.00 we are ready to descend, on the way up we met a guy with an old jeep an we asked him at what time he was going to leave, he said at 2pm… well we almost run to his finca to see if he is still there. He his!! cool no 15km descend, furthermore, it turns out that the guy is from the government and is supervising the preparatives for coming coffee harvesting season (December). He tells us a lot about coffee and all the process before your coffee-machine, really really interesting. On the way down we visited a second finca where we discussed with the owner Don René about some more coffee related stuff. We are exhausted but it was really worth it.

Even when your are on vacation, these transit days are long. When you wake up at 7a.m, you get on the first chicken bus from 8 to 10.30. Wait 2 hours to catch the next one already overloaded with people, so that you have to stand up 2 hours and a half under the arm of mister Cow boy that has changed his shirt two weeks ago to get you completely down. But you know what, it is off the beaten track….

mmm today we search the all afternoon for new shoes, found 2 really cool pairs for me and one for Sarah… guess what? Exact, our size was finished “pas de bol”

Today we went to the ruins of the old Leon,former capital of the Nicaraguan Province at that time and classified world heritage by Unesco. The town was found in the 16th century and a abandoned less than 90 years later because of two successive earthquake and volcano eruption. The cool thing is that we were the only tourists!!! We even had the guided tour in..sort of English. We learned lots of interesting like how Mr. Diego schmurz de Vasconscelo de mi amore was beheaded and were he was found 3 century later! Interesting.

As said, Granada is a wonderful colonial town where we could easily stay for a while. All the houses have an inside yard with lots a plants. I’m pretty sure that the wealthiest man of the city is the rocking chair builder. There are just everywhere. It is so relaxing and comfortable. Well during those tree days we have been hanging around, distressing and eating the best food of the country. In two words: Real holidays.

This morning when we woke up we had a litte surprise. First, for you to understand I have to give you some background informations. Remember the hiking in the mud, the multiple days with lots of rain and the 150 % of humidity everywhere you go not allowing your shoes to dry off! Well after that it’s sometimes hard for your nose to let your shoes being in your bedroom. Last night, they were expelled from the room. This morning, GONE!!!!!
There are two question: Why our shoes? Bouuuuuuhhhhhh (for the record they were Marco’s favorite shoes ever)
How did the robber survive? We will never know
Rule n°4: always keep your shoes in your bedroom, no matter how they stink.

Today is a transit day, we moved from our beautiful finca to the colonial city of Granada. The transfer was painless… our muscles painful from the volcano hike. whatever, we get to Granada by 3p.m. and after a 20minutes deadly walk with all our gear we find a nice hostel, leave the backpacks and go for a stroll. the city looks cool, but we’re tired and go sit down in an awesome bar and order homemade ice cream… yummy. later on we hit back to the hostel and watched an episode of BBC’s blue planet and went for dinner.
Cheers, Marco

Breakfast 7a.m, start 8a.m. We knew that it was going to be a long, very long day. Well, it was. 3h30 to the summit and 4h down. In between it was raining, the trail transformed either in a small river or mud pools. Terrific! our goal was the lagoon at the top of the Volcan maderas (1394m) in the crater. What to say ? we saw the clouds. We still had a wonderful point of view 1h after the start on the island and other volcano. We should have stop a that point. Dinner 6p.m, bed 7p.m.

Well, nothing special today, just an another on the road again day. Chicken bus followed the kind of ferry which make you think that you could go faster by swimming. The island looks really nice, even if we can’t see the two volcanoes. We end up in a beautiful finca close to the second volcano we want to climb and surrounded by petroglyphs, depicting humans and birds. These remnants of the Chorotega settlement.

We wanted to improve our surf in the best waves of Nicaragua”. It will be for another time. First of all it was raining like hell when we arrived there and apparently it was the worst day of the season “wave speaking”. You should know that October is not the best month to travel through Central America. Anyways, Marco was enjoying the multi direction waves and I finally had some fun. The following 20$-an-hour-massage was great. Makes you forget for a while, the hardest thing of being a backpacker, carrying heavy bags, using new muscles, being constantly stress by wondering where is the next place to eat, and so one. Well we really earned it.

One month of travel and none of us has been sick, yet… today is Sarah’s turn, she is not to well and we decide to have an easy day hanging around in San Juan.
In the afternoon, the newly discovered surfer in me makes us move to the beach and with my shiny pink board I go try to stand up. By night Sarah calls me Kelly

Nicaragua here we are. Today is crossing border day, apparently the worst crossing of the whole trip. So we decided to take an international bus which, although being a bit more expensive, should speed up the process of crossing. It did, beside the fact that we had to wait a couple of hours on the panamericana because people kept on giving us random departure times. In late afternoon we were in San Juan del sur, the nica counterpart to Tamarindo, supposedly the best waves in the country.
Nicaragua looks and feels really different from Costa Rica, the people here are much more typed and the indio heritage is clear. Also Nica looks poorer but people are still friendly and welcoming.

After a relaxing did-nothing-day we move our asses to the pacific and go surfin’… well go surfin’ is a big statement, we take our first two hours lesson! Fitted with 8ft boards we go to the beach where Santiago tells us how to stand up… remember the cutie in point break teaching Keanu!? Well he was more lucky than me (with the teacher look…). Well after a couple of “stay low” on the sand we go in the water. Beside the paddling part it feels good when you kind of catch the wave and stand up and go straight toward the beach… and let yourself fall in the water because carving is not yet in our repertory (ask Sarah’s nose…).
Two hours later we are starving and tired so –> LUNCH&CHILL!!!
Cheers, Marco

Well meeting 3 friends in Costa Rica does not happen too often, having met Cedric and Mily (kind of planed) and Steffi from Laax (walking around) we decided that we had to go partying… By coincidence, that night at Babylon there is a Reggae festival which we won’t miss although the entrance fee of 7$ which luckily include 2 beers and a CD (NB everybody gets a CD and no trades like 2CD’s for 1 beer or so ). Couplo of hours and beers later we feel like it’s 6a.m., somehow we’re not used to party that much anymore. Mental note train this winter!
Cheers, Marco

So, finally today was time to dive again! The target is the Isla Catalina, around 45 min of navigation from Tamarindo. It is our first dive in this side of the pacific so we’re exited about maybe seeing mantas, eagle rays and sharks…
During the boat ride we see couple of Green Turtles couples having their private businesses and enjoy the beautiful coastline. Once at the dive site we gear up and jump in the water. As soon as we drop down Cedric points out an eagle ray that I miss… uff! but no worry, many more will pass by. As well we see some nurse and white tip reef sharks.
The second dive is halfway home and for the first half nothing spectacular, but then we saw two octopuses and more spotted eagle rays. cool! So, no mantas but very very cool eagle rays. The evening, as crowning of a cool day we decide to go for a good dinner, i’m craving for sushi since I left Zurich and wonder what!? We find an all-you-can-eat sushi place that for 15 U$ serves me a plate with 46 pieces of sushi and after that asks me if I wanted more… hard decision but I already forced me with the last 16 pieces so I kindly deny
Cheers, Marco

As usual we had to wake up at 5a.m to take the first bus to Tamarindo. We had rode that this road was Costa Rica’s worst! Well it was. First of all, the early bus was canceled, which is really annoying when the only reason why you woke up that morning is to take this f… bus!!!
We took 3 hours to cover the enormous and huge distance of…40 km to the Panamerican-Hwy! I let you count the km/h average. At one point, the road was so bad that we had to get out of the bus. The bus turned then around and drove more than 1 km in reverse. We had to take our bags with us, walk 300 m, put our bags in the second bus that was waiting for us, then walk again about 2km to larger place where it could turn over because it was as well driving in reverse.(now that I write that I wonder why we didn’t ask for a discount).The rest was long but without incident. In Tamarindo we luckily saw Cedric working in his dive shop (Marco’s former boss in Playa del Carmen, Mexico last year)from the bus. It is time to speak about fondue and raclette again.

Today we decided to do some “adventurous” stuff… Canopy gliding, aka Tirolean lines. Basically you glide on an cable from a three to another using a pulley. Sounds like fun to me, Sarah tells me that it’s ok (she already did it in CH) but not the biggest thrill ever. We go anyway to see the scenery and check it out for me… it turns out that the scenery is really cool, but the “guaranteed adrenaline rush” is not as big as advertised. Anyhow, it was fun and the scenery really beautiful!
In the afternoon, we do… nothing, just hang around and plan a bit. The evening, a bit frustrated of never having seen the green-red-eyed frog we decide to go to a frog pond (frogarium ;-)) and take a tour there where we discover 30 differents (and really really cool) frogs! Did you know that the males fight for the female (as usual) but when they win guess what!? No not that, they give her 15 days of massage… :/ hopefully not too many girls will read this post!
Cheers, Marco

Instead of doing 8 hours bus, we had the choice to take a jeep-boat-jeep trip a little bit more expensive but saving us at least 4 hours. They have apparently improved the road because it was a van-boat-van..less adventurous! Anyway the boat trip on the lake located just behind the volcano was beautiful. At our arrival in Monteverde, for the first time during this trip we were hunted by hostel manager looking for some customers. You could fell the law season smell! We end up in a nice hostel with view on the valley and Pacific!
We took then a guided night tour in the forest which was really cool. We saw a deadly snake, a poisonous frog, a tarantula (beuuuh) and finally a sloth with her baby! My favorite animal…you know, the one that goes very slowly and falls asleep all the time

The perfect volcano cone in la Fortuna is still active and you can always see fumes smoking from the top as well as lava flowing the volcano sides. That’s what we did tonight, watching the lava. We took a trail in the forest in order to go nearer, but still far enough not to be dangerous. It was really impressive. The red-orange lava is constantly flowing. After that we went to the hot springs!!! Actually it is quite strange to go in warm water when it is so hot outside. You feel like…you miss the cold weather! Anyway the place was very nice, there were about 15 pools, with bars in some of them, surrounded by tropical forest. Well it’s decadent..and we enjoyed.

The wake up was early, 5a.m., because you know it is always better to paddle along the river when it is not too hot and being before other groups is a good idea as well. The first our was perfect. We could hear the howler monkey from deep in the jungle, admire lots of birds, be amused by spider monkey flying from branch to branch. When, suddenly, what had to happened, happened. It began to rain….a lot. And it was no more amusing. At all. Considering that it is 7a.m, it is raining, you are freezing, you are paddling and apparently the only ones (Boats are now overtaking us. Either the guide is paddling for them or they have a silent motor). People are looking at you as if you come from Mars, because YOU are paddling under the rain without raincoat with a number… Well at least we saw some caymans!
During the afternoon, after a 20 min hot shower and a nap, we went for a walk in the national park to see our new friends the capuchine…