Jan 2nd 2009: onwards and upwards

Hi Everyone

Main Highlights from Central America including Mexico and Cuba:
1. Cuba
2. Cay Caulker and the Blue Hole, Belize
3. Volcano Hiking (Pataya, Guatemala and Maderas, Nicaragua)
4. San Blas (Wish we could have stayed longer!!)

It has been a while since we wrote. We have had ups and downs but mostly a positive experience to date. The best news of the week is that our money has been returned to us from the bank after our problems in Guatemala. We are stoked!!

We have made our way through the south of Central America stopping briefly in Honduras and Nicaragua. Our beach time that we had planned did not turn out as our timing for Caribbean beaches was not that great. We were in the middle of the rainy season and typically a big storm hit that lasted for about two to three weeks!

We got to experience football mania Honduras style when they bet Mexico in a world cup qualifier this was a lot of fun.

It was then onto Nicaragua where we took in a few colonial towns but the highlight here was definitely Ometepe Island – a twin volcanic island in the middle of a lake. We chilled out here for a few days and got back to the grass roots – culture, people and a great walk up one of the volcanoes. This is what we had been lacking and really enjoyed the experience.

After Ometepe we made our way into Costa Rica. With high expectations initially it didn't disappoint! Monteverde particularly lived up to its name … a cloud forest with lots of activities including hiking, canopy walks and ziplines. We also took in a tour around a banana, coffee and sugarcane plantation, which was very interesting. It was then onto La Fortuna where with much persuasion Victoria managed to convince Marcus that going to the most expensive hot spring in town was the way it should be done. Tabacon's 5 Star Resort was idyllic. We spent an evening enjoying the thermal wonderland and a sensational buffet dinner.

It was at this point that things started to change again. We were on a bus from La Fortuna to San Jose when we were stopped at a bus station. I had my head out the window checking that our big packs didn't disappear from the compartment below when all of a sudden I heard Marcus talking to someone … not politely either! I turned around and my day bag (with everything imaginable in it) was on it's way out the back door of the bus. Lucky for us Marcus spotted it when he did, ironically the guy just calmly gave the bag back – he was a professional! Loosing that bag would have been catastrophic … passports, money, camera, computer etc. It was a wake up call that is for sure!!

We caught up with Marcus's brother-in-law in San Jose and collected our replacement credit card … we were officially up and running again now J. It was neat to see family and a great way to spend our time in San Jose (not a particularly nice city).

Our plans after La Fortuna continued to change … with bad weather patterns over the country and our desperate need for some sun and relaxation we decided to splash out and head for a Luxury Eco Tent Camp in Corcovado National Park. Rated as the best park in Costa Rica and with the prices to boot. It was isolated and people can only arrive to the area by plane or boat. We came by boat and settled in. We had a great spot with sea views, a lovely beach, hammocks, monkeys and even red-tailed macaws. Our luck changed again on the first night when while we were at dinner the tents were raided and we had a whole lot of our things stolen. Everything was replaceable it was just the hassle. Victoria's camera and toilet bag our masks, snorkels and dive computers and a day bag were the main things – ironically the toilet bag was the most annoying – we were literally in the middle of nowhere and here for five nights – medicine, sunscreen etc it was all gone. Lucky for us we had uploaded all our photos before we left San Jose and left most of our stuff there – it could have been a whole lot worse! It left a bad feeling though and added to our stress load – it wasn't turning out to be the relaxing break that we had planned for. The following afternoon was spent with the police making a statement. The staff at the camp had been nothing but helpful and think it was quite an effort to get the police out there. We had our documentation for insurance purposes and tried to carry on with our time at Corcovado with our chins up!

The following day we headed into the national park on a guided tour. It was really interesting and our best sighting was of a Tapir … a really unusual animal with a funny nose – it's closest relative is an elephant but it looks more like a pig!! On our return to the campsite we had some fantastic news. The police had caught the man who had stolen all our belongings and a little girl had found my toilet bag and zoom lens discarded in some bushes. The rest of our belongings we would be able to retrieve from the police station in town when we left the national park. When do you ever hear of something like this happening? We were very happy people!! We were able to enjoy the remainder of the time in a lot better spirits – a weight had been lifted off our shoulders! A day of diving and a final day of relaxing around the camp before taking a boat back to town and civilisation. We were escorted by the manager of our resort back to town which made communication with the police a whole lot easier. We got everything except for Marcus's dive mask back … not bad going and it was all in the same condition it got taken in – just a little muddier!!

Our time in Costa Rica was coming to an end which we were pleased about. We had a couple of lazy days in San Jose before heading down to Panama.

Panama was a highlight. With only three nights here we managed to pack in so much. We had the culture of the Kuna people an indigenous tribe on the Caribbean coast and then enjoyed the San Blas Archipelago but wanted so much more time there … our own personal island for a day!! It was total bliss!! We also took in the Panama Canal visiting the Miraflores Lock to see how it operated and really enjoyed the old town of Casco Viejo – very much like Havana Veija in Cuba.

We are now in a small town north of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil called Ouro Preto and are making our way to our Christmas spot at Buzios on the coast through tonight and tomorrow morning.

Love to all
Victoria and Marcus

Happy New Year! Dec 31st

Hi All,
Happy New Year to everyone. Hope you have enjoyed celebrating where ever you may be in this world of ours.

We are on Ilha Grande, Brazil.

Have a great 2009 ... we will keep you posted on our goings on!!
Love to all.
Victoria and Marcus

Cuba boatride

Trials and Tribulations from Guatemala November 19th

Hi Everyone,
It is us again! I hope this email finds you all well.
Our trip since last time has definitely developed and not in the best way. After a wonderful time in Belize we have been dealt many trials since arriving in Guatemala. But that is what travelling is all about, isn't it??

We had a wonderful time in Belize. A real 'rusta' vibe where the people are so friendly and the pigeon English a laugh to listen to.

We spent three wonderful days in Caye Caulker one of the islands off the coast of Belize City in the Caribbean Sea. We did a snorkelling trip off a sailboat and on one of the days dived the Blue Hole. This was a really interesting dive. It was deep, we went down to about 40 meters (Marcus to 43m and Victoria to 41m) at which point we had these amazing stalactite formations just hanging from the side of the wall. They were huge (about 20m in length) and we got to swim in behind them and looking back out into the mass of blue was quite a sight! The other two dives of the day were more normal wonderfully intact corals that we had not seen before and tropical fish life.

Since arriving in Guatemala we have continued to fill up our days. We started in Tikal another ancient Maya archaeological zone just passed the boarder before moving onto Flores. It was here that the trouble started. An ATM ate our card and we have had USD2000 taken from the account. They are very cleaver!! At this stage the bank hasn't come through but we are crossing our fingers and our toes. We have spent mornings in police stations filing claims and have just organised all the paperwork to be sent back to Sweden.

We have tried not to let it affect us but our moral is a little down at the moment. We have pushed on and continued to see all the things that we have wanted to. We booked a bus up to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan taking care to select a safe option as there are many problems with hijackings etc of local buses here so when a chicken bus turned up to take us up there we were not so impressed. To be fair we really enjoyed the local experience and everything was fine we were lucky apparently a bus is hijacked every eight minutes in this country.

Guatemala is such a beautiful country. The scenery is superb and we have managed to enjoy the highlights - from a boat ride on the Rio Dulce checking out the lush vegetation to climbing an active (lava flowing) volcano outside of Antigua. We enjoyed some time up at Lake Atitlan and took in the sights of local villages and Guatemalans around the lake before returning to Antigua a quaint colonial town with cobblestone streets.

We booked our bus to leave Guatemala to Honduras at 4am this morning but that was cancelled at 8pm last night we were running around town trying to sort things out. The words of the song "I want to get out of this place if it is the last thing I ever do" keeps popping into my head! We are booked on another one for 1pm today fingers crossed. It has meant we have managed to sort a few more things this morning and get this email out.
Sorry for the negativity, I have just re-read the email. Chins up we are moving onward and looking forward to some beach time on Utila Island. I am sure the next email will be a lot more positive.
Love to all.
Victoria and Marcus
PS. We have posted new photos check out the website http://www.travel.rameke.com/

Back from Cuba Nov 4th

Hi Everyone,
We are now back from Cuba and will make our way down to Belize over the next couple of days.
We had a fabulous time in Cuba and had some travelling companions on this leg, which made it all the more enjoyable. Jo S from home (NZ) and her friend Alicja.

Where to begin? Cuba is such an complicated country and one that I don't think we will ever be able to understand!

We arrived in Havana and spent the first couple of days in the city checking out the sights.

It really is a country stuck in a time warp of sorts. A trade embargo with the US since the early 60s and the Socialist government of Fidel Castro has prevented any real change to the country since then. The cars are lovingly restored Buicks, Pontiacs and Chevrolets and pose quite a sight and you move along the streets of Havana.
We should mention the encounter with the 'little green men' when we walked up to a monument the wrong way lets just say we had to give over passport numbers and about an hour later after their superiors had visited us we were let on our way Klesson learnt and a lot more weary of 'little green men'!
We got into the local national peso currency early (Cuba works with the dual currency basically one for tourists and the rich (Convertible Peso CUC) and one for the rest of the nation (National Peso CUP)). With one CUC set at the equivalent of GBP 1.00 it was a very expensive place to be in. The National Peso helped us considerably this was set at 24:1 and we were able to take bus rides for less than the equivalent of one cent and eat a pizza for twenty cents and a soft serve ice cream for five cents Vic's kind of heaven!
The diet here has been well interesting because of the two hurricanes that hit late August and early September there has been a very limited supply of fruit and vegetables the local markets that we visited were pretty much empty. The national dish consists of beans, rice and root vegetables. All of this we were not able to buy without a ration card. Yes it is a ration card state. It doesn't matter if you are a newborn or 60 years old you have your monthly entitlement of coffee, rice, beans, milk, bread, meat and sugar. For us to get any of these products from the shops you needed a ration card. We were however in most cases able to buy bread you had to time it right and be flexible with what sort of bread you wanted the round buns were often off limits for us, they were only available to card holders. We did all right but are really over bread now and looking forward to the selections on offer at the supermarket in Mexico.
After a couple of days in Havana we took an overnight bus down to Santiago de Cuba and worked our way back up the country from there. We took in lots of sights and got into the local transport, however between states we were limited to the tourist buses. One of the highlights was being able to stay in local families Casa Particulars (like a bed and breakfast but for us without the breakfast because it wasn't included). Our Spanish is improving as little English is spoken in Cuba it has been really good for us in this respect. Our favourite city has been Trinidad. Nestled between the Sierra del Escambray and the Caribbean a wonderful natural setting. The town itself is quaint and compact with cobblestone streets filled with horse and carts. The houses are all beautifully restored with locals relaxing in rocking chairs under the leaves.

We had our best beach day here too. We took bicycles out for the day and headed to the beach was a lot of fun. Our other beach days were hindered by torrential down pours (Varadero) and wind (Cayo Levisa) - not a lot of fun!

To be fair we have been very lucky with the weather considering the season just unfortunate on those occasions. We also took a tour from Trinidad into the Topes de Collantes national park and did a hike to some waterfalls as well as learning about the native flora and fauna of the area.
The most scenic part of Cuba for us was the Vinales region (the tobacco county). Wedged spectacularly into the Sierra de los Organoes mountain range this valley highlights not only the dramatic rocky limestone outcrops (mogotes) but also typifies the architecture of Cuba's traditional farms and villages. This area had been particularly damaged during the recent hurricanes so we left it until the end of our trip. The people have bounced back and a lot of the farmers we saw were slowly rebuilding their houses and most getting back into some sort of normality. The tobacco was being planted and we took a walking tour around the valley and got to visit a farmer's house and see how the cigars were made. We also took a horse ride deeper into the valley, which was awesome.

Just to let everyone know we have also done a bit of rearranging of our trip plan. We have decided to cut out most of Brazil and Venezuela. This chops two months off our original itinerary we were perhaps a bit optimistic with our original plan and are a bit worried about the moolar lasting the distance. It means we can leave the northern block of countries in South America for another time.
Well that is about enough from us for now, hope you made it this far. We hope all is well with everyone.

Happy 80th Birthday Grandad Booth sorry we were not there to celebrate with you we were thinking of you from Cuba! xxoo
Love Victoria and Marcus
PS Photos are up under Cuba and hopefully a movie under Movies check them out - http://www.travel.rameke.com/

stairway to heaven

Is there where Led Zeppelin got their inspiration from, asked Victoria's dad Ken in Lake Como, Italy

Made it to Mexico! 27th October

• Hi Everyone,
  
  Boy does time fly! We have just arrived in Mexico City!! The planning didn't leave much free time but we are still just going with the flow!
  
  With not too much set in concrete until February we are ad-libbing our way through Central America (along with those infamous hurricanes)!
  
  Our Africa Highlights:
  
  1. Hot Air Balloon in Maasai Mara - landing in the migration.
  
  2. Reaching the summit of the roof of Africa - Mt Kilimanjaro (5895m).
  
  3. To spend time with a family of Mountain Gorillas - with only 700ish left in the world we were very privelidged to have this experience.
  
  4. Chobe NP
  
  5. Victoria Falls
  
  
  Back to our fleeting visit to the UK. We were met at Heathrow by Robyn and Ken with a welcome sign as well!!

Then it was off to Sutton to enjoy the company of Audrey and Eric (unfortunately the time here was way too short the next year off will definitely allow for more catch up time!!). Thanks to all of those that turned up at our catch-up drinks in London it was wonderful to see you all (and some great surprises!!).

Italy has been great. We have had a wonderful ten days there. It has been nice to enjoy the luxuries of being in one place for a period of time (and some of Vic's dads cooking of course!). The first week was spent in Lake Como and we had visits from Marcus's brother Peter and our friend Martin. The time was spent enjoying the lake and its villages. We even managed a day trip into Switzerland (albeit only briefly).

The last few days were spent on the coast in the Cinque Terre region and we were joined by Marcus's mum Irene. We took walks along the coast between all five villages enjoying plenty of coffees on route!! We headed north from where we were staying at Deiva Marina to Portofino and witnessed how the other half live, some of the super yachts are just incredible.

Our photos have been uploaded (they are a lot more excessive this time but many people shots!!). Movies of our time in Africa can also be found on our website under the sub-album 'Movies'. Enjoy!!

We hope all is well with everyone and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Take care
Love Victoria and Marcus