Round the World in about 200 Days

Gallery: Maine, Connecticut, NYC, Colorado, Amsterdam and LONDON

aprillabbe — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:38:00 GMT

The End...

aprillabbe — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:59:00 GMT

Well it's finally over, hard to believe really, I managed to fit in time to add the pictures from the end of our central america stint while we were in the states but since making back to the western world life has been real busy so I haven't had a chance to write a story yet.

The last bit of central america was 1 huge party in the beautiful bocas del toro panama, some crazy "interesting" times in cuba, 1 last mexican feed and on to the states...

Dennis got to meet my family in Maine and I got to catch up with lots of people in the Northeast before heading off to a fabulous wedding in Aspen, some friends surprised me in Denver and then we met up with 1 more friend in Miami before hitting Amsterdam for 1 crazy week and we have finally landed in London, our new home :)

Amazingly we managed to find a beautiful flat in 2 days! Now if only jobs would come as quickly, the new flat does indeed have a spare room for all you potential visitors!

Well these are the latest pics, enjoy and I reckon this might be it for the updates, got to get me a job!

love and miss and hope to see you all soon xx april and dennis

Gallery: panama, cuba, and back to the states

aprillabbe — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:23:00 GMT

the sketchiest place yet, abandoned beaches, tropical storms and new york city

aprillabbe — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:16:00 GMT

well what a trip, i suppose as this central america bit winds down we start to become a little more refelctive and the bottom line is that it has all been amazing!

last time i wrote we had just arrived in honduras, we didn´t stay very long, teguciagalpa, the capital, is literally the sketchiest place i think i have ever been (aside from outside the saigon train station but come on)... everything closed really early leaving the streets basically abandoned except for random drunk people, at one point we actually had to make the choice between walking past the empty parking lot where a group of guys was running around yelling or the same building where we had just walked past a drunk guy swinging a gun around, hmmmm,

we left the city and headed for a beach town, hoping to find a quiet spot to hang our hammocks, which we did, but the trees that we walked soooo far to get to were all prickly and then the hammock straps (yes multiple) broke and then, i must say it was after we managed to get in a nice dinner and build a fire, but then it starts thunder and lightening and raining like mad!

so we are on this beautiful little peninsula with no one around and no where to go and no hammocks but we managed remarkably well... we put a heat blanket on the sand with all our stuff and us on top and hung the shelter tarp thing we had to block the majority of the rain and used our rain jackets to cover the other side of our packs, so the rain wasn´t actually too much of an issue but a few hours after we fell asleep and the rain had stopped the animals had started...

sand fleas below, mosquitos above, crabs in the middle and stray dogs on the sides, yikes! that was a rough nights sleep and the hike out in the morning in insane heat and literally swarms of mosquitos was enough to make anyone in their right mind wonder what the hell they were doing, then the people were staring, the others were rude, there was trash everywhere and we had had enough of honduras so we headed to the border,

there were people yelling on all sides as soon as we got out of the bus, someone actually just took our bags and put them on his little tuk tuk which normally we wouldn´t take but hell we just wanted to get moving, we got ripped off by the border chick and then some guy helped us only to rip us off for what he helped us to get back 5 minutes earlier, whatever that border ended up costing us abnout $60 more than it needed to but at that point we were just happy to be on the other side

on to nicaragua, which by the way every america i have met since asks me if nicaragua is safe, nicaragua is awesome! yay nicaragua! after the few weeks we had had in our sometimes amazing sometimes questionable off the beaten track adventures we decided to get back on the beaten track and headed for granada, we found a nice western chilled out hostel, just what we needed. the city has some really cool architecture and it rained a lot, mostly, honestly, we just chilled in the hostel :) but they did have a ¨tourist center¨ that you had to pay to get into, there was a gate and a guard and it looked liek it might be disneyland inside but we didn´t find out...

next stop was lake nicaragau, so pretty this HUGE island in the middle of a massive lake with 2 giant volcanos on it, the ferry took ages and then the bus even longer down these crazy dirt roads and at the very end we got to our place, the rooms were decent, the food was ok and it rained for days but the company was something to write home about

we made such a nice group of people, swedish, irish, english, and us i guess, they had all just arrived and most met on the way and we decided that we weren´t gonna let the rain stop us, we were gonna go find this dam waterfall that was supposed to be so cool, well i can´t say we, if it was up to me we would have sat around all day and drank rum but hey, we put on our rain gear and set out for the hour and a half walk to get to the waterfall, once we got to the entrance it was still 2 k´s more to get up the trail so we decided to stop and have lunch, then we walked and walked and at this point we are all just drenched regardless of what kind of gear we were wearing and it was so hot i finally gave up and just had my bathing suit top on,

we heard rushing water and a couple of the guys took off running, we didn´t see them for about an hour, what we thought was the fall really wasn´t and they kept going but we thought we had missed them and part of the train was wasked out and blah blah we wandered around these trails for about 3 or 4 hours and never ever found the waterfall, eventually we had to give up cause it was going to get dark and the fog was already rolling in so we headed back to get some rum and that is what the next 100 pictures are of, a nice crowd and a lot of rum, one of the best nights since we have been traveling, thanks, you know who you are...

dennis and i took off soon after and headed for the beach in costa rica, hell of a trip for one day but 19 hours later we made it, whatever we meant by getting back on the beaten track we found it in montazuma, yes there is seriously a place with that name, and ironically enough it was the first place of our entire trip where they say you CAN drink the water

we met some more really nice people and found a waterfall and got the greatest little cabiny place in the trees where we could hear monkeys and see lizards and we went snorkeling and just had an all around beachy lovely time, it turns out the torrential rains at lake nicaragua wasn´t just rainy season kicking in thank god, it was a tropical storm and it had washed out bridges and done all sorts of damage apparently, crazy

it was time for me to head to san jose to catch my flight and dennis was going to stay with our new friends, LA & Kansas x2, fab people btw, but his sting ray sting from like a month before was all crazy looking and infected and we got scared he might need to get his foot cut off or something so he came back to san jose with me and dropped me at the airport asnd went to the hospital

turns out he is most likely going to be fine but we just got a 2nd round of antibiotics today and if they dont sort it by monday then he has to go back so the doctor can open it up, scary, go antibiotics!

anywho in the midst of this amazing central american adventure i just jetted off to nyc for the weekend, how crazy do i sound? my friend jen got married and i just coouldn´t miss it, so i spent a couple days there hanging out with some friends in connecticut and new york and it was tons of fun amd so cool to be able to say ¨see you in a month¨ but now i´m back in costa rica and honestly the whole flip flop is a bit weird...

we are headed to see a volcano tomorrow which just erupted and was on the news today and then it´s just a couple more weeks...panama and cuba and then back to the states, i can´t beleive it has been so long and i can´t believe it is winding down and pretty much life is great :)

Gallery: honduras, nicaragua, costa rica, and NYC...

aprillabbe — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:37:00 GMT

highlights of the last few weeks

aprillabbe — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:07:00 GMT

so the internet cafe in tegus honduras closes in 10 minutes and tomorrow we are back to quiet beachy towns with no access to the outside world so i will try to update on the last few weeks, hmmm...

first mexico city...

we spent the majority of the time sick in the hotel room, thank you montazuma (again) :) BUT we did get to meet up with Veronika and Sergio (friends from Amsterdam) and it was FABULOUS!!! they took us to the house where Sergio grew up, in, as they described it the worst neighborhood in mexico city, excellent, their friends were amazing and made the greatest party for us and it was so much fun, the strangest hing happened in the middle of the party when some crazy glue sniffer outside started shooting at the front door, that was indeed the first time we had ever been in a party that was trying to call the cops to come over :) crazy thing is that of i think 5 or so attempts to get the cops to come out o the house they never did, they say it is because they too are scared of the neighborhood, insane, and crazy to think that the same neighborhood could produce 2 of the most opposite peopel in the world, the wonderful Sergio and that crazy glue sniffer, aside form that excitement we did make it to the museum of Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera, LOVED IT!

oxaca, mexico

bit of a disappointment to be honest, thought it woudl be a politically awakened city and we saw none of it, though we did get locked out of our hotel and ended up climbing onto the roof to get abck in after banging on the doors and waking people and having them try all sorts of keys, crazy and crazy again

zipolite, mexico

fun party beach town on the pacific coast of mexico, had a great time then moved on to san augustinillio just a couple beaches down, super sleepy beach town with $20 cabanas up in the hills over hte beach, never wanted to leave

manzania guatemala

terrible, beach town with mean locals, we left after 1 night even though it took us hours upon to get there

barre de santiago, el salvador

AMAZING beach town with only locals and we could have stayed forever, the nicest people we have met so far, except dennis got stung by a sting ray during a surf lesson, pretty crazy but he is ok now thanks to a locals helpful plant remedy

el tunco, el salvador

pretty boring unless you are a surf god, only stayed 2 nights even though it took us ages to get there as well and in the middle of the adventure on teh way we got dropped off in the middle of nowhere to wait for the next bus, while the locals eyed us up and dennis was getting a hug from a super drunk guy, yikes, think we will wait for the direct bus next time

tegucialpa, honduras

not so sure about honduras so far but will have to fill you in soon cause the internet lady is eyeing me up, love and miss, will write more soon,

Gallery: more mexico, back to guatemala and on to el salvador

aprillabbe — Wed, 21 May 2008 09:19:00 GMT

mexican madenss

aprillabbe — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:48:00 GMT

Well Puerto Vallarta was the blast we expected and maybe even a little bit more! With a group of about 60 coming from all corners of the world for this celebration I am not sure the hotel was quite prepared for us. As happy as security was to see us go, the bartenders tip jars certainly shed a tear. Throughout the week there was much eating, drinking and merriment. We took a boat trip to Yulapa, went out on the town, did some jet skiing and lots and lots of lying around. There was also pool hopping, naked hot tubbing and dirty dare jenga, along with a few raucous rounds of uno. The hats and moustaches theme was a big hit, though if I say so myself I am pretty sure Dennis and I stole the show on that one. J Kim and Brady looked like the perfect Mexican princess and dangerous cowboy duo in their amazing outfits for the wedding day, all in all amazing time. LOVE YOU BOTH and CONGRATULATIONS!! Xxx

After Puerto Vallarta Dennis and I headed for Guadalajara to meet up with Gretchen and Jesse. It is creeping up on summer here and the hot dry high altitude is slowly melting us I think. We are here for a few more days then hitting Mexico City for some arts education before beelining for the coast, in this kind of heat there is no other place to be.

Guadalajara has been really great though. The old city center looks like is was dropped in Mexico out of somewhere in Europe, amazing cathedrals and plaza squares. This is where the famous Mariachi bands began and we have seen a few of those around, great stuff, those tight little suits with sparkles and bows and about 50 guys on stage all singing and dancing and playing instruments. You also see many of the Mariachi duos around town playing for money which is cool as well, we ended up in a tiny gay dive bar and witnessed the best dancing to a Mariachi band I think I will ever see, good stuff.

We also managed to get Jes to a Cuban salsa bar for his birthday after some crazy birthday shots, first they come up behind him and stomp and blow whistles and tie him down and blindfold him and them pour booze in his mouth, all before shaking his head around and then dumping his chair on the floor, and I paid them to do this to my friend?!

Though the best part of Guadalajara may have been just outside of town in TEQUILLA! Tequilla factories, tequila tours, tequila tastings, YAY!

Markets and museums and sore feet from walking, sweating and rashes and funny tummies, 1 million pictures and tan lines and dirty dirty clothes, cockroaches and fish tacos and really craving salads, trying to communicate, $2 sandals falling apart, and a broken hard drive that contains our lives…. It is nice to be back in the real world of travel, 4 months and counting.

Gallery: mexico madness

aprillabbe — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:14:00 GMT

Guatemalan Gringos

aprillabbe — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:54:00 GMT

Guatemala has been an adventure of all sorts…chicken busses packed to the absolute brim, sitting in 1 old school bus seat with the 2 of us and a family of 4, traffic jams on mountain roads for hours, using your broken Spanish to ask for directions in a small town only to realize that they only speak the local Mayan tribal language and that was all before we reached our destination!

Isla Flores was a really cute little place, great hostel, lots of cool people but we only stayed a couple days because we really wanted to get in 2 full weeks of Spanish class before heading up to Mexico for Kim and Brady’s wedding.

Dennis and I arrived in San Pedro la Laguna and found a place to stay. It is a funny sort of place the way it is set up…it is as if there are 2 separate places just right next to each other.

There is a whole old school Mayan village just going about their business for the most part and an entire separate community of Gringos, mostly that live here for at least half the year. It is kind of a bizarre set up but they seem to be happy with it. Lots of Guatemalans have jobs teaching Spanish or working in the restaurants down on this end of town but seem to be happy to be able to go home to their part of town and not deal with us all the time.

At least that is what our Spanish teacher told us. We had a great guy as a teacher and he taught us so much in 2 weeks! I was so impressed. The school was great and we even got free salsa lessons one night!

It is absolutely beautiful, this huge lake in the middle of volcanoes with little villages dotting the sides. The first week was a bit tough as we managed to pickup some kind of crazy sickness form the water or food or something, it is pretty dirty, the water here; there is cholera and dysentery in it, I seriously thought we had eradicated that stuff…

But once we got well again it was back on the wagon. We met up with a guy Steve we had met in Flores, he is the guy playing guitar in the pictures. We made a bunch of friends pretty quickly. It is such a small town scene it takes an hour to walk 20 feet because you know every 3^rd person you pass.

All in all it had been a good time here and we are both a bit sad to be moving on. Would love to take some more Spanish classes and actually get to climb one of the volcanoes but knowing I get to see the SF crew in Puerto Vallarta in a few days makes it much easier to go.

Plus it will definitely be nice to stay in a proper hotel and spoil ourselves for a whole week! PV here we come…

Gallery: Isla Flores y San Pedro la Laguna

aprillabbe — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 07:47:00 GMT

more belize and a bit of guatemala

aprillabbe — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:21:00 GMT

Well since i last wrote a lot has happened…

Belize was really cool, their first language is English, but most everyone also speaks Spanish and Creole so that made things fairly easy in terms of getting around. We stayed on the lovely island caye caulker for about a week and went on a great snorkeling trip in a sail boat, apparently one of the longest living reefs in the world! There were little sharks – that is what our guide ¨big steve¨ is picking up by the tail in the picture!

There were also only tuna fish sandwiches for lunch which after so many years as pure veg head I actually ate! I was hungry, those are the pictures of me making a really funny face while I eat a sandwich… we saw sting rays and sea turtles and huge schools of fish and all in all it as a great day. We eventually decided to leave because we wanted to find a quieter island which turned out to be harder than we thought.

We went to a coastal town a few hours away from belize city which seemed to be how we could get to some of the others but most of them are either privately owned or reserves that you can´t get to or camp on… one had a boat but only once a week that we had just missed so the last option was a place called tobacco caye. We asked around if we were allowed to camp there and were told that we could, we tried to call several places to find out about other accommodation but there are no phones so we ended up talking to some crazy booking office people in belize city, most of the ones we got through to were really expensive for us (about $70 US a night!) so we were banking on the camping idea…

we got a boat out there and it was tiny! About 5 minutes to walk around the entire thing! And very weird, it just gave you a weird creepy feeling as soon as we arrived. We walked around asking everyone if we could hang our hammocks and pay to use their toilet (we had brought all the food and water we would need for the few days) and some people seemed to try to help us by bringing us to their neighbors and asking but they were just all so weird, a bit inbred perhaps?

So no one wanted to let us hang hammocks and then all of a sudden the entire island knew that is what we wanted to do and we´d have strangers coming up and saying our things wouldn´t be safe and all this weirdness, finally the very last place we went to said we could rent out one of the empty staff rooms that they don´t usually rent out for only $30 US a night (keep in mind we are paying about $5 now) so we took it and figured we would leave the next day but then when we asked about a boat back they got all weird about why we were leaving so soon and then it sort of felt like deliverance the movie.

Not to mention how dirty and run down the place was, there was trash and old tires and fluorescent bulbs and shoes and everything just laying on the beach and the water from showers and sinks just came right out onto the land…go knows where the toilet flushed to and the kicker is that at one point a guy with a pistol comes up to collect our park fee! We are actually in a national reserve! I couldn´t resist, I had to take a picture of my park bracelet on the pile of trash!

The whole getting off the island got pretty sketchy at one point…the guy who brought us there was maybe not going back to the mainland til the next day but maybe someone else was and no one is really in charge, there are about 50 people who live there and they also run everything and it all started to get a bit creepy, they were all talking about us and finally some people we had not even met came up to us and said they could take us back (for a bit more than we got there for but whatever) so we took the ride regardless. the engine in this tiny tiny boat broke in the middle of the ocean and the waves were crashing into the boat at one point while he was trying to start it back up, but we made it back and were really really relieved, we were both a bit more scared then we let on to each other while we were still in the situation.

So from there we needed to bed down somewhere through the easter holiday because traveling is a bit crazy then so we thought we would go right to Guatemala but the decided maybe we should stay in belize so we left with a better feeling than the one we had.

We headed near the border to san Ignacio, in mayan ruin territory and stayed there about a week as well. Nice little place, we chilled out a lot, even watched some tv! made friends with the local bartender and had a nice cheap room all to ourselves. We took a couple walks and saw some really cool ruins and even did 1 through a ¨tour¨… the guy had a 1982 subaru with a broken windshield and no seatbelts to take us up this crazy mountain rocky road – hysterical! Turns out you have to get army escorts through this place because of all the hijacking that happens on the road to the ruions, those are the guys in camo with huge guns! We had a nice day though and left belize on a happier note.

Guatemala has been AMAZING so far! I like it much more than belize, it is greener and cleaner and even Guatemala city which is supposed to be super sketch was really cool! So far we have been to flores and Guatemala city and are now in san pedro on lake atitlan, so pretty! We start Spanish class on Monday for 2 weeks and are planning on hiking up some of these amazing volcanoes surrounding us.

I still have more pictures to add of belize (only up to tobacco caye) and I haven´t even started adding Guatemala yet, but will do it next time, sending sunshine. xo

Gallery: more belize a bit of guatamala

aprillabbe — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 05:49:00 GMT

Gallery: Belize

aprillabbe — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:22:00 GMT

Chillin

Cancun, Playa and BELIZE

aprillabbe — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:39:00 GMT

Well we finally made it out of Dallas and into Cancun, seeing as it is spring break time and we’re a bit old for that we headed straight out of town on the first available bus. We got into Playa del Carmen to find it looked kind of like California, but with less Mexicans, a strange place indeed but we made our own fun, after a few too many margaritas anywhere is fun :) so that place was a success except for the bedbugs, I must have about 100 bites all over me but thankfully it was only 1 night of mayhem and then we got everything washed (no small feat in the next mini town we were in)and now we're sweet. We actually managed to get a bus to Belize City and a bost out to one of the islands in the same day and we've been here at Caye Caulker for a few days now...absolutely lovely and so super chilled. This is the time we have been waiting for, justthe 2 of us and absolutely nothing to do. Decisions become "should we go snorkeling today or just lay on the beach?" Life is good.

Gallery: San Fran on tour and snow in dallas...

aprillabbe — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 16:39:00 GMT

good times

san fran on tour, airport adventures and la la land

aprillabbe — Fri, 7 Mar 2008 17:45:00 GMT

we've been in the states for just over a week now and i've got more stories than i can probably manage to get out while the photos upload!

first things first...kim's bachelorette party...super fun times!

dennis and i left new zealand at 7:40 in the evening on thursday and after a 12 hour flight and a few too many bottles of free wine arrived in LA at 10:30 thursday morning, a bit like hungover time travel if you ask me, not for the faint of heart. we met alex at the airport and got a car to head our to joshua tree national park to meet the rest of the party goers who were en route from san francisco to camp for the night before checking into our amazing house for the weekend!

the three of us got loads of beers, some snacks, found the group site that gretch had reserved, made a fire and started to drink..about 6 hours later we wondered if we should be worried, considering they had left at 1 in the afternoon and it should only take about 7 hours and now it was 11 pm, hmmmm. so we got in the car (very silly but quite necessary because it is a hell of a lot colder in the desert in california then you think!) and drove til we got a signal on alex's cell phone, turns out they were still just driving, we told them we needed more beers, batteries for the ipod speakers that were about to die and moooore firewood cause 5 bunches only lasts so long ;p

about 2 hours later they finnaly arrive, a bit cranky and with some wood and batteries but only wine (yikes! after 8 hours of beer drinking this was not the most exciting entrance - no offence to those reading this) and also with some crazy stories of stoner adventures in gas stations, cops and madness, honestly i expected no less...

they got setteld and we made the introductions and had some fun before the 3 of us staggered (literally) to sleep, the next day it took us about 7 hours to pick up 2 people at the airport (BEFORE FOOD OR COFFEE) and i thought i had bad travel luck, these people are crazay, there was many many many loops in the airport and far too many u-turns but eventually we got everyone and some food and finally made it to the super posh house...PARTY TIME!!!

we had a great weekend, hot tub and pool and a fab bbq, a sex toy party, kim without a voice, all in all good fun...and for those who see the pictures and haven't met the SF crew, wigs and fake moustaches are just normalcy in our crowd.

tough as it was to say goodbye to them alll them again, we took off knowing we'd see them in mexico in about a month for the wedding so we dropped alex at the airport and headed over to rachel's house, met the boy, stayed in the beautiful guesthouse, pretty much didn't want to leave (those pics are the 2nd house that it looks like we mst have rented but really; she just lives there) a few days in LA meant mostly a few days sitting in the car in traffic but I got to meet the other bridesmaids from her wedding and catch up with a few peeps and it was lovely.

dennis and i took off super excited to finally get the central america part of the trip underway but no such luck...after trouble at the airport check in and seperate seats we made it to dallas texas and were welcomed by SNOW! for those of you who are not from the states; it does not usually snow in dallas, needless to say we sat on teh plane for 2 and a half hours before we even got to the gate and then were told basically everything that wasn't already on the runway waiting was cancelled and the hotels were pretty much all booked, IF you could even get a taxi to take you anywhere...funnny stuff i tell ya!

it is much less stressful when that happens if you are on you way to a 3 month stay somewhere so we were pretty chilled, as opposed to normal, right?! anywho we got seats on a flight for 2 days later, checked all the hostels and htels we could find and decided we were staying the airport for the night, headed to a irish pub, got some grub and few beers and then made friends with a bachelorette party headed for vegas, sweet!

these girls were hysterical, and our waitress/marine rocked; so all in all it was a pretty fun night, we kept going for smoke breaks (through security!) with this nikki chick who was good fun (the one with me on the escalator adventure in the pictures) and after the bars had closed (a bit early i will admit) she decided since she knew the law (her dad is a cop) that she was going to prove a point to these cops who were sitting just outside the last bar intimidating the batenders into not serving any more drinks even though legally they could for another 45 minutes...

so after about a half hour of her mini little self pointing fingers at the these 5 big giant texan cops and calling them fuckers and telling them they had little cock syndrome they started to threaten, we tried to drag her away to no avail, they shooed us away and we tried to explain but then he asked if we wanted to take responsibility - ummmmm, NO! mind you it was quite funny, but still, so we sat a gate down and watched her, head held high, stick her arms behind her back and dare them, just dare them, to arrest her, yeah, so they did! and then dennis and i had to go tell her bridesmaid party girlfriends that their friend just got arrested and she currently has the brides ticket to their 7am departure in her purse, fuuny shit goes down in the airport when you're all locked in i guess, and from what i can tell, it's more fun than dallas :)

so we're still here, waiting and hoping to head to mexico tomorrow, struggling through freezing temperatures in flip flops cause our bags are (hopefully) already in cancun...wish us luck, we're headed back to sunshine xx

Land of the KIWI

aprillabbe — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:28:00 GMT

ok, so i promised to update more frequently and it has been a month again but hopefully this will be a good one :)

new zealand has been quite a blast! a little mini story i skipped out on the last update was my very welcome reception from the customs officials lasting over an hour, i can't imagine why...

a fairly dirty looking american traveler on her own who had a few too many glasses of free wine and very little sleep on her 20 hour journey, originally coming from amsterdam of all the sordid places in the world and having a quick stop in cambodia, thialand, laos and vietnam, hmmmmm suspicious.

we had a nice chat about my life history, why on earth i was in new zealand, how i had been in europe for so long, and what the hell had happened on the way, this included a visit from a very friendly dog, every single item being removed from my bag and examined on the table, a few scary 1984esque computerised drug/explosive swipes over my cards, wallet, bag, arm, you know, the norm.

after all of this i had to give dennis's name and phone number and they checked his arrival on the computer, also had to give them dennis's parents names, phone numbers and home address along with onward flight proof.

finally we had a very interesting discussion on the drug trade, along with some hypothetical questions and then i (phew!) made it through to the other side where dennis was not so patiently waiting.

after touring around auckland and some surrounding areas dennis and i set off on our 2 and a half week road trip to the south island, highlights included...

the hot water beach

the water just below the surface of the sand is so hot it actually burns your feet if you touch it, so the idea is to dig a big hole in the sand that fills with the scalding hot water and then as the waves come in from the sea it mixes in your "tub" and makes a very warm and comfy bath on the beach, possibly one of the coolest things ever

the mud pools and geysers

crazy egg smelling hot steamy bubbling mud seeping up from the center of the earth, kind of creepy actually

wine, wine and more wine

first of all i must say that throughout the entire trip we have been on a mission to find the all elusive, sold only at a cellar door, super special pinot noir for my dear friend the sommelier in california who wanted to try a new one, this was a serious mission and we have been painstakingly trying to sample every dam pinot this country makes, life is so hard.

we biked 35k in 1 day to get to 4 wineries, one of which was closed, of course this was the one we had intended to eat lunch at, riiight, the next bike wine tour we were slightly smarter about...maybe 15k max and 7 or 8 wineries, we only stopped because they were closing, now that is more my speed :)

we also managed a day of wine tastings just north of auckland and sampled a few by bottle in wellington, you will recognise wellington by some of our more special looking pictures

all in all i must say i am quite impressed by new zealand wine (this is a lot coming from a born again californian who still loves the old european wine as well), one thing to be noted is that they do not use cork (except in exports to the united states funny enough, seems we're too good for the screw top),

we asked every single place the same question about the pros and cons of screw top vs cork, most came back to the same old 4% taint from cork but some were more interesting answers...cork shortage, environmental reasons, having to import the cork because it doesn't grow here, you don't need it etc etc, but no one could really give a good answer on the ageing question, of course it is going to age differently but will it age well??? still yet to be determined they most say

1 interesting thing i did learn is that you should let the bottle stand a few minutes after opening if you get that ever funny fizzle on your tongue - carbon dioxide trapped in the bottle it is, because the screw top doesn't allow it to escape

skydiving

AMAZING! so much fun i wanted to go right back up, we went tandem so the guy i was with was doing funny spinning tricks like a ballerina flying, it was great! best birthday present ever! and did you know if you go round too fast in the air and you get lots of air go up your nose it feels exactly like when you jump straight into the water and forget to plug your nose?! crazy.

Nature

1. New Zealand is absolutely beautiful

2. 2 and a half weeks is not nearly enough time

3. when pressed for time and sticking close to the tourist track it feels a bit like disney land

lines and tons of people and booking ahead and giant group tours and an inability to actually go see something that is a natural department of conservation sight without paying a private company to take you there!!! and "hiking" trails that you can wear flip flops on,

just a bit funny for a girl from maine i guess, i know there is real wilderness here but i just didn't manage to get to it this time around and would really love to come back and get out of the tourist traps,

Glaciers

really pretty cool stuff to see a giant block of ice right in front of you when it is summer and you are wear and you are wearing a tank top, 2 are famous tourist stuff and there are 59 more in that area, i really want to go climb on one of those and not on one where you land on top of it in a helicopter and walk on man made steps in the ice

we saw these cool pancake rocks that the sea is eating away at so they look like crazy sculptures and we went to the tui, monteith's and mike's organic breweries, met some great people along the way and dennis managed to live thru 2 head injuries...

head injuries

first one was while we were finding a spot to camp in our semi-nude holiday park in mapua, near the abel tasman nature reserve, and no there were no semi-nudists around distracting him, this was just pure silliness

dennis was backing up the car and for some reason was completely sure that the window was all the way down, except it wasn't, it was halfway down, and when he confidently rammed his head straight out the window he scraped off a pretty decent chunk of forehead - that was pretty funny pretty much immediately - and the band aid he had to wear over it so he could put on the goggles and hat to skydive - no one at the skydiving place made fun of that at all

second head injury was just when the first crust was almost gone and we had been drinking the fruit of our labor from the wine tour at the pool all day and decided to walk up the hill to this nice little cafe for dinner, dinner came and went as did a few more bottles of wine and when we got outside dennis wanted to throw something away, i'm pretty sure he was actually throwing something away for me but i can't be sure, regardless he leaned in to what appeared to be a trash can and slammed his head straight into the corner of this random piece of sheet metal that was attached to the side of the building

possible reasons for the sheet metal

1. this was acting as a piece of art to make the building look chinese – perhaps

2. it was meant to be a rain cover for the trash cans

3. it was just stupid

the funniest part of all of this is that the other side of the building had orange foam rubber pieces covering the corners!

but this was not actually funny – to begin with – later it was very very very funny – but at first there was all this blood gushing from his head, super scary, I put my sleeve of my jumper on it to make it stop and about 20 minutes later it finally slowed down, but then the question became how do you tell if a drunk dennis has a concussion???

day of the week? nope I didn’t know the answer, we’re traveling remember

date? nada, see above

month, I could handle that but we were right on the cusp sooooo not really a fair question

oooohhhh how about where are we? answer being new zealand because the town I am still unsure of

I think the proof was he knew which tent we were in so I decided he must be fine

all in all the road trip was superb and the visit itself too, we have spent a lot of time hanging out with dennis's parents and all his kiwi friends who were all lots of fun and really welcoming, we have been to see some nice beaches and walked up a lot of volcanoes and had some really lovely food and i'm a bit sad to leave, just getting used to it here really, so many special native to new zealand only plants and animals and all this cool maori stuff to learn about, but someday we’ll be back I’m sure

we're heading out on thursday with a quick trip to california then on the bulk of the journey - central america! very excited about all to come, we start with Spanish lessons in antigua, guatamala and then some island hopping off the coast of belize and honduras…stay tuned, lots of love and sending some sunshine

Gallery: road trip new zealand

aprillabbe — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:02:00 GMT

Gallery: south east asia

aprillabbe — Fri, 1 Feb 2008 14:09:00 GMT

thailand, laos, vietnam, cambodia

update - 1 month in

aprillabbe — Fri, 1 Feb 2008 13:27:00 GMT

well i can't believe it has been over a month already since we left amsterdam! i suppose i have a lot to catch up on, namely south east asia!

after lots of hard work planning and saving and 24 hour straight travel dennis and i split at the bangkok airport... :(

he went on to vietnam to travel with his parents and i met up with my friend annie who was already travling in thialand.

turns out annie and i wanted to see many of the same things and though she had much more time to kill than me we figured travling together was more fun and quite a lot safer so we set out on our 1 month whirlwind tour of south east asia!

after a few days in bangkok our first stop was koh chang, an island off the coast of thailand. absolutely beautiful! we spent new years there at the treehouse; a proper bamboo beach hut experience with a great bar on a deck over the andaman sea and the best veggie menu ever! no electricity before 6 in the evening and cold water bucket showers really added to the authenticity of it all, a gem in the midst of giant resort concrete craziness!

next was the border crossing form hell, just one rip off after another on this mission from the island to poipet to cross into cambodia - your lonely planet tells you what can happen but your really don't expect every single thing to happen to you!

after about 20 hours, lots of extra money spent and a roller coaster, bumper car, dust bowl bus ride, we actually made it to siem reap! totally worth it; we went to the angkor wat temples which were amazing!

after that we headed down to phonm penn to visit the very sobering killing fields and s21 torture museum. those 2 are difficult enough to take in but when coupled with the poverty that surrounds you and the land mine injuries everywhere you turn, some of which are fresh from live land mines that still lurk in their countryside, it is a lot to handle.

it was an experience i wish everyone could have, teaches you a few things about humanity and humility. one of the best things there is that there are so many programs that help the locals, I relaly liekd that...you could go to a bar/restaurant/shop and some percent was going to support an orphanage/hospital/training program.

next stop was vietnam, nha trang to be exact, to meet up with dennis and his parents. a few days chilling on the beach was a much needed respite from our constant movement.

after that they headed back to new zealand and annie and i went to dalat; a really cool mountain town where you can take a countryside tour on the back of an easy rider motorcycle, so fun!!

on the tour we went to the coffee plantations, gerber daisy greenhouses, silk farms, saw an amazing pagoda and giant laughing buddha, had a great traditional vietnamese lunch and best of all heard great stories about all of it from people who actually live there...well worth the $20 and highly recommended.

this was our last real stop in vietnam and my train station experience in saigon was less than desirable; i only wish i could have spent more time exploring, especially the war history.

but we had to fit in laos and i am sooooo glad we did! by far my favorite place, it is absolutely amazing! something liek 85% of the country is forest and 30-40 of that is completely unmanaged, still real wild land. the mountains are so beautiful it doesn't even look real.

we ended up on a local bus from luang prabang to vang vieng and that was the adventure of a lifetime...first they fill up all the seats of the bus, then they have people fill the aisles sitting in these little palstic stools, very comfortable on a hot day! then as you are driving up these winding, climbing mountain roads in a bus that barely runs with a driver who clearly just learned how to operate a stick shift - they just keep stopping and putting people on the roof! insane, by the end of it there were probably about 20 people sitting on the roof, we were (of course) on the back bench seat with the smoking overheating engine directly under our asses, yikes!

vang vieng was superb! and outdoor enthousiasts dream come true! there is hiking and caving and tubing and kayaking and it is a sleepy, though totally touristy, little town in the middle of no where. it is as though the tourisim is still new enough and actually giving back to the local eceonomy, that they are not yet jaded, whcih makes it a very relaxed place, especially when compared to the "hey lady! hey lady! you buy! you buy!" of every other place we visited.

from there it was a mission back to bangkok to catch my plant to new zealand, the only place i ended up missing that i really wanted to go to was pai in the north of thailand but for a month i reckon i did pretty well :)

so now we are at dennis's parents house in auckland, the wedding has come and gone and dennis's best man speech was a huge hit! monday we are off on a road trip thru the north and into the south island for a few weeks. promise i will try to update more frequently now that i've got it started.