Belize

Hello all

About time to update the blog, i still havent managed to retrospectively put up the american portion yet, it seems to big a task and the memories are already fading, damn these belikans (Belize's local, and a fine drop at that too)!! But we have spent some great times here in Belize.....

We recovered from the first night flooding incident here in Belize and made our way to the caye's (small carribean type islands) of the coast. The attitude here in Belize is about as realxed as it gets, lots of dreadlocks, carribean accents and lots of rum.

We had been told that the cayes were a nice safe place and attitudes were relaxed but when booking our first few nights accomodation on caye caulker we were just been discussing how many nights we were going to stay with the hostel owner when a commotion broke outside, with a person running up the road saying he's been stabbed! I quickly backed off on the number of nights we were staying in that place! As it turned out, much to the amusement of all the belizeans we have spoken too, it was between the two local shop owners and the stabbing weapon of choice was a pen, but it was still somewhat disconcerting at the time.

We caught up with a couple of fellow travellers from new zealand (dont beleive the hype, not all new zealanders are wankers, just most) and have spent the last week or so with them, the highlight being a 3 day yacht trip down the belizean coast. The idea of a 3 day boat trip with snorkelling fishing, and importantly food & rum supplied was floated over a quiz night (which saw the anzacs narrowly lose to the bobby stink fingers) and as the panty rippers (a combination of rum and pineapple) flowed the idea sounded better and better so we were off! Sadly the night degenerated into karaoke....

The trip was great fun, the highlight being a pair of insipid new yorkers that shared the same princess-like brain cell. The 2 man belizean crew could not stand this pair and seeing the captain laughing so hard when one of the pair was sconed by a swinging boom that he had to jump into the water was the highlight of my trip, i gathered thru massive amounts of laughter and broken english and creole that he had just told her to watch her fookin' head before she got clonked!!!! The trip also bore fruit as i caught my first ever barracuda, and spent a fair bit of time behind the wheel!

After the trip carrie and i and matt and caroline shared an appartment in placencia, yet another pretty little carribean village, and have sinced made our way up to belize city where we have made our farewells and will catch up at another stage of the journey. Carrie and i will stay in Belize for a while longer and then head to the tropical jungle ruins of tikal in Guatemala.

Good to hear the crows are going well, and the legs got up over the mongrels at alberton, keep up the emails everyone, they are always apreciated, good to hear all is well mum and dad, nepal sounds amazing!

takekeerr (my best attempt at the broken english accent that they talk with over here!)

brettski

&

carrieski

Cuba

Hello all

It seems so much happens in a short space of time, it is hard to believe we have only been away for a month, we have been seeing so much and flying so often! We have just returned from Cuba, not originally on our travel plans but too good to pass up.

We managed to buy some tickets for a flight from mexico and headed to Cuba for a week, deciding to have a look around before the country will change when Fidel Castro dies (i think most believe he is already gone, as his last public performances rivalled the outstanding technology used on weekend at bernies 2).

First stop in Cuba was havana where we stayed in a 'casa', literally someones house. As cuba is a socialist country there are very few hotels and no hostels so there is a large network of people that open their houses to guests. We struck gold and the owner of our house was great, he was a young guy that taught us how to play domioes cuban style, taught me how to smoke cuban style, and even how to drink cuban style... (cubans are a bit pissweak in the drinks stakes though...)

We stayed in Havana for about 4 days, havana viejo (old havanna) was really an amazing city, it felt like a very European city that had been trapped in 1950 (and not cleaned or repaired since!) There are still loads of the old cars rattling around, just enough new fiats to spoil the illusion, but the thing that strikes you most is the lack of advertising. If it wasnt for the murals sprouting communist propaganda there would be nothing! Also there is no penetration from any american companies, so no coke, no mcdonalds, no microsoft and best of all no americans! What this does mean though is things can be hard to find, almost every business is run out of someones front door whether it be a restaraunt or a shop which can be a bit confusing.

From Havanna it was off to a town claled vinales which was out in agricultral land, and very beautiful, we again stayed in a casa there, and did some horseriding and ate a lot of homestyle cooking, which was great, cause things were starting to go a little wonky in that area....

the cheese pizzas and cheese tacos had seen confidence sky high but confidence was running low by vinales....

From vinales it was back to the airport and then off to Mexico where we have undertaken our first ever land border crossing which was pretty exciting, particularly as there was a casino in the "free" area zone, but carrie wouldnt let me stop, and now we are on to Belize! It has already been great so far, except for the torrential downpour received last night, apparently 6 inches in 30 minutes, (sounds like a movie title i know) but the roof was not strong enough to cope and by morning the entire floor (including our packs) was under water.....

anyway, things are well, i hope this blog thingo has worked and keep sending thru the emails they are always appreciated, especially the footy scores!!

Brett

Start of the Blog!

Hello all

I'm attempting to get our blog finally up and running, in a perfect world this was supposed to be all setup before we left, but things got a little hectic!!! My first attempt was in Mexico but everything was written in spanish, so was a little difficult, we are currently in Belize (they speak english!!!) and have some cheap internet so here goes!

Thanks to all of those who helped with the move, carrie and brian and col did a sterling job, a huge help for me allowing a bit more time for study for my registration exam, which i am sure was the difference so thanks again everyone!

Thanks to everyone at PP, especially Sue, for the generous time and the curly questions, it really helped come exam time, and everyone if you havent already heard me bragging i passed!! Just waiting on official confirmation from you Sue, i assume the board hasnt found out about my shady criminal past and that when i come home i will be fully registered, i assume providing of course i find money for another small!

Finally thanks to everyone who came to the going away afternoon of quiet drinks on the saturday, carrie and i appreciated getting home about an hour before take off. My packing suffered dramatically too as i ended up taking away 1 t-shirt, 1 cricket shirt and about 5 pairs of shorts.... needless to say after a smelly week in new york i dragged myself of to 'banana republic' and purchased a more sensible selection of attire.

Anyway, i will attempt to get some photos up here on the blog, and attempt to backdate the travel stories while the memories are still fresh, i believe you can log on to the blog so it will send an automatic update when it is updated... but again im not to sure how these thingos work so it is a learning experience for all, some more than others hey mum and dad!

Brett