Here our family and friends can follow our adventures traveling the world!
Här kan ni följa med på vår resa genom Amerika, central Amerika, tropiska öar och slutdestinationen Australien..
Arrived in Merida at night and checked into Nomadas Hostel and straight away loved the place! Great staff and facilities. We shared a room with our new friends Brittany and El.
In the morning we took a local bus to a small archeological site with some nice Mayan ruins and a great cenote.
Beautiful little observation tower used to keep the date and time depending on the sun and other star positions.
We were constantly surprised by how friendly the local people from Merid were.
Spent a couple hours swimming and snorkeling in this 40m deep cenote with some very aggressive little fish.
We had to walk a couple of kilometers from the archeological site to try and get a taxi or bus from the main road. A nice bus driver saw us walking and waited for us so we didn't have to wait another hour for the next bus.
We found it super hard to find a a good budget place to stay and in the end trusted in lonely planet again. We stayed at a pretty cheap hotel called Soberani with the most horrible staff, broken wifi and phone and terrible breakfast of a sweet cookie and instant coffee but the important things like the location and actual room were great!
walkong around town we found some nice little restaurants and these very pretty recycled works of art made from old plastic bottles. Decided to spend the afternoon and night walking around a massive shopping centre called Plaza de Americana. We even went to the cinema to see a movie Which was such a nice change.
The following day we decided to check out the hotel zone and beach and were very happy with our choice to stay in down town rather than the hotel zone. It was a concrete jungle of ginormous hotels and five star restaurants, nothing Mexican about it. From the bus we saw the beach and decided to get off and walked about 3km along the beach stopping for some swims and exercise along the way.
The weather was extremes. Super sunny or pouring with rain.although we didn't take any photos we decided on lashing out for a big party night at the famous Coco Bongo. Many friends had recommended it so we gave it a go and were very happy with the decision. The place is crazy! It was 65 dollars to get in with all drinks included and really good shows every 15 or 20 mins ranging from acrobatics, circus and dance to singing and light shows. After staying to close we hitched a ride home with some nice locals and almost missed our bus the next morning.
Yes lots of photos of this place called Los de Pescado but we had to because it is one of the best and cheapest places we have been!
It's a very simple menu with only fresh fish or shrimps in taco burrito or ceviche. it comes plain and you add all your own salads and sauces.
Was so good we came back the next day and Matty made himself sick on fish tacos.
After Tulum we decided to head back to Playa del Carmen two nights before going to Cancun, and instead of going back to the dirty hostel we booked a hotel with a swimming pool and huge rooms with kitchen, sofa and tv! After arriving we went shopping for dinner and finally with a good kitchen we could cook some good food. While drinking some red wine and eating cheese and olives we cooked a lovely maroccan lentil stew. Yum!
Then we put our party outfits on and went out for some crazy party! Barely spent any money at all, everywhere we went we got free drinks and tequila.
the day after we strolled along the main road and did some window shopping, then rented two beach beds and finished our books.
That night we had a delicious dinner at a sushi place, 22 sushi rolls with tuna, salmon creme cheese and avocado for only 90 pesos!!! (45 kronor)
Playa to Tulum is super easy, a couple of dollars for a direct minibus. We spent hours searching for somewhere to stay in Tulum and figured if you going to a place famous for its beach then we may as we'll stay right on the beach! So we splurged a bit for a couple of nights in the most beautiful little beach cabana.
For anyone heading to Tulum definitely recommend skipping the town and going straight to the beach! It's about 12km away from town so taking taxis back and forth can add up quick! Little Påågy doing what she does best... I think this is book number 7 for this trip.
Our favourite spot right out the front of our cabana.
Famous for turtles we searched for babies hatching and making their way to the water at night but had no luck. We did find ginormous crabs and beautiful little bioluminescent creatures that glowed a constant green along the beach at night.
we heard that food is crazy expensive along the beach so I shopped fresh fruit and veggies and wraps before we left. Though little one had to check out the sushi :)
On the last morning after a storm there were a few little half foot waves building off the reef so I paddled out about 300m more for the fitness than to catch some waves but had a fun little time with this big foam mel. After one long 30-40m ride I saw a good meter and a half nurse shark rite underneath me and called it quits for the rest of the day.
Creepo!
in between thunderstorms and afternoon naps we took some super long walks along the beachdoing our exercises along the way.
Best dinner in Mexico! Cactus burger, local spinach salad and a homemade lasagne.
After Belize we rushed to Mexico because we heard that they celebrate the day of the dead with big fiestas and street parades. So we took the ferry back to Belize city and from there a night bus. That was a comfortable bus and we slept well, just a shame they had to wake us up four times to buy new bus tickets (you couldn't buy a ticket for all the distance at once, no you had to wake up, stand in line for thirty minutes and buy a new one in the middle of the night. they also wanted to go through all of our bags and x- Ray them.Then you had to stand in a line and wait for your turn to press a red button!? If it started to beep, they would search your whole bag through. So many stops and so much to think about so the busdriver even forgot a chinese couple at the boarder! they claimed they were from Belize but couldn't speak a word of English so they got questioned, but somehow they managed to get to the bus. Guess who's red button started to beep at the bag check? yep, the Chinese couple. I felt so sorry for them! Haha
(At the boarder)
(Having tequila shots before heading out)
finally in playa del carmen we checked into a quite dirty hostel (slept on used sheets, but we didn't complain, at least there were hot water) we took a walk around town and nothing was going on!!! Got very disappointed since we left the most beautiful place just to hear they don't celebrate Halloween here.
Well we made the best of the situation and went to the beach for some beers and at night we got happy again, the party was pretty good ;)
We spent our evening at "the split". It's called the split because a hurricane split the island in two some years ago and since then this is the place to hang out having some beers and drinks in the afternoon.
We drank cuba libre and bought cookies and cakes from big Joe!
Matthew vill visa oss hans mycket avancerade dykkunskaper;)
fem minuter senare simmar den största stingrockan vi någonsin sett långsamt förbi och kvällen kan inte bli bättre..
When it started to get dark we took our bottle of rum and barefoot we all walked home to our hotel paradiso.
Inspired by our little fishing trip I bought a bit of nylon, a hook, a spinner and some whitebait and headed to the pier in front of our place where I had spotted a heap of fish when snorkling in the morning.
The others thought I was a bit crazy until they came to check on me an hour or so later and I had already caught enough red and black snapper for dinner! Cut my hands a bit pulling them in on the nylon and was tough cleaning them with a bad knife in the dark but I must say standing out on a pier off the most beautiful Caribbean island and catching dinner while the sun set was the most relaxing and fun moment of the trip.
Tobias and I prepped the fish while Jonna bought some veges and spices.
I stuffed them with garlic, onions and peppers and wrapped them in foil then borrowed a local ladies ( France's) grill to cook them while the others poured some nice strong Cuba Libres!
Forgot to tell you about this little boy! Before we took off with the motorboat to go fishing we had to walk to the captains house. The house was totally flodded because of all the rain. We waded trough dirty water and up to us comes this 2 year old with no pants. I got a bit surprised because he pinched my leg really hard and laughed when I sad no, no malo! He was so angry, he also wanted to go fishing so when we left the bridge the boy burst into big tears..
When we sat down and had our first belizian lunch this weird old dude called bobby rides up to us and tries to sell us a fishing trip. We didn't really know what to think but decided to at least look up the boat and the captain. We bought the trip for 50 usd each and it was worth every penny!!
The first stop was stingray alley and we snorkled with stingrays and reef sharks. Soooo amazing! It was probably over 30 huge stingrays in the water and two reef sharks cirkeling around us. The stingrays were very friendly and curious and you could pat them and some of them even swam up to people and got attached to them.
We jumped on a boat and went off to another snorkeling spot with lots of cool things to see. One person in another snorkeling group even got attacked by a green big muray eel, I must say I laughed soo much so I got water in my snorkel.
After the snorkeling we started fishing, Matt was first up and caught a big barracuda!
Everyone caught a barracuda except me :/ haha but I was happy anyway as we caught 6 in all.. Unfortunately we didn't get any pics of the fish we caught as we were too busy pulling them all in!
We arrived to this lovely island and we brought the fishing rods from the boat and waded out to try to catch some fish. Matty had to teach Tash and Toby a few things but after a few minutes and three snappers later the captain finished cooking..
We got served an amazing conch stew with potato and carrot. They chopped up the barracuda and served it with grilled potatoes...
...we ate lobsters and even tried shark!! So delicious!
our little family:))
Matthew happy after lunch spent some time filleting the rest of the barracuda. We turned back and on oir way home snorkled a ship wreck.
This day must have been one of the best days of our trip and we returned home very happy and tired:)
Booked a very early bus to Belize City where we then took a boat to Caye Caulker.
Crossing the boarder from Guatemala to Belize. Was really nice to step into an English speaking country. Although our Spanish is sufficient for traveling now it's great to be able to really get to know locals and be able to make jokes and hear if people are talking about you ;)
Excited on the boat ride to Caye Caulker.
We walked around with a crazy old rusta dude who helped us find a great little hotel right on the beach! For a little commission of course :)
Straight away we went for some food and a big walk around the little island and straight away real showed that this is the right place for us!
There are 3 main streets the front, middle and back, with some side streets like this one.
This is the view from the Main Street. No cars, no shoes, no shirt, no worries ;)
Very sadly we had to say goodbye to our hero Clint leaving him in Semuc as he had to get back to Guatemala City while we boarded yet another shitty long busride to Flores. Though we did pick up a new travel buddy from Australia/Japan named Natasha :) When we finally approached Flores the mini bus pulled over on the freeway next to another mini bus with a group of shady looking characters who started pulling our bags into their bus telling us to get in and they would take us to our hostel. This was obviously a ploy to rob or rip us off so we told our driver to keep driving who refused to because as we later found out he was paid off to leave us there. Being a large group of 12 with are new Isreali buddies we took our bags back and just walked the last 2km. They explained at the hostel that this is a really common way for locals to either rob tourists or take them to overpriced hostels where they get large commissions.
We stayed for two nights at Los Amigos hostel which was super busy with a very cool vibe! Put about 5kg of washing in for about 4 US and booked a private tour to Tikal with our Isreali friends.
Its really hard to find words to describe Tikal which is the giant of the ancient Mayan world. The biggest city and centre of the Mayan world that was home to over 100,000 people.
Mayan people still use the temples of the Tikal site to make sacrifices to their gods, including bleeding out and burning various animals.
Our guide was super passionate explaining everything possible about the Mayan way of life and what life would have been like living in the city of Tikal.
After a massive night out with Clint, Tobias and our Danish buddies we packed our little snack bags and buckled in for a massive 16 hour bus ride from San Pedro to Semuc Chempey. We arrived exhausted late at night in the pouring rain to be mobbed by about 30 men yelling and screaming and taking our bags trying to get us to go to their hostels. We all decided to go to a hostel called El Retiro because it was on the river.
Very excited on our way to the caves where we swim, climb and wade through underground caves using only candlelight. It was still amazing but a bit of a let down that we had 30 people with only two guides. It was pretty dangerous in there we were honestly surprised nobody drowned or got lost. We then went tubing down a river and jumped from a massive bridge into the rapids.
We then climbed about an hour to the mirador for this amazing view of the pools.
The crew! All sweaty and dirty after the days adventures...
Enjoying the view
Messing around at the entrance point where the river enters the caves! It's humbling to see and feel the power of the rapids it really makes you respect the river.
Tobias taking creepy photos of us while we chill out in the most beautiful pools.
While we waited for the hero (Clint) to arrive we organised a coffee tour with our Danish buddies Thomas and Ida.
The tour guide drove us to the base of the volcano where his family has for four generations grown organic coffee beans.
He explained everything about the coffee community, growing of the plants and harvesting the beans. I wanted to bring home and roast my own bean, unfortunately the cleaner chucked it in the bin:(
The view of the lake from the coffee plantation.
We then drove to the factory where all coffee beans from the ten surrounding towns are taken to be processed. There is one comunity led company that is working to promote organic and safe farming, equality in wages and sustainable practices for the honey and coffee industries. The company spokesperson was our tour guide who spoke in perfect English answering all our questions and teaching us heaps about Guatemala and his people.
80% of all employment is from the coffee industry in San Pedro. And over 50% of all regional coffee is organically farmed thanks to this organisation who use the husks of the beans (above) and other waste products to create top grade fertilizer that they provide to farms free of charge. They also pay 15% more for organic beans .2% of coffee is sold internationally and 95% of honey is sold to Europe.
This huge trays is full of worms. they give all the rest products from the coffee to the worms and the massive amounts of worm pee they use and sell as fertilizer.
Jonna and I spent a couple of quiet days on lake Atitlan enjoying some more good food while waiting for Tobias to join us for his final 2 weeks. We stayed at a very chilled out Isreali hostel called Zoola which had a great view with heaps of hammocks and a pool. Though the staff were terrible and lied to many guests to make them stay in more expensive rooms so we moved when Tobias arrived to a really nice little hotel on the corner where we found a Guatemalan man who spoke pretty good Swedish!
Happy cowboy finally gets to ride a horse
Cost us about 5 dollars each for 2 hours with the horses and a pretty useless guide
Little Pååg finally happy to be on a horse as she missed out last time with her kidney infection. Though it was about 5 minutes in that her allergies kicked in...
We walked through some streets before getting down to the lakeside and up into the base of the volcano. galloping through the mud and tropical rains we really thought we were cowboys, at least before I rode off for a while and when they called me back I turned and took off to realizing my horses went under a try branch which knocked me clean off the horse. As my horse ran around the corner without me and I hung onto a tree branch all I could here was bloody laughing
We also went kayaking in the morning when Clint arrived, to one of the other little towns. That was the most beautiful view with 3 huge volcanos staggered in a line along the lake with cloudes moving in between them. We had a very insignificant feeling sitting out in the middle of the massive lake surrounded by giant volcanos. Poor Clint and Toby couldn't make it to the other side so we went on without them...
After a night out watching the UFC and getting no sleep at all because of the bedbugs in our bed, we had an amazing fruit and yoghurt breakfast at a little place across the street from our hostel. You can always trust lonely planet!
Matthew playing with the not so much amazing interior. Haha
Exploring beautiful but cold Antigua.
One of the many colonial churches.
Cobblestone everywhere....
Tre söta musikanter spelade xylophone( vad heter det på svenska?) och ja, klart vi gav dem pengar:)
We went to this humongous market in Antigua. It was defenitely the best market we have seen in the whole of Central America! It would take you days or even weeks to walk through and look at everything. At this section they sold handcraft and Mayan/Guatemalan fabrics and clothes.
the meat sections lasted forever, chicken (dead or alive) all sorts of fish and meat in every shape.
the fish section didn't smell that good. Usch och fy! fisk avdelningen låg btw bredvid bh avdelningen, haha vet inte riktigt hur de tänkte där...
Rice, beans, spices and eeeh dog food...
some of the fruits and shoes outside the market. I wish we could show you pictures of the beautiful fruit and flower market or the weird costume market in where we tried clothes on for hours;) but you had to be really careful with your camera, kids grabbing things from your pockets and hands was quite common and the markets were extremely crowded and at some points I felt a bit claustrophobic.
After eating lots of weird things and buying fresh beautiful fruit we started to look for a way out of the market, that took a while. This is the wonderful view we got to enjoy every day, a bit blurry but i love this photo anyway...
After checking out the ruins in Copan we took a midday shuttle from Copan to Antigua in Guatemala. That was one of the worst bus rides, hot and ridiculously bumpy, all our things including us were flying around in the bus. When we arrived to the boarder in Guatemala we expected them to try to rip us off but we didn't even have to pay the fees, a very good boarder crossing! We arrived at Antiga very late and very hungry, checked in to a nice hostel and went out for dinner at a little place lonely planet recommended.
The day after we arrived to Antigua we went to the gym in the morning and then to a little healthy smoothie and wrap place where the owner recommended us to do a chocolate tour. Four hours later we were standing here listening to this energetic guy!
He taught us about the history of chocolate. When they first discovered the cocoa bean they started making hot chocolate and drank it with spices. Only the kings were aloud to drink chocolate and they often let people cut themselves and poured their blood into the chocolate to dye the chocolate red and offer it to the
Gods.
We roasted our own cocoa beans and pealed them.
After that we had a competition; who could make the best cocoa as fast as possible? Matthew won!
We started making hot chocolate just like the Mayans and here our guide pour it from jar to jar, just how the Mayans mixed it.
Aftr that we made the hot chocolate with milk just like the English made it.
In the end we got a bowl each with the chocolate we made and we got to make our own!! We chose what shape and got lots of different spices/nuts/cookies we could put in the chocolate. Yum!
The tour was 20 dollars each but so worth it!
Food was definitely the entire highlight of Antigua. Although probably double the cost of most other places it was the first healthy and creative food in Central America!
Being so difficult to get to Utila we decided not to mess around when leaving and took the early ferry to La Ceiba and booked the luxury Hedmans Alas express bus to Copan. Cost a bit more than the other options but was well worth it to get a breakfast rom the chicken buses and save a lot of time. The security on the bus was amazing at every toilet or food stop we pulled into a secure compound with armed guards who checked all passports and tickets again. We ended up having the entire bus to ourselves for the last 4 hours and made the most of the snacks and movies :)
We arrived at night, booked a great room for 12 US at Via Via hostel, a midday bus for the next day to Guatemala and packed a breakfast picnic for the ruins in the morning. Was a perfect little stopover to break up the trip.
One of the Scarlet Macaws that was part of the reintroduction program in the area. Their tale fathers had many uses and meaning for the Mayan people including being used for currency along with cocoa beans and jade stone.
We were the first people to enter the ruinas and had a good hour picnic by ourselves before the school and tour groups showed up.
Some of the best preserved Mayan sculptures.
Copan is the most southern of the Mayan ruins
A painting of what it would have looked like standing from where I took the photograph below
View from the main pyramid which was the highest and therefor brought all upon it closer to the quetzal gods
With a mean hangover and a little depressed about Dom's waterproof camera getting drowned (he should have bought the G12 instead of a bloody Sony), we took a break from diving and went exploring. Some local alcoholic told us of a canal that you can find a way through to the other side of the island so we packed a picnic and some water and went exploring...
After haggling over a couple kayaks and getting them for 5 dollars for the day we started through a massive lagoon to get hit by a quick burst of terential rain.
Found an old half sunken ship to hide under from the rain.
thanks to Annalis for lending her camera :)
Made our way through a series of filthy stinky canals sometimes barely a foot deep and 3 foot wide and made it out to the other side of the island which was an absolute paradise that had been covered in all sorts of waste and rubbish. From shoes, toilets, doors and parts of cars. Utila is such a beautiful island but by far the dirtiest place we have been in Central America. it's such a shame the people there don't realize that if the island doesnt stay beautiful and the marine park is not protected tourist will stop coming leaving no source of income.
Dom getting creative
put some of the rubbish to good use making a sling out of old rubber, some shoelaces and my knife, to spear some lion fish.
our hostel organized a pirate beach party at a private island.
The diving crew!
you could find all sort of rubbish at the other side of the island. Unfortunately the locals from the mainland don't take care of their rubbish and everything floats up and stays on the beautiful islands. But we were happy, we found a wheelbarrow....
...and matthew found a pink plastic chair that matched his hat;)
Bromance
Our friend Connor from Ireland got tired of the beach and brought his beer table out in the ocean.
When the sun set over the ocean we waded our way back to the boat.
