And so then....

Ok, so where did I leave off? Ah, yes, Flores. After meeting up with Steve and Travis in Flores, Guatemala, the 5 of us (Owen, Morten, the other 2 guys and myself) we decided to go check out the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal. We were told that if we went after 3 pm then we could get in that evening, spend the night in the park then have the next day as well all for the price of one days admission. We were sold! We all piled into a shuttle bound for Tikal. Tikal is simply amazing. We made it with plenty of time to explore the main temple complex and watch the sunset while being litterally the only people in the park. This was also my first experience with Howler Monkeys. That night we camped at the Jaguar Inn and rose early at 5 am to watch the sunrise from the Jaguar Temple...very cool, and we were the very first people in the park!

Happy with our group, we all decided to travel together to Caye Caulker, Belize, a beautiful little island in the Carribean. While there we took a boat trip and went snorkelling with huge sea turtles, ate great food and watched beautiful sunsets...paradise. From there we all split up. Steve and Travis decided to head north to Mexico, Owen to El Salvador and myself to the Bay Islands of Honduras for a few days before meeting back up with Owen in El Salvador. In El Salvador we camped in a little place called El Tunco, which is home to a beautiful point break which provided some of the best surf of the trip so far.
Despite the nice waves, the small town was starting to get boring so we hopped on a bus bound for Leon, Nicaragua and headed straight for our hostel: Via Via. When we arrived, we were greeted by our friend Morten who was also staying at the same hostel. We invited Morten to continue travelling with us. While we were in Leon, we were drinking the local rum: Flor De Cana , which is actually really good, and decided that we would like to visit the factory, so the next day the three of us, plus two french guys: Christoph and Bertraud, who were also staying at our hostel, decided to hop a crazy chicken bus and find the factory... which after about an hours ride and a short walk through a random small town, we actually succeeded in locating. Unfortunately though, they wouldnt let us in, so back on the bus and back to Leon we
went. From Leon the three of us travelled south to Granada where we met up with my cousin Kelly and her boyfriend. From there we were picked up by my Aunt Shelly and taken to her home in Rivas. Staying with Shelly was great. It was nice to eat some canadian food ( she cooked us christmas dinner!) and visit with some family after 6 months of being without both. We also had a lot of fun with Shelly, going full moon fishing in San Juan del Sur, swimming, and having a tour of her property.

From Rivas we hopped a bus bound for Costa Rica. First stop- Santa Teresa. We had been told that this was THE place to go. Upon our arrival we realized that it was infact the place for every Costa Rica bound tourist who wanted to try surfing. It felt like spring break in Cancun, with prices to match. The only plus side to Sta. Teresa was that the surf was amazing and we met a really cool Swedish couple, Marc and Johanna. Just 40 minutes from Sta. Teresa is Montezuma. Montezuma is a cool place. Very laid back, very tranquilo. That's where we ended up after a couple of days amongst the tourist crowds of Sta. Teresa. We were met there by the swedes, making us a grand crew of 5. This unfortunately was Morten's last stop with us before having to head back up north to Mexico from where his Norway bound flight leaves. We all made the best of this last nit of time togethet. We went swimming in a beautiful waterfall, spent the day at the beach bodysurfing, had a
nice dinner and watched a movie. We all caught the ferry to the mainland together and said goodbye to Morten the Viking, with whom we had been travelling with for two months... It was sad to see him go.

With Morten on a bus for Mexico, Owen, myself and the Swedes all headed for Monteverde, high in the mountains of Costa Rica. Monteverde is home to the beautiful cloud forests, which are actually very reminicent of our west coast rainforests in Canada, and surprisingly, the climate was not much different either, which was a nice break after the 45 degrees we encountered on the coast.

We are now in Panama in Bocas Del Toro, an island archipeligo on the Carribean coast . The Swedes are here too. Its raining and there is no surf, so, we are going to leave the Swedes and head for the pacific coast.

Thats our last six months in a nutshell. Sorry to leave out the interesting details, but otherwise id be here typing this forever. I promise more frequent ( and interesting) updates.
Besos!

Ps. I will post pics when i find a real computer :)

Check out my blog: www.erin-owen.blogspot.com