Chủ Nhật, 17 tháng 2, 2008

Birthday in Cancùn!

Believe it or not, February 16. was my birthday!
And I am now 28 years young.. Not getting any older in any way! :D

But the thing I wanted to write to you about today is how it was celebrated! :D
Merethe surprised me with an idea of going to Cancùn and celebrate there instead of on Isla Mujeres, so we booked a hotel room at Imperial Hotel Laguna, and brought no clothes for the evening with us, just a buttload of money! :D Cancùn is pretty expensive, so we had to come prepared!

We left Isla Mujeres early, took the ferry over and then a taxi directly to the hotel.. After delivering our stuff at the hotel we went to Plaza las Americas and got some breakfast, then we found a hairstylist (a cute gay couple) got our hair nice, I even got a shave too!
Merethe cut her hair for the first time since coming to Mexico, and I think she was relieved!
After fixing the hair, I went a quick trip to the dentist and fixed a tooth, then we went shopping!
We saw lots of nice stuff, but as it normally is when you go shopping and have money to spend, it was hard finding stuff we really wanted!


I ended up buying a pair of nice shoes, pants, 2 long armed shirts, 1 short armed shirt, and some nice comfy beachpants to wear in the evenings..

Merethe bought some pretty shoes, 2 nice top's and some sexy pants and a purse matching everything! :)

When we were finally done, and after we bought a bottle of nice wine, and some snacks we went back to the hotel and started getting ready to paint the town red!


Around Nine thirty we took a taxi to Coco Bongo, and bought our Open Bar passes, stood in line and waited 20 minutes, we got in!

Coco Bongo was huuuge!
The shows started almost immediately and was very varied..


There were showgirls dancing on stage, performance artists falling from the roof, we saw Batman and Neo from "The Matrix" jump down, balloons flying everywhere, lightsticks, paper pieces, crazy lights, Marilyn Monroe, Britney Spears, all just copies ofcourse, but what a show!




Time passed so quickly, we were there around 22.00 and all of a sudden it was 03.00! Crazy times!




Mambo Number fiiiiiiive!



As you can see, lots of cool stuff happening, and LOTS of people!

This one I want for my next birthday! Pleeeeaaase? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?
*winkwink*

Thứ Hai, 11 tháng 2, 2008

Wonderful Jamaica!



Yah, MAN! Jamaica Maaan!

(photos coming soon!)

We got up really early, checked out from our hotel, and took off in a nice Lada taxi.. I thought the Cubans were good drivers until our ride to the airport! They drive as maniacs!

Anyway, we got to the airport, remembered to pay our airport tax (25 CUC) and took off!

Jamaica here we come!

When we got to Jamaica, we actually had a little problem getting past the immigration checkpoint!

We had to try three times (the third one was the lucky one!) first we had not filled in our hotel, as we did not know which hotel we wanted to live in, they said we had to have a confirmed booking so they knew where we were going to stay, I thought that was kind of weird, as we are backpackers, and I myself prefer to see the hotel before I choose to live there.. Anyway, we had to go back to a tourist”office” where they helped us find a room at a cheap hotel in Montego Bay, Gloriana Hotel & Spa, then we tried the immigration again, and this time they found out we had been living in Mexico for a while. Then we were sent to the health department or something like that, just so they could ask us if we were infected with Malaria, we told them we had not been to any area in Mexico where there was a Malaria threat, and they stamped our visa and told us to try the immigration again.. This time it worked! Wee! We were in Jamaica!

We went to the atm, and were pretty confused! How much was a Jamaican dollar worth? Same as the US? Doh! I thought 600 dollars probably was enough for the first days, but how wrong was i?

600 J$ is about 13 NOK, or 2,3 USD! Hehe.. doh!

We took a veeeery short cabride (got suckered, paid 10 USD for the trip) and it was over in about 3 minutes! We should have known!


After arriving at the hotel, we found our room and the biggest double bed I have seen in my life! HUGE!

We went looking around, thinking that Montego Bay was a huge city, as it is known as Jamaica's 2. biggest city after Kingston, but Montego Bay was not so huge, the part closest to our hotel was the “Hip Strip” where all the bars, hotels, and beaches were, and we saw very few people, and it looked like the businesses had little to do other than to try to hassle the few tourists walking around into their shops.

In Jamaica, you have to say a lot of “No thank you`s”, as you get asked if you want to buy just about anything! If they don't have it, you don't need it! :p

Montego Bay is really just a laid back place! The beaches are incredible, with water as clear as crystal! Tons of fish swim around by the corals, we even saw some squid, and a huuuge Barracuda!

The shopping is ok, a little expensive compared to Mexico, and a lot of little Indian shops trying to sucker you with unreasonably bad prices! And they talk shit about the local shops, just to get you to buy something from them.. Bad way to run a business if you ask me! :)

The weather in Jamaica was fantastic! 32°C everyday! We even got a little more colour!

We took a trip to the local tourist office, and they helped us with some trips, the 3. day there we went on a Crocodile Safari up Black River, we saw a couple of crocs, and then a HUGE one! I don't think swimming in this river is a good idea! Our guide told us a lot about the river and about the huge “dreadlock” trees there, and the special birds living in the area.

A nice trip, a little bit short if you ask me, I would have loved to been on the river a little longer..

When the crocodile safari was over, we went to YS falls, plenty of really nice waterfalls, and the water was actually warm! :)


The next day was 6. february and you all know what day that is, right?

Yeah! You guessed it! Bob Marley's birthday! And we were lucky enough to get on with a tour bus going to Nine Mile where Bob Marley lived, and was buried! This was a trip I had been looking forward to, as I have seen a great video on youtube, I hoped to meet the incredibly funny tourguide working there!

And we did! He was just as funny as on the video!

Seeing where Bob lived and the places he sung about, and seeing the burial place was almost a religious experience! The pictures in his room shows he was a real guy, singing about real stuff. And at Bob's pillow, the rock where he used to rest with a joint in hos mouth was also pretty cool! :)

Bob Live!


After the tour, we hung around by a restaurant/scene, where they did some practice sessions for the memorial concert that was going on there at night. Cool music! Cool atmosphere, and just perfect weather! :)

On our way back we saw Rose Hall, where it is said to be a ghost of a former inhabitant, Miss Rosa Parks, she killed 3 housbands and a lover to gain their fortunes, and she was known for being quite evil.

Other than this, we have mostly just relaxed on the beach, gone shopping, and have been eating well!

We found a cool place where they had great pizza, at Jamaican Bob sled restaurant, they show the movie Cool Runnings on repeat, they have sponsor clothes for the Jamaican Bob sled team! Funny place!

Oh! We also had our first KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) in Jamaica! I wish this place was in Norway, I think it would have done well there!

We met a crazy gang from Canada, and went out on a wild night, first going to The Brewery, where the Karaoke was crazy, and one of the Canadians sung his shirt off, and shocked the people working there so much that they gave him a free bottle of champagne! :D After eating, we took off to see Jamaicas casino, which was a little disappointing, as they only had slotmachines, and no real games! I want to play poker and blackjack if I am to waste my money, not boring slotmachines!

After having a quick look in the casino, we were supposed to go to Margaritaville, Montego Bay's party place, but there were hardly any people here.. So we decided to check out another place, called Pier 1.

Pier 1 was crowded, loud, and full of people in all ages! The old creepy guys watching the young girls was not a plus.. We were there for a couple of drinks, then headed back home in one of the local “taxis”

A tough night out, we fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow! :D

The last day was spent on Doctors Cove Bathing Club where the beach is just amazing! We had a great breakfast and got some snorkelling and sunbathing done!

After a relaxing day we fell quickly asleep and took off from Sangster International Airport the next morning! :D

A week was not enough time in Jamaica, I would have loved being there another week!



Different Cuba!


Cuba, the country of differences.


We got up and ready to have enough time to pack our last stuff, and then head off to the harbour on Isla Mujeres where we took the ferry to Gran Puerto Juarez, where we got to the airport by taxi (250,- Pesos)

We had little problems getting on the air plane, but they have some weird planes!

Instead of using a air condition unit on the plane, I think they are using some kind of freezing gas. When we got on the plane, they turned it on, and it looked like it was smoke everywhere!

If I were afraid to fly, this would probably have scared me half to death! :p Funny to see the looks on peoples faces, though.

1 hour and 15 minutes later we were in Havana, Cuba!

What a difference, I must say!

The first thing we noticed were of course the cars, I am guessing at least 2/3 of the cars here are from before Castro took over, 50`s models most of them.

But what surprised me more was that there were actually quite a lot of nicer, newer cars there as well!

Anyway, I had a student friend that was living in Havana at the time, and she helped us find a hotel nearby where she lived. So Hotel Lido was our first night there, and we weren't impressed!

We got a room with no working television, the curtains where wet, just as if someone had just cleaned them, but they weren't clean, they were dirty and mouldy!

Other than that, the room was all right, the beds were actually kind of comfy.

We went out to eat, and asked the hotel for directions, as we just arrived, and had no clue what to find, they showed us to a little «Casa Particulare» right on the corner of the block where we`re living. The food was not so great, the prices were high (10 Cuc) and they really did not seem so happy to help us. We hoped this was just a one time thing, and that not everywhere in Cuba was like this.. But how wrong were we? :p

We met up with my friend, Marte and she showed me and Merethe around the centre, which was both beautiful and sad at the same time..

How all these fantastic buildings can just fall apart, all because of the government, was not a pretty sight!

The next day, we walked around town to look at the sights, and so many important historical places are in Havana, you have the great wall that once surrounded Havana, and kept it safe from pirates and other bad guys, then the bars where Ernest Hemingway frequented, and not to mention the forts, the cannons, the big squares, book markets full of Che Guevara books, and the old cigar ladies sitting in the streets waiting to be taken picture of together with you (we fell for it! ) The lady we are with is said to be the same one that is in the Lonely Planet guidebook for Cuba.. She was very colourful and popular!


We also changed hotels, this time to a Casa Particulare that was on the other side of the street from Hotel Lido.. This place was not so nice..


After a night there, we found out the beds were hard as rocks, the bathroom smelled like septic and the air condition was noisy as hell! We decided quickly that this was not the place for us, and changed to Hotel Lincoln the next nights.. Lincoln was not so bad compared to the other places we lived in, we got a suite for a nice price (75 CUC) per night, and then we had an extra room where my mother could sleep! Oh! We also had a television with lots of channels! (Most of them were in Spanish, but actually a few that were in English too!)

Nice place with a nice view from the roof! The food is still nothing to brag about, not even at the Hotel. We decided to try out some of the more “fancy” places and went to Gran Parque Hotel, and this place is a place I normally would not eat, mostly because prices in such a fancy place normally go through the roof! But the only thing expensive about the hotel were it`s rooms.. The food was great! The menu had a huge variety of good food, and I was not disappointed a single time!

We even had our own personal pianist playing for us, and we could ask for just about any song!

So if you want to eat well, and not too expensive, go for one of the two restaurants there!

If you crave a nice lunch, they serve good food in the hotel lobby as well!


We went on a guided day trip to Viñales, and there we visited the cigar factory, the cigar plantation, went to have a nice lunch on the countryside, and then we went through some beautiful caves in the area, where they even had boats to drive us through the underground rivers that came from the limestone mountains in the area.

Later we took a look at the famous Viñales valley, and the gigantic mural on the mountainside (Castro`s idea)

Not a bad trip!


Other than this, Havana was kind of grey, and we soon got bored with just walking around looking at buildings falling apart, people begging on the streets, and just seeing all these creative people being suppressed by an old man that probably has not seen the outside of his house in quite a while, if he has, he must have quite some conscience, if this was his vision in 1959, he has failed completely! How could anyone not care about how the people of Cuba live? Ok, they may have great health and school systems, but these things are not important if they have no nice place to live!

We talked to a couple of Cubans and they said the only way to get extra money (they get 30 CUC per month, doctors get a whole 40 CUC per month) is to get extra money from the tourists, either by doing them favours, or trying to hassle them.. So sad!

They are hoping for change, but know it will take a loooong time for anything to happen, they are hoping maybe the government will learn something from China, as China has more to offer its people in the “New Communism”

The last days we spent walking around Havana looking at the markets, the people, and for a nice place to eat (not so lucky with that one)

I can recommend Cuba to people that are not afraid of leaving their hotels, going outside the big city, to really see how the people are living!

Oh, and it probably helps if you speak Spanish! You gotta learn to listen to the Cuban Spanish as it is really really fast! Compared to Mexico, it is almost like another language!


Thứ Sáu, 8 tháng 2, 2008

Mexico, Cuba, Jamaica!

Just a short post to keep you updated on what is going on in my travelling life! :)

We had a nice trip to Havana, Cuba, and were amazed over how such a large city is just falling apart! The houses there are really not in good shape, and it`s such a shame as they are (were) beautiful! Lots of poor people on the streets and very huge differences!

We had a daytrip with a guide to Viñales, and that was great too! Other than that, food was terrible, we really missed having more options on the menu..
After 10 days in Cuba, we were off to Montego Bay, Jamaica, where everything is just fantastic! HUUUGE difference in these two countries.. Huge freedom in Jamaica compared to Cuba!
We are staying at Gloriana Hotel & Spa, which has a special story behind how it was started.
We have already gone on crocodile safari up Black River, then to Y.S falls, where there were some beautiful waterfalls.. On Bob Marleys birthday, we went to Nine Mile where Bob lived, and is buried, and that was close to a religious experience! And we even met the hilariously funny tourguide from the following Youtube video! :)
Incredibly funny!



But I will not go into too many details yet, will have huge update with pictures when I come back to Mexico! :)