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!

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! :)

Whats up on Isla Mujeres?!

Aaaallright!

This is going to be one hell of a blogpost!

There has been so much happening the last couple of months, I am almost embarrassed that I haven`t updated my blog more often! Sorry all readers!

After arriving at Isla Mujeres, things have just been fantastic! We had a good time in Guanajuato, but Isla Mujeres is more our thing!
What I love most about Isla is that it is so full of life, the beaches are wonderful, the people are friendly, there is always something happening here, and the prices are allright!

What we have been up to lately?
Well, now I really have to think a little back, as there have been so many adventures!

Since we got here, we have had a wonderful time at the beach, and exploring the island a little, we met a nice couple from San Francisco and together we went snorkelling not far from the port, the only thing was that on that particular day, the currents were a little rough, so the visibility was as I have learned to say in Mexico, «mas o menos» (more or less),we have been enjoying the good restaurants of Isla Mujeres, and went together to Cancun for a daytrip, and the following day took a look at the incredible sights of Chichen Itza's ruins. But this you can already read a lot about in my earlier posts.

After Aman & Susan went back to «Frisco» we had a few days here alone again before we were supposed to meet Elin & Richard the 24. December, but they got stuck in New York, and had to celebrate their Christmas on a Hotel in the centre.

They arrived the next day, but their bags did not. Sad for us too, as our «christmas present» was in those bags, Norwegian chocolate, milk chocolate! We have found very little chocolate in Mexico that we like.. And we were reeeeeaaaallly looking forward to having some for Christmas.

They had a very hard time trying to find some information about where the bags were.. Nobody knew anything, and I think they were pretty fed up in the end..

With Elin & Richard we went driving around the Island, drove by the Rooneys that were visiting the Island and together with them we went looking for seashells, which we found MANY of!

We rented a Golf Car and had a nice look at the scenery, the beautiful houses, the iguanas, and went to the most Eastern part of Mexico, which just happens to be on Isla Mujeres. We also took a nice trip to Cancun and ate some good grub at Hard Rock Cafe Cancùn (cool place!)

We also went diving, and saw nice corals, some cool fish, and even went to visit the caves of the sleeping shark.. We only found one shark though, but i was a cool dive anyway! Lots of corals, caves and weird fish everywhere! Merethe got a little tan while she was there too! :P

Elin & Richard went to Tulum to check out the ruins, we decided to stay home as we have to save money, can't waste it all the first month here.

They had booked a trip to Chichen Itza the next day, and luckily for them, as they could not get back to Isla Mujeres, as a small storm was brewing, and the winds were crazy! The ferry did not cross for 1,5 days, and we felt like we were on a deserted island as we heard the wind howling outside, seeing the palm trees, and then we lost power on the entire island for a few hours.. It was cool! I think I am falling in love with this island!

New Years eve was celebrated with a nice dinner at Olivia and then a little private party on our roof!

Richard wanted a tattoo while he was here, and we found a tatoo parlour in the back of a shop which looked like it was at least halfway decent..

Check out the tattoo!

It looked like it hurt a little, but thats just how it is supposed to be! Gotta suffer a little to gain a little! :)

The day before they were leaving we decided to take the girls to the dolphinarium on the island, and to say the least, they had a great time! I will try to post the video here, but despues (later)

I got a lot of great pictures, and Merethe bought some there as well..

The dolphinarium is not cheap, she ended up paying 2600 pesos for the «royal» package which included being pushed by your feet by the dolpins, dolphin tow, handshake, dolphin kiss, and some more stuff, then the photo/video package.. It`s not cheap, but it`s something she'll remember!

Flying dolphins?

While Elin & Richard's two weeks was over, they had to go back home, and on the final day, they got their bags finally! They got them on the airport when they were checking in for the flight home..

So we did not get any chocolate for christmas :(

Terrible stuff!

We have been meeting people from Guanajuato here all the time lately, Merethe met some nice people while she was horsebackriding in GTO, and many of these went on to Isla Mujeres and were still there when we arrived!

Gustavo is a suavè guy from Mexico City, he works in a bar and is better in Spanish than English :)

Then we have the Israeli`s that were everywhere!

And ofcourse Hallgeir that was here and made the Island a little more bright! A good guy from Bergen, Norway

After a few days, on the 8. January our next visitor arrived, Ursula!

This is a girl that likes to party, and we had a hard time following her around! :)

We had some good days on the beach, and have been around the island looking at the sights, the shores, and ofcourse the iguanas that are everywhere on Isla!

We thought it would be a fun thing to buy a piñata for new years, but we never got around to whacking it.. Then we decided to have a party at our apartment to kill it!'

We suddenly had a lot of guests, and had a great time trying to fool each other with where it was..

I accidentally broke my devilstick while we where whacking around :( I'll guess I have to buy myself a new one then..

Partyparty!

On the 15. January my mother arrived in Cancùn and we've been very busy while she is here...

Lots of stuff to show and to do!

We went together with them to Chichen Itza again, but this time the tour was not as exciting.
The tourguide we had this time was not as interesting.. This guy just had cheap jokes, little knowledge and was just full of crap. He did not tell us about half of the stuff that our favourite, George from bus #32 did! We were a little disappointed, as we hoped Ursula and mom could get the same cool experience we had when we were at Chichen Itza.

She decided to get a tattoo as well.. A nice hawaiian flower around her ancle

Ursula wanted to swim with the dolphins, so we went with her there, and got some good pictures.

A little more windy this day!

Other than our experiences, the beaches, bars and restaurants are where we have been hanging out.
Especially this nice place called Comono (placed in the shopping street) is a cool place to be.

The couple that runs the place are very nice, and the food is great! They also have hookah's (water pipes) and wireless internet! So most of the time that is where I am posting to my blog from. (not that it has been so many updates while I have been here)

Oh! And I got myself a new tattoo as well!
I was inspired by The Da Vinci Code, and just love this motive!

Earth, Air, Fire, Water is what it says, even if you turn it upside down. It is already healed and looks great I think!

Merethe got a new piercing on her lower lip, and I think she looks great with it!

What we are doing next is leaving to Havana, Cuba 10 days, then going to Montego bay, Jamaica a week and then back to Cancùn and Isla Mujeres..

I hope I did not bore you to death with this update, I will try updating more often, it is just harder when I do not have internet in my apartment. I hope that will change! :P

Oh.. And if this post seems messy it is because i had to slap this together while listening to Merethe and my mother talking in the background.. Sorry! :p

We have big plans here.. I will reveal nothing until it is 100% certain..

Mwahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Viva Mexico!

La buena vida

The life on Isla Mujeres is great!
The reason the posts are running a little behind is just that the beach is soooooo good and the sun soooo hot that sometimes I just have to prioritize a little bit in Islas favour.. I will have a huge update here again soon, hope you will check back! :)

Bye for now! Just got a fruitshake at Comono, a great restaurant with Hookahs(waterpipes) :D

-D-


Ps: here`s a little teaser of whats to come in the update :)











Curious yet? :p

Oh.. And a Happy new 2008 to you all! :)