Amsterdam

Amsterdam
 Having arrived in England we had pre-planned a trip with Corinne's best friend Lisa, Amsterdam for 3 days. Not that we needed a break, but hey why slow down now.

The cheese and clog factory

I was amazed to find out the city is another canal city, with more kms of canals then Venice. Though it is beautiful Venice has a charm all of its own. We headed out of town on day one to the cheese and clog factory, why not????

Wooden shoes?? Why

The cheese was pretty good and we took home a few wax covered rolls of pepper chedder for later, but I just couldnt see the point in the clogs.

The next night we walked through the famous Red Light district. I have been to kings cross, been to Las Vegas, there is nothing like this for sure.

The condom shop

 Alleyways with row upon row of glass doors with girls suggesting you should join them for a cup of tea (sorry this needs to be sanitized for our parents sake).

Pink Elephant - Theater style sex shows

 In some areas Im not sure they were girls, or at least not at birth. This is also the area the Coffee shops are in greatest concentration, you could usually smell them before you saw them. This area was thick with tourists until all hours of the night, surprisingly families, old and young all checking out the other side of Amsterdam.

Canals and bycicles

The city streets were always full of bicycles, and they were chained to everything every where you went. There were bike lanes on all the streets and traffic signals just for them, though busy it seemed to work well enough. not sure about winter though.

Cos with a mandatory bunch of Tulips

We also took in the Heiniken experiance, basically a big advertising ploy by Heiniken in an old brewery in the city, not a bad tour and you got 2 beers at the end, interesting regarding the history of the brand and a small insight into the process, Im sure most other brewery tours are exactly the same.

Top quality

I like that apron on you Cos, now stir those hops

Needless to say we had a great weekend away, got to see a new city and country (even if only a blip) and catch up with friends on the other side of the world.

Me (ads) and Lisa, seems we both like posing for photos

Mexico - Last of the traveling for a while

Now not to confuse you guys too much - but we are actually in England right now, and have been for some months. I just got slack in updating the blog once we arrived, we were very busy at first, not so much these days.
Here is the last of the updates before we arrived - Also coming up, updates since we have been here including
Amsterdam, Portugal and Scotland
 
Tulum - Mexico
We knew that after this stop we were headed to England to find jobs, with this in mind we had set aside a week of nothing, just being at the beach, reading swimming, beers and sun.

me just sampling the local beer - Uno mas por favor

We had been told about Tulum and that some cheap beach huts could be found, so we did just that. The huts were not as cheap as we hoped but still pretty good, small bamboo construction with sand or cement floors, they didn't offer much privacy but the location couldn't be faulted.

Pretty basic, bamboo hut with a bed

The beach had a covered area with hammock beds, or double beds on the sand, the set up was fantastic.

Service in the cafe left a lot to be desired, if you wanted anything in less then an hour, you needed to push pretty hard for it, but the week was about lazing around so no big deal.

We spent many hours sending off job applications in the mornings and looking for some where good to eat in the afternoon, or just reading on the beach.

Plenty of these guys lazing around

All in all the days flew by and in no time at all we had to head off. One funny aspect of our stay here, there was a naturist resort just up the beach from ours, so through out the day naked people would often be wandering around the place. This made for some often amusing viewing, as naked older people played volleyball or frolicked in the surf. At least they didn't have tan lines

From where you'd rather be!

Our last night before heading to England we spent in Cancun, the legendary party city on the coast of Mexico. True to form the night life was huge, mostly yanks on holidays, we spent one night out dancing and clubbing and regretting the next day. Then onto the plane for jolly old London town.
Next update - Amsterdam

Belize and Mexico

Caye Caulker - Belize

Our next stop Belize was our first taste of the Caribbean, we were looking forward to swimming in the warm water, Diving and just chilling on the beach (its not like we had done much of that yet :).

We all (the entire bus) got stiffed out of 20 Quetzales each by the corrupt boarder officials as we crossed from Guatemala, we were told you have to pay an exit fee, which is very common in these parts, but found out later if you asked for a receipt you were just waved on. It wasn't a lot of money in fact only about $3 each, but still.

We caught a speed boat ferry to our island in the sun, this was the Caribbean we had expected. English was the main language spoken, but the creole accent can be so hard to understand. there were plenty of guys, old and grey with dreadlocks to their knees, lots of rasta hats, all pretty chilled back and happy to be here.

The people were great, friendly happy to chat, lots of fresh fish and grilled chicken.

Cos arranged a dive trip to the blue hole, the main reason we had picked this place to come to.
Cos:
For those of you who have not heard of the Great Blue Hole, it is a giant sink hole off the coast of Belize, a quarter of a mile across and 145m deep. It used to be a cave, which perhaps our ancestors lived in before the sea level rose and the roof caved in. The two entrances (shown below) are compliments of jacques cousteau and some dynamite.

So after a dawn start, and two and a half hours (60miles) of punching through a massive swell, I couldn't wait to get in the water! It had been awhile since my last dive, and although I was excited about the dive, I wasn't sure a deep dive with no bottom was the best for a refresher.
The edge of the cave is an overhang, about 3m thick, we flew off the edge head first and floated down into the black gloom. There was an instant temp change inside the hole, the water was cold, everything was black, and there was no sea life. The guide started off into the black, under the overhang. I had no idea if we were swimming into a wall or not, so i followed him, leaving the group behind. It was incredible. As soon as I was under the overhang, my eyes adjusted. Giant, stalactites hung from the ceiling, as big as tree trunks and some up to 10m long. I swam weaving between these giant prehistoric creations. The sight, combined with the narcosis was incredible. It is a scary dive, but worthwhile.

The next two dives had an amazing amount of marine life along a wall of reef. Turtles, stingrays, moray eels, lion fish, barracudas and an amazing variety of fish. The visibility was over 50m, in warm, blue Caribbean sea. Halfway through the second dive, I heard dolphins, which is amazing in itself. Then, a pod of over 30 dolphins swam right past us, some within 2m. I have surfed with dolphins before, but seeing them move under the water, their massive, smooth bodies gliding effortlessly and their kind eyes twinkling, was incredible.

We stopped for lunch on an island which was close to perfect, Halfmoon Caye Natural Monument.  Picture a long stretch of pure white sand, dotted with palm trees and shells, crystal clear blue water, a green lush jungle which edges towards the beach and that's the island. It is the nesting home of the Red footed Booby Bird, and frigates, which are both unique and kinda gross. They inflate their giant red throat and make growling/chocking noises to attract females - Sexy ey?

Something I had wanted to try at home was kite surfing, I knew you could do it here and after seeing the constant onshore winds coupled with waist deep water I was convinced it was a great place to try. Signed up for a 3 hr lesson and had a ball. Those kites are so powerful, even a little one will lift you clear out of the water if you don't handle it right. The instructor was great and even offered for me to call in the next day and have another go. Its hard to combine all the elements of handling the kite with a board, I managed to get up on the board a couple of times, which is pretty good after 3 hours lessons. When we return to warmer water I will definitely be taking this up, onshore winds will no longer be a bad thing.

Most of our days were spent wandering around the small sandy island, eating, lazing about with a few water sports thrown in for good measure. We were told it was expensive here, but this was not the case, yes it was more so then Guatemala but you cant get much cheaper then that.

The Caye was beautiful, surrounded by palms on all sides, white sand and clear azure water

We really enjoyed a laid back week here, spent too much time in the sun, enjoyed some jerk chicken and fresh seafood burritos, well worth a stop off if you get near.

Next and final stop - Mexico