Mostly Travelling

Travelling the world with Magnus!

Sakura Hunting April 16, 2012

Filed under: Japan,Tokyo — Magnus @ 00:00

The week starts with my team leader Ken taking me out for an ox tongue lunch, which is unexpectedly tasty (I have some issues with the texture though). In the evening I thought I’d give the cherry blossoms another try since I met a Japanese guy who told me that there was a park that was open in the evening with light arrangements and everything. Sounded awesome and since I was pretty miffed that I’d missed the blossoms in the weekend I was pretty psyched to see more. While on the subway there however I discover that I’ve forgotten to bring the camera… Salvaging what’s left of the evening I head to nearby Akihabara – the tech Mecca of Tokyo, supposedly filled with 8-floor stores of only tech stuff. I only manage to find one though, guess I should look at a map to get a feel for this place. I do manage to find a 3-story sex store, filled with all manners of dildos, costumes and movies. Quite entertaining to browse through!

I go for a second try on Wednesday evening and find the park he was talking about, the problem is that it’s closed! Adding insult to injury it’s also raining cats and dogs while I scurry home with my tail between my legs. I decide that I’ll wander about and try to find some dinner in Ginza district since it’s on the way home. It turns out to be a big mistake since Ginza is a very upscale district where everything is super expensive. I finally find a little Turkish restaurant in a cellar on a back street where dinner only costs me a bit over 2000 yen (around 160 sek), to contrast with the tempura place I saw where the cheapest item on the menu was 8500 yen…

For my third try I ask Ken about the park and he is able to give me some more specific instructions. He warns me about the park being rather small though, but what the hell, it sure beats just hanging in the hotel room. He is indeed right, the park is maybe 50 by 20 meters and doesn’t even have grass. It’s a fountain, some trees and streetlights. Very disappointing…

Friday afternoon we have an all employee meeting, it’s all very self-congratulatory as those things go but I found one thing especially amusing: the big boss told everyone that he appreciated all our hard work and dedication but he insisted that we’d try and go home early on Wednesdays and Fridays, because family is really important! He said that it may not always be possible, but that we should try and go home around six, six thirty. …he said what now?! So I guess six thirty is considered early here, imagine that…

Today is also a spring party here at work and at around six the assistants start putting out beer and snacks. I haven’t signed up for that since I had other plans, but those plans didn’t work out so now I need a new plan for the evening. Fortunately I meet Jonas and Stephan who are looking to go out for some after work so I join up with them. Stephan is working in the team next to me and is from the Netherlands but has lived here in Japan for quite a while now and speaks excellent Japanese. Jonas works in the lab mostly, installing and troubleshooting equipment.

We end up in Shinjuku at a Teriyaki place and are joined by Jonas’ friend Justin who’s also from Sweden and like me is here on a short term contract. There’s the usual work-related bellyaching accompanied by an array of excellent teriyaki. After some coercing we convince Stephan that karaoke is a good idea and we head next door for a two hour session including free drinks (the teriyaki place also had free drinks, it seems a popular business model where you charge an upfront sum somewhere between 1000 and 2000 jpy and then you get as much as you can handle for the next hour).

Karaoke is fun, but be prepared for some trial and error with the huge remote. We mostly manage, even though some songs comes as unwanted repeats as we have a hard time figuring out the queuing system. Somewhere during the karaoke session we lose Stephan and when the staff politely informs us that it’s only 10 minutes left of our session we go on for an estimated 20 minutes before the staff once again politely informs us that it’s only 10 minutes left… Taking the hint we move on to Roppongi and a club that Jonas hazily remembers. We eventually find it and are subjected to an exorbitant 3500 jpy entry fee, adding insult to injury they want another 500 to store our jackets! Ah well, the club is filled to the brim with young Japanese and it seems like wherever we choose to stand there is a guard that has an opinion on it! The dance floor is interesting as well, there isn’t much room for anything else than hopping, so that’s what we do, and before we know it the place is closing. Outside is daylight and consulting the clock shows that it’s 5 am! Jonas takes us for some awesome kebab, some of the best I’ve ever had as a matter of fact, who knew?! The subway has even started going again (in Tokyo the last train is around midnight actually, so if you’re out partying you’re generally stuck with taking a cab home) and at about 7 am I stumble into bed after what amounts to a really great night out!

I sleep my way through most of Saturday but when Sunday comes I’m ready for another shot at Shinjuku Goyen – the cherry blossom park. Much of the flowers have already fallen off but the park is still fantastic and there is also a lot of other types of cherry trees that are still in full bloom. It’s really beautiful, but most fun is looking at all the Japanese obsessing over the flowers and taking hundreds of pictures.

The afternoon is spent window shopping around Shinjuku, being slightly molested walking past a gay bar. Late afternoon I make my way to Harajuku bridge in search of people dressing up, but today it’s scarce. Just a few on Omotesando street. I continue walking all the way down to Shibuya where I do some more window shopping before calling it a week.

 

First week in Nippon April 9, 2012

Filed under: Japan,Tokyo — Magnus @ 00:00

Trying to shake off whatever jetlag I might face I go straight to work. Well, after unpacking and showering that is. My new home is a 30 m² flat at the third floor out of twenty four of Bureau Shinagawa, just south of central Tokyo. Think of it as living just south of Söder in Stockholm in terms of travel time.

The apartment has floor to ceiling windows towards the river which is actually the sea and the little island I’m on is as far as I know man-made. I jet off to work which is 20 minutes to the south by train. The reception lady gave me a map detailing how to get to the Ericsson office from the station, but I manage to get lost anyway. A couple of nice ladies help me out with vague instructions that regardless get me there.

Yokohama is a rather sterile neighborhood with nothing but office buildings, my coworkers tell legends about a old Yokohama where people actually live, but so far I haven’t seen it. Ericsson office is on the 7th to 10th floor of a rather nice building (they’re all nice actually) and I work on the 7th floor. The office itself is rather sad, just a large space with hardly any walls, just a large collection of desks. It feels a bit like the movie 9 to 5… My team consists of about 50% swedes and 50% other nationalities of which only two are actually Japanese. The office is structured as a so-called flex-area, which means that seating is at a first come, first served basis. So if you’re late to work, you might end up sitting nowhere close to your team mates. Exceptionally silly if you ask me, but noone has so far… We also have tiny 19″ screens, making me feel like I’m back in the 20th century again. Looking under the desk I find an Ericsson-branded helmet and an emergency kit, probably to be used in case of severe earthquakes.

The first few days go by fast as I struggle to get the programming environment in place and as the weekend approaches I plan for my first round of serious touristing. The fish market is first in line but it doesn’t open to the public until 9 am (to come earlier and see the tuna auction you need to book a tour) and it’s easy to understand why; the place is chock full with small trucks zipping every which way. Most of them runs on electricity, so they easily go unnoticed until they’re inches away from running you over. At which point you usually get yelled at by a surly fisherman. It’s absolutely fascinating to walk around just looking at the motorcycle sidecar-sized tuna, the colorful octopi, the live squid swimming around in tanks, the rubber -banded lobster, or the sheer volume of wonderfully strange fish.

After maybe an hour I’ve explored most of the market and go looking for something to eat. There is a regular market right next to it and I figure the if I am to go for sushi anywhere in Tokyo, it should be right here. All the restaurants here are tiny and all of them have a sizable line outside. This is nothing unusual however, in Tokyo there are often many people in line for restaurants, some of the even have benches for you to sit while waiting.

The wait is probably 45 minutes or so, but I have nowhere I need to be and besides, the long wait is probably a good sign. Finally they let us in, they take in people to capacity and then serve us all at the same time instead of taking in new people as we finish eating. It makes for a really nice and quiet dining experience, especially since photography isn’t allowed. Contrast that with the conveyor belt sushi places where the chefs continually shout out welcoming phrases and the names of the sushis they’ve just placed on the conveyor belt.

Orders have been taken care of while we were waiting and I chose the slightly fancier menu of ten pieces at ¥3680. Somewhat pricy, but there are certainly places where you can pay a lot more. The restaurant is really cramped and the chefs stand right in front of you so you get a great view of them performing their craft perfected over the years to a handful of elegant gestures where all of a sudden the sushi just appears in front of you, seemingly out of thin air. All this while the chefs idly chat with each other as if they weren’t even paying attention to what they were doing.

The sushi is served on a large leaf and one after another they’re plopped down, each one stranger than the one before. Two stand out in particular, both are so-called Gunkanmaki rolls (battleship rolls – no, I have no idea why, neither do my colleagues) where you have a the classic seaweed-wrapped sushi standing on its end but with a topping. The first topping is an orange goo that I’m pretty sure was sea urchin-guts, the second one is a pinky-sized squid lying there eying me accusingly. It’s a bit hard to eat food that is staring at you but after getting my gag reflex under control I find the taste rather nice.

Their serving strategy is a double edged sword however when it comes to slow eaters like me. It’s really stressful when you’re the last one in the restaurant and there’s a fifteen meter line outside waiting to get in…

On then to the next item on the agenda: Yoyogi park and the cherry blossoms. It’s a really beautiful park with a temple shrine in the middle that my team leader Ken claims has five hour lines at new years. People here apparently take their rituals seriously I guess. I can’t seem to find any cherry blossoms though, well some, but not the quantities I was hoping for. After some more fruitless searching I decide to move on and try my luck in some other park tomorrow. I exit the park at Harajuku Station, this place is known for the kids who cosplay as various manga characters, but they’re mainly here on Sundays so I make a mental note to return tomorrow. I proceed to stroll down Omotesando street (also called the Japanese Champs-Élysées) and find that it’s mostly high fashion stores like Gucci, YSL and the ilk. Not that interesting so I move on to Shibuya and Shinjuku.

Shibuya is home to that crossing you’ve probably seen in many a movie. It’s a shopping and nightlife Mecca with neon signs as far as the eye can see. People are dressing really stylish here and it’s full of, very polite, barkers trying to get you into their clubs or restaurants. It’s an awesome place for just strolling around and look at stuff.

I happen across one of the numerous Pachinko parlors, a game which appeal is a mystery to me. It appears to be just a smidge more interesting than bingo and the noise in there is deafening. There are several floors with other games however so I wander around silently wondering how these places can survive when video games in most cases look so much better than the games here. At last I reach the top floor where things take a turn for the weird. There is nothing here but photo booths and strangely dressed girls running around giggling. I don’t get very far before I’m shooed out by the staff though: “Women only!” Ooops…

I’m rather tired so I sleep in a lot more than I should have so when I eventually get my ass to Shinjuku Goyen – alledgedly the very best park in Tokyo to see the cherry blossoms – I am met by a wall of people leaving. As I make my way to the entrance a guard informs me that the park is closed. Awww, fucksticks! I try my luck at a couple of other parks but they’re all closed so I have to settle for photographing the ones planted along the street.

I stop by Harajuku station as well to find a few dressed up people: a goth lolita, a guy in a Pedobear suit, a girl in some sort of generic manga costume that I don’t recognize and a bunch of rockabilly guys. Not bad, I’ll have to make this a Sunday tradition! I do manage to salvage the day somewhat by taking the monorail out to Odaiba, an artificial island in the Tokyo bay that has a magnificent view of nighttime Tokyo. After taking a lot of pictures I go back and while I sit there on the train I spot Tokyo tower. Since the night is still young I decide to hop off and walk to it. It doesn’t seem all that far, but the scale fools you, the tower is slightly larger than the Eiffel tower so it takes me almost an hour to get there. It costs 800 yen to go up to the first platform at 150 m and then you pay again to go up to the special observatory at 250 m. But since it took me so long to get here the tower is just about to close so I never get to go up to the special observatory. The view is great though and I don’t mind much, there’s always next time!

 

Introductions are in order March 2, 2012

Filed under: Central America or Bust,Copan Ruinas,Honduras — Magnus @ 00:00

Since this is mostly a travel day where nothing much happens, I’ll take the opportunity to introduce the travel mates I spend most time with.

First out is Johan, doing his fourth Pink Caravan trip he’s about my age and a guy who enjoys deadpanning the most outlandish stories. He’s also retained a surprising amount of his high school Spanish making him really useful to keep around. Working as a process engineer at Tetra Pack designing production lines it’s probably not surprising that we get along well.

Me and Johan

Daniel is also something of a Pink Caravan veteran, my age as well and the three of us have been room mates for most of the trip now. He has his own consultancy firm and spends his time working at ST Ericsson and Astra mostly doing hardware testing. He has done a lot of traveling and has a fair share of crazy stories to impart.

Julia, Daniel, Isa and Lina

Emma – funny redhead with some prior Pink Caravan experience who likes the fact that drinks in this part of the world are served in what can only be described as bowls. She has become really good friends with Lina

Isa and Emma

Lina – an elite triathlete with an ever present huge smile who enjoys talking to strangers. She takes lots of really personal photos of people and enjoys a good Mojito. She is making her first Pink Caravan trip.

Lina and Me

Jessica – a.k.a. Black Midget is the J1 half of JJ and very good friends with Julia (J2). They’re both from outside Mjölby and just out of high school, making them two of our youngest travel mates. She’s somewhat of a music nerd and a festival goer, so we have some things to talk about. She’s also a fan of zombie movies and video games.

Me and Jessica

Julia – a.k.a. White Giant is the taller half of JJ and actually turns 20 tomorrow. She might look like a nice girl but she enjoys biting sarcasm a bit more than the next girl. The two of them are sharing a travel blog over at http://djungeltelegrafen.blogg.se which is a really entertaining read. Like J1, she seems to lack a sense of location but both are very likable and fun to be around.

Christian – my dive buddy for the Blue Hole trip and a generally interesting guy. Living in Norway since 10 years making a living as a harbor crane operator. First impressions are deceptive with Christian, at first I thought him just loud and obnoxious, but he’s grown on me and he has a lot of interesting insights and weird knowledge. He’s also a big photography nerd with a bigass camera and lots of lenses.

Jenny, Christian and Jessica

Åsa is a rather nerdy gal working as a technician at Arlanda airport (you know, computer stuff). She’s also a lot into music and probably the only one on this trip that I can talk metal with. Has awesome hair!

Isa – sweet, trippy young lady with a hidden talent for gangsta rapping. This is hers and Jennys first Pink Caravan trip, but so far they’re handling it like pros.

Jenny – close friends with Isa and a firm believer that anything stupid you do to your body before the age of 26 doesn’t really matter since the body will recuperate full as long as you stop before hitting the magic 26. Also thinks we should introduce the term “normally disturbed” when it comes to making psychological evaluations.

Karina – our tour leader who I know from my previous trip with the Transsiberian railway to North Korea. A thoroughly nice person and generally awesome tour leader. She does lack a sense of location however so if you want restaurant tips, you’re generally out of luck.

That’s it for introductions, today we have about 10 hours of driving ahead of us. I sit next to Lina today and we talk a lot about life and personal development. The landscape is beautiful with large green rolling hills and many different kinds of forest. Since the music currently playing is some awful saxophone muzak I start putting together a playlist on my mp3 player and hook up to the bus audio system.

We stop for a leg stretcher at a little diner place where they serve delicious papaya milk-drink made from locally grown papaya. The scenery is breathtaking and lots of pictures are taken. A funny thing is that Jessica has managed to guess that it was my music playing on the bus earlier just from hearing 10 songs or so.

After a brief lunch stop we reach the Honduras border, which is a rather brief stop as we get our passports stamped before continuing on to Copan Ruins, which is just 20 minutes or so inside the Honduran border. This time I share a rather large room with Christian, Emma, Lina, Daniel and Johan. We marvel at the the shower installation where three naked wires come out of the wall and are safely connected with electrical tape to the water heater that is placed in the shower head. It’s probably a good idea to not stand on the shower drain while showering…

Me, Christian and Johan head the 50 meters downtown to the city square from where you can easily find lots of restaurants. We pick an Italian one, Mamma Mia, just a block off of the square. The pizza is made in a wood fired oven and a thin crust just to die for. Weird going to Central America for some of the best pizza I’ve ever had!

Feeling in a party mood we go buy some local liqueurs: a Timoshenko Frutta and a Catrashita Oro to get some sort of party under way. The fact that Julia is turning 20 tomorrow is an excellent excuse, but even though we make a valiant effort with the liqueurs (that both are positively awful) the party never really takes off and we eventually have to call it a night.

Papaya drink: 20 quet
Food: 300 hon
Frutta: 120 hon
Lunch: 48 quet
Border fee: 40 quet

 

Mayan Adventure March 1, 2012

Filed under: Central America or Bust,Guatemala,Santa Elena — Magnus @ 00:00

Even though we ordered breakfast last evening, the staff manage to botch the entire breakfast service in an impressive manner. Most of us do not get any breakfast at all and the ones who do get breakfast don’t get their complete orders. But we don’t have time to wait around for it to be sorted out as we are scheduled for a trip to the Tikal Maya ruins which are nearby. Along the way there we pick up a guide who speaks excellent English and as a bonus is an actual scientist working with the Mayan heritage, awesome! J1 (Jessica) and I talk about music and it turns out she’s pretty well listened and she convinces me to give Kanye West a try.

We arrive at the Tikal site and after a walkthrough of what there is to see we start towards the first site. On the way we see lots of really cute South American Coatis (or Näsbjörnar if you’re Swedish) rummaging around in the undergrowth. We learn that the vegetation around here doesn’t get very old, the trees don’t get much older than 250 years for instance, making it really hard to determine the age of a lot of the things found around here. Another interesting fact is that maize cannot grow on it’s own but needs human assistance, raising the question of how they actually did it way back then.

The first pyramid isn’t very large, maybe 20 m, and climb-friendly so we all go up and look around. We also learn that all the structures were painted red with the steps in blue back then and the reason they know the age of the pyramids is that they’ve carbon dated the paint. Far from all the structures in Tikal have been excavated and only some of them restored as opposed to just clearing away the vegetation. The area is pretty large and the walk to the next one is almost fifteen minutes through jungle. It’s worth it though since this was the largest man-made structure in the world prior to the first sky scrapers being built. From up top the view is amazing and actually the very same as can be seen when the Imperial shuttles are first landing on the Ewok moon Endor in The Return of the Jedi!

Next up is another set of temples that they used to keep their famous calendar in shape and naturally our guide explains all about what a sham the 2012 hysteria is. Last stop is the courtyard, which is the main event in Tikal with two very large temples and some smaller on the side. We get 45 minutes of free time to climb around here which I utilize fully. This place is really awesome and now I’m no longer as sorry that I missed Chichen Itza (which I didn’t mind much to begin with since it seems much more touristy and also because the cenotes diving was something I wouldn’t have missed for the world).

On the way out there is a bunch of souvenir shops and I buy another football jersey plus one with the local beer brand Gallo. Back in town we go out for dinner to that island where people were robbed a few years back. We’re a large enough group to not be very worried, and find a nice place with a live band and good food. They also have old school chewing gum, the kind made out of sap from the the gum tree and was put out of the market some time back in the fifties when they invented synthetic gum. We each buy a glob but the taste isn’t very good, still fun though and something to treat friends to back home.

We take the long way home to see some more of the town before buying breakfast at the supermarket, the hotel had their chance and lost it already. As we leave the supermarket the staff has already closed up and pulled down the iron curtain. It’s kind of interesting to see the clerk checking the eye slit before opening the door to let me out, it says something about what kind of country we’re in.

Gallo shirt: 60 quet
Football jersey: 100 quet
Quetsal: 15 quet
Food box: 70 quet
Guide tip: 20 quet
Dinner: 120 quet
Gum: 10 quet
Breakfast next day: 63 quet

 

Bye Bye Belize February 29, 2012

Filed under: Belize,Caye Caulker,Central America or Bust,Guatemala,Santa Elena — Magnus @ 00:00

Today we’re leaving the paradise island and on the boat back to the mainland the words “Pass my Aloe Vera to that red guy over there” are heard as a bottle of salvation makes its way to Johan. Back in port we hop on the bus and begin our journey to Guatemala. Before leaving Belize City we pass a somewhat odd graveyard where the graves extend all the way out to the divider in the middle of the road! The landscape gets interesting as we leave town for the countryside, hardly two trees are the same type and you can see the mountains faintly in the background. Johan is something of a bird guy and since he’s sitting next to me today we keep an eye out for them. I don’t manage to see many but Johan spots both a Parrot and a Toucan on the way.

As we come up on the border we get stopped by a police man for not paying our road tax, as soon as that is settled though we get to go on to the border. At the border there are lots of money changers and I get to get rid of my leftover pesos that I’d almost given up hope exchanging. I think I get an okay rate since the guy has an ID card and everything showing that he’s a licensed money changer. But next time I go on a trip with lot of currency juggling I’ll bring a note of what exchange rates to expect since the brain tends to not work very well on vacation.

On the other side of the border you need to wait some more and we take the opportunity to get some food. Karina warns us about an ATM in town that people have been skimmed at before. Since Åsa and I are both nerds we decide to use the time we have here to try and find the ATM in question and see if there is any skimming equipment attached to it. After asking the locals, using a lot of gestures, for the location of the ATM (the word is “cajero” by the way, rather useful when you’re a tourist) we head up a hill to a gas station. The ATM turns out to be rather well protected though with a thick piece of plexi glass around the card slot, so there is little risk for skimming.

The Guatemalan currency, the Quetsal (named after the bird), is roughly 1 to 1 with the sek, making it easy for out vacationing brains. Guatemala is the first cheap country we’ve come across so far and we get lunch for two for under 30 Quetsals. As we get deeper into Guatemala we also get higher up. The vegetation is thicker and greener and there are lots of cozy little villages to look at on the way. Our goal is a town called Santa Elena (the one in Peten province) and we arrive just before nightfall.

The hotel is really nice but we’re told not to wander around on our own in town since it has happened to other groups that they’ve been robbed. So when it comes to dinner time we’re a rather large group heading out. Too large in fact, we’re so many that we can’t really decide and Åsa and I make a break for it and eat dinner at some food court in a mall nearby. Malls are kind of fun to just wander around in when you’re in a country you don’t know much about so we do just that and look at what the price levels are and so on. It seems for instance, that cameras and other technical goods are about the same level as in Sweden, while food, candy and booze is significantly cheaper.

Expenses:
Exit fee: 40 blz
Sandwich + beer: 30 quet
Snacks and beer: 24 quet
Dinner: 55 quet
Candy: 62 quet

 

Money Laundering February 28, 2012

Filed under: Belize,Caye Caulker,Central America or Bust — Magnus @ 00:00

Johan and I have decided to go diving today so after breakfast we go to the dive shop and try out equipment. Everything is close here in Caye Caulker so there’s just a 200 m walk to the dive boat. We’re going to be diving with two Americans and a Canadian but they’re not very talkative. Going out to the reef takes only about 15 minutes but as we come near to the dive site the waves are pretty high and it’s kind of rough going jumping in. I get in okay but Johan who hasn’t dived in a while hasn’t got the right amount of weights and is struggling. All that fiddling with high waves and all has gotten him seasick as well, so he decides to abort the dive. Good call!

Down at the bottom it’s calm though and we make our way through reef canyons while seeing lots of lobsters (the kind without claws that looks like a sissy). They’re bunched up in little caves along the reef wall but you can spot them rather easily since the antennae stick out rather prominently. There are also a lot of large Lion fishes and our dive master uses a spear gun to pick them off as we go. The reason for this isn’t that he’s a sadist, rather that Lion fishes aren’t native to the Caribbean but rather the product of an accident during hurricane Andrew when an aquarium in Florida was damaged and a bunch of them was released into the sea. Ever since then they’ve been living the high life since they don’t have any natural predators in this area. So a lot of the divers around here are doing what they can to keep the numbers down by spearing and feeding them to Moray Eels.

During the dive he spears probably six or seven of them but sadly there aren’t any Morays around so he just lets them drop to the bottom. We see more Barracuda and interesting corals, but no turtles or rays this time. Between dives we go to shallow and calmer water so we can snorkel for a bit and eat some fruit. This is when I discover that I’ve been doing the entire dive while still wearing my money belt, ooops… Fortunately money is designed to be able to handle stuff like that so they’ll probably be okay.

The second dive is more or less like the first but slightly shallower, which I don’t mind since the first one was really good. The coral landscape is awesome with large coral hills interrupted by sand filled canyons that allows for small caverns on the walls where interesting things hide out. There’s lots of Lion fish this time as well and our dive master even brings a really large one up into the boat to have for dinner later. Johan’s sea sickness hasn’t gone away so he has been lying down on the floor of the boat the entire time, unaware of that his legs has been sticking out into the blazing sun and now the result is showing. He’s looking more or less like a cooked lobster and is starting to feel the pain.

Back at the hotel I happen across J1 and J2 who are really excited after today’s snorkling trip where they got to manhandle both sharks and stingrays! Having rested a bit (and hung my money to dry) I hook up with Daniel and Åsa and we start exploring the Caye Caulker by wandering aimlessly. We come across a guy me and Johan spotted this morning sporting a hat he has made out of two palm leaves. I buy one of them and start getting a lot of attention from people wanting pictures or just looking at it, well spent 10 blz. Stopping at the Lazy Lizard for a Baileys Colada we sit down to watch the ocean and dip our feet, discussing the fact that we’re probably the three nerdiest people on this trip.

We do some more exploring and manage to capture a beautiful sunset before hooking up with some of the others back at Lazy Lizard where we’re spend some time watching a bunch of douchebags balancing their way across some poles standing in the water. It ends predictably with one of them almost impaling himself on one of the poles. All of them eventually fall off, all of them but one, the guy who started it all, a generously bearded hippie who has been slowly and methodically making his way towards the end and actually makes it just before it gets really dark.

We end up going for dinner at Bamboo, a great place down at the beach featuring chicken bingo (where you bet money on a number and the winner is the one who has the number where the chicken takes its first dump). You sit at giant swings at the tables and the place is packed. When we eventually get the food we understand why though, it absolutely fabulous!

Diving: 80 blz
Hat: 10 blz
Baileys Colada: 10 blz
Food: 70 blz

 

The Great Blue Hole February 27, 2012

Filed under: Belize,Caye Caulker,Central America or Bust — Magnus @ 00:00

Pickup is at 6:30 and we manage to be there on time, getting some nice pictures of the sun rising. The boat ride to the Blue Hole is over two hours and the seas are really rough on the way there. The boat isn’t that large either, so most of the passengers are just focusing on surviving the 2.5 m waves. The captain is really competent and since I don’t seem to have any propensity for motion sickness I’m greatly enjoying it. The other passengers are mostly loud Americans, they are really friendly though and we chat a lot on the way.

After about 45 minutes we get inside a stretch of small islands and the seas calm down enough for us to use the bathroom safely. 20 minutes later it is time again for more of the same, this time we get to see some dolphins chasing the boat and jumping high in the air, awesome! At last we arrive at the hole and the captain gives us a briefing about the hole and how it was discovered by Jacques Cousteau back in the seventies. We’re going to do a deep dive here, all the way down to 40 meters, so we have follow the dive masters closely and be vigilant for nitrogen narcosis. Our dive master Cynthia gives us a run through of the signs we’ll be using and tells us about what to expect down there. The main attraction are the huge stalactites that comes down from the overhang at around 40 m, that’s why we go so deep. The deep dive means that we do no stay down very long, only about 20-25 minutes.

We jump in and check that our weights are okay before descending. The fishes here are huge and you can see the giant rim of the hole just 5 meters down or so. Carefully monitoring our descent rate we go over the edge and down into the hole. Visibility isn’t all that great, but every once in a while we see a shark coming out of the blueness a few meters off. They’re never very close though so there’s no reason for concern. We level out at 40 meters and make our way under the overhang and swim between the almost meter-wide stalactites. The air is really heavy to breathe now since it’s four times thicker than up on land, I also recognize that I’m a bit dull-headed from the nitrogen narcosis so I double-check every reading of the air gauge and dive computer. Before you know it we’re on our way up, again being careful and letting air out so that we don’t ascend too fast. We see a couple of more sharks and as we come back up to the rim the captain has lowered an extra tank of air just in case and a rope to hold on to while we make our decompression stop.

This time it’s a beautiful coral wall that drops off deep and we see turtle, more sharks and a few Barracudas. This dive is much better and since it’s rather shallow we get a nice 45 minutes. Toward the end some people are running low on air and go up with one of the dive masters while the rest of us go with the other dive master through a cool almost-cave and I get a nice picture of Jason just in front of me as we exit the cave. This ends the dive for me and we go up to have lunch at Half Moon Caye.

Half Moon Caye is a real paradise island, taken straight out of a travel magazine with palm trees looking just right, white sand and azure blue ocean outside. There is also a bird watching tower if you walk a couple of hundred meters. On they way you can see Iguanas and we actually do, but I never manage to get a picture of it. The actual tower looks out over the treetops and in each one is at least one nest of young Red Footed Boobies (gotta love that name). The Boobies are that kind of bird where the male has a big red sack under the beak that they inflate in order to make the female birds swoon.

The last dive is done at a site called the aquarium and once again it’s a reef wall disappearing down deep into the blue. As we jump in, one of the dive masters have put some bread into the water, so there’s a feeding frenzy going on with some rather large fish. Really fun in the beginning, but they tag along for the ride and after a while they actually get a bit annoying. Lots of fish and interesting coral, we get to see another Black tip reef shark, a turtle, a huge Moray Eel that was swimming along with us right out in the open instead of just lurking in a cave as they usually do. Suddenly dive master Cynthia starts banging on her tank and points out into the blue, out there are a gang of Eagle rays, a bit smaller than the rays I saw before but still magnificent.

The way home is much more calm and the crew treats us to some rum punch, basically a smashed watermelon and a three liter bottle of rum, making everyone rather chatty. Back at the hotel I just rest for a bit before hooking up with Isa, Jenny, Lina, Emma, J1, J2 and my room mates Daniel and Johan to go for dinner. We find this place on the beach that for once has excellent service. The evening the is wrapped up at the Lazy Lizard where I discover my new friend the Baileys Colada.

 

Caye Caulker February 26, 2012

Filed under: Belize,Caye Caulker,Central America or Bust — Magnus @ 00:00

Good thing Thorstein found his way back yesterday because we need to make an early getaway to be able to take the boat to Caye Caulker in Belize before it gets dark. But since this is Mexico the bus is of course late even though our local travel helper Oscar phoned several times last night to remind them to be on time.

When the bus eventually comes we load up and start our journey to Belize, but we get no further than the first stoplight. Because then the bus just stops dead, exhibiting all the symptoms of a dead battery. So while everyone is theorizing over what’s wrong with the bus our driver takes out some tools and dives into the engine room. And lo and behold, not fifteen minutes later the bus actually starts up like if nothing happened!

There’s an uneventful drive on the really good Mexican roads down to the border. We hop off just before the border in some kind of mall area as it is the only chance to get lunch along this road. It’s actually a McDonalds and Johan is once again very upset that they don’t serve any El Maco, what gives Mexico?! That should be your national dish!

At the border you have to pay a fee of $24 just to get out of the country. Seems weird, but Karina claims that it’s quite common actually. I charm the customs lady by commenting on her nice nails and gets a smile and a Belize stamp in my passport. With some luck I’ll be able to fill a passport for the first time in my life!

We arrive in Belize City harbor ahead of schedule and buy some local beer while waiting for the boat. The ride is about an hour and it’s almost dusk as we arrive at Caye Caulker, Karina helps us to set up a diving trip to the Belize Blue Hole – a world famous dive site which is a giant cenote, 300 m across and entirely circular. It is 124 m deep and inside it sharks are known to hang out, Hammerheads have been mentioned for instance. Christian and I book the trip for tomorrow, and it will take almost the entire day, starting at 6:30 am.

Then we’re off to find a place to eat, Oscar recommends Rose’s Grill and we manage to get a table even though the place is packed to the rafters. We’ve haven’t had much to eat the entire day so Johan, me and Therese order two main courses, thoroughly confusing the staff. When we eventually do get the food it’s delicious, grilled fish kebabs, pork chops and side orders of fried African bread fruit and rice. Afterwards we wander off to our designated water hole for the evening, the Lazy Lizard bar, but places here on Caye Caulker close really early for some reason and there aren’t many people around. So we call it a night and go back to the hotel.

Expenses:
McDonalds: 40 mxn
Departure fee: $24
Blue Hole dive: 380 blz
Rose’s Grill: ? blz

 

Mayday, Norwegian Lost! February 25, 2012

Filed under: Central America or Bust,Mexico,Playa del Carmen — Magnus @ 00:00

Today we get a chance to sleep in since there’s nothing planned until 4 pm for me. Up at about 9 am Daniel and I are outside our room talking with Lina and Emma when Johan pokes his head out. He looks a bit worse for wear and explains that Thorstein and Peter came into the room at around 1 am and started drinking whiskey. Suffice to say that some time in the morning, for reasons unclear, Thorstein decided to go out of the room and sleep on the floor of the reception.

We give Johan five minutes to freshen up and then head out to find breakfast. We end up at some overpriced Mexican joint. It’s hard to beat 100%, but we feel that we need to find some variety as well. Afterwards we wander the streets aimlessly, looking at people and being shouted at by barkers. We end up at the beach, and eventually at a beach bar with happy hour between 12 and 2 pm! The drinks aren’t very good but the prices are so we hang out there for a couple of hours.

Then some more aimless wandering until it’s time for my diving. I meet Warren and Charles at the dive center, they’ve already had two dives today and are going for two more now with me. Eric is our dive master and is a cheerful Mexican guy in his thirties. We get our gear and head down to the boat that is right on the beach. The sea is rather choppy today with waves 3-4 dm at least, so bobbing around on the surface isn’t all that fun. We soon go down though and it’s not that deep, most of the dive is at around 10-12 meters and the reef is sort of sponge shaped. It’s mostly soft corals with a lot of those fan-like things that go in purple and brown. Visibility is so-so, probably due to the wind these last two days, around 10 m or so. We see mostly smallish fish, up to 20 cm, but a few larger ones. Suddenly Eric looks all excited and starts waving frantically. As I look where he’s pointing I can see three large Stingrays emerging from out of the blue, majestically flying by at about a 6 m distance! They’re probably about a meter and a half between the wingtips and positively awesome!

It’s really hard to top that, but we also see a tiny Lion Fish, some sort of flat fish hiding in the sand and a Moray Eel lurking in a cave. We get back into the boat and await darkness for our second dive. I chat a bit with Warren who’s a manager at some company buying computers. He goes on about how he’s the manager of 55 people and how hard he works and how he makes the companies that wants to treat him to dinner buy pizza for everyone who works for him instead. I guess he fancies himself quite the guy but he comes across a a bit of an ass to me, but maybe that’s just the Jante talking…

For the second dive I leave the camera on the boat, since the pictures probably won’t be very good in the darkness anyway. We don’t see much on the second dive though, visibility is still poor and there just isn’t much fish. We do see a boxfish the size of a house cat though, a bunch of smaller, white, rays with triangular-shaped thorns on their tail and about 25 cm between the wingtips flapping about on the sea floor. The main event however comes in one of the caves where Eric discovers a Moray Eel as thick and long as a teenage girl’s leg! The Moray is the last interesting thing we see before heading back. The two Americans are disappointed of the dives and brings it up several times, I’m kind of pleased though, but maybe I’ll get pickier as I get more dives under my belt…

Going back I find the others (surprise, surprise!) at 100%, so I join them for some drinks and food. Taking the way via the beach and a gelato parlor we finally find ourselves back at the hotel. Before going to bed, me and Johan are doing some surfing when we see that Thorstein has posted to the facebook group of the trip! It seems that he has gotten lost and is wondering via facebook where the hotel is, that’s the information age for ya! After having a good laugh Johan finds out the hotel address and Thorstein is later safely returned.

 

Cave Diving! February 24, 2012

Filed under: Central America or Bust,Mexico,Playa del Carmen — Magnus @ 00:00

Everybody has left for Chichen Itza by the time I get up so I go to 100%, a place I found yesterday with really good food, large drinks and nice prices. Their breakfast is really good as well so if you find yourself in Playa del Carmen, look that place up!

Then off to the dive center where I meet the other diver Charles and our divemaster Aurelien, a really nice French guy. We start gathering equipment and Aurelien claims that it will be really cold, maybe 25 degrees Celsius, so I’d better take double wetsuits. Not wanting to argue I comply, but obviously while calling him a sissy under my breath. All packed up we’re off to the caves. Aurelien explains on the way that since it’s so windy today the cenote we’re supposed to dive is probably really crowded today and he suggest another one. Tajma Ha, that will probably be less crowded. Since he probably knows best Charles and I take his advice and we head over there instead.

On site we go through the dive and rules that go with it. Apparently you’re not allowed to use a snorkel, and really what would be the point, we’re in a cave after all… We’re also only to use the frog kick instead of the normal paddle technique since there is much less chance of stirring up sediment with it. We also go down to have a look at the entrance and it doesn’t look like much, a beautiful little pool with crystal clear, sweet, water and tiny catfish swimming around. Well, time to gear up, Charles is taking his sweet time, mainly because he’s not used to handling his own equipment. The dives he’s been on, that part has been taken care of for him.

After some fiddling (my o-ring needed changing for instance) we’re able to enter the water at last. I’m wearing my GoPro Hero2 camera since I didn’t want to use my regular one when the dive is so technical. We go down, find our buoyancy, and off we go! Looking back towards the opening we went down through is breathtaking, the light shoots down like a giant blue laser beam and all else is darkness. We go through a passage and the cave opens up in a huge room with stalactites in the ceiling, the sense of space is awesome, and the claustrophobic feeling I though might set in just isn’t there for some reason. It’s not scary at all, just beautiful!

The cave goes up and down as can be seen on my dive profile below, so you have to decompress a lot and mind your buoyancy. I’m a bit on the heavy side since we weren’t sure of how much weights I should have but it goes mostly fine, I guess that dry-suit diving pays off. Down at 13 meters or so is the halocline, this is where the sweet water meets the salt water (all cenotes are flow into the sea in one way or another, that is where the salt water comes from) and since they don’t mix they form a layer that is disturbed when you go through it. It look much the same as when you go through a thermocline (same thing but with two different water temperatures) but much more pronounced. It looks like if you put on glasses with the wrong prescription, all blurry. This lasts for a few seconds until you’re fully under the halocline, and then you can look up and it almost looks like the surface up there. It’s really weird. What’s also weird is that the water is warmer under the halocline since it’s sea water.

Tajma Ha cenote dive profile

As we go upwards once again Aurelien points out some fossils along the way. Suddenly we can see the first opening, the Sugar Bowl, the light comes down at an angle and spookily lights old tree roots. We surface to hear Aurelien talk about how the caves are formed and we also see some bats in the ceiling. After a while we submerge again and take a slightly different route back, even though the parking lot was full of other divers we’ve only seen a few so far, which I guess is testament to Aureliens skill in picking a good route for us.

We have a quick snack and some water as we prepare for the next dive. This time it will be more technical Aurelien says, since he’s seen that we don’t have any trouble with our buoyancy. He will take us through tighter passages and areas with more sediment this time.

And sure enough, the second dive takes us on a different route with some very tight passages where you really have to make sure your kicks aren’t too wide and your buoyancy is juuust right. It’s hard, but fun and not as scary as I’d thought it’d be. After a while we reach the turning point, the Esmeralda, this is another one of the openings but it is full of debris and stuff so we never surface. The view is more than enough though, you just can’t get enough of the light pillars coming down and bathing everything in an icy blue sheen. On the way back there is more of the tight passages, with the added challenge of passing through a halocline at the same time. Fun, but exhausting!

Before going back to the hotel I book two more dives for tomorrow, one twilight dive and one night dive. Waiting for the others to come back from Chichen Itza I black out on the bed totally exhausted from the diving. I regain consciousness a while before the others come and bunch of us find ourselves at the already proven 100% where we fill up on their giant drinks. Johan is very upset about the fact that they don’t have any taco tubs or medium sauce, but what can you do?

Expenses:
Breakfast: 120 mxn
More diving: $150
Dinner: 200 mxn
Drinks: 100 mxn

 

 
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