Taganga

Four hours away from Cartagena, Taganga is (or at least was) a small, sleepy fishing village. But in a lovely location and sporting a decent beach it was destined for tourism, so true to form the first hostels (including the incredibly professional and great Casa De Felipe) and internet cafes opened up a couple of years ago. It is still small and sleepy enough with a decent backpacking scene which means getting up late, going to the beach, siesta and going out late. When in Rome.

Bocas Del Toro

Bocas is one of those places that just lures you in from the start and you find yourself leaving days / weeks / months later, wondering what you did. In my case I did a fair bit of snorkelling, quite a bit of beaching and a healthy chunk drinking (the beers on Bocas are unfairly cheap). I was aided and abetted by 2 Irish chaps I had met in Livingston and Little Corn Island so there was no slacking allowed. But after about 10 days we decided we'd had enough and struggled back to the mainland on a night bus to Panama City.

Cahuita

Flying through Costa Rica due to its price level and the fact that it is absolutely filled with unfortunately loud people [OK, Americans] on 2 week holidays. Last stop Cahuita, which is on the Carribean coast and has a very mellow Rasta & Ganja vibe. It also sports a nifty national park filled to the gills with monkeys and crabs (not together). I also happened upon a lonely racoon and a timid Koati.
Whilst shuffling downtown on my final day someone taps me on the shoulder and says "Andrew". After about a second of unrecognition I finally realise it was an ex-school colleague who I hadn't seen in night on 22 years. Small world.

Photos of Costa Rica

San Juan Del Sur

San Juan is the Nicaraguan riveria. Beach, surfing and cheap booze. Just about everything your average tourist needs to keep them happy.
My stay was uneventful until the last night where I was accousted by a rather forthright tranny and then had to scale the walls and roof of my hostel, where the owner had decided to lock up and not answer my knocks. Teetering on a Nicarguan rooftop whilst being completely intoxicated is a great way to get sober...

Little Corn Island

After the stresses and strains of drinking in Leon it was time to get airborn again and head out to the Corn Islands.
Departing from Managua's domestic terminal (Total number of gates: 1) one jumps on a propeller driven island hopper which chugs up into the air and flies along at cloud level for an hour or so. Then it rapidly descends into Bluefields (an old pirate town, where they still have a maypole celebration every May, true to their English heritage) to drop off a couple of people before stuggling down the runway again to head over to Big Corn Island.
The island slowly becomes visible and is surrounded by the most beautiful turquoise waters and massive coral reefs, which are also visible from the plane as dark splotches beneath the water. A brief taxi ride and a 20 minute boat ride and final destination: Little Corn Island is reached.
Little Corn has no bank, no roads, no cars, no electricity during the day and is if not entirely off the beaten track very close to the edge of it. Accomodation is rudimentary - beach side bungalow, bed, mosquito net, plastic chair. But Carlito runs a great place and cooks up a storm in the kitchen.
I spent a week there and apart from 5 dives and lots of beer I can't really tell you what I did. But whatever it was it was damn enjoyable.

Utila, Honduras

It was on from Livingston via San Pedro Sula to Utila, one of the Honduran bay islands. Utila is famous for one thing and that is diving, so with that in mind I set myself up in the pretty mango inn and signed up for the PADI Rescue Diver course. PADI (the world's largest diving organisation) is a bit like karate and has a hierarchy that would make your head spin. Starting off from snorkeling you progress to be an Open Water Diver, from there on to be an Advanced Open Water diver (which means you can go deeper and explore wrecks), to a Rescue Diver (saving people, finding bodies) which is the final amateur stage before becoming a Divemaster and progressing to being a Scuba Deity. Of course PADI charges for each course, so by the time you've made it to the top you've probably paid PADI well over $10,000.

The Rescue Diver course is useful as it teaches you first aid, using emergency oxygen, how to react to stressed and tired divers. hauling unconcious divers back to the boat to finaly searching for missing divers and recovering divers from underwater. To say the course was stressful is mildy understating it, as from the evening of day one, when we came out of the class room to find one divemaster lying on the dock under blocks of wood groaning whilst his Divemaster Trainee (DMT) buddy started to freak out and scream at me "Is he going to die??", "Do something, do something". As soon as I had settled that scene down there was another DMT at the end of the dock with ketchup all over his shoulder. Bandaging done, he suddenly fainted and it was on to CPR to keep him alive.

For the next 3 days these three DMTs and our instructor (Fernando a cool, tatooed up to the eyebrows, 5ft nothing Spanish bloke) made our lives hell. Every time myself and the 2 other participants turned around, one of the DMTs was in the water (or more likely, all of them were in the water) in various states of drowning, either with diving kit on or not. I must have jumped in the water at least 20 times. They would rip off your mask, push you underwater, in fact whatever - acting as panicked divers do. As soon as one was saved Fernando would tell us that there was a diver missing so we would don our gear, dive down and search for the missing body. Upon finding it, you wrap your legs around their tank and inflate their BCD, bringing the body to the surface. Once on the surface you would swim back to shore, whilst taking their gear off. All the time you are doing this you are giving them rescue breaths every 5 seconds. On arrival at shore you have to drag them onto the boat (tricky as one of our DMs was 100kg), give them emergency oxygen and CPR.

Well anyway, I passed and proceeded to find, rescue and empty copious amounts of rum and coke.

Placencia

White beach, blue waters, general walking speed 1 mile and hour. Friendly natives.
And that completes Belize. Nice place, pity about the prices.

Photos of Belize here

Caye Caulker, Belize it or not

2 buses a taxi and a boat ride saw me make it from Tulum to Caye Caulker, Belize. Country number #60 for me. The 3rd English speaking country in the continental Americas, the difference to Mexico is immediately noticeable upon crossing the border. The signs change, the music changes from Mariachi to Reggae and the skin tone gets about 3 shades darker.

Caye Caulker is Belize on steroids. Non-stop reggae, dreadlocks is the hairstyle of choice and chicken, rice and beans is the staple diet. I had hooked up with some people on the way and we managed to get a cool apartment for 5. The days took on a familiar pattern involving beaches, beer and beans. Did a bit of diving which was a bit unspectacular except for our boat captain - "popeye" who was funnier than a bottle of crisps.

Good Friday was spent drinking beer and lying on the beach and I'm sure Jesus would have done the same if given the chance. Met a group of English people who had been out in the rainforests of Belize on volunteer work. They mentioned that most of them had been infected by botflys. I shouldn't have asked, but they showed me their scalps and indeed there were little bumps that were moving. Click here to read more (on an empty stomach please)

Easter Sunday involved no Easter eggs or bunnies for that matter, but did involve Captain Steve's magical sailing & snorkelling trip. First stop Shark Ray Alley, where we swam with stingrays the size of small cars (no joke) and nurse sharks the size of small sofas. Our dive guide (Steve preferred to stay on board and smoke ganja after the stressful sail out) took great pleasure in stroking the stingrays and hugging the sharks. It was a veritable underwater adult petting zoo.
The second stop was the marine reserve - Hol Chan. This time we discovered a 2m Moray Eel, which I saw outside a hole for the first time. Frightening creature with the sharpest teeth. Just before getting back on board a green turtle swam by and starting grazing on the seaweed on the sea floor.

Back on board it was time for some more reggae and Steve's famous rum punch. By the time we got back to dry land we were all half-cut. Truly unable seamen.

Tulum

Tulum sports some funky beach side ruins, some amazing turquoise water and white powdery beaches. It is also a fragmented place (beach being 3 km from the town), full of tourists and completely overpriced. So after 2 mosquito plagued nights it was time to head into Belize.

Photos

Complete photos of Mexico