Erm, oops. I kinda spent a bunch of time in a bunch of places having fun, and forgot that not everyone in the world uses facebook, so might not know I'm still alive :)
Briefly, I've been learning some rudimentary spanish and living with a family in Guatemala, learning to surf and forgetting spanish in El Salvador, and getting rather good at diving (if I do say so myself), and forgetting yet more spanish, for the last 5-6 weeks in a tiny island off Honduras.
I've been kinda tempted to stay for another month or so and becoming a dive instructor and not coming back, but lack of funds and fear of parentally-guided assassins has put me off, so I'm gonna be back for christmas, as promised.
In fact, I'm pretty much on my way home now. I finished my Dive Master (and my last dive) today, and so I'm off celebrating with all the other staff at the dive shop, and then I'm spending a few days in back Guatemala before flying home on the 28th.
I'm also gainfully employed - I start back at Transitive on the 3rd December, so I'll see all you Manchester folks soon.
Apologies for the lack of contact, and I hope you took it as a sign I was having fun, rather than worrying too much :)
See y'all soon,
Will.
(Just back from Jewel Cay, near Utila, The Bay Islands, The Caribbean coast of Honduras, Earth)
Saturday, 24 November 2007
Saturday, 15 September 2007
Grito de Dolores!
Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe! ¡Viva Fernando VII! ¡Abajo el mal gobierno!
It's Mexican independence day tomorrow, which means all kinds of partying tonight. As if an excuse were needed :)
I've been making my way down through mexico over the last few weeks. Most of it's been great fun (day trips to Tequila, anyone?), very occasionally it's been tourist hell (puerto villarta, I'm looking at you), often it's been super-chilled (Guanajuato is the best town in the world, and Oaxaca and San Christobal rank pretty high), and everywhere in the last week or so has been fiesta-central (don't believe anyone who tells you mexico city isn't awesome, though I may be biased by turning up just before independence day).
As far as I can tell, Mexicans don't really need much of an excuse to party, and one of their biggest excuses is tomorrow, so everywhere's decked out in bunting and good to go this evening. I'm in a little town called San Christobal, which is in the mountains quite near the guatamalan border, and also very pretty. It's probably a bigger party up in mexico city, but after the weekend I want to hot-foot down to a small town in Guatamala to go learn some spanish for a few weeks so being close to the border is good, and anyway - judging from last night, I don't think finding a party is going to be too difficult.
Still having fun,
Will.
(San Christóbal De Las Casas, Chiapas, México)
It's Mexican independence day tomorrow, which means all kinds of partying tonight. As if an excuse were needed :)
I've been making my way down through mexico over the last few weeks. Most of it's been great fun (day trips to Tequila, anyone?), very occasionally it's been tourist hell (puerto villarta, I'm looking at you), often it's been super-chilled (Guanajuato is the best town in the world, and Oaxaca and San Christobal rank pretty high), and everywhere in the last week or so has been fiesta-central (don't believe anyone who tells you mexico city isn't awesome, though I may be biased by turning up just before independence day).
As far as I can tell, Mexicans don't really need much of an excuse to party, and one of their biggest excuses is tomorrow, so everywhere's decked out in bunting and good to go this evening. I'm in a little town called San Christobal, which is in the mountains quite near the guatamalan border, and also very pretty. It's probably a bigger party up in mexico city, but after the weekend I want to hot-foot down to a small town in Guatamala to go learn some spanish for a few weeks so being close to the border is good, and anyway - judging from last night, I don't think finding a party is going to be too difficult.
Still having fun,
Will.
(San Christóbal De Las Casas, Chiapas, México)
Friday, 24 August 2007
Hola, todos!
I´ve made it to mexico!
Just had a muchly fun couple of weeks with Ben & Roni, road trippin´ from Vegas, through route 66, the grand canyon, more national parks than you can shake a turkey vulture at, through to Los Alamos (atomic bomb design centre and general scary zombie town), Roswell (I believe. Definitely), and an awesome cave with a few hundred thousand bats. Between that lot, the options for lame running jokes was just endless. I´m supprised roni didn´t go all texas chainsaw on our asses.
Onwards to El paso, I crossed the rio grande not once, but 3 times, in increasingly confusing attempts to get the right stamps on my passport (it seems you can wander through into mexico without anyone looking at your passport or ID even once. Getting back´s a little trickier).
That done, I stretched my laughable spanish to the limit whilst trying to work out which local bus would get me to the bus station, then watched 3 truely terrible movies turned up to the max in spanish on my way to Chihuahua. It´s probably a good job they were bad - it turns out a predictable plot is just as predictable, even if you only understand every fourth word.
Chihuahua´s nice. Not seen any small annoying dogs yet though, which is kinda disappointing. Lots of revolutionary history here though - cars riddled with bullet holes and the like - nice!
Tomorrow I head to a place called the Copper Canyon, through which a supposedly amazing train journey weaves its way. The canyon is bigger, longer and deeper than the grand canyon, yet not being in the states, it´s almost completely unknown. I´ll report back in a few days.
Hope everyone´s well,
Will.
(Chihuahua, Mexico)
Just had a muchly fun couple of weeks with Ben & Roni, road trippin´ from Vegas, through route 66, the grand canyon, more national parks than you can shake a turkey vulture at, through to Los Alamos (atomic bomb design centre and general scary zombie town), Roswell (I believe. Definitely), and an awesome cave with a few hundred thousand bats. Between that lot, the options for lame running jokes was just endless. I´m supprised roni didn´t go all texas chainsaw on our asses.
Onwards to El paso, I crossed the rio grande not once, but 3 times, in increasingly confusing attempts to get the right stamps on my passport (it seems you can wander through into mexico without anyone looking at your passport or ID even once. Getting back´s a little trickier).
That done, I stretched my laughable spanish to the limit whilst trying to work out which local bus would get me to the bus station, then watched 3 truely terrible movies turned up to the max in spanish on my way to Chihuahua. It´s probably a good job they were bad - it turns out a predictable plot is just as predictable, even if you only understand every fourth word.
Chihuahua´s nice. Not seen any small annoying dogs yet though, which is kinda disappointing. Lots of revolutionary history here though - cars riddled with bullet holes and the like - nice!
Tomorrow I head to a place called the Copper Canyon, through which a supposedly amazing train journey weaves its way. The canyon is bigger, longer and deeper than the grand canyon, yet not being in the states, it´s almost completely unknown. I´ll report back in a few days.
Hope everyone´s well,
Will.
(Chihuahua, Mexico)
Tuesday, 7 August 2007
Holidays at home
Howdy y'all,
I really have been pretty lax at providing updates. On the other hand, I've been pretty busy...
- Getting a lift to the rugby with the New Zealand Airforce band (and getting drunk with them on the base afterwards)
- Pretending I'm famous on the Fijian resort that turned out to be the set of celebrity love island. With Kava (google it)
- Swimming with sharks. Really, really big, 12' long bull sharks. Loads of them. Without a cage. Brilliant.
- Dead good snorkelling just off a tiny island, and meeting up with Ed, Mo and Dee
- Getting sunburnt in San Francisco, and totally failing to meet up with any of the people I know who live round there
- Flying halfway round the world back to the UK for a week
- Watching my brother get married! Congratulations Matt & Suzi!
- Celebrating my brother getting married. Quite a lot. My head still hurts.
And in a couple of days I fly back to the US of A to hunt for aliens for a couple of weeks with Ben (other brother) and Roni. Which rocks.
Will.
(London)
I really have been pretty lax at providing updates. On the other hand, I've been pretty busy...
- Getting a lift to the rugby with the New Zealand Airforce band (and getting drunk with them on the base afterwards)
- Pretending I'm famous on the Fijian resort that turned out to be the set of celebrity love island. With Kava (google it)
- Swimming with sharks. Really, really big, 12' long bull sharks. Loads of them. Without a cage. Brilliant.
- Dead good snorkelling just off a tiny island, and meeting up with Ed, Mo and Dee
- Getting sunburnt in San Francisco, and totally failing to meet up with any of the people I know who live round there
- Flying halfway round the world back to the UK for a week
- Watching my brother get married! Congratulations Matt & Suzi!
- Celebrating my brother getting married. Quite a lot. My head still hurts.
And in a couple of days I fly back to the US of A to hunt for aliens for a couple of weeks with Ben (other brother) and Roni. Which rocks.
Will.
(London)
Thursday, 19 July 2007
The Rainbow Warrior
Hi all,
I went out diving today. The wreck of the Rainbow Warrior lies just off the coast from here (Paihia, at the very north of North Island). She was in port in Auckland at midnight almost exactly 22 years ago, ready to sail to the Pacific to protest French nuclear testing. The French decided they didn't like this idea, and plated two bombs on her hull. They sank the ship, and killed Fernando Pereira, a Spanish photojournalist who had escaped but then went back on board to get his equipment. The two French agents were swiftly captured by New Zealand, but this was the first time they'd had to deal with international terrorism (especially when it was sponsored and later publicly endorsed by a foreign state), and bowed to presure from the French government. The two agents were deported to a French Ponynesian island, where they kicked back for two years, before being free to return to France and make a whole load of money writing books about it.
Meanwhile, the boat was raised for forensic analysis, then laid ot rest off the coast, in a carefully chosen spot that has almost no current, and is just under 30 meters deep, allowing coral and underwater life to flourish, and making it a really, really good dive. It was my first wreck dive. It's pretty hairy - as well as exploring the hull, we went in through one of the doors into the cabin, down a coridor and out a side-door on the other side of the boat. It doesn't sound much, but when you're 25 meters under water, it's dark & murky and there's something solid between you and the surface it makes things a bit interesting. There's a plaque on the bow that's pretty covered in gunk, but is discernably a dove.
The second dive of the day didn't have quite as spectacular a historical background, but I did see a feckin' huuuuge stingray. It's difficult to work out sizes underwater, but Ty - the guy leading the dive - is about 6' tall, and he was only just longer than it was. After the whole Steve Erwin thing, I gave it a pretty wide bearth. I also *almost* caught a big crayfish, but the bugger got away. Damn.
Off back to Auckland tomorrow. I'm going to see the All-Blacks play Australia, in the final game of the 3 nations. It'll decide both that and the Bledisloe Cup - the kiwi-ozzie equivalent of the ashes, except it's rubgy. A Maori bloke on the dive today was explaining the story of the Haka. It's quite rude!
Ban the bomb,
Will.
(Paihia, New Zealand)
I went out diving today. The wreck of the Rainbow Warrior lies just off the coast from here (Paihia, at the very north of North Island). She was in port in Auckland at midnight almost exactly 22 years ago, ready to sail to the Pacific to protest French nuclear testing. The French decided they didn't like this idea, and plated two bombs on her hull. They sank the ship, and killed Fernando Pereira, a Spanish photojournalist who had escaped but then went back on board to get his equipment. The two French agents were swiftly captured by New Zealand, but this was the first time they'd had to deal with international terrorism (especially when it was sponsored and later publicly endorsed by a foreign state), and bowed to presure from the French government. The two agents were deported to a French Ponynesian island, where they kicked back for two years, before being free to return to France and make a whole load of money writing books about it.
Meanwhile, the boat was raised for forensic analysis, then laid ot rest off the coast, in a carefully chosen spot that has almost no current, and is just under 30 meters deep, allowing coral and underwater life to flourish, and making it a really, really good dive. It was my first wreck dive. It's pretty hairy - as well as exploring the hull, we went in through one of the doors into the cabin, down a coridor and out a side-door on the other side of the boat. It doesn't sound much, but when you're 25 meters under water, it's dark & murky and there's something solid between you and the surface it makes things a bit interesting. There's a plaque on the bow that's pretty covered in gunk, but is discernably a dove.
The second dive of the day didn't have quite as spectacular a historical background, but I did see a feckin' huuuuge stingray. It's difficult to work out sizes underwater, but Ty - the guy leading the dive - is about 6' tall, and he was only just longer than it was. After the whole Steve Erwin thing, I gave it a pretty wide bearth. I also *almost* caught a big crayfish, but the bugger got away. Damn.
Off back to Auckland tomorrow. I'm going to see the All-Blacks play Australia, in the final game of the 3 nations. It'll decide both that and the Bledisloe Cup - the kiwi-ozzie equivalent of the ashes, except it's rubgy. A Maori bloke on the dive today was explaining the story of the Haka. It's quite rude!
Ban the bomb,
Will.
(Paihia, New Zealand)
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Will's ill on the West coast :(
Hi folks,
I was due to go ice-climbing today, but started feeling lame last night and had a rubbish nights sleep, so I got up this morning and cancelled before heading back to bed. Been up since lunch, eaten some food, been donated a kiwi by a generous fellow traveller (which, oddly enough, didn't really taste like a kiwi. Closer to a mandarin. I wonder if oranges in china taste like something different?...)
Ho hum. So I'm catching up on learning spanish today, and generally feeling sorry for myself. Luckily, I'm in quite a nice hostel, so it's not all bad, and I'm not in too much of a rush just now (I need to be in north island by monday, which is only a few days travel away). If I don't feel better by this evening I'll probably just cancel the ice-climbing altogether. There's a different glacier up the coast that you can go ice-climbing on as well, so maybe I'll fit it in there.
Now I think about it, apart from a minor bit of food poisoning in Laos, this is the first time I've got ill, so I'm not doing too badly :)
Back to bed for me,
Will.
(Fox Glacier, New Zealand)
I was due to go ice-climbing today, but started feeling lame last night and had a rubbish nights sleep, so I got up this morning and cancelled before heading back to bed. Been up since lunch, eaten some food, been donated a kiwi by a generous fellow traveller (which, oddly enough, didn't really taste like a kiwi. Closer to a mandarin. I wonder if oranges in china taste like something different?...)
Ho hum. So I'm catching up on learning spanish today, and generally feeling sorry for myself. Luckily, I'm in quite a nice hostel, so it's not all bad, and I'm not in too much of a rush just now (I need to be in north island by monday, which is only a few days travel away). If I don't feel better by this evening I'll probably just cancel the ice-climbing altogether. There's a different glacier up the coast that you can go ice-climbing on as well, so maybe I'll fit it in there.
Now I think about it, apart from a minor bit of food poisoning in Laos, this is the first time I've got ill, so I'm not doing too badly :)
Back to bed for me,
Will.
(Fox Glacier, New Zealand)
Wednesday, 4 July 2007
All roads lead to Home
Hey folks,
Snow! Unfortunately not too much of it - one of the two resorts in queenstown was shut when I was there at the weekend, as was half of the other. Luckily there was plenty of nice snow on the half that was open, and (even more luckily) I blagged a spare pair of skis, a place to crash, and a free ski pass. Oh, and it's been snowing like crazy around queenstown all week, and I'm back this weekend. As they would say round these parts... Choice as, bro!
So on Sunday I hitched to Te Anau (for some reason there wasn't a bus), then went kayaking on Milford Sound on Monday. Stunning. Just stunning. Apparently, in summer, you get around 70 kayakers a day out there, but it being winter, our group of 6 had the whole fjord to ourselves. Also rather, erm, choice!
A lass in the hostel was driving south and wanted to split petrol, so I've been driving with her round the Catlans - a pretty remote area of the south coast. Lunch yesterday was at Slope Point - the most Southernly point of South Island. So far I've gone 100° East and 172° South of home, so I figure this is pretty much as far as I get before turning around.
The way out's been fun, all in all. Choice as.
Will.
(very much The Other Side Of The World)
Snow! Unfortunately not too much of it - one of the two resorts in queenstown was shut when I was there at the weekend, as was half of the other. Luckily there was plenty of nice snow on the half that was open, and (even more luckily) I blagged a spare pair of skis, a place to crash, and a free ski pass. Oh, and it's been snowing like crazy around queenstown all week, and I'm back this weekend. As they would say round these parts... Choice as, bro!
So on Sunday I hitched to Te Anau (for some reason there wasn't a bus), then went kayaking on Milford Sound on Monday. Stunning. Just stunning. Apparently, in summer, you get around 70 kayakers a day out there, but it being winter, our group of 6 had the whole fjord to ourselves. Also rather, erm, choice!
A lass in the hostel was driving south and wanted to split petrol, so I've been driving with her round the Catlans - a pretty remote area of the south coast. Lunch yesterday was at Slope Point - the most Southernly point of South Island. So far I've gone 100° East and 172° South of home, so I figure this is pretty much as far as I get before turning around.
The way out's been fun, all in all. Choice as.
Will.
(very much The Other Side Of The World)
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