rainy rodeo = muddy meagan and courtney

So by a whim we came to San Juan del Sur and decided that tourists had taken over (this information was in the guidebook but I didn´t think it could be that bad). Luckily the rain broke and we decided to get the hell out of touristland and out to the rodeo. What a rodeo it was, Central American machismo at its best. Hoards of men, women and children crowding around a muddy arena. Literally people occupying every square inch of squishy space. Occasionally a man would try to ride a bull for a moment but otherwise it was all bout the cowboys lasso-ing (I have no idea how to spell that) the bulls and getting them back in their pen. The arena though was filled with drunken men in the middle and along the edges. I suppose this was safe enough considering the cowboys were there to protect them. Occasionally one would stumble across and dance amidst the cowboys which was an entertaining enough especially when for a lack of females they started dancing with each other. We were up close next to the bull pen and were splattered a few times and even saw the bull rider get a deep gash in his arm... lots of blood yikes! The best part of the evening is when 2 cowgirl clad men started hitting on Courtney. They weren´t messing around either these guys were serious beckoning me to get his attention. Of course Courtney was gracious and gave them some attention. Considering these guys were in a pretty unfriendly environment for cross dressing the attention was appreciated and we went on our muddy way.
Tomorrow Granada.... hopefully since we were meant to get there today
adios

Pupusaa 24/7

well i wrote this really cool blog with a bunch of funny things on it and then the power went out and it was lost. so now you all get this crummy blog instead.

Life has been very interesting to say the least, we{ve been rejected at a border, driven about by a crazy (funny) man, been bought treats on a bus by a lovely granny, ate pupusas at least once a day (i{d eat em more but meagan and fried food don{t work too well) and are now staying in a mansion for just $20 a night with a gorgeous view of a lake and amagnificent hammock that lie in a finish my book - shadow divers! It is the most expensive place we{ve stayed in so far though... ohhhhhh Costa Rica scares me.

So many of these stories need to be told in person so as not to scare our parents and to get the full effect. So i'll just write about one.. lets see Meagn farting... no, looks like it's the border fiascos instead.

So everything is hunky dory, we've only got a few days left on our 90 day visa for the CA 4 (Nica, Gaute, Hond, El Sal) and we're going to go to Immigration in San Salvador and buy another month. Good ol lonely planet says just $20, beauty.

We get to the borderof honduras and El Salvador and after a bunch of buses anbd taxi end up getting grilled. We try to laugh and joke and they say piss off. bugger, apparently something about our exit stamp from Guatemala, we're not meant to have one. Honduras don't give two hoots, no one is even on the border, but the El Salvadorians mean business, so we make a dash To Guatemala from El Salvador through Honduras to get another entry stamp and all will be cool. Besides meeting a bunch of cool people we end up in Guatemala, hitching in the back of a truck to find out after and hour of discussions with 3 different people (they all got mad at talking to stupid whiteys with no espanol) that the rules changed on the 5TH OF JUNE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and they don't use stamps anymore, it's just all one big computer system. Except honduras don't use computers and El Salvador are meant to but maybe they don't. I swore andthen while we were walking away a bunch of dogs, street dogs tried to bark and come at us. Usually meagan squeala a bit and then we throw rocks. Meagan yelled em down and then i chased them. Dogs can sense emotions it seems. I was so mad i wanted to really beat that german shepard thingy up.

That night we make it back into Honduras and sleep the night and the next day we try to pull a swifty and just sorted of rush over the border. We haven't done anything wrong! we get caught by the last border dudes and they (after more lengthy discussions and me citing the changing rules) finally let us in but strictly for 6 days only. Bugger, so huge change of plans, in just a few days we are catching an express bus to Costa Rica to get our passports stamped and then heading back up into Nicaragua for a few weeks before finishing off our time in Costa Rica.

But i can understand why the border patrol is so tight here in El Salvador. The place is AMAZING! and we won't even make it to the beautiful playas. The people are nothing short of wonderful, and the pupusas.... ohhh the pupusas.

We're both very well and having a great time, but i must get going and go drink some rum as the sun goes down. take care all

Special mention to owen for his achievements is attaining the highest comment blogger of anyone outside our families. Love you owen, not too much though.

We are still in Honduras but we are on the move. We are in the western highlands in the quaint town of Gracias enjoying the cool mountain air and friendly people... the type that walk you personally to what you´re looking for. We passed through El Naranjo and stayed at a brewery, I know a b-r-e-w-e-r-y. I didn´t believe it until i saw it. We had porter, pale ale, apricot ale, homemade rootbeer (just like rootbeer stand when i was a kid) and we were in heaven. Of course being gringos we headed for the local waterfall, to find we were the only gringos there. Basically we had 43m of unleashed fury to ourselves and our guide of course. He took us behind the curtain and you can imagine water falling 43 m has some bite to a cave and then to some nice cliff jumping. All in all it was a good time however typically tourista we were being. Today we took a walk to some hot springs and tomorrow I have no idea and I´m happy about that.


Before leaving Utila we had some fun nights out including Courtney´s birthday. We had a great time for his birthday starting on June 8th going well into the 9th . The next day everyone was so wiped that after a big dinner out food coma hit hard and we were home by 11:00. It was really wonderful to celebrate with people we had befriended over the last two months.

Speaking of friends hope everyone is doing well and let us know how you all are doing. Leave us some comments about whats going on if you have some time!

PILOT WHALES

We were blessed by the seas and snorkeled with a pod of pilot whales a day or two ago (they are starting to blur together). They move quick but these magnificent animals are even more beautiful underwater if you can keep up. I saw 3 pairs mothers with calves and one on its own. They are rarely spotted around Utila and it is especially unheard of to swim with them. After a bit of research I learned that short-finned pilot whales frequent warmer waters and they are a member of the dolphin family. They are believed to equal the intelligence of a bottlenose dolphin and are second in size within the dolphin family only to killer whales. Pilot whales are very social, and are most often found in groups of 20 to 90. Within these groups are at least some stable associations, usually between related females and their offspring. There are usually some males in these groups, but genetic evidence has shown that these males are not the fathers of the calves in the group. Several calves in one group may be fathered by the same male, indicating that a male can enter a group for a brief period and mate with more than one female. OK I hope that wasn't too much information but it explains why we saw so many mothers and calves.

We have been getting into fun diving again because... WE FINISHED OUR INSTRUCTORS! Whew we both passed without any problems and we're looking for students. I know Courtney's mum will be at the top of the list and I'll have to get my sister to do her advanced diver. Anyone else interested we would love to get some certifications under our belts. Next PADI step is the Master Scuba Diver Trainer and we will need 25 certifications. For the time being we are diving, diving, diving and enjoying not having obligations like reading PADI manuals. Thanks for the comments, its always good to hear from people keep 'em coming.


Kylee Williamson I hope I get to meet you very soon!
Owen back at CELP! I bet that was fabulous reunion:)
Mom I did get the fax and thank you again! you're the best

Back in action....

Whew its been a whirlwind here on Utila like Courtney mentioned we are being PADI-ifed and we are now nearly halfway done with our Istructor Development Course. The first day they asked why do you want to be an instructor and I have honestly not figured it out yet. Hopefully by the time we are finished I will know. It would be a fun way to make money (enough to survive hopefully) and always live near an ocean. The shop we have been with has some of the most lovely people many from the UK and Courtney's accent has picked back up again, not quite Australian more British but nonetheless not American which he would get a hard time for back home. Marine life updates include swimming with spinner dolphins out in the blue, a golden spotted eel, and, a lettuce sea slug, and two mysterious head shield slugs (nudibranchs)!!!! We have no plans past studying and hopefully passing the Instuctor Exam. We will keep you all updated but for now we are happy healthy and focused on diving. Please let us know how you all are!

CONGRATULATIONS AUNT PENNY!!!!! I was thrilled to hear my aunt Penny brought a beautiful, healthy little girl into the world on Mother's Day!

PADI Slammed

We're still on Utila.

We've been PADI Slammed. It's what we like to call it when you just keep on going through the PADI system and doing more and more courses (paying more and more). So now, we have done Rescue, Dive Masters (the original Plan) our night and Nitrox specialities, have enrolled in the deep and wreck specialitiesour Assistant instructors course and drum roll please.... are currently 2 days into the week long IDC (instructor development course) soon we will then take the 2 day exam to try and be instructors. Holy Shit. Sorry parents, but i never thought we would end up at this stage. Considering the fact that Mastercard doesn't work in the ATM here it's lucky that i had some cash in the bank. I've had to pay for all the courses and living here for the nearly two months now... i feel pretty poor, but it's nice to know that meagan will have to pay for the rest of the trip... and then some.

Other than that, we haven't been up to much, had our snorkel test the other night and we were both pretty drunk. When you finish your DM the Shop buys you a horrible concoction of shots and you have to drink it through a snorkel. It was fun though, I'll put the photos up soon on the blog.

Well not much else to say right now, will right more when (if) we pass this instructor exam.

take care all

Utila, Honduras

We're sorry.

we've been pretty slack lately, but it is a combination of lots of study to do for this Dive Masters course and the fact that the internet here is sporadic at best and then hounded and hogged by many and all when i t is working. So i'm putting my foot down and abusing all my privledges to stay on the computer and write and i cop some crap from a few people around me here.

So we are on Utila, and have just nearly finished our DM course and about to start our Asst Instructor course. We are planning on leaving in about 10 days, but we truely are the slowest travellers that central america has seen in quite a while.

So much has happened since we wrote last, but onw of the most stand out events has to be the aquatic life we have been seeing. In fact, between the turtles, the eels and the crazy fish that inhabit these tropical waters it's hard to think of something more special that the next, but undoubtably the WHALE SHARKS have rocked my world. We have a lot of sad chaotic style stories about people harrassing the sharks to see them or touch them, but the one day we got a good "jump" on a big one it was incredible. The fish was about 35' long and just magestic. I remember taking a few photos and then just ditch my camera by my side as we snorkelled and free dove beside this gorgeous and huge creature. So very inspiring and awesome.

Apart from the diving not much else has happened, we helped out in a beach cleanup for earth day and have been having some large nights in between. Yesterday we finished our "stress test". We had to change mask, fins & BCD whilst breathing from just one regulator. During this our tanks are being turned off and on again, swapping our air source, our masked are being removed and flooded, sand kicked up in our faces and all other sorts of stuff going down. But we did it, the first time we tried. Meagan was brilliant and showed her better underwater skills, helping me out, but we got through it and that was that.

well not much else to report except that we will try and write more often and keep you all up to date with what's going on.

Hope you are all well, take care

Courtney