23rd October 2009 – Pamplona

I had to get up early to repeat the ritual of pouring money into the parking machine, which is becoming a significant  expense and something that we had not anticipated.  Our accommodation in the towns in which we have overnighted so far – Girona, Huesca, and Pamplona, has been in the heart of the old town.  Great for centrality, great for taking in the atmosphere but terrible for parking.  

22nd October 2009 - Pamplona

Huesca awoke to rain.  We took a look out of our window and as we had already done some sightseeing, and were not massively taken with the town as a potential hostel location, we decided to move on.  We had planned a rough route around Northern Spain that took in the major towns and tourist spots like Pamplona, San-Sebastian, Bilbao, Santander, A Corona, Santiago and more.  The road to the nearest of these, Pamplona, took in the town of Jaca, which is known to be the gateway to the Pyranees.  Since it was on the way and, more-importantly, since I love skiing, we though a look around Jaca would be in order.

21st October 2009 - Huesca

Dismayed with Catalunya

Jana and I arrived in Girona (Ryanair’s version of Barcelona) late on Tuesday and drove our rather feeble hire car into Girona for some much needed rest.  We got rather confused driving around the old town of Girona at night and in the end Parked our car in Plaza de Catalunya and decided to find our hostel on foot.   The place we stayed at, HI Cerveri de Girona, was your typical youth hostel international type place and there was not anything particularly wrong with the place and yet we both felt it was a disappointment and the uncomfortable nights sleep we got in the only room available (a dorm) just emphasised that.  Thank you to the group of French girls by the way, who came in at 3 am and then proceeded to snore all night.  When we open a hostel we are going to have  a snorers dorm I reckon.

From Antigua we carried on quite quickly to Flores, the gateway to Tikal. Probably the most impressive Maya Ruins ever discovered. The city is majestic and the 61 meter high Temples towering over the jungle canopy. Climbing some of the temples and seeing jungle for miles and miles on end with some other temples sticking out of the canopy will be the lasting impression for me. The city is build in the middle of the jungle and has therefore been only rediscovered in 1848. The solid stone pyramids and temples have been build in 700 BC but the heydays of the Mayan population in Tikal was around 250 AD, when Tikal sprawled over 30 square kilometres and had a population of about 100.000 people.

14th August 2009, Flores, Guatemala

There is one place in Central America that I regret not visiting on my last trip. It is impossible to do everything and a mistake to try because you are always rushing to the next temple/volcano/beach. Tikal however is one of the highlights of the region and the most extensive and famous of the Mayan cities where, at one time, king Moon Double Comb, ruled the Mayan world and built the iconic temples that would be the Americas tallest structures for a thousand years.

After wrapping up our fastly accumulated live in Granada we are on the road again and arrived yesterday in beautiful Antigua in Guatemala. Leaving Granada and the job are one thing but having to leave little Oscar and Ometepe is a totally different thing. We really come to love our little fur balls a lot and it was difficult leaving them at the Spanish school on Friday. I am sure you are happy to know though that they have tripled in size from the photos in May that I published on my last blog entry.

I better write this one in English, if you all ever want to find out if we arrived in beautiful Granada, as I don’t want to make you wait until Luke gets his act together and writes some more on the subject.

Erstmal entschuldige ich mich das ich schon so lange nichts mehr von mir hören lassen habe. Die letzten zwei Wochen waren echt hektisch und wir sind von Chile nach Argentinien, nach Paraguay, Brasilien und dann wieder Argentinien getourt und das alles in so einer kurzen Zeit. Hat sich aber wie immer alles gelohnt da wir tolle Orte, nette Menschen und gutes Essen auf dem Weg gefunden haben.

In Uyuni angekommen haben wir und Ed, den wir schon in Potosi kennen gelernt haben, uns für einen Trip nach Chile entschieden. Hier nach Uyuni kommt keiner ohne die Salzwüste zu sehen und da wir sowieso in Richtung Süden reisen dachten wir gucken wir uns noch mal ein bisschen von Chile an. Morgen reisen wir schon weiter nach Argentinien, haben aber einen weiteren Stempel im unseren Pass.

Wir haben die schöne Stadt Sucre verlassen und fuhren nach Potosi. In Sucre haben wir leider nicht genug Zeit verbracht aber seit dem wir mitte April einen Flug von Buenos Aires haben, können wir nicht mehr so Rumschlendern wie wir es bisjetzt gemacht haben. Sucre war bestimmt einer der schönsten Städte die wir in ganz Südamerika besichtigt haben und die einzige in der wir ein bisschen Kultur erleben durften. Das war aber vielleicht auch kein Zufall, da gerade 200 Jahre unabhängiges Sucre gefeiert wurden. Wir haben per Zufall an einem Piano Konzert Teil nehmen können das von einer Opern Singerin begleitet wurde. Dazu gab es noch ein  paar Reden und eine Slideshow mit Fotos. Wirt konnten uns aber nicht beschweren, da das Konzert umsonst war und es danach sogar noch gratis Wein gab. Yuhu, Zivilisation! Ansonsten haben wir uns noch ein paar Museen und die besondere koloniale Architektur von Sucre bestaunt. Die Museen waren beide toll.