Complexes much? This manequin must be sponsored by a local plastic surgeon. Unfortunately, this is not a one of a kind, it's just the most extreme i found (from Panama City)

A shot of Cartagena. Get it? Ahahaha..ha...heh...um, yeah...humor this bad is actually a hanging offense in some muslim countries.

I am currently in Santa Marta in Colombia, and in a fit of Christmas spirit i decided to share some of the wonderful decorations around town with you.

It's baby Jebus and his inflatable sheep. The impenetrable fence is there to keep the sheep molesters away. True story.

A bold interpretation of a classic scene. Set against a lovely shipyard in the background.

Yes fight fans, it's that time of year again, and how we have been looking forward to this moment. In the red corner, it's that dastardly devil, the sock displacer, the bringer of pain come straight from hell, Luuuucifeeeeerr!

His opponent in holy yellow in this fight for the light, straight from cloud nine, the Top Dog, the Parter of Puddles, the G to the O to the D, Allah, JWH, the one and only GOD!

We expect a long and drawn out fight here folks, and most certainly some dirty tricks from Big Red. It's gonna be one for the history books.

Lets get ready to RRRRrrrrruuummmblllllllle.

News updates on this fight around mid century. Be sure to tune in for the continuation of this epic saga.

These are all over the place. It's almost enough to make a grown man cry.

Here we see the result of the "No Tree Left Behind" act, closely modelled on a similar american undertaking. It just warms my little heart to see this kind of dedication to christmas decoration.

Although strictly not a Christmas decoration, this is incontrovertible truth that Colombia is a civilized nation.

These two cute girls were dancing on a bench in front of their house, obviously trying to entice passing men. The stippers have to start young to be the best in Nicaragua.












This incredibly peristent girl was selling drinks on the bus to the Costa Rica'n border. After about ten minutes i broke down and bought a bottle of water, the smile on her face was definately worth it:)











Those clever Nica's, always coming up with good solutions to their transportation needs.














Sleeping on the beach in Costa Rica. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon...

This pavement sponsored by Coca Cola. This one and rest of pics from Panama City.

This pavement sponsored by...uhh...the Pink Panther? He's really sunk low, next you know he'll be on one of those reality celebrity has-beens shows...

"For sale : Charming fixer-upper in quaint neighbourhood. Beautifully done in a classic style with french balconies. For sale by owner, serious inquiries only"

The quaint neighbourhood

Who you gonna call? Super Chicken! I feel so much safer knowing he's on the job, fighting crime and keeping everyone safe. Thank you Super Chicken!

Some more pictures

The busdriver who took us to the Pacaya volcano. The shotgun is to scare of the bandits in the area. We walked ahead of the main group, mindless of the danger like the tough guys we are.















A father and son clown act on one of the chicken buses entertained us in spanish. They come on board, do their five minute act and go around collecting money. Then they do the same on the next bus. Could you do this for a living and still smile all day long?











This friendly woman really wanted her picture taken. From Granada in Nicaragua

Whats this? Have i joined the Sandinistas? Nope, im just doing another volcano walk. This time to the Masaya volcano in Nicaragua. It was raining pretty hard earlier, so the crater was spewing alot of smoke and gases. Didnt see much, although standing on the rim of an active volcano and looking down into the smoke was pretty exilarating. Specially since there was no fence and very dark, so you had to guess where the edge was.








This deer lives in the garden of my hostel in Isla de Ometepe in Nicaragua. It really liked to lick the sweat off my arm, i had to go wash off afterwards:)

Honduras

I am now in La Ceiba in Honduras, waiting for the weather to improve so i can go to the Bay Islands. Its been raining here for a while (it is the wet season after all), so i might move on tomorrow if it doesnt improve during the day. No fun being on an island when its raining.

I've actually been moving pretty fast lately, not because i want to but because there hasn't been a whole lot to see or do. If i can't go to the islands, i will most likely leave for Nicaragua soon.

Anyway, here are some pics i took along the way.

A chicken bus in Antigua. Not recommended for people taller than your average garden gnome or if you don't like to have the sweat of your neighbour rub off on you.

Not too easy to see on this picture, but the boat is actually called "Titanic". I wonder if he would name his plane "Hindenburg" if he had one?

The boat actually runs as a ferry between the pueblos on Lake Atitlan.

The slowest man i have ever met. He could race a snail and lose. The road he is on goes down to the beach. With the pace he was going he'd have to turn right around when he got down to be sure to get home before dark. Picture from San Marcos on Atitlan.

One of the volcanoes surrounding Lake Atitlan. It used to be a supervolcano before it blew and left a huge crater which is now the lake itself. I was told a local hotel was trying to start up sportfishing on the lake. So they introduced a new species which promptly ate all the other fish. Now it's the only one left. It's crazy that things like these are still happening today, hundreds of years since the brits fucked up Australia with the same ignorance.

Another pic of Lake Atitlan. It really is a nice lake:)

Remember to eat your vegetables kids, you don't want to make granny mad. Picture from Copan Ruins in Honduras.

Another dark picture taken in the morning in La Ceiba. Two guys are leaning a ladder against some electrical wires, planning to climb up and fix the traffic light. Amazingly, this is not the most suicidal thing i've seen here. Their driving is much more dangerous.

Guatemala

I am now in Guatemala, currently in San Pedro (Atitlan). Since i cant be bothered to write much today, ill just post some pics:)




Sunrise over Tikal. We got up at 2:30 in the morning to listen to the sounds of the monkeys and birds waking up while the sun rose over the ruins.
















A small sized tarantula, could easily fit in your pocket. Why you'd want to put one in your pocket i don't know...

Yes, its another temple. Can you find Waldo?















Damn it, more stairs!

A bunch of cool guys frying eggs on the Pacaya Volcano not too fra from Antigua. I singed a few hairs here and there that evening. From down left to right : Jacob, Alan (who thought of the idea and carried all the stuff..kudo's man:), Me, Mikke, Tatto and Ida.







It's my one month travel anniversary today, it doesn't seem like that long to me. So many places to go and things to see, and only five months left. Guess i better hurry..naah...

Some more pictures...

"Caye Caulker main street. Its really got that caribbean vibe. Lotta friendly beach bums, rastafaris and Ganja sellers. There might not be much difference between the three actually, its really hard to tell:)"













"Not very original, but still gets a smile from me:)"













"The Caye Caulker cemetary. Right on the beach, just walk on through. It was actually kind of nice though."














"A Stingray was swimming around by the dock when we came back from diving. It had a mate as well, but it was a bit further out and didnt make a good picture. First time ive seen one, i felt extremely lucky that day."

Belize - Caye Caulker

After hanging around in Tulum for a few days, i decided it was time to go to Belize. Now, there
is really only one reason i wanted to go there, and that was to dive the Blue Hole. For those of you not familiar with it, this is a shameless quote from Wikipedia :

"The Great Blue Hole is a large underwater sinkhole off of the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 60 miles from the mainland and Belize City. The hole is almost perfectly circular, over 1,000 feet across and 400 feet deep. It was formed as a limestone cave system during the last ice age when sea levels were much lower. As the ocean began to rise again the caves flooded, and the roof collapsed."

I also shamelessly stole the picture from the Internet. I expect a lawsuit from the photographer any day now...As you can see, it is quite impressive from the air.

I travelled to Caye Caulker, which is a small island off the coast, so that i could be close to the dive site. Still, it took 2 hours by boat to get there.



"Caye Caulker. This picture is taken so that you can see how small it really is. If you look closely you can see the sea on the other side of the island, maybe 50 meters away. "








The dive went down to 40 meters, which is my deepest dive so far (i am only Open Water certified). I was a little disappointed i didnt get narced, as i was kinda looking forward to the sensation since alot of divers have told me how nice it feels:). We started the descent to a slope first, at about 15 meters. There were alot of sharks and Goliath groupers about, which was really nice. Just regular reef sharks, but there were so many of them it was quite a thrill for me. After the initial descent, we went into the hole itself. The drop is sudden, and the wall is vertical all the way down (well, at least as far as we went). When i hovered above it, i imagined it must feel quite similar to be in space. Just darkness below for hundreds of feet, with extremely limited visibility. We descended quite rapidly to 40 meters, where there is a cave of some sorts. Its really more like a large indentation in the wall, where stalactites and stalagmites have grown. We swam inside the "mouth" and behind the stalactites, and then it was time to ascend. We hung around at 7-8 meters depth for safety while we watched maybe 8-10 sharks circle us the whole time. They were only a few meters away and averaged at least 2 meters. All in all it lasted about 25 minutes. But it was all worth it:)

We did lunch on a tiny island which is also a nature reserve. While we were there, another group of divers came in for lunch at the same time. I thought to myself that i hope they paid more for their trip, as they had a much nicer boat. Well, after lunch we left for our third dive of the day and was gearing up. Suddenly we spot smoke in the distance and hear an emergency call. We gear down quickly and speed over there, only to discover that the nice boat we saw earlier is fully ablaze. Luckily, noone was hurt and we were able to pick up all of them and put them ashore on an island just a few minutes away.
Then we proceeded to do our third dive:)




"That sucker is really going. We heard later that it had sunk. While it was going on, i was joking with the other divers that when it sunk, thered at least be a new reason for divers to come here:) I also joked that this would look great in my blog, so i hope i was right:)