Travelling Trappies

We have come to the end of the first leg of our journey. It’s hard to believe that it's been 8 weeks since we left NZ and 9 weeks since we left Whangaparaoa!! It’s been a fantastic start to our year-long adventure and we have loved all of it (almost). Since our last update we worked our way down the west coast of CR on the Pacific Ocean. We discovered some great little beach towns once we headed a bit further south - Playa Hermana had one hotel and a few guest houses but full access to the beach. The beaches are very similar to NZ except for the 30° degree water and 33° outside temps 😂!! Same sort of sand, driftwood, grasses etc - I don’t know why I was surprised as we share an ocean, but for some reason I was picturing golden sand, palm trees, more Pacific looking!  After leaving Tercoles we headed to Manuel Antonio. We got a bit caught out as we didn't realise it was Easter and CR has public holidays on the Thursday & Friday, so lots of CRs went on holiday and everything...

After five fantastic weeks our Mexican adventure has finally come to a close. Ending the trip in Cancun, we had a relaxing few days, going under the waves in a mini submarine and snorkelling the Underwater Museum MUSA. Unfortunately the wind that has followed us for the last two weeks continued into Cancun, with choppy waters and limited visibility, so diving was once again out. After doing the sub and snorkelling at MUSA, I’m glad I didn’t spend the money as visibility was soooo bad, it would have been a waste. So excuse the u/w pics - I did the best I could!!! The sub trip was a bit of a laugh - it was narrow and there were a lot of cracks in the windows which had me a little worried, but we weren't very deep so it was all good. We even had the sonar ping sounds to add to the authenticity. It’s a pity the vis wasn’t better but it was definitely worth doing. The guide got pretty excited when she spotted something - it took the rest of us a bit more time to work out what she was ta...

Well it’s been a much lower key last week or so for us. The weather gods have forsaken us just as we reached the Maya Riviera & Caribbean Sea, meaning we haven’t been able to spend our time at the beach as expected. Trap didn’t need his speedo’s as the constant strong winds battering Tulum meant that swimming in the ocean was tricky at best, treacherous at worst with pounding waves and strong currents. On the upside we got a lovely full-body sand exfoliation on the first day we tried to lie on the beach, so our skin is glowing and we’re still finding sand in odd places a week later 🙂! Tulum Beach is a rather unusual place and I can’t say we’d come here again or necessarily recommend spending much time here. I’ll start with the good… What is fantastic about the area are the ce-no-tes and the archaeological site. The cenotes are spectacularly clear, fresh water holes in the ground that are all over the place. You can swim, snorkel, dive in them depending on the size and structure. S...

  I’m going to say three little words that I never thought would come out of my mouth - “it’s too hot”!!!!! Yip that’s right you heard it here first…..  We keep thinking it can't get any hotter and then the next day proves us wrong. We’re sitting at 39° during the day now and dropping to about 36° overnight!!! It’s a largely dry heat and there’s a bit of wind which basically feels like someone has turned a hairdryer on hot and pointed it at you. 🥵 Despite that we continue to fall in love with Mexico. Over the last week we’ve travelled to Campeche and Merida. If you thought our roads were in a bit of disrepair, they’re nothing compared with over here. Lots of potholes, gravel, wash away and a love affair with speed humps - every 50m in EVERY little village you drive through. So this basically makes a 3 hour trip into about 4-5hrs!! Campeche is a character-filled colonial fishing town on the Gulf of Mexico (We haven’t seen any signs saying Gulf of America so we’ll stick with it...