Wow, what a trip..15 countries in 6 months..Did we blow our budget? Actually, no:) Was it too short time? Yes..Were we excited about going home? Yes..

We talked about what we would say when people asked about our trip. “Well, do you want the short or the long version?” hehe.. Where to start?  We have experienced so many amazing things. Things we never want to forget, and things we definitely want to forget.

People we have met during our travels have asked us why we wanted to do this, when we started planning in and how we could afford it. Well, it was a thorough planning-process, and we knew we were going on this trip the fall of 2008. Some of our friends had already been backpacking and since we both wanted to do it, all we needed was time and money. Both of us had some savings from working, and we had a whole year to save the rest. Silje (blonde) was lucky enough to get a leave from work, and Silje (brunette) would take a year off between her bachelor and master.

We started off with a list of many countries, and then had to remove one after the other, and another, and another. Kilroy helped us out by advicing us. One of the advices for example was to replace Fiji with Samoa. Same kind of islands, but cheaper plane-tickets and living.

We researched other backpacking-blogs to see how much people had spent on 6 months traveling. It seemed like the average was around 100 000 NOK (around 16 500 USD). All in all, we undervalued the cost of preparation. We were very late booking our airplanetickets. All the travel-equipment, vaccines, airplanetickets, prebooked trips etc. cost way more than we thought. However, we were able to save a little bit more knowing that we already had spent too much. Also, we told ourselves that a big part of the preparation costs are an investment and a one-time-cost which we will be able to enjoy on other trips. Kilroy had a suggested daily budget for certain areas and continents, which we  used to calculate our travel-budget. We were aware that it might not be up to date, but we decided to use it. We knew that some areas we would use less than the budget since we would stay with friends or had already booked hotel/bus. This was fortunate since some places (like Australia) was much more expensive than we thought. All in all, we used a little bit less than budgetet.

The question we have been asked the most is what place is our favourite place. There is no doubt, we both agree that Thailand is the winner. The reason behind it is the food, the pricelevel, the weather and the atmosphere. The worst places must be Mexico and Belize because of all the bad experiences we had there with our pre-booked Bamba buspass, the bedbugs, the stomach flu and the awful food. By the way, we got some good news a couple of days ago that Bamba and Kilroy have decided to give us back some money.

The places we have been really sad to leave was Thailand, Singapore and the USA. We felt that we had too little time in Asia in general. We imagined seeing both islands in Thailand and Malaysia, but we missed out on Malaysian islands and saw too few of the islands in Thailand. Also, we felt that Kilroy gave us some bad advice by telling us to book all planetickets before leaving Norway. The transportation-system in Asia is incredibly simple and cheap and we could have had more freedom and saved money by not following their advice.

The best advice we have got from anyone must be to buy all essential things before going to Cuba and finish all important things you need to do online, because of the slow internet. Some things we couldn’t have managed without; flashlight, mosquito-net, silk linen, waterproof ipod bag, moneybelt, coded padlock, microfiber towel, the computer, waterproof camera and waterproof watch.

We started to talk about what our best seightseeing or experiences have been and decided to make a chronological list:

The Great Wall, China
Maya Beach “The Beach”, Thailand
Snorkling and seing sharks, Thailand
PADI-course and reef diving, Thailand
Couchsurfing experience, Malaysia
Snorkling in Great Barrier Reef, Australia
Surf-course, Australia
Living in a fale, Samoa
Seeing Neverland and other celebrity houses, USA
Staying at a Mayan house, Guatemala
Volcano-trekking, Guatemala
Tikal-ruins, Guatemal
Cave diving, Mexico
Seeing Cuba, Cuba
Partying with the president’s son, Colombia
World cup in football, Brazil

We want to say thank you to all the people we have met during our travels. You are all amazing and if you ever come to Norway, let us know! You have all contributed to make this trip more exciting, crazy and fun.

We bet you wonder what the final score for the airport-security-checks were? Well, actually as it turned out, we didn’t get any checks on our way home to Norway. So the score is the same as when we arrived to Brazil, which was 12-12. It is funny, some places we didn’t go in the same line, some we did go in the same line, but we got the same number of checks anyway. We tried to count how many checks we have been through, and we think it’s around 20. Over half the security check points we have been double-checked. Can you believe it? Well, in the end I guess we both look too innocent! hehe..

We are so happy that we traveled together. We have lived together so we knew eachother very well. We have met people who are traveling with 6 or more people and they have said that it is a constant hassle with decisions, arguments and comprimising. Or people who are traveling together who don’t really know eachother, and instead of talking about problems they avoid them and aren’t talking anymore at the end of the trip. Of course, we have had our discussions and comprimises, but when the trip finished we were both choking up when we said goodbye at Gardermoen and we have already made plans for a new trip (not as long though :P).

For the last time, Siljex2

We couldn’t believe that we had reached our last stop, and our last two weeks of 6 months. Now it was time to enjoy some beach and sun! Only we didn’t know that it was winter in Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro..

 

We arrived in Sao Paolo very early in the morning. After a very long line in the airport and a long ride with the bus in rush-hour we were very happy to be able to check-in early and go to sleep. It was surprisingly cold in Sao Paolo so we had to check the weather online. We found out that the weather was a lot better and warmer in Rio. We had already decided not to stay very long in Sao Paolo, but now we wanted to go to Rio right away. We went for a little walk at night and the next day we went to an art museum that was free. It was so cold that we decided to go to Rio the next day.

Sao Paolo by night

We arrived in Rio and the hostel Piratas de Ipanema. It was a small hostel, so when we walked in everyone was very welcoming. We talked to a lot of people right away just cooking dinner. We headed straight to Ipanema beach the next day. For a beach this famous, with prizes of “the world’s best beach”, we were kind of disappointed. The temperature was perfect when the sun was up, but it set really early around 4.00-4.30. The next day we had to get up early to go to the game Brazil- Portugal which was showing in a huge arena built on the Copacabana beach. We were waiting for everyone in the hostel to get up, but finally we almost had to run to the beach, and the line to get in was enormous.

Ready for Brazil - Portugal

We actually got in. There were so many people and all 20 000 people were wearing something yellow or green.

Fifa Fan Fest @ Copacabana beach

We met a norwegian girl named Silje (haha, yeah), a South African named Annesu and an Indian named Vik, who worked at the hoste,l and we all hung out at the game.

Beer + Nightshift + No sleep = Vik sleeping on the beach

There was a lot of beautiful beachart in Copacabana beach.

Art in the sand

The next day we changed hostels to Copacabana hostel in Copacabana. We got a 10 % discount here from the hostel we lived in Sao Paolo and we wanted to have a little bit more luxury the last days of our trip.

Brazil – Chile was playing the next day and we met up with Silje and Annesu there. It was a great game and everyone was extremely happy and partying at the beach.

Heading for Brazil - Chile

The game started 3.30 in the afternoon and we stayed at the beach until 8.30 dancing and having fun at the concert after the game. There were a lot of people there. In Brazil, they close everything for the football-matches; supermarket, schools, restaurants etc..

A big concert after each game

In the Lonely Planet and other travel books it says that we shouldn’t take camera with us anywhere and don’t take anything to the beach. However, we have been bringing our beach bags as usual, but we never leave them and have them close to us at all times. A boy approach us at the beach one day and was talking in portugese to Silje (brunette). He tried to point at her Ipod and wanted to take a look at it. He even started to grab it. She said no and grabbed it tightly in her hand. Then he started to use his hands as a phone and ask if we had a phone and we would get 1 REAL (brazilian money) if he could borrow it. She started to get the picture that this guy was up to no good and just turned away from him. He then turned to Silje (blonde) and asked her for a phone. Luckily, we have a language that few people understand so Silje (brunette) smiled and said to Silje in norwegian that she should watch her things and don’t talk to the boy.

The next day we went to a city-tour. The first stop was a beach where people doing hanggliding and paragliding landed. It was fun to watch a landing. After that we went to a look-out-point of Rio.

A great viewpoint

We drove to the Parque Nacional da Tijuca and saw some funny fruits, monkeys and a beautiful waterfall.

A waterfall in the National Park

People-friendly monkey

The next stop was the famous Christ-statue, Christ the Redeemer. It was enormous. The whole group walked the stairs to the statue, this was nothing compared to all the other seightseeing-stairs we have climbed.

Christ the Redeemer

View of Rio De Janeiro from Christ

After the statue it was time for lunch in Santa Teresa. It is a more cultural neighbourhood with musicians and artists. We saw the famous tram go by as we had lunch.

Next stop was the steps in Lapa. The maker has put tiles from all over the world in the steps and changes them still.

The famous steps in Lapa

Tiles from all over the world, including several from Norway

We thought it was very nice. It represents the colorful and multi-cultural Brazil.

On the side of the stairs

Lapa steps

On top of the stairs

The next day we got up early to go to the quarter-final Brazil – Holland. However, everyone had the same idea and we didn’t get in to the arena. However, at the back of the arena, there was a big screen too. So, we got to watch the game at the beach anyway.

In the break everyone went swimming

At our hostel there were the cutest micos monkeys.

Curious monkeys

The next day we went back to Piratas de Ipanema to a Farmer-party. It was really fun. Priscilla had made many Brazilian treats and there were games like darts, ring-tossing, egg-race etc..

Farmer-party (source: http://www.piratasdeipanema.org)

On Sunday we went to the hippie-market in Ipanema. They had a lot of nice things, but a lot like the market in Copacabana, so not a lot of new things to see for us.

Hippie-marked i Ipanema

We wanted to go to Piratas the last night too, but it was only for the people staying at the hostel, which we understand. So instead we went to Casa Rosa with the Holland girls and an English boy at our hostel. It was Samba-night and you could also buy dinner. We thought it was a restaurant, but it was more like a club. There were so many people there, and they only served Feijoada; traditional Brazilian rice,beans and meat.

Samba @ Casa Rosa

When we got back to the hostel there were some people who were going to the Favela’s (Brazilian word for ghetto, bad neighbourhoods). There were two guys there who looked familiar. We asked them their nationality and it turned out they were norwegian and we remembered seeing them in Cuba. They had just arrived, been traveling for 6 months with almost the same countries as us and were spending their last week in Rio. It was really funny.

The last day we paid for a late checkout and went to the beach all day. We made some food, had a shower and packed our stuff. When we waited for the taxi to the airport we started talking to the bartender, and it turned out that she had worked in DisneyWorld the same year as us. Brazil have a college program like USA in Disney. woooow, what a small world!!

We had no troubles at the airport; no overweight and no extra security checks. We slept a little bit on the way to London. We had overheard some swedish girls saying that they don’t exchange Brazilian Real in Sweden, so we exchanged all of our money in London to pounds and spent them on our last Starbucks and some duty free shopping. We couldn’t believe we were on our way home and we started to talk about our trip, the good and the bad.. Which we decided to put in a last post… to be continued…

Siljex2

We had been looking forward to seeing Ana Maria for a long long time. We were counting down the days in Cuba until we arrived in Colombia. Ana Maria had told us a lot about Colombia so now we were finally going to see it..

        

On the flight from Cuba to Colombia we had a stop in Lima before going on to Bogota, and Silje (brunette) got an extra security check. Ana Maria and her parents (Claudia and Miguel) were so kind to pick us up at the airport. We were pretty tired when we arrived because of the timedifference,for us it was the middle of the night. Their apartment was so wonderful and we were so lucky to get Ana Maria’s brother’s room since he was out travelling. We stayed up the first night talking and catching up. There was a lot of gossiping…hehe!        

The first day we took a walk to the T-sone (where all the malls, clubs and bars are). We met Ana Maria’s friends Maria and Adriana and walked to a park nearby Ana Maria`s home and had a warm Colombian coffee 🙂 We sure needed it. When we left Cuba it was about 36 degrees and in Bogota it was about 15-20 degrees…freezing for us!! Silje (blond) had gotten a cold after sleeping under the A/C in Cuba so it didn`t help that it was cold. We had to borrow shoes from Ana Maria because we only had sandals.        

Walk in the park

When we got back to the apartment we had lunch with the whole family. Ana Maria`s family have a maid so she made us breakfast, lunch and dinner.We were in heaven! We also got to have a look in Ana Maria`s closet and we can tell you guys that it was packed. We thought our closets were pretty full, but we were impressed of how much shopping she had done!:P    

Ana Marias bags, and there was a whole closet!!

That night we went to a place called Andres to party. It was a little bit outside of Bogota, in Chía. It was a really original place and we got our first taste of colombian music. The next day we went to Ana Maria’s club for lunch. The club had been bombed a couple of years ago, so our car got sniffed by dogs and checked before we could park. In the evening we went to the T-sone and got the popular “lychee martini”. We sure can tell you that it was strong, we had to ask for some extra juice about three times..hehe! After that we went to a private party in a newly opened bar where the president’s son was. He was surrounded by security the whole time, but it was fun to see a colombian celebrity! 😛   

Martini in the T-sone

We went to Ana Maria`s friend`s country house one of the days to have some BBQ. It was so nice seeing the nature, a bit like Norway. We had a great time there, and the BBQ was awesome. 

In Bogota, there is about 7 million people, and they have 2 days a week where each car has a block-out, and during rush-hour some streets are changed to the opposite direction. Very strange for us, but it’s not like we have so many cars in Norway that we need a system for it. If you are a tourist driving here you would not know which way to drive, because there was no sign or anything, but every person in Bogota know it. Not long ago it wasn’t allowed to be two people on a bike either, because they hired biker’s to kill people; one was driving and the other would shoot someone. So now all the motorcyclists have their bike’s number on their jacket, helmet and sometimes on their backpack so they can’t get away with anything.     

Cars driving against the arrow on the road

Ana Maria`s family have an apartment in Cartagena and it`s on the Caribbean side of Colombia. We were 10 girls going there. We both got pulled over in the airport for an extra check, one on the way to Cartagena and one back to Bogoata. We were so excited about the weather,we had been freezing for some days now, so this was going to be lovely. Ana Maria’s friend Rebeca had lived in Cartagena and knew the best maker of seafood-cocktails so we went to his stand the first night and it was really good!      

The best shrimp-cocktail

We thought that it would be interesting making food for 10 girls, but the first day there was suddenly a maid there making lunch for us. We were so surprised. We had never imagined it. The maid made food for us, cut up fruits and cleaned up after us. This was so perfect, or else we would spend all day cooking and doing the dishes. We had a nice view from the apartment and got to see the sunset one of the days. We were a bit unlucky when we were in Cartagena because it was mostly cloudy during day and thunder/lightning during night with some rain…         

A sunset seen from the apartment

 When it rains heavily in Cartagena the street gets flooded because there is poor drainage here.       

Rain-water in the street

The girls wanted us to try everything that was Colombian and tasted really good, so they ordered some treats for us! Delicioso!!!      

Delicioso Colombian cake and brownies

As said we were a lot of girls and every one of them had told us that the party in Cartagena was awesome, so we had to try it. We had a really good time.       

All 10 girls dressed up for a night out 🙂

We went to Café del Mar, which is by the wall around old town in Cartagena. It was a good atmosphere there. Chill music and good drinks.       

@ Café del Mar

Rebeca took us and her norwegian friend, Elisabeth, who was visiting her, to a rainforest because she knew the owner and he would show us around there. He told us the story of the rainforest; that it used to be a coral reef ther eand that it was very rear. It was very strange walking around there because it was very different from Cartagena. Ana Maria had never seen it before either. Very exciting.      

A old tree in the rainforest

He had made some pools, which contained mineral water. It was nice and cold. He takes in school classes and show them around there and they get to bathe and have lunch. He had everything there, a slide and a rope where they could play Tarzan. It looked like fun for the kids.       

Natural mineral water in the pools

When it was raining or we were tired we relaxed in the apartment.      

Relaxing in the Apt.

 Ana Maria knew a guy who was selling sunglasses and watches, so we invited him to the apartment so that we could do some shopping there instead of going out 🙂 We like!      

Shopping for sunglasses and watches

One of the days Ana Maria took all the Norwegians with her to an island where the beaches are white and the ocean very blue, but we weren’t that lucky with the weather. It was cloudy and raining. Not the best day to go there, but we had a great time.        

Going to the islands

We saw Cartagena from the boat, and the apartment building we were staying at.      

Cartagena city from the boat

We all took a walk in Old Town in Cartagena. There are so cute buildings there and a lot of plazas where there are cafès, restaurants and bars.  

Walking in beautiful Old Town

 Back in Bogota we went to a museum where the Colombian painter Botero  was exhibited and he had donated a lot of paintings. Botero paints everything fat, so it was really funny seeing the museum. We also saw fat Mona Lisa…hehe!      

Fat Jesus

We also got to see the Parliament building, and the Palace where the president lives. We also went to a café from the 1800’s and had “poor-people-food” from the old days.

We also met Ana Maria’s cousin, Camilo’s sister Andrea, who was vacationing in Cartagena and Bogota. We went out to Osaki and had the best sushi we have tried so far.

We went to dinner with one of Ana Maria`s friends who visited us in Oslo last year. It was really nice seeing her again and we got to learn all about the Miss Bogota competition she is in (like “Frøken Norge”, but first they choose the cities). We really hope that she becomes Miss Bogota 🙂       

Dinner with soon to be Miss Bogata

One of the days we went to the Catedral de sal. It was really interesting walking around there. What’s so special with this cathedral is that it`s in a saltmine. It was about 30 meter underground. Basicly the Cathedral is about the journey of Jesus, so there are a lot of crosses in the cathedral.        

Inside Catedral de sal

We went to Andres again in the day to have a lunch there. The atmosphere is so good there.         

At Andres; restaurant and club

When we got the check it was inside a big box. Inside the box there was  a flashlight, a magnifying glass and a pen. Very original and handy because it`s very dark inside Andres.        

The treasure chest

Ana Maria`s mom wanted us to try every fruit they had in Bogota, and we loved it. The fruit they have are so good!! Aleja (the maid) made a lot of fruitjuices for us, and it was amazing how good they were.        

The best fruitbasket ever!

We have to thank Ana Maria, Claudia and Miguel so much for taking us in their home and taking us around everywere. We have really appreciated everything you guys have done for us. Thank you so much!!       

When we left Bogota, both Silje’s got bodysearched and they had an extra check on Silje’s (blonde) backpack. 

Airport-security-check-counter (see earlier posts for explanation)

Siljex2        

We were wondering a lot about what Cuba would be like and for us it turned out to be a very different and interesting part of our travels.. 

At the airport from Mexico there were no problems for Silje (brunette), but Silje (blonde) got  bodysearched. When we got to Cuba there was an extra check when we walked off the plane and we both got pulled a side for an extra check. Before this trip, Silje (brunette) took an audio-course in Spanish so that at least one could speak a little bit. So far, her knowledge had been well-used. However, in Cuba she felt that she hadn’t learned enough when the passport-control-lady started asking her questions in spanish about the police. She thought she needed a transcript of record from the police, which she didn’t have. The lady seemed annoyed and didn’t let her through and Silje (blonde) walked straight through. Silje (brunette) tried to ask if there was something she was missing, but the lady just told her to wait.. She waited and waited, and people passed her.. She was worried that she wouldn’t be let in to Cuba when a lady approached who talked english. “Policia” does not mean police, it means insurance, which we have of course, so it all worked out.

Our view from 13th floor

In Cuba you can stay in hotels, which is expensive, or at a “casa particulares”, which is a government approved family renting out a room in their home. We had booked a casa in Havana, so the first day we talked to the sister of the family who recommended us different things to do. Our first stop in Havana was the revolution museum. It was incredibly interesting to see, and we both realized that history is not one of our strong sides.

George Bush, Ronald Reagan and Baptista; "Thanks for helping us make the revolution"

We walked around downtown, the boardwalk and had lunch in Plaza Viaje. It was funny because the menu was pretty big, but when the server came he pointed to the items we could eat that day, depending on the food they receive, which was about 7 items. There was a band playing salsa, and people would get up and dance while eating. After that we went to the Malécon, which is the wall that rescues Havana from big waves. It is very important to the Cubans and they hang out there all the time, either just chatting or fishing.         

The Malecón

Everywhere we went there was some tagging on the wall, or a mural, or poster reminding people of the revolution, Castro and Che Guevara. We liked it a lot, it was very different and patriotic. We both got a little bit history-fanatic and started to look for special places which had a significance for the revolution and even decided to go to the city Santa Clara just to see where Che Guevara was buried.         

Revolution-poster in Calle 23, Havana

The next day we went to Plaza de la Revolucion, but unfortunately the tower was closed since it was Sunday. We decided to go to a famous ice-cream store, but we were not allowed to eat there because it was only for the Cubans, but we could buy from a little trailer outside. We found this very strange, since the store was written about in the book we were reading about Cuba. The girl from the Casa told us that this was because the ice-cream was very cheap inside the store and you could pay with the Cuban pesos, not the convertible “tourist” pesos. This was our first experience with the “divided” Cuba.         

Plaza de la revolucion

 The next day we took the bus to Trinidad, which is the second biggest tourist city in Cuba after Varadero. We were surprised by how little it was. It reminded us of one of the very small cities in Mexico or Guatemala. We went to the “Museo Romantico”, which was really a house full of antiques. We headed for the beach in a coco-taxi, which has the same speed as a moped, for 15 km, for 5 pesos, around 30 kr.         

Coco-taxi in Trinidad

On our way to the beach, there was of course a poster.         

Revolution-poster in Trinidad

Fader Pedro was incredible nice with us, showing us around the city and helping us with everything. He followed us to the bank because we had to withdraw money and there were no ATMs there. Everything seemed so difficult. The bank lady had to do everything on paper, unnecessary work. Pedro also made us breakfast and dinner with whatever we wanted. It was delicious! It was great because the restaurants all served the same food and we were getting pretty sick of eating the same things.         

The best breakfast in a long time

 We headed for Casa de la Musica, the biggest salsa “club”. It was an incredible atmosphere there. Absolutely everyone were dancing salsa,from the youth to the retired. We loved watching it, and wished we had more than one salsa-class in Mexico.         

Big crowd at Casa de la Musica

 The first day in Havana, we tried a fruit which looked a little bit like watermelon, but tasted differently. We have never eaten so much of a fruit before. It was our little treat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.         

Our new favourite fruit; Guayabe

 Before we went to Cuba other travelers told us that the internet was pretty slow, but we didn’t imagine how bad it was. Being used to having wifi everywhere, even in the beach in Thailand, we imagined that there was availability only that it was slow. However, to go to the internet in Cuba you have to go to a hotel or one of few internet-cafés, and it is expensive. We couldn’t skype, check our bank or even facebook most of the places because the internet was so slow. It is the same for the habitants of Cuba, they have to go to the hotels, none of the casas we stayed at had internet at home.         

We went to the beach Ancon a couple of days and it was nice. We took a 50’s car taxi for the first time.         

Taking a taxi in Cuba; 1950's-car

 We had heard that there were a lot of old cars in Cuba, but we didn’t know how much. We didn’t see many cars which looked like they had air-condition. There was a wide range of quality of the cars too. Some looked like they were glued together, neither the windows or the door could be opened, but occasionally there was a shiny and well-kept car driving around.         

One of many old cars in Cuba

 We couldn’t go to Cuba without going to a Cuban cigar factory. It was interesting to see how they made the cigar, we didn’t know it was actually made by leafs. Pedro and Carmen told us to not buy from the people in the street, because you could never know what they stuffed the cigars with.         

Watching the making of a Cuban cigar

We were recommended by Pedro and Carmen to only stay in Santa Clara one night, because there wasn’t much to see there. We imagined the memorial to be much bigger than it was, but it was a very small museum of Che Guevara’s life and we walked through in 30 minutes, and then we had read everything thoroughly. It was very interesting and definitely worth a visit, but we were happy we didn’t stay more nights here.         

Che Guevara's grave and monument

We talked a little bit with the son in the casa before leaving. He was going to the military in a month and wasn’t looking forward to it. We found it funny that the only reasons you don’t have to go to the military is if your feet is flat or you are crazy.         

Ravolution-poster in Santa Clara

 We decided to go to Varadero and have a little bit of luxury with a 4-star All Inclusive resort. It was low-season and a special offer so it wasn’t expensive. However, it wasn’t exactly a 4-star hotel. They had a lot of activities, e.g. dancing-lesson each day at 16, but they didn’t follow them through. They also had a lot of stuff, like tennis court, basketball court, but they didn’t have a basketball or tennis-balls. Also, if you wanted to do something, use the gym or sauna,everything closed at 17. It was too hot to do stuff in the day, we are talking 35 degrees and more plus humidity. In the night, there was supposed to be a different show every night, but instead they had bingo. Eventually, we found out that they were just lazy,when the power went out in the buffet, they didn’t even replace the cold food either..         

A little bit of luxury

We pushed the employees to actually do something and had merengue/mambo-lesson, played volleyball, borrowed basketballs and tennis balls.         

Playing volleyball in Varadero's 22 km long beach

Finally, our last night there was a great show with acrobats who were amazing. One jumped back-flip into a handstand  in the other persons arms.         

Sunset in Varadero

 

All in all, our trip to Cuba has been one big reality-check. People are poor, and have rarely traveled outside Cuba. One of the girls from the casa in Havana is actually living in Canada and was just visiting. She told us it was hard coming to Cuba from a place where you go to the supermarket and you get anything you want,you have cellphone reception everywhere and wifi a lot of places, like we do in Norway. One time Havana didn’t have butter for 2 weeks, eggs is a rare commodity along with soap and many other things. She also told us that it was just a couple of years since the Cubans weren’t allowed to stay in hotels in Varadero, it`s ridiculous!     

Se tidligere post for forklaring

    

Siljex2         

We were sad to leave USA but very exciting to see the South-America. We knew it would be very different compared to the other places we have been so far. We were a little bit scared about going to Mexico because of the drug war and everyone we met said “be careful”.

We arrived in Mexico city very early in the morning and took a taxi straight to our hostel. Hostel Amigo was very centrally located in downtown. We had a walking distance to everything. The first thing we did was to call Bamba, the company responsible for our trip through Mexico. They were supposed to arrange a trip for us, but they didn’t do it so the first day we just walked around and took a look at all the museums that was close by. It was scary how many machine-guns we saw on the street, but at least it was police and military that was carrying it. It’s a totally different world.

Relaxing in Mexico city

We went to the National Museum of Archeology with two of our friends from the hostel, and on the way there we got to see this funny trash-can. It was really something. Good to see that they try to take care of the environment.  

Mexican recycling

The museum was a museum about the old tradition to the new ages and the stories about Maya ruins.  

At Museum of Archeology: What our flip-flops look like after this trip:P

The next day we took the bus to Oaxaca. We learned that the cars in Mexico city has one day each week that they can’t drive their cars depending on their license plate.  We arrived there in the afternoon so we took a walk to the walking street. We were so lucky that we caught the end of a parade. It was a lot of colour and dancing.  

Fiestas de Mayo in Oaxaca

We had booked a trip to see a Mezkal factory. It was very interesting to see how they made it. Mezkal is the national drink in Mexico. We originally thought it was tequila, but that’s not it.  

The plant that makes Mezkal and Tequila

We got to taste the Mezkal and it tasted like moonshine. Not good at all. They also had some cream Mezkal and they were a lot better 🙂  

Mezkal with the traditional worm in the bottle

After the Mezkal factory we went to see the Mitla ruins. There were a lot of rooms that we could go in to, but the grave chamber was the most amazing one. We had to crawl like a goose to get in. The Mexicans weren’t that tall in the old days…hehe!  

We were too tall for the Maya-ruins entrance

The Mitla ruins is very different compared to other Maya ruins. They didn’t have the “pyramide-look”, but that is also because it’s one of the newest ruins.  

The more newer and detailed ruins of the Mayas

We also went to see the Hierve el Agua. It was so beautiful. It was two streams that were “boiling” and went down into two artificial pools. The “boiling” streams weren’t hot, they were actually pretty cold. The water had a lot of minerals in it, so it was very nice seeing how it had shaped the streams.  

"Boiling water"

When we got back to Oaxaca it was just to grab our backpack and go to the bus terminal. We were taking the night bus to San Cristobal. It had been a very long day and it just got longer. First, we got totally freaked out when a lady came into the bus and filmed everyone on the bus. It was not a pleasant trip. The busdrivers were driving like a crazy person, and just almost made the turns. We were thrown from side to side so we didn’t get much sleep. It was a horrible night. The drivers have a weird way of driving past another car, they just drive past and expect the meeting car to move to the side. In the end, there can be 4 cars on a row in a road that is adapted to 2 cars.  

We were very efficient on this 3-week bustrip. We arrived in San Cristobal very early in the morning, took a taxi straight to the hostel, got maybe an hour sleep before we were picked up for some sightseeing. We were off to see the Sumidero Canyon. It was so amazing, kind of reminded us of the fjords in west Norway, except a lot more exotic.  On this trip we got to see monkeys, pelicans, crocodiles and a lot of vultures.  

Boatride in the canyon

As said we were very efficient, so the next day we got picked up very early to go to Palenque to see two waterfalls and ruins. The first stop was Agua Azul, it was so nice. The water was turquoise and it was a lot of small waterfalls that was hidden up in the forest behind it.  

Beautiful waterfall

The second waterfall was called Misolha waterfall and there it was one big waterfall. Totally different compared to the first. At this waterfall there was also a cave we could climb into, but we didn’t do that.  

 

The last stop was the Palenque ruins. These ruins were totally different compared to the Mitla ruins. We both thought that these ruins were more extravagant. It was a lot of pyramids, you could have  a whole day there just walking around.   

Impressive and beautiful pyramid-ruins

The next day we were off to Panajachel, Guatemala.  When we were on the road the busdriver suddenly stopped at a gas-station and said that we were going to wait there for 45 minutes. We didn’t understand why, but after a little bit we were informed that we had to wait because the bus from Guatemala was blocked by a road-blockage. When we finally got to the border the busdriver let us off in the middle of a market and just pointed to a hill. He didn’t speak English and we didn`t understand Spanish. Luckily, there was an English boy that understood Spanish and he said that we had to walk 1 km to the border. It was not in our plan walking with 30 kg on our backs for 1 km…It was heavy and hot! 

Finally, at the border the system was down, and they were in no hurry fixing it. We had to wait for about 1 hour before the system was working. But that didn`t matter, because the bus that was going to pick us up at the border from Guatemala was still stuck. At the end we had to wait at the border for about 6 hours. 

At the Guatemalan border

We were supposed to have a home visit in Panajachel with a Mayan family, but since we were so delayed we called Bamba and said that we were stuck at the border and that we would not be in Panajachel before 12 am. Bamba didn’t even know who we were, where we were and what we were doing, but recommended us to find a hostel in Panajachel. When we finally got on the road again and was near Panajachel the Mayan family picked us up after all. 

Panajachel

We had to walk to the house, and when we go there the father ,Daniel, greeted us and asked if we wanted dinner, something we didn`t need at 12 am. We just wanted to sleep so he showed us the room and we went straight to bed. 

Daniel is the representative of Bamba  in Guatemala. He spoke his main language kaqchikel, spanish, english and a little bit norwegian. We were so impressed with him. His wife only spoke the mayan language and a little bit spanish, so we couldn’t communicate much with her. Daniel and his family lived in a village called San Pedro and it was about 3000 people living there.  Daniel took us to a good viewpoint so that we could see the lake Panajachel and his village San Pedro.   

The traditional costumes of maya-family

The ride to Antigua was one of the shortest one,  and the van actually took us to our hostel 🙂 We liked Antigua a lot, there was a lot of small cafées and restaurants and it was very cozy. We met a South-African girl in our dorm who was going on the same tour as us; hiking on Pacaya, an active volcano. Antigua is actually surrounded by three volcanoes. 

On our way up the 4 kilometer hike

It was a 4 km hiking tour, and it was steep some places. There were people with horses following us the whole way up asking us if we needed a “taxi”, something we didn`t 🙂 When we got to the top we saw that there were actually floating lava there and it had just become active the last month. It was so hot there, the lava had a degree of 2000 celcius. 

Veeeery hot lava

On the way down we got to see a very nice sunset. 

Sunset by the volcano

The next day we went and looked at the market in Antigua and just relaxed at the hostel before we were picked up and driven to Guatemala City bus-station. The driver said that it was a bad neighbourhood so we shouldn’t leave the station, scary! We took the night bus to Flores and this was the most luxurious bus so far on the trip. We even got food and beverage and a blanket for the night. We both slept like babies. 

We arrived in Flores early in the morning, so we just walked to the hostel since it was a small island and no taxis that early, but we ended up walking for about one hour before we found the hostel. We couldn’t check-in when we arrived so we just relaxed in the living room.  This day we just spent walking around in Flores, but it was a dead city, everything was closed. 

The next day we were picked-up at 4 am for the Sunrise tour to the Tikal ruins. We didn`t see the sunrise, but we were the only people in the park. There were about 50 pyramids in the park, but not all have been restored. They were only allowed to restore 50% of each pyramid. Later we found out that Tikal actually has been used as a set for Star Wars. 

One of the five biggest pyramids in Tikal

There were 3 pyramids that we could climb and one of them had 105 steps. It was really a work-out…hehe!

Getting a work-out while climbing the pyramids

A nice walk with the sunset in Flores. 

Walking in the streets of Flores

We were picked-up early in the morning headed for Belize and  another interesting border. The village on the border between Guatemala- Belize was striking. They didn`t let any cars pass and there was smoke coming from tires they had lit up and they were threatening to cut the electrical cables, something they didn`t do. Finally the driver went to the village people and asked if we could pass if we walked across the border. It was a bit scary passing the border with tires on fire, angry people and branches in the road.  

Riot at the border

When we finally got to Belize we took a boat out to an island called Caye Caulker. Everybody we had met that had been in Belize recommended this island.  It was really nice there and the ocean was the perfect colour of blue. There wasn`t much of a beach there so we just relaxed in the hammocks by the dock. 

Relaxing by the caribbean sea

We were supposed to go diving in the Blue Hole that Belize is famous for, but Silje (brunette) didn’t feel well and we were told that the Blue Hole wasn`t that amazing after all. 

The hostel we stayed at wasn`t the nicest and cleanest one. There were cockroaches and bed-bugs there, and Silje (blond) got badly bitten by the bed-bugs. She got bitten all over and the bites itched like hell. 

Bites everywhere

We stayed 3 nights at Caye Caulker before going back to Mexico. When crossing the border the bus just left us there, we were so pissed off!! How could he just leave people at the border! We had to take a public bus to the bus station, but it wasn`t the right bus-station so we had to take a taxi. The worst part was that Bamba booked us on a late bus because there was always a line at the border, but this time we arrived early in Chetumal. Again we called and complained to Bamba. They said they would check why the bus driver just left us, but we couldn’t take an earlier bus. We had to wait at the station for 5 hours. That really sucked.  

We arrived in Bacalar lagoon late, so we just got a taxi to a hostel we had read about. The hostel seemed nice at first sight, but it was horrible. There was no toiletpaper and the toiletseat was on the floor. When I asked for paper the lady just answered that there was no, whats that?!?! Thank god for always being prepared and bringing some with us. The hostel was really dirty and in the beds there were ants, what kind of hostel was this?! No internet (of course), no towel, no lock on the hostel door, anyone could come in..We were just happy that there were two others staying at this hostel and that we only had booked one night.Silje (brunette) woke up that night finding a 5 cm cockroach on her pillow, she was horrified!!  The only nice thing with Bacalar lagoon was the lagoon. It was so nice. It had actually different shades of colors, really, really pretty. 

Relaxing at Bacalaar Lagoon

We couldn’t be more excited to head for Tulum, a more touristy place. We hadn`t seen that many backpackers so far on the trip. At the hostel in Tulum we got a bike each, so we biked to the beach. 

Trying to get the hang of it

The beach was really nice, it was a white beach so the sand didn`t get hot at all. We spent those two days at the beach relaxing. 

The beach in Tulum

On 17th of May, our National day, we traveled to Playa del Carmen. We treated ourselves with a  “norwegian” breakfast, a massage, good lunch and dinner before finishing off with a great party. Everyone knew it was our National Day at the hostel and wanted us to sing the national anthem and have fun with us. We even got a “National day”-shot of tequila. 

A little taste of Norway on 17th of May: Smoked salmon

We had wanted to dive since Thailand, but hadn’t seen anything that was interesting or worth the price. When we heard about a cave-dive, we thought that this was something different. It was a freshwater dive also, which we had never tried before, so we were a little bit worried about finding the right buoyancy. 

Getting ready for cave-diving

The dive was very different. We went through narrow passages and it was completely dark some places, especially when Silje(brunette)’s flashlight ran out of battery. Our instructor said that it was an extreme-dive. We were supposed to follow lines inside the cave to not get lost, but he didn’t follow them at all. Also, the rules said we had to go through passages wide enough to fit 2 persons. We went through very small tunnels that only fit 1 person in height and width. We were not allowed to touch the ground, walls or “roof”, but we both bumped into it sometimes, even our instructor did it…oooooopsi! 

The Cenote caves

The beach in Playa del Carmen was the same as in Tulum, very nice. The only thing  was that when we finally had arrived at the carribbean coast it was cloudy and raining 😦 

Playa del Carmen beach

This was the first city since we started this 3 week bustrip that we went to party. There was a lot of nice people at the hostel and everyone was in the partymood. We meet two american basketplayers, but they were playing for Mexico. They were so tall!! 

Looking pretty tiny with these american basketball-stars

We had some good times in the bar with our hostel friends.  We met Hari from India, he was so funny. He had heard that hair could be sunbleached, but didn’t believe it since his hair is always black and was so impressed when we showed him Silje’s (brunette) sunbleached streaks. 

Relaxing with Hari at the hostel

All in all we do NOT recommend Bamba to any of you. There is much more than what we wrote in this blog, but we don’t want it to be all negative. We have written a complaint to them.  

Siljex2 

We had many questions when arriving to Orlando. How much had changed in 4 years? We were lucky to find out that the brother of Eirik, who we met in Sydney, was working in Epcot now. Anders was nice enough to let us in for free in the parks a couple of days and introduce us to the people living in The Commons, where we used to live.

First change we noticed was that “MGM Studios” had changed its name to “Disney’s Hollywood Studios”. Also, we had been excited about trying out new attractions and rides. There were no new rides to try, but we enjoyed the old ones just as much since there were 4 years since last time.

First stop MGM and tower of terror

Next stop was Epcot, and we were soooo excited to eat our favourite treats from the Norway Bakery. Again, another big change. Fellow retired cast-members prepare to be shocked; the cinnamon roll is now served cold and the schoolbread is half its size!!! We also walked into the restaurant to talk to Bev, a Norway pavilion-veteran, and even after 4 years she still remembered us! Taking a sneak-peek at the Norway menu, we found out that there was only one dish left from the days we worked there everything else was changed (americanized). There were no managers we knew, but we were told that one of our managers were still in Epcot.

School bred and cinnamon roll in Norway!!

We walked around the park and stopped to talk to our old manager, Rueben, and he also remembered us. Soarin’ was one of Silje’s (blonde) favourite rides so we hopped on before heading to Animal Kingdom.

Flower and garden festival in Epcot

Silje (brunette) didn’t take the Mount Everest ride 4 years ago when it was new, so we had to try that. Silje (blonde) didn’t see the Lion King show 4 years ago, and Silje (brunette) really thought it was a great show, so we decided to let it be the end of a great day.

Silje`s first time on Mount Everest

It was Wednesday, and to be true to the tradition we wanted to go to Chillers. Anders was nice enough to invite us to a pre-party in The Commons.

Silje could finally buy alcohol legally

It turned out to be a great night and we had a lot of fun. We even jumped the fence to get to the after-party.

Anders, Håvard og Eirik outside Chillers

“Drinking around the world” is when you walk around the Word Showcase in Epcot and enjoy one traditional drink in each country. Japan has sake, Mexico has tequila and so on. We met up with Anders and his friend Eirik for a fun time.

Drinking around the World

The tequila bar in Mexico was new to us. It had a lot of expensive tequilas. We decided to go for one of them even though we already had a margarita in Mexico.

Tequila in Mexico

Walking through United Kingdom, Eirik was very excited about seeing Tigger, claiming he had never seen him before, so we decided to stop for a picture.

Group-photo with the characters

We were lucky to enjoy the different drinks in a slow pace since it was Magical (Tragical as we used to call them) Hours (open 3 hours longer).

Playing in the waterfountain

The next day we were ready for a slow night. We went to Planet Hollywood and then we went to the movies and had a movie-marathon.

Movie-night with movie-nacho's

We were ready for some pampering, and since it’s so cheap in USA, we decided to get manicures and pedicures. We went to have dinner at Kobe, a Japanese steakhouse, and we enjoyed the most delicious grilled tuna. After that we headed for House of Blues(HOB), which is the usual spot to hang out on Sundays.

Got some manicure & predicure

The next day we got some shocking news. After HOB, Anders and Eirik had an after-party in their apartment, with some people that weren’t supposed to be there. The security of the Commons broke up the party and terminated Eirik and Anders from the Disney program. This means that they had to go back to Norway. We were so sad on their behalf…

Before we left Orlando, we had to see Pleasure Island. This was the party-street we used to go dancing every Monday, but is now closed. It was strange to see it all shut down and hidden away with flowers.

We started the journey down to Miami with a stop in Fort Lauderdale. We were surprised by how nice it was there, a lot of very nice private boats in small canals. We had both a completely different picture of this city.  There was a drive-in in Ft. Lauderdale, the world’s largest actually, and none of us had been to one before so we decided to go there.

Watching "the Bounty Hunter" in the world's largest drive-in

On our way to our hostel in Miami we stopped by the Norwegian Seaman-church by the port in Miami. They gave us A LOT of waffles with our Norwegian goat-cheese and jam. YUM! We had to buy some Norwegian caviar, because we always eat caviar and eggs every week in Norway and now we haven’t had it for 4 months!

Arriving in Miami on a Friday, we had talked to the cousin of our friend Ana Maria, and he invited us to a pre-party in his house in Key Biscayne. It was a very nice house, probably the biggest we have ever seen. His friends were too young to get in to the club we were going to so we had an early night.

A crowded South Beach on Saturday

The hostel  stayed at had free breakfast, free lunch and free dinner. They had a lot of other nice freebies too, and each night there was something happening. We met a lot of nice people, so we went to Mansion one night and Nikki Beach another. We hung out with a nice American girl named Amy a lot.

Goofing around at Nikki Beach

We went to do some shopping and we saw our first real celebrity, Brooke Hogan, daughter of Hulk Hogan. After that we went to the movies and tried to do a movie-marathon, but we quickly found out that they are smarter in Miami than Orlando and actually check the tickets.. 😛 On our way back from just the one movie, we saw a lot of paparazzi outside a theater. Everyone seemed to know who the person was, so we had to ask; Ricky Williams, the “best” player on Miami Dolphin (american football).

The next day was spent in Dolphin Mall shopping. Camilo, Ana Maria’s cousin, sent us a message that we could come with him and some friends on a boattrip, outside of Key Biscayne where he lives, the next day, so we did. It was a lot of fun. There was about 20 people divided on two boats.

In Key Biscayne with Camilo and his friends

After the boattrip we went straight to the hostel to enjoy our last night at the hostel.

At Mansion with the hostel

It was almost only people from the hostel at Mansion, given that we were a big crowd and it was a wednesday night.

Having fun the last night in Miami

Siljex2

Finally, after almost 4 years we were going to meet Courtney, Lindsey and little Aiden. We could not wait to see them. We were traveling by flight from Las Vegas to Wichita Falls, Texas to meet them. This was going to be interesting…

Lindsey and Aiden were so kind to pick us up at the airport. It was very good to see them and this was the first time we met Aiden. He seemed like a very shy little boy, but after a couple of hours he relaxed and was himself…hehe.

It took about 2 hours to get to Wichita Falls, and we drove straight to Courtney’s work place and surprise her. It was so good seeing them all. It was just as the good old Disney days. Courtney has two jobs so she is working a lot. We stayed there for some time and had dinner before heading “home” to Courtney`s place.

Testing a Texas-dish at Courtney and Lindsey's work

Aiden wanted to drive for a while

Courtney has a little dog called B, and she was so shy. If we just got close to her or called her name she would run to the other side of the room. But after a week at Courtney`s place B got closer to us, and we even got to cuddle with her .

Courtney got some days off when we were in Wichita Falls. So we had some time to look around in the city, but it wasn’t that much to see said the girls.

We had finally a kitchen that we could make some good meals, so we had one BBQ evening and one Taco evening. It was so great, and we made awesome food. We also had to follow the Flickabo tradition so we had a evening with peppermint schnapps and Hersey`s chocolate syrup. It was so fun. We got to share a lot of stories and update each other about what has been going on the last 4 years. It was great! At the end of the evening the peppermint schnapps bottle was getting emptied fast and we went out own town. At the club there was linedance with hiphop music, and as Silje (brunette) says it was “gangster linedance”. It was so cool!!

Home made BBQ

A real American Burger

Uh, getting in trubble

We went to Forth Worth where the biggest honky- tonk place is, Billy Bob`s , and Bret Michaels had a concert. Lindsey and Courtney love him. He is on celebrity apprentice and Lindsey has been seeing that. In Forth Worth we saw many cowboys with the boots, the jeans, the shirts and their hats. It was just like being in an old movie…hehe! We also got to see real bullriding. It was so cool seeing it. Some of the bull`s were crazy. Do not understand why people want to ride them, it`s very dangerous. The bullriding was the best part of that evening.

Lindsey and Courtney had seats during the concert to Bret Michaels. Silje and I just played pool and listened to the concert. The music wasn’t really our thing, but we got to see him on the big screen though.  

Bullriding, cowboys and cowgirls

"NO HANDGUNS" : Only rifles are allowed in the restaurant 😛

The love of her life

The bull wouldn't go out of the ring

Lindsey`s father had invited us for dinner, and it was really nice to meet him. He had been travelling a lot himself so it was fun exchanging stories. Lindsey also told us that she was planning to see Aiden’s family in England next year and if she was going to England she might as well come to Norway. 

We are excited about Lindsey and Aiden coming to Norway next year, and are hoping that Courtney will come with them. You are so welcome to Norway. Hope to see all of you next year!! Miss you guys a lot!!!

Silje x2

After 4 years we were finally coming back to USA. We were extremely excited. Silje (brunette) had wanted to do a roadtrip in california forever and was especially excited. Silje (blonde) had done it before when she livd in Orlando, but was excited to see some new places she didn’t see last time.

We arrived in LA and found out we just missed an earthquake earlier that day. The guy at the rental-car company looked at us like we were crazy when we said we didn’t want to rent a GPS. We have both driven cars in the USA before and know how it works so we figured we’d get by with maps. We had already booked a hostel in Inglewood for a couple of nights so we drove straight there. Inglewood sounds like a nice neighbourhood right? Hehe.. not exactly.. Later when we told people we lived there the first days they looked at us like we were joking. “Are you crazy? That’s one of the scariest places in Los Angeles??” We should have got the point when Taco Bell’s counter was covered with bulletproof-glass and the people at the hostel said we shouldn’t go out walking after 1800.

Enjoying american candy in our hostel in Inglewood

The first day in LA we spent checking out the beaches. It was too cold to actually go tanning, but we wanted to see the famous beaches Venice and Santa Monica. We were impressed by how incredibly wide the beaches were, felt like we walked forever before we got to the water.

Watching surfers at Venice Beach

Santa Monica beach is the beach where they shot most of Pacific Blue so we decided to find some bike-cops to take a picture with, but we couldn’t find any.. We tried to look for celebrities playing with their kids in the playground too, but disappointingly there were none. However, at the pier there was a big shooting of a music video or a new musical-movie so we got to watch a huuuuge crowd dancing synchronized together.  

Watching a movie-recording at Santa Monica Pier

Pacific Blue-wannabes

Drove to UCLA to check out the school we’ve heard so much about in movies and in clothes from Norway’s store BikBok..haha.. Okey, seriously because Silje (brunette) wanted to see what the business-department of the school was like. After that we headed for the Universal citywalk for some dinner and sightseeing. It reminded us a lot of our own Disney Downtown in Orlando.

Checking out my dream-school, UCLA

Today we had terrible news. One of the things we loved when we lived in Orlando was to go the Virgin-megastore. A huuuuge music,dvd and book-store where you could listen to any music you like for hours. Since the music-industry are having problems selling records, I guess this store wasn’t lucrative anymore and they closed all the stores about 6 months ago… L We still enjoyed the Hollywood boulevard and walk of fame. After a lot of walking we decided to take a Hollywood Star Tour to check out celebrities houses. It was a lot of fun and we saw some crazy huge houses in Beverly Hills and Bel-Air. We learned from the tour-guide that some of the celebrities are welcoming to the tour-people, Dr. Phil, while others, Courtney Cox, are more hostile.

Sleeping beauty pose

Moviestar Julia Roberts house

Spent the next couple of days checking out shopping centers like The Beverly Center and The Grove, before on Monday we headed to Six Flags. We both are amusement park-freaks so we got there when the park opened, and stayed until it closed and got a re-run on the last ride. It was a lot of fun! Later that night our hostel, Banana Bungalows, arranged a Free Comedy Night with struggling comedians. I don’t understand why they are struggling because they were hilarious!!

X2 ride at Six Flags

Today we started our road trip down towards San Diego and the freeway was enormous, 9 lanes one-way!!! Our first stop was Laguna Beach! Finally, after watching that show for over 5 years could Silje (brunette) see the place where it all started! We were very surprised on how big it was. It was really a beautiful place. We decided to stay a couple of nights so we could drive around a little bit and see the different beaches and check out the amazing houses on the top of the mountains. Finally, we got to see our first celebrity in USA, Lauren Conrad’s ex-boyfriend Jason Wahler was standing outside a smoothie-shop. We couldn’t find parking so we didn’t get a picture, but of course we went to buy a smoothie there later. J

Laguna Beach

Silje`s favorite school

Laguna beach hot spot

Really good skim-boarding boys at the beach

View of Laguna Beach

Our friend, Troy, who we met in Thailand and Bali, was back home from his travels so he would show us around San Diego. We lived in Old Town because there was a cheap hotel there, but funnily it was less than a mile to Troy’s house. He drove us around and we got to see a museum, Balboa Park and a weird, but cool Mexican “restaurant”. Then he took us to a beach which had a whole bunch of cute seals.

Margarita time in San Diego

Seals on one of the beaches in San Diego

We decided we wanted to drive all the way up to San Francisco. We drove up through Newport Beach, Huntington beach, Malibu and the Baywatch-beach; Zuma beach before we got to our first stop; Santa Barbara. This place had only one hostel, and they took advantage of it. It was more expensive than any of the other hostels we had stayed in and we lived in the smallest room ever with 10 other people. But, it was easy to meet people when you are practically on top of each other and we went to dinner that night with a Swiss, Canadian and a Kiwi (NZ).

Our plan was to drive to Neverland (Michael Jackson’s home in Santa Barbara) and then to Solvang ( a “Danish” city) for the following day. We spent forever looking for Neverland, and we even drove past it! You couldn’t see anything from the top of the mountain even, it is well hidden, and we understand why he lived there. All we could see was the gate and the entrance. There were inscriptions everywhere, on the road, the tree, the bricks, the pavement and the gate. After that we went to have lunch in Solvang. It really looked like Denmark, it was very nice.

Outside Michale Jacksons home Neverland

The gate to Neverland

Solvand the Danish town in California

Our trip onwards to San Francisco consisted of a lot of National Parks,  high mountains, eagles, scary cliffs with a narrow road similar to Norway’s roads in the west. There had been an accident so we were driving very slowly for a while and we decided to stop in Santa Cruz, which we were told was a small surfer-town. We felt it was sort of like a ghost-town, but we suppose it’s because it’s too early and too cold for surfing-season now.

Santa cruz beach

We arrived in San Francisco the next day, and it was so cold! It was raining on and off too. We checked out the Market street the first day and Silje (brunette) was really surprised of the huge amount of homeless people. They were everywhere, and we felt sad for them because they had to be so cold. The next day we spent too much time to get to the Golden gate bridge, but it was worth it. That night we decided to find a comedy club which was described as SF’s best. It was straight across from a Blues club, so we took a drink and listened to a soulful boy named Lil’Gabe. We were really disappointed with the comedy-club, it was actually a “comedy college”, and it wasn’t really professional at all, and all the jokes were about three things; sex,weed or geeks and a game called “Dungeons and Dragons”. The comedy night in Los Angeles was a lot better.

San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge

On the road to Las Vegas we stopped in a small place called Barstow, nothing really to see there, but we had to stop somewhere. We had originally planned to take the road through Yosemite national park because Kilroy had informed us that the road usually opened in march, but when we called the road-information we learned that last year it didn’t open before June and that it was still closed.

American style nacho`s

WOHOO, arrived in Las Vegas only to find out that our hotel was straight across from the “Hangover”-movie hotel Caesar’s Palace. Our hotel was called Imperial Palace and was right on the strip. We went to Planet Hollywood to eat our favorite appetizer in the whole world; Bruschetta.
The next day was Saturday and there were club-promoters everywhere, we got free entrance and VIP entrance and everything we wanted to all the big clubs.

Bellagio from Ocean 11

Las Vegas Strip

After a couple of days of gambling and partying we decided to say hi to an old Disney-colleague named Tony who was working at Hard Rock Café. The next day we went to Grand Canyon and it was amazing. The trip, however, was horrible. We were picked up at 0700 and dropped off at midnight and we were very tired.

Hoover Dam

The great Gran Canyon

It was snow and ice there

Gran canyon

Siljex2

We were so excited about going to Samoa. All we had planned was to chill, relax and get some tanning done 🙂 Our minds were occupied with thoughts since it was about a week until we’re going to the US and the A.      

The question was if we were going to get over to Samoa. Yes we did, but first we had to travel to New Zealand for one night. Silje (blond) was again picked out for random bomb explosion in Melbourne. Air New Zealand fixed us up with accommodation in New Zealand as well, very nice 🙂 All included. We didn’t get a chance to see New Zealand, but of what we did see, the nature pretty much looked like Norway. Was just as being home.        

The next day we took off to Samoa, finally after two days at luxury hotels 😉 We both got stopped at the airport and the security people confiscated our yoghurt even though it was small enough for the safety limits. At the airport we started talking to two boys from Melbourne, Stew and Lach. They were from the same plane that was cancelled, but they had gone to New Zealand that day. Luckily for Silje and me, they were gonna stay at the same hostel as us,so we got some company on the island which had almost no tourists. Very convenient or us.        

The first day, Lach and Stew invited us to join them on the south side of Apia. It was so nice there, and on the way we stopped by Papapaiana waterfall. It was amazing.       

A beautiful waterfall

It just happened that the boys were good company, and they must have been thinking the same because we started doing everything together. We went out to dinners, sightseeing and for some drinks together. However, since there were no tourists there, everything closed at ten or eleven at night. Also, every night between six and seven there is prayer time of fifteen minutes that the tourists shouldn’t be walking around because it is considered offensive.      

Having dinner with the aussie's

Silje and I went for some snorkeling at Palolo Marine Reserve, and we got to see a lot of triggerfish. One actually started attacking Silje (brunette) camera. Trigger-fish is very preditorial.       

The triggerfish that wanted my camera

 Siljex2, Lach, Stew and two other boys from our hostel had a roundtrip around Upolu. The first stop was a cave pool. It was lovely swimming in fresh water. After we left the cave pool we found out there was a 1 meter long eel in it…        

The cave pool

 The landscape of Samoa is very green, but not like Norway, more like a jungle.         

Beautiful green landscape

The driver took us to the south side of Apia, and there we got to see a lot of the effects and destructions from the tsunami that hit the island last september.      

Tsunami effects, look close to see a car way back in the picture

 The beaches on the south side of Apia is exactly how we imagined it would be. Isn’t it beautiful?       

Beautiful south side of Samoa

The local dance on Samoa is called Fia Fia. It`s a very colourful show with singing, drums and firework. It was really interesting seeing it.       

Samoan buffet and Fia-fia

Fia Fia show with firework. It was crazy. They were standing everywhere juggling with the fire stick. It reminded us of the fireshows on the beaches in Thailand.       

Fireshow at the fia-fia

Samoa consists of 9 islands, many uninhabited. We stayed at Apia for a few days before we took the boat to Savaii, the second biggest island. The boat trip to Savaii was horrible. It was a thunderstorm and the waves were really high. There were no places inside, we had to stay outside and Silje and I was just holding on to the boat scared to fall off. We had never seen such high waves out in the ocean before and Silje(brunette) couldn’t stop looking at them, which naturally followed her getting sick of the boat. Since we were on the top deck, it was hard finding a spot to throw up without hitting anyone below, let’s hope no one got hit.. yuck   

We took a local bus to the north side of Savaii where there was an Inn that the hostel in Apia recommended. We arrived at Regina beach inn and the girls there were really helpful. They carried all of our backpacks 🙂 We also got to meet the boss of the inn and the chief of the village Manese.   

Our breakfast was fresh, picked from the trees. It was very good; avocado, papaya, mini bananas, and one we didn’t like that much; breadfruit.        

Getting breakfast

We got served a coconut from one of the girls. The coconut milk didn’t taste much at all, but the “meat” was really good, tasted like almond. We got served “coconutmeat” the days we were there 🙂 We love to eat apples, but one of the girls told us that apples are uncommon and are a “treat” served at special occasions or birthdays. No wonder people were looking funny at us when we ate apples on the bus.   

The coconut was yummy

At Savaii the beaches was wonderful and we took a long stroll on it. We got to see a lot of crabs.        

Mooncrab

We took the local bus on Savaii a lot, and it looked very different from other buses. Everything inside it, like the seats, was of wood. We can tell you that it wasn’t pleasant sitting on that bus for a long time.        

Local bus

At Regina beach inn they only had Fale`s and it`s basically just a floor and a roof. It didn`t have any outlets and only one light. We got a flashlight that we had to use when it was dark. They tied bamboo walls on it to keep the wind and rain away and they decorated it with rug, mattresses, pillows, blankets and mosquito nets for us. At the end it was really cosy!         

Empty fale

All the girls were making a lot of flower bouquets and they loved being in front of the camera. We spent some time talking to them since we were the only ones staying at their Inn. We just had to have a picture of them. They were so nice to us. Silje (blond) looks like a giant compared to them. They are so tiny.        

The girls in Savaii

The boys Stew and Lach had gone to the south side of the island to surf, but they called us to tell us where they were staying so we could catch up with them for our last night in Savaii. The fale that we had there was open on one side so the view we woke up to was just incredible. It was so nice and calming waking up like this. It gave us some peace of mind.        

Our view when we woke up

 Savaii also had a waterfall called Afu Aau and we got to swim in it 🙂 We enjoyed the freshwater. It`s so much nicer than all the saltwater so far on our trip.        

Beautiful waterfall

 Lach was going to stay in Samoa for another two weeks, but Stew was going back to Melbourne. He and and English guy at our hostel joined us the last night in Apia taking our last jug of mojito.        

Last night in Apia

We had a wonderful time in Samoa. It`s just so amazing there.  The people are so kind and friendly. Everyone told us the people in Bali and Thailand were going to be nice to us, but they are nothing compared to the Samoans. We felt that people in Bali were nice to you because they wanted something from you. In Samoa, people just wanted to help you and talk to you. We definitely recommend all of you to travel there. It will be a completely different experience, it has been different from anything we’ve ever seen, but the people will make it feel like home.    

Our airportchecks in melbourne and NZ adds a few points

Siljex2

We knew 3 weeks was going to be a tight schedule for the east-coast of Australia, but we knew we could do it. This was also gonna be our first try at hostels, so we were very excited about sharing rooms. What we didn’t expect was the expensive living costs…

          

Our first stop was Darwin, but only to transfer flights to Brisbane, Silje (brunette) was the lucky chosen one for a “random” explosive check.. We arrived in Brisbane and took the Airtrain to the central station, and our hostel was straight across from the station, very convenient. The hostel was expensive compared to what we had been paying for rooms, the internet was expensive and there was no air-conditioned or free breakfast.. It was quite horrible staying in the 4th floor in a small room with just a tablefan.. The next day we went to Steve Irwin’s zoo; Australian Zoo. It was a fun day and we watched a crocodile show that was really cool.  There was tigers, elephants and of course all kinds of snakes and australian animals.

Big ol' crocodile

The next day we checked out and headed for paradise, namely Surfer’s Paradise. Our hostel turned out to be pretty far away from the centre, but they drove us to the beach. We met a nice girl from Canada named Jenna and an Irish boy called Damien and we all decided to stay at the hostel, and not go in to the center at night, because there was a storm coming. The next day we hung out with them too, and Jenna had a car which she used to show us a nice kebab-place. We found out that we were heading the same way, toward Whitsunday islands, so we agreed to meet again.               

Jenna from Canada and her nice car

 We had booked flighttickets a long time ago and we had tried to figure out which airport to choose. We tried googling and finally thought we had figured it out: “Hamilton Island” which is one of the Whitsunday islands. However, what we didn’t know was that Hamilton Island is to Australia what Hampton is to USA. Only expensive houses and hotels, we couldn’t afford to stay there!! After considering if we should just drop the whole thing, we decided that we really wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsunday islands. Therefore, we had to pay 40 $ each to get off the Hamilton Island and get to the mainland with a ferry. Our hostel was very nice, Backpackers by the bay, and they had quizes every night and movies too.               

We were deciding whether or not to go on the outer reefs to dive or the inner reefs and get to see Whitsunday’s too. The tours were very expensive, so we decided that it was better to get to do two things.               

Whitehaven beach in Whitsunday

The Whitehaven beach in Whitsunday was amazing.. Many people do a boat-tour for 3 days, but we weren’t aware of that and we had already booked our hostel. A couple of guys we met told us that they were on an overnight boat-tour and people were partying very much and almost everyone were sick on the boat, so we were happy about our choice.               

2 seconds before we saw the shark

We couldn’t decide whether or not to pay the extra 75 $ to do a dive in the Great Barrier Reef, so we waited until we were on the boat to decide. The depth was only 8 meters, so we could see just as much by snorkeling.. One guy did the dive and he said it wasn’t any good, so again we made a good decision!  

When we got back from our trip, Jenna, Damien and another friend Laura had checked in to our hostel. There weren’t many people staying there, so the manager of the hostel decided to show us around town.               

Partying with the manager of the hostel

 The next day we left for the airport, flew back to Brisbane and took a mini-van to Byron Bay, where our surf-course was gonna start.               

The bus that picked us up

Everyone we knew had been promoting Mojo Surf to us, but it didn’t fit with the days we wanted to surf, the time we wanted to leave or the price. Also Jenna had tried Mojosurf and she said it was almost impossible to surf because there were too many people in the water at the same time, like 30, and the surf instructors didn’t really have time for you. At first we were kind of disappointed by Surfaris. We thought that we were going to travel with the bus from hostel to hostel down the coast trying out different beaches, but we were staying in one place the whole time. And it was only 7 people total. We thought we had made a wrong choice. However, it turned out that Mojo also had one place they stay at the whole time. Plus, they had only license to one beach (can only use on beach to teach surfing), but Surfaris had 5 licenses. The beach we went to the first day was Hat Head, and it was completely deserted, and since we were only 7, we got to surf and fall all we wanted.                

Our great surf-coach Damien

Our group consisted of Siljex2, an American girl, a Malaysian boy, a Kiwi (New Zealand), a German girl and a Canadian girl. Our B&B/Hostel was pretty big and we were few, so me and Silje got a room to ourselves.              

A real stick-animal outside our room

We started the day with breakfast, went out to surf in a new spot, then we went back for lunch and welcomed 4 more people. A guy from UK, a girl from UK and two guys from USA. We headed out for an afternoon session in another beach.               

Surfin' and paddlin' twice a day

The beaches were nice and secluded and we learned all about Yoga to stretch your body before surfing, “gutters” and “rips”.                 

Deserted beaches

Our surf-coach Damien was so cool that he held my underwater camera and tried to get good pictures of us while teaching us and pushing us onto waves. (PS; waves not whitewash:)              

Catchin' a wave together

We had a couple of nice days of surf in Hat Head, Plum Pom and others, but some people weren’t staying as long as us, so we had a final shot together as a full group.               

The last day we were a full group

The surfing, or to put it correctly; the well-used softboards were taking its toll on Silje (brunettes) knees and feet. She had scratches and bruises and deep wounds after the 6th day of surf.              

Surf-wounds

The last day we were all pretty tired, but we had a go for about an hour in the water before we decided to go back and have some time to relax before our 7 hours train-ride down to Sydney.               

The last day was finished, and now we are PRO surfers 😛

First day in Sydney we were supposed to meet an old Disney-coworker,Eirik, that is exchanging for a year in Sydney, but we realised we had enough of the beach for a while and Silje (brunette) had to let her surf-wounds heal, so we went sightseeing.               

The opera house was beautiful

 We met up with Eirik for Mardi Gras festival later that night. It was really fun to see him again, we hadn’t met in 4 years!              

Excited to celebrate Mardi Gras

 The Mardi Gras in Sydney is also a celebration of the Gay and Lesbian. There were many funny costumes and performances and the parade was incredibly long.              

Normal clothes at the festival

The next day we decided to see some of the beaches at the afternoon, and there had been a tsunami warning that day because of the earthquake in Chile, but nobody had really cared, and when we got there surfer’s were in the water and lots of people were sunbathing. The next day we had some time to kill before our nighttrain to Melbourne. None of us are big science-fiction fans, but we decided to see Avatar in 3D because it was showing in the IMAX in Syndey, which is the world’s largest IMAX. It was an amazing movie, and we both loved it!              

Seeing Avatar in the world's biggest IMAX

 The nighttrain to Melbourne was very uncomfortable, because we didn’t have a bed, but at least there were few people there, so me and Silje got 4 seats to ourselves.. We arrived at King’s Cross backpackers really early, just in time for breakfast. We were impressed by Melbourne’s tourist discounts, there was a free tram and a free bus running through town to see seightseeing. We also had free entrance to the Melbourne Museum.              

Huge spiders at the Melbourne museum

The hostel was the first one in Australia with airconditon, which was amazing, we also got free dinner some nights and other goodies.              

The best hostel in Australia

 We were getting ready to leave Australia and we had really tried to keep our expenses at a minimum, making dinner in the hostels, bying breakfast or snacks at the supermarkets, we ate out in a restaurant for dinner once or twice. Still, we realized we should have budgeted more and that Australia is as expensive as USA if not more expensive on certain things like dining out and buying food.              

A funny way to spell Café in Melbourne

As always Silje (blond) was picked out for a “random” explosive check, but it didn’t stop there. As she was waiting for Silje (brunette) she was picked out again. She had to put all her stuff on a chair for the testing, before the other person who had checked her before stopped the other person.Just when we were getting to our gate a thunderstorm broke out. We had never seen such a thunderstorm in our lives, it was crazy. Flights were getting rerouted to Sydney or getting cancelled.. What happened to our flight..? Well it`s a long story. The flight was cancelled, but we were moved to another plane that was going to go earlier so that we would get our connection in Samoa. The problem was just that this plane also got cancelled, but our original plane was going to go. Air New Zealand told us that we could go to New Zealand, but that we already had lost our connection and that they had taken our backpacks off the flight. We decided to stay in Melbourne, since we wanted to have our backpacks. Our backpack never showed up.They had been sent to New Zealand. We were so pissed off and the worst part was that Air New Zealand said that they had no responsibility helping us with accomodation since this was weather-related. We argued with them for a while before they agreed to help us with accomodation. We got to stay at the Hilton in Melbourne on their bill for the night, with dinner/breakfast included in the price. They also paid for the cab ride back and forth to the airport.

@ the Hilton

We were so lucky, not many people got any help. We got our own room, which was just like heaven for us after 3 weeks of bunk-bedding. So did we ever get to Samoa…?? To be continued… 

See other posts for explanation

 Siljex2