Kobus mans's Blog Posts Tagged 'travel' (78)

Start: February 12, Antigua

Finish: February 12, Antigua

Pounds of chocolates consumed: 2

Cost: $20 per person

Chocolate, it is so easy to devour. Jessica and I set out to find out how much work goes into making a simple bar of chocolate. What better way to kick off a Sunday afternoon than a tour of the Chocolate Museum followed by a hands-on class on making chocolate from scratch.

It…

Start: January 31, San Miguel Escobar

Finish: February 6, San Miguel Escobar

Birthdays Celebrated: 2

Pairs of Boots Purchased: 1

Hours Spent in School: 20

Vehicle Malfunctions: 1

After one week in Antigua, today marks the longest time we've spent in once place since our journey began over four months ago. We haven't done any traveling or sightseeing, and yet this week has been the busiest in quite some time. It's a good kind of busy, we're learning a…

Start: January 25, San Jose Succotz, Belize

Finish: January 30, Ciudad Viejo, Guatemala

Borders Crossed: 1

Tallest Mayan Pyramid Climbed: 1

Hours Spent Driving: 19

Leaving the country of Belize, we head back into Spanish-speaking country and deeper into Central America. After another uneventful border crossing into Guatemala, we spend two nights in Tikal before driving farther south. Our end goal: the Global Visionaries office in San Miguel Escobar, just…

Border name: Melchor de Mencos

Between cities: Benque Viejo Del Carmen, Belize and Melchor de Mencos, Guatemala

Cost to exit Belize: Q37.50 ($18.75 USD)

Cost for visas: Q20 ($2.60 USD) per person (unofficially)

Cost for vehicle: Q18 ($2.34 USD) for fumigation, Q160 ($20.78 USD) for Vehicle Import Permit

Total time: 55 minutes READ…

Another country, another budget recap. I'll keep this one short since you're probably still recovering from the awesomeness of my Mexico Budget Recap.

We only spent 11 days in Belize. Three days on the island of Caye Caulker and the the rest camping in the jungle. We were a bit over budget, but that's largely due to our decision to take an expensive ferry trip from Sarteneja to Caye Caulker.…

Start: January 21, Mayan Wells

Finish: January 24, San Jose Succotz

Jungle Cats Seen: 5

Monkeys Fed: 1

Days of Reliable Internet in Belize: 1

Price of Gas in Belize: $5.50/gallon

We wrap up our time in Belize with a trifecta of jungle campgrounds. First stop is Mayan Wells in the middle of the country, then it's on to the Belize Zoo education center, and…

General Availability: Medium to High

Quality of Bandwidth: Usually very bad. Few places pay for high speed. Unless you can get a hardline, count on painfully slow connections.

Frequency of internet in hotels: Medium. The more touristy the more likely to have internet. But if you need it, check in advance.

Frequency of internet in campgrounds: Surprisingly high. Most campgrounds were part of a hotel or wildlife sanctuary that also had…

Border name: Santa Elena or simply Chetumal

Between cities: Subteniente López (Chetumal), Mexico and Santa Elena (Corozal), Belize

Cost for visas: $0

Cost for vehicle: $5 USD for fumigation, $23 USD for 2 weeks insurance

Total time: 45 minutes

The steps:

1. Go to the Mexican immigration booth, hand in your tourist cards and have your passport stamped.
2. Go to the Mexican Banjercito and have your Vehicle Import Permit cancelled and your…

Welcome to part two of our exceptionally exciting series of articles describing in excruciating detail the monies we have spent during our trip to Argentina. This article covers our 70 days and 4500 miles through Mexico. Why should you care? If you're our typical reader, you probably don't want to know how much money we spent doing laundry. Pray forgive me this dry interlude and stay tuned for our next travel updates from Belize.…

I'd be lying if I said we weren't concerned about the security situation in Mexico before we left home. In the US it's hard to go two weeks without hearing a report of headless bodies hanging from freeway overpasses or newly discovered mass graves. It's news you can't ignore, and yet it's dangerously easy to sensationalize.

I did my fair share of homework before we left, until I got to the bottom line: common sense and a bit of research is all you need. We planned our route to…

Start: January 4, Chichen Itza (Chicken Pizza)

Finish: January 10, Tulum

Mayan Ruins Visited: 3

Tourists Seen: Too Many

Collapsing Palapas Avoided: 1

Nights Spent Camping: 7

Continuing our whirlwind tour of the Yucatan Peninsula, this week brings us to three more Mayan archeological sites - two of which are without a doubt among the most visited tourist attractions in Mexico.…

Start: December 27, Campeche

Finish: January 3, 2012, Merida

Mayan Ruins Visited: 3

Spider DEFCON Level: Eleventy-Million

Gallons of Soup Made by Kobus: 2

Nights Spent in Crappy Campgrounds: 2

Nights Spent in Hostels: 6

This week took us from Campeche to Merida, the largest city on the Yucatan Peninsula. All told we've covered about a third of the peninsula, most of that heading north across flat, sparsely-populated jungle.…

In Mexico, we setup two types of prepaid data connections via cell phone network. In the US we bought an unlocked 3G Android phone and an…

General Availability: Very High

Quality of Bandwidth: Like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get. Quality and reliability is higher in internet cafes than in hotels.

Frequency of internet in hotels: Medium most places. High in touristy areas.

Frequency of internet in campgrounds: Zero in campgrounds. Medium in RV parks. High if there is a hotel associated with the camping/RV area.

Average cost to connect: Usually free. Places with fee…

Start: December 20, Tehuantepec

End: December 26, Campeche

Elevation Lost: 7,100 Feet

How High an Iguana Can Bounce: 2 Feet

Humidity Level: 100% Chance of Sweat

Nights Sleep Interrupted by Angry Monkeys: 2

We began this week nearly 7,250 feet up in the highlands of south-central Mexico in the city of San Cristobal de las Casas. Temperatures dropped to 40 degrees at night and the environment was much more like home than we had become accustomed to -…

Start: December 13, Cholula

Finish: December 19, San Cristobal de las Casas

Oaxacan Recipes Learned: 6

Types of Tortillas Made: 2

Crickets Eaten: A few

Ancient Ruins Explored: 1

World's Stoutest Trees Seen: 1

For the pronunciation-impaired, Oaxaca sounds like 'wah-ha-kah' not 'oh-axe-ah-ka'. It's a state in southern Mexico, with a capital city bearing the same name. There are more indigenous cultures and peoples in this area than anywhere else…

Start: December 5, Mazatlan

Finish: December 12, Cholula

Earthquakes Survived: 1

Monarch Butterflies Seen: Gazillions

Nights of Fireworks Slept Through: 7

Tacos al Pastor Consumed: 6

This leg of our journey takes us from the coast of the Mexican mainland to the heart of central Mexico. Three long days of driving take us across the country, from Mazatlan to Guadalajara, to the monarch butterfly reserve high in the mountains and finally around Mexico…

Border name: San Ysidro

Between cities: Chula Vista, USA and Tijuana, Mexico

Cost for visas: $20 USD per tourist card

Cost for vehicle: $48 plus $200 USD refundable deposit

Total time: 1 hour 15 minutes

The steps:

1. Drive through the border
2. Clear Mexican customs (red light, green light)
3. Find the Banjercito / Migración office
4. Go to the Migración office and fill out the tourist card paper.
5. Go to the…

Start: January 12, Chetumal

Finish: January 20, Sarteneja, Belize

Borders Crossed: 1

Hands with Second Degree Burns: 2

Biting Insects: Entirely Too Many

Cups of Ceviche Made: 8

Sharks Petted: 1 READ…

To get from Baja to mainland Mexico you have two choices, drive back up the way you came or fork over a couple hundred bucks to take a ferry across the Sea of Cortez. We chose to take the ferry. It was expensive, but we had no desire to drive an extra two thousand miles.

This article details our sixteen hour ferry adventure. We went into it not really knowing what to expect aside from the ferry schedule and ticket costs. That information is available online on the…