Why LandedFalcon? Well, that is a long complex answer that requires beer and a comfy seat in the pub. I would expect it to take almost a minute! Yes, any excuse for a beer.
The challenge for 2020 is to inflict myself on the parts of the world represented by the Green and Yellow pins on this map, and to make it back so that I can bore people with my photo’s.
With 300 days of travel planned, I hope you will join me on my journey when I depart for Mexico City on the 2nd of January. I may even post some of the trials of trying to plan this much stuff. I intend to have an idea of what I will be doing for every single day of the trip before it starts, cos my brain works like that.
I will leave you with a photo of the trip that started me on my love of travelling. Try not to laugh too much! I know I was fat and sweaty, lol!
Here is the latest update on the city. Its a bit dark as I was showing off the lighting kits that I have installed. I have also been playing around with recording my own background music… at some point I will be able to do it without a million mistakes but at least you can hear it unlike my previous attempts.
Now with added music, here is a short vid of this fantastic lego set that I completed recently. I made the video over lunch so didn’t spend much time on it. I just wanted to play around with adding titles and sound. Things will improve!
This set is amazing but also HUGE. Don’t get it if you are short of space. If you are a Ninjago fan it has loads of cool references in it. I am trying to catch up myself.
I have big plans for this and a few other sets (including Chinese New Year sets) so watch this space 😉
And, yes, I know that this isn’t Star Wars or actual travel
This is my first stab at lego videos, they are basically a few photos strung together without any sound. The first video is the city room (before I pulled it apart in order to put bigger tables in… totally trashed now!) and the second is the Space Division with some of the other sets that are dotted around the rest of the house…. I have already realised that I have missed some :o.
I will play around with sound (including me talking) for future updates.
In case you are wondering, I do intend to put more posts up from last years travels. I am just finding it really hard going to sort out the photos.
I have been home for about two weeks now and have made amazing progress with my blog…. ok, I havent got anywhere with it!!
On the positive note, I have finally started sorting out my photos. Unfortunately there are over 10,000 of them for the 2.5 months of travel. At my current rate of sorting through them I anticipate finishing them some time.
I expect to continue writing up the blog entries when my photos have caught up with them. It would be nice to be able to choose from all of my photos rather than just the ones that happen to be on my phone… most of which have now been deleted from my phone because it was totally full 😮
San Ignacio is very close to the border with Guatemala so we headed to Flores by private transfer (rather than flying).
The border between Belize and Guatemala is currently under peaceful dispute. The dispute is based on an agreement between the UK and Guatemala exchanging money and a road for a large amount of what is currently Belize. Both sides say that the other hasn’t met their obligations. Belize, being stuck in the middle, has taken the matter to international court in the hope to get the matter resolved officially and peacefully. Other than that, Belize and Guatemala have a very good relationship.
On the way to Flores, we visited the ancient city of Tikal. The inhabitants were contemporaries and occasionally enemies of Corocal (the ancient city in Belize that I visited the previous day). Unfortunately it was quite a wet day so I couldn’t take many photos.
Many of the temples had wooden steps that allowed you to climb to the top. The views from there were stunning, with the tops of the larger constructions poking out of the forest.
We also got to see some howler monkeys, Tucana and several other birds including the Oscillating Turkey.
The town of Flores was, at one point, very pretty. I must admit that, now, it is nice but very tired! It needs a lot of sprucing up which is a shame. My pictures don’t really show this, but…
Having left Caye Caulker later than intended, we ‘had’ to charter a private transfer from Belize City to San Ignacio rather than getting a local bus (shame!). This was a decision made unanimously by the group. The private transfer was faster and less faffy than the local bus option so we didn’t loose much time by staying longer on the island. Below is a pic of me on the water taxi.
We arrived at San Ignacio early enough to have a look around the town before heading to the hotel (which was out of town). There were some really pretty parts, but most of it felt run down and none of us were too bothered about staying for long.
While in town, we headed down to see the river (and some of the group decided to play pooh sticks… shame they got stuck under the bridge though!!)
The Aguado hotel was quite a pleasant place to stay. The had a turtle pond and sold beer (what more could you want?). We even had an ‘interesting‘ chat with an out of work archaeologist and his son 🤣 Some people!!
The next day most of the group tried to go tubing. Unfortunately it had been raining too much and they ended up going caving instead. Maybe our tour lead shouldn’t have let us know that she had never successfully gone tubing as something had happened every time she tried to go, meaning it was always cancelled!
I didn’t really fancy tubing so didn’t even try to go. The local Mayan ruins at Caracol sounded amazing so I went there instead. It turned out to be one of my favourite sites.
There weren’t many people there so taking clear photos was relatively easy… when it wasn’t raining that is! At one point we had to huddle inside a doorway most of the way up a pyramid due to a sudden and torrential downpour.
The Caracol site was huge. Our guide suggested that there may have been 180k inhabitants at one stage, more than double Belize City today (if you believe it).
The ruins are located within the Mountain Pine Ridge Reserve so the journey there and back was stunning. It just wasn’t particularly photogenic due to the rain (it obscured things rather than adding atmosphere).
We had a slight scare on the way back as the car started sliding sideways due to the slippery mud on the road. We had just watched a truck do something similar. The guide rescued it so we were ok and actually got back. We were due to visit a cave on the way back but the road to get to it was dangerous in these conditions so we didn’t attempt it. We did manage to visit a river with some pretty waterfalls.
Today we left Mexico and said goodbye to a number of our travelling companions. Some were heading home and some were heading to Cuba (yet another place on my list to visit!!).
We had a long journey to the port (well water taxi rank) of Chetmal in Mexico where we got a ferry (well water taxi) to the Belizean island of Caye Caulker stopping briefly on the way in San Pedro in order to go through customs.
The water taxi was basically an enclosed speedboat so not the most pleasant journey. While the conditions were not ‘bad’ the water was not smooth so we were bounced around quite a bit. If you enjoy the bucking bronco (like one guy did!) then sit at the front, it is slightly smoother near the back.
Caye Caulker was a firm favourite with the group, to the extent that we negotiated an extra few hours on the island. We did have to pay extra for a private transfer to the next stop but it was worth it!
None of us really did a huge amount on the island, that is not what it is about! A few did a full days snorkelling tour and they all heartily recommended it. I had chickened out as it was a little breezy and it looked a bit rough to me the total non swimmer (it was probably fine though).
My small subgroup decided to hire bikes instead and cycle around the southern part of the island (the north and south had become separated during a hurricane in 1961). It was good to go out for a cycle… well, wade! It had been raining so parts of the island had become somewhat waterlogged 🤣 and we had to get off and paddle!
Did I mention that we also ended up having to carry our bikes through the mangroves? 🙄
In the afternoon we took the ‘free’ boat to the north part of the island. I say free, it was free to get over there but to get back you needed to prove that you had spent a certain amount of money at the bar/restaurant. I suppose you could swim back as it wasn’t all that far. We chose lunch!
After eating we went for a bit of a wander on the north island but it wasn’t exactly exciting. There is apparently a crocodile reserve somewhere there but you need to book ahead and we didn’t. There was a lot of building work going on on north island as well. The pic below was an interesting pineapple themed building and a hermit crab we met (not quite a croc, but…)
The following morning, instead of leaving the island like we were supposed to, a few of us took a scenic flight to see the blue hole! It was quite expensive (especially given that it was cash only as we weren’t going to the office) but well worth it. The journey to the blue hole was great, flying over a number of islands and reefs. The hole itself was stunning and well worth seeing. I am sure that it is impressive to see from a boat but I can not see how a close up view could get the full ‘what the hell’ factor you get from above!
Following the flight we left Caye Caulker by another water taxi to Belize City. This one was open and it made a huge difference and was a pleasant journey.
Having failed miserably in Mexico, Caye Caulker was where I found my first holiday charm. We were walking down the Main Street and saw a guy carving jewellery from a conch shell. They were stunning! Unfortunately it seems to have started a theme, which is bad as I am rubbish at buying souvenirs anyway!
One of the highlights of the visit was single handedly stopping a pyramid from floating off into space! Thank you 😎
It is fair to say that Playa del Carmen is not really my sort of place. It was good to visit but WAY too touristy for my taste. As a group we had lots of problems with ATMs on 5th Avenue (well, one problem multiple times… ie they usually don’t work). We eventually found an HSBC near to Palacio Municipal which actually seemed to be reliable!
As we were walking around town we were lucky to see the end of a Danza de lots Voladores, which is basically four blokes hanging off a big pole by their feet, spinning around and gradually getting lower. Yeah, it’s weird!!
If you happen to visit Playa del Carmen and you have too much luggage space, then please buy me one of these, they are awesome.
The next day we went on a Cenote tour. The were very gentrified as they had been set up as natural swimming pools, but still really good to see. Most people used the horse drawn railway, but as there was the option to cycle guess what I did! 🤣
Yes, I actually swam in a couple of them!! I can hear you faint 🤣
In the morning we had a bit of time to have a final wander around Oaxaca before heading to the airport at 11am.
Oaxaca airport was tiny and quite boring, but at least they had coffee! We flew with Interjet who I was fairly impressed with. I think that I actually had more leg room than I had with Air France business class from Edinburgh to Charles de Gaulle.
The first flight was quite comfortable, plus we got complimentary a la carte cuisine… well:
It was a short flight so the legroom more than balanced this out.
Unfortunately the flight was delayed so we basically had to march from one end of the terminal to the other and get straight onto the next flight.
This was a costly delay for us as our luggage did not join us for our flight. We saw a baggage cart arrive next to the aircraft (with our cases visible) moments before we were moved backwards to start taxiing to the runway.
Other than that the flight was good. My seat wasn’t quite as comfy as the previous flight but I have had worse (it looked identical though and so did the catering!!)
In order to get the luggage back we had to individually complete forms with the airline which took AGES! Our luggage turned up at the hotel the following morning.
LandedFalcon 