Leaving the USA

Ola!

Seems like ages since we last wrote as we were so busy. We covered about 8 US national parks in the same amount of days, camping the whole time (we didn´t give in to the cold again after that windy night at Bryce).
After Bryce (GORGEOUS) we went to the Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Monument Valley, Lake Powel, Grand Canyon and Lake Mead. Lake Mead was created by the Hoover Dam, which we took tour of - very impressive. Did you know with the amount of concrete used to make the dam they could have built a 4 foot wide, 3 inch thick pavement around the Earth´s equator? Amazing!

Of course the Grand Canyon was the icing on a very large cake (with Bryce being the best layer), and the plane flight we took over it was the cherry.... notice the food associations again!! We had a lovely campsite at the GC, in the forest. We even had a campfire! Did a fairly long hike into the canyon and our trainers turned orange from the sand. Rob even got a kind of fake-tan effect on his legs...mmmm.

Finally we packed up the tent, mats and sleeping bags for the last time (for now) and drove back to Vegas for a few days of luxury. I wasn´t as successful as Rob on the slot machines but did well at the roulette table (with pink chips) after overcoming our initial embarassment. Vegas was lots of fun, but as everyone told us, it was nice to get away from the noises of the slot machines when we left. We did eat some great food (over-ate so many times at buffets!) and saw a v funny comedian who had tears rolling down my face. Unfortunately we had quite bad weather, it rained for 2 of our 3 days there (it´s in the desert... make sense?!) but it didn´t spoil it too much for us. Know which hotels we´d like to stay at if we ever went again too.

So last night (Wednesday) we took a short flight from Vegas to LA and from there an overnight flight to Guatemala City, landing at 4.30am local time. Hardly had a wink of sleep. We were understandably a little apprehensive - until now it´s all been very easy in the US and Central America will be quite different to that. We walked out of the airport not having a clue where we should go (it was 5.30am) but a taxi-driver spotted us and seemed to know we wanted to go to Antigua. And so we took our first journey which led us out through the run-down streets of Guatemala City into the hills to Antigua, the old capital. We arrived around 7am, but the hostel we´d planned on going to was full. Taxi driver was v helpful and took us to another place he knew, where we were greeted by the friendly owner and shown to a basic room with... a bed! That was all we needed. We slept til 12, fantastic!

We´ve wandered around the town and looked at language schools, had something to eat etc. Is really quite different to anywhere either of us has been to before. Rickety old buses and cars, lots of people to-ing and fro-ing. It´s a holiday today so maybe it´ll be quieter tomorrow when people are back at work. For now it´s just interesting to watch and take it all in. Hopefully we´ll start a Spanish course on Saturday, where we´ll stay with a family for a week and get one-to-one tuition for 4 hours a day.

Think that´s about it for now without going into too much detail. Rob will update on the Cheesecake Incident very soon...

xxx

Washington & Frederick

Hi everyone!

Can't believe we're finally here and really underway now!

Just a quick update on our first stop. We had a pretty uneventful but quite enjoyable flight over from London to Washington. Bit nervous to start with but once we were in the air felt considerably better.

We were picked up by my uncle and taken back to his house in Frederick, about 45 mins drive from the airport and fed a lovely meal, even though by that time our bodies were telling us we should have been in bed long ago!

Saturday was spent exploring the wonderful city of Washington DC. After a few teething problems with the metro system we managed to cover a lot of the city, including the Botanical Gardens, the Capitol Building, the White House, the Natural History Museum, the Aquarium and the Washington Monument. Amazing city and all very clean, well kept & well presented.

Sunday and Monday were spent with the family and the dog Tobie (who will have an identity crisis if they're not careful - they call him Sally when he's around so he doesn't know they're talking about him...). We saw downtown Frederick and Sugarloaf Mountain, and ate lots of ham (!). We were truly spoiled and it was a fantastic and 'easy' start to our trip. Thanks again for having us!

We stopped by the Air and Space Museum near the airport before our flight to Dallas on Tuesday - a huge hangar with all sorts of examples of aircraft and spacecraft. Very interesting!

In those 4 days we managed to take well over 100 pictures... so will just put a select few onto flickr for you! Follow the link on the right hand side ---->

PS. A few notes on the USA in general - they all drive very large cars or even small trucks, which they have apparently no real need for. Roads very wide and houses very large too!