California Coast, Boulder Creek and Pebble Beach

We drove from LA up to Boulder Creek to stay with a friend who lives there, I haven't seen her since I was last in America when I was 8!  There's not much I can say about the drive, other than it was beautiful, truly spectacular.  So I've chosen to not write much and just put up a load of photos - I couldn't describe it anyway!  I will just say that you may notice that the car is huge- it had a 5 litre engine and 7 seats and was far too big for just the two off us. This is what happens when Tim goes to the car hire place on his own!  We both had a lot of fun driving it though.  

Route 1

Elephant seals in Monterey bay - they were huge!

More route 1

Yes I was allowed to drive - under strict instruction!

Happy Timmy in his big car 

Just beautiful!

The fog rolled in just before sunset - even that was spectacular!

We stayed for 2 nights with Nan (ette) in Boulder creek and spent a day at Pebble Beach looking at the golf course and doing the 17 mile drive.  Tim was so happy at Pebble Beach, he couldn't stop smiling, it was a real shame he didn't get to play the course...maybe one day.

With Nan in Boulder Creek

The 18th Hole  

Of all the places we've been to, and amazing things we've seen it's a golf course that produces the biggest smile! 

  We had a great meal in a little seafood restaurant on the way home, seafood chowder complete with a whole crab - delicious!  Next stop San Francisco...    

150 year old cyprus tree - this tree is on the pebble beach logo.

Yummy seafood - The bibs were necessary!

Early morning drive to San Francisco on Skyline Boulevard at about 1200m above sea level-  those are clouds in the valley! 

Welcome to the USA: Las Vegas and LA

The strip at night - Crazy!

From the relatively undeveloped countries of Central America we dived head first into the USA: starting with Las Vegas!  It's hard to describe Vegas, it is tacky beyond belief with neon lights everywhere, miniature statues of the empire state building, an actual replica New York skyline alongside the Eiffel tower and an inside version of Venice, lions in one of the Casinos, fountains set to music, a fairy tale castle hotel... and so much more! I was expecting to have a very English reaction to Vegas and find it repulsive and in bad taste- how wrong I was.  From the minute I saw the fairy tale castle hotel I was hooked, you can't help but love Vegas, it's just so outrageous and fantastic because of it.  

The fountains at Bellagios by day (facing the Eiffel tower!) 

We spent a few days enjoying the sights and sounds of Las Vegas, doing a bit of gambling ($5 maximum bet!) and walking up and down the strip.  There is so much more to Vegas than the gambling though and just looking around the different hotels and shopping centres is amazing. A real highlight are the fountains at Bellagios which go off every hour to music.  

Fremont Ave light show

We had spent one evening down at the old part of the strip, Fremont Ave, which was a fantastic night.  We stumbled on a street festival and watched break-dancing in the street then watched the world's biggest light show on the roof of Fremont Ave - the street has a huge roof on it and the light show is on the roof (set to music of course!).

  

Hoover Dam

 

Helicopter at the Grand Canyon

We decided to do a helicopter trip over the Grand Canyon which turned out to be the best decision ever!  We had an amazing time, the view was spectacular of The Strip, Hoover Dam, Lake Mead and the Grand Canyon itself.  The Canyon is awesome, so huge and from the air you get a real sense of just how big it is.  We landed and had time to go out on the sky walk which is glass so you can see right down to the bottom of the canyon. Scary!

Sky walk over the canyon

Lake Mead - largest man made lake in the world

The Grand Canyon from the helicopter

On the South Rim 

We flew back over the strip which was fantastic too, you could see all the swimming pools on the roofs of the hotels and the casinos.  

 

The Strip from the air

We had a lot of fun in Vegas but after 5 days the heat was just too much (it was over 40 degrees every day and still only springtime!) and we couldn't afford even our $5 bets!   

The Venetian, an indoor replica of Venice!

$5 bets!

We met up with Tom again as he was in Vegas for a work trip which was really great but strange as the last time we saw him was in Sydney 3 months ago!  The next time will be Hitchin!

Seeing Tom again - the other side of the world!

Bellagios at night!

We caught the night bus to LA next and complete with our backpacks checked into our hotel just off Hollywood Boulevard.  We spent the day walking up the boulevard spotting the stars, looking at the Hollywood sign and trying out the hand-prints and footprints in the Chinese theatre.     

HOLLYWOOD!

An English couple gave us some extra tickets they had for a walking tour of Hollywood Boulevard which was really interesting as we found out how you get stars and looked around some of the original cinema theatres, including the one where the Oscars are held. The premier of Green Lantern was being held that night so we saw the red carpet and all the paparazzi (we were going to go and watch the stars arrive but decided to have another beer and missed them!).   We had two days in LA then hired a car and headed up the coast to San Francisco...

My hero!

  

Honduras to Belize then Mexico

With Nick and Nicki in San Pedro de Sula

We travelled from the Cayes with Nick and Nicki who were diving too, on to San Petro De Sula where we decided to stay for a couple of nights before travelling on to Belize. We watched the Champions League final in a little cafe in the town centre which then turned into an boozy day and night.  Nick is a Man U fan so a little drowning of his sorrows was needed... we were only too happy to assist!

Caye Caulker- peaceful!

We then left Nick and Nicki and headed over the border into Belize, stopping for a night in Belize City before catching a boat over to Caye Caulker, an island just off the coast.  It was a beautiful place (as are most places in the Caribbean Sea) and a great place to relax for a few days.  Everybody gets around on golf buggies - no motorbikes or cars- so it's fairly peaceful, and pace of life is s-l-o-w.  




The main reason for our trip to Caye Caulker was so we could dive the blue hole, which is a sink-hole out in the sea.  It is 400ft down and 100ft in diameter and was formed before the ice age when it was a cave above sea level full of Stalactites then the ice melted and the sea level rose submerging it completely. 

The beach at Caye Caulker

  

Our 3 ft neighbour!

We got up at 5.30am as it is a 2 hour boat ride out.  When you get there you can see a huge dark blue circle on the water where the cave is.  We dived down to 40m which is the deepest dive we've done- you can only spend 8mins at that depth because of nitrogen levels in your bloodstream, it affects me quite a lot which means I was 'narked' for most of the dive, no bad thing as it is called a free high and makes you feel really happy! 

Rain at sea, on the way to the blue hole. 

The cave was amazing, full of stalactites that were 10m- 20m in places.  We spent a bit of time swimming in and out of them.  There were also reef sharks there which were beautiful- they are so sleek and graceful in the water.  Because we were down deep we were swimming amongst them too, Tim was face to face with one about 3m away! This was by far the best dive we've done!

Half Moon Caye for lunch.

The whole day was great, we did two more dives and saw loads of marine life like turtles, crabs and so many fish.  The coral is beautiful there too, as it is undamaged and the colours are fantastic - it's like being on another planet!  We had lunch on Half Moon Caye a beautiful little island with a red footed booby bird colony on it, there were loads of birds and lots of different types of lizards too.  

In our diving gear in the water.

We went on to San Pedro another island in Belize for a few days and decided to do another couple of dives there.  We saw nurse sharks, which look like huge cat fish, turtles, Sting rays and Eagle rays (which are bigger and have pretty blue spots) and tons of fish.  Unfortunately the reef is closer to the island and isn't as nice as it isn't in as good condition but the dives were still fantastic.  We have done a total of 25 dives each now since Thailand and it will definitely be something we keep up in the future.  

Chilling on the balcony in San Pedro.

We caught the boat over to Mexico and travelled up to Cancun from there, stopping for a night in Tumul, which apparently has the best beach in central America.  We didn't see it as it rained the whole time we were there so we didn't make it to the beach!


We spent a couple of nights in Cancun, doing nothing much but eating Mexican food.  We were staying in the town centre- not near the beach- so didn't get to the beach there either! By that point though it didn't matter as we were geared up for flying to the USA and were ready for the final leg of the trip! Only 11 weeks left...

Mexican food! Yummy!