Palenque, monkeys and ruins

For the five hours ride between Campeche and Palenque we opted for a first class bus: five hours non-stop of silly movies and even sillier TV shows blasted at full volume. Forget about sleeping or reading a book. We'll probably opt for second class from now on: it may be slower but at least one can get some rest.

Mérida and Campeche, hot as hell

Mérida takes its name from the capital of the Spanish region of Extremadura that we visited several years ago and liked it a lot, and so we were looking forward to discover its Mexican counterpart.

Wonderful Chichen Itzá

It was hard to leave Tulum. It's not a pretty town but we liked the atmosphere, our hotel was very comfortable and we already had 'our places' to go for lunch and dinner. Plus there are so many things to do, especially if you like diving and snorkeling. This is definitely a place where we could imagine to live for a while. But our Mexican adventure has just begun and there's still so much to see. From Tulum we took a second class bus to Valladolid to visit the nearby ruins of Chichen Itzá, recently declared one of the new seven wonders of the world.

Down and under again

The Yucatan peninsula is famous amongst divers not only because of the world's second largest corral reef that runs along its Caribbean coast, but also because of cenotes - sinkholes filled with fresh water that are great for snorkeling and cave or cavern diving.

¡Viva México!

On the flight to Cancun we thought and talked about our apparent lack of desire to travel. How could we travel for two more months if neither of us found any joy in it? I have always wanted to go to Mexico and it was sad to feel so uninspired once we were getting there. Would we enjoy our stay, or just suffer through it? Should we resort to our backup plan of choosing a nice place where to spend all our time until the day of the flight back home? But unexpectedly everything went back to normal after just a few hours! Cancun is not an attractive city, and we weren't interested in spending much time there. Nevertheless a few tacos and a stroll around downtown immediately awakened our traveller's instinct and the desire to discover this vast country.

With a little help from our friends

LA was an interesting but very exhausting stop, and we were looking forward to slow down a little. We already went to see our friends Ema and Travis in Dallas in 2009, so there was no pressure to go sightseeing, and our plan was to just enjoy their company.

Last day in LA

The next day we got up as husband and wife, although only in the US until we do the paperwork in our countries as well. For the last half day in LA we hadn't planned much, so we could afford the luxury of taking it easy. We both called home to describe the wedding in details to the families, then packed our things and joined once again the traffic of LA's freeways and highways. Without a GPS navigator it was slightly harder, but we managed to orient ourselves well enough. Thanks to Victor's suggestion we were able to get much closer to the Hollywood sign!

Just married

Yes, we got married! All of you know by now, but we are still getting used to the idea... It wasn't anything we had planned before starting this trip, but we'd talked about it for some time. And when D took me on that flight over Mt. Cook, he was so glad he survived the flight that he proposed to me up there on the glaciers! And not too long after, we said why not get married during the trip! And where else to do it than in LA...

City of Angels

The flight from Rarotonga to Los Angeles takes about 9 hours and a half. We spent most of the time either sleeping or eating. I accepted and happily swallowed the midnight dinner, even though I was still full from our first island dinner. Perhaps I should find a scale at some point.

Kia Orana, Cook Islands

Cook Islands are an archipelago of 15 islands in the South Pacific, about 3 hours by plane from New Zealand. Famous for their clear blue lagoons, white sand beaches and friendly locals, it is a popular holidays destination for Kiwis and Aussies alike. We knew that after traveling in New Zealand we would need warming up, so we chose Cook Islands as our stopover before flying to Los Angeles.