New Things and Envy Your Life

Life moves on and I (Jonathan) have been roaming around in Patagonia for a little bit now. I couldn't muster the strength again to be a faithful blogger, so went quiet. I am blogging for www.iexplore.com occasionally though. Here's my most recent article they posted:

http://blog.iexplore.com/2011/03/patagonia-a-guide-to-trekking-the-legendary-torres-del-paine.html

More exciting news, my best friend (Peter Martinez) and I recently started an Adventure Travel Company. "Envy Your Life Adventures"

Check us out at www.envyyourlife.com

So now that you've read some adventures we've been on, why not come with us next time.

Help us spread the word with our new venture. Like us on FB please!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Envy-Your-Life-Adventure-Company/157462330974934

Cheers

Merry Christmas, USA

Back to the States for us. Christmas was calling, and we were too excited to see fam and friends. Jon and I parted ways 7:30 Tuesday morning after a long last night in San Jose. We had spent our finals days in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica at one of the nicer hostels of the trip with good people and decent waves. It couldn't have been more relaxing..
We're already dreaming of the next adventure: motorcycle trip through South America or southeast Asia.

But for now, we welcome winter with open arms:

A few shots

We are behind on blogging but are too busy and too near the end of our trip to really try to catch up.
After dirt biking on a Volcanic island in Nicaragua for a few days, we hit the beach for a bit more and then cruised on to Costa Rica. Now in Santa Teresa. Here are a few shots a friend took of me surfing in El Salvador.

Headed to Nicaragua. Leaving Salvador. Had some real tasty waves at a place called Sunzal. We stayed at a pretty posh place, it was the home of the director of Christian Surfers in Salvador. His name was Salvador too. Here is te view from our villa.

Back to the Beach

The last day on the lake we gathered a few friends and pooled money to rent a private boat to take us around the lake. We are continually blessed with a great group of friends from all over the world where ever we go. At the lake we spent a great deal of time with Swedes, Canadians, Irish, Aussies, Americas, English and more and more.

In the morning we started making our way to El Salvador and back to the waves! We met a Polish girl at the train station who decided to come with us and then our good friend John, from Roatan, randomly walked in to the bus station. We have been with him 3 times before this and each time still had not traveled together. So he modified his plans too and decided to come with.

We got into the San Salvador around 10 and arranged a taxi to take us to the beach. A few minutes away from the bus station, Kelly, realized that he left his Debit card in the ATM. After much searching for it, Kelly called home and asked his parents to cancel the card. Bummer.

We pulled up next to the beach last night around midnight in La Libertad to find the hotel we were going to stay at closed up tight. After a little searching we found a fabulously sketchy hotel. It only had several small rooms and it wreaked of fish. We soon discovered there was no lights at all, there was no running water, there was no working toilet, no locks on the doors, and the rooms were home to many large, juicy cockroaches. BUT, the hotel was literally right on the beach and we could watch wave after wave peel off a point break directly in front of us. Perfection. We also got the hotel for a mere $2.50 per person.

This morning we promptly went to a surf shop, rented some boards, and charged out, so stoked to be back in the water. The waves were clean and consistent and so fun. Gotta love the ease of point breaks. Dodging a few rocks when big swells would come in and suck out more water, you had to cross your fingers you didn´t get smashed to pieces when you bailed from the wave.

Adventure at Atitlan

Our plan was to leave Antigua and spend 2 (half) days and a night at Lake Atitlan. Some one from our Hostel in Antigua told us, ´I think you will set a record if you manage to spend just one day at the Lake. It is impossible.´ Now we understand what he meant.

This is just our third day at the lake but we have already done so much. The lake is known as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, and it is easy to see why. Volcanoes circle the lake and create a breathtaking background any direction you look. Small towns are speckled around the lake and each boasts a semi-unique feel. We stumbled upon one of the most ´eventful´ towns, San Pedro.

After enjoying riding the horses up the Volcano so much, Kelly and I started yesterday morning off with a ride along the lake. We dropped a massive $6 to ride these horses at an exhilarating speed. My heart was bursting with excitement as Kelly raced along side me and we soared along the side of the lake.

Later that day we took a boat to a near by town were their was some small cliffs to jump off (around 30 ft). We jumped in a few times, and then I attempted a dive, which ended miserably. I am not an expert diver. I grew up in the ocean and not in pools. This ended up being more of a 30ft belly/face flop than anything that might resemble a dive.

Many locals paint and sell their art work to tourists. We found out we could take ´Mayan´ style painting lessons and gathered some of our friends from the hostel. 6 of us climbed up the side of the mountain to a house with a spectacular view of the lake and for the next 3 hours, we all painted pictures of Lake Atitlan with the guidance of a local painter. His whole family turned out to be painters and they all got involved in helping us gringos assemble some sort of presentable art. Surprisingly, we all walked away with decent looking paintings and we were asked by a few locals where we had purchased them from. Kelly added a bit of his own spice to his and in the center of his lake, swims the Loch Ness Monster!

San Pedro sits at the base of the San Pedro Volcano. We heard the climb was supposed to be between a 6 and 7 hour climb. Kelly and I were determined to push ourselves and shave as much time off as possible. We awoke this morning before 5 to ensure being well on the mountain when the sun rose over the lake. Charging up the mountain we summitted faster than we expected. After enjoying the view from the top between the passing clouds, we turning to trail run down the mountain. Overall the hike took us about 3 and a half hours. Still morning time, we stumbled back into our hostel and have been enjoying a leisurely day since then.

(Pics to give an idea. Not our own again! Hard to load pics but will do, when we can)

A look into Anitgua

Here some of our own pics and not stolen from the world wide web. A glimpse of Anitgua.
Notice in the picture with the church, the volcano in the background. It almost always has smoke pouring out the top. Also included is a bit of the horses up the volcano. And lastly, the Kelly and I found these masks in the market and could not resist. We wore them all around town. We had many old women laughing, and a few children running in fear!