Los Angeles

The city of Los Angeles is incredible. 20 Million people, from all over the world ' trying to make it'. There is a huge divide between the haves and the have nothings. Its very normal to see a multi million dollar businessman in his range rover one minute and a lunatic, crazy schizophrenic the next. So where did we fit in?


We headed first for hollywood. We had hit the big time. And by big, i mean the most expensive we have experienced so far... for so little! We were put in a dormitary room with 6 others for $30 each a night. To put this in comparison, $30 in indonesia would get BOTH of us our own private room with air con and hot water for 3 nights. Therefore 6 times better value than America. Therefore you can basically live for 1 day in the USA or 1 week in Indo for the same money.

On with the story - we ate our moneys worth in pancakes (free) for breakfast, Travelled by bus (dont do this in LA) for $1.25 a ride and ate at subway everyday. Awesome. We hit up the Hollywood strip to walk all over the stars, went down to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills for a look at where the rich and famous blow even more cash, and checked out the beach vibe at Santa Monica and Venice which was actually the most impressive. On day 3 we moved out of Hollywood and decided to stay in Venice. Here people live off the beach, there are people of all kinds giving it a shot, whether skateboarding, surfing, acrobatics, yoga, basketball or weight lifting, or just begging for money they are trying to make it happen. This place has some real character!

Our timing in LA also coincided with the holiday of 'Thanksgiving'. I stil actually dont know what this is about but we were treated in our new hostel by a free thanksgiving HELL meal! It was amazing. so much food and a huge turkey sure was good, oh also free wine...heeyyyy!!!

Having also finally made up our minds about Central America we went and booked one way tickets to Panama. The plan is to fly in there and travel up to Guatemala for 2 months. Luckily we also got 2 free nights in a hotel which was a sweet bonus. However actually getting ahold of these tickets was a bit more problematic. They were due to arrive at the travel agents at 2pm on the day we flew out of LA (our departure time was 11pm) so we had lots of time. However the fuckwits at Fed Ex (Do not use them) lied and told us they had alreasy delivered them at 10am. First mistake because at 4pm when we started to get worried they actually admitted they were still at the post headquarters. They wouldnt send a courier despite our situation as travellers without transport in a busy city, so we had to get the travel agent to drive across LA and pick them up. Once there, we were given no apology in fact he told us he couldnt give us the tickets (which cost $750 dollars and were non refundable) because the travel agents ID was not good enough. I gave him some stern words and after 10 minutes he gave us the tickets.

We just had enough time to finally catch up with friend John who we met in Bali, and leave LA on a good note. Luckily also john let me stash my boards with him for 2 months and took us to the airport. Legend. We had a meal at Mcdonalds and jumped on our Mexicana flight to Mexico city and then onto Panama. Hasta Luego gringos!

New Zealand

Having cut Australia short, we also decided to trim down our stay in NZ because we wanted to focus our time and money now on Central America. The reason for this was because of the Tsunami and problems in the South Pacific, particularly the islands we wanted to visit. We decided to hire a car, and tour the whole north island beginning, and ending in Auckland for 2 weeks.

We began in the City of Sails itself (Auckland) which gaves us a lovely feeling of being back in NZ as we met some lovely people and its always cute to hear the quirky NZ accent (eh bro, chee, yeaah, ect ect) Our first destination was Piha, a world famous (yes you guessedit -surf spot!) The weather was gorgeous and the views spectacular from the island in the sea!!! A great start. That night we slept in Mt Manganui at the super Pacific hostel, hit the internet and tucked up for an early night.

Crusing along our next port of call was Gisborne, or 'Gizzy eh' as the locals say - On the East coast this town has a huge Maori population, some epic surf beaches and some good live music! We caught some waves, found a great campsite and even went to a gig by the legendary 'Katchafire' reggae band. What a night and experience that was...especially when its 1am and your going to drive through the night 8 hours to wellington - ONLY to find your car is being lifted onto the tow truck! shiiiiiiiiiiiit! i ran at the driver and asked him to take our car back down and let us go...$60 dollars later we were sailing away from Gizzy and onto Wellington on the north islands, south coast. Phew.

The over night drive only took us 7 hours and we went straight to Lyall Bay to meet up with old friend, surfer, chef, indo boy, Ricky. It was great to see him again and he welcomed us into his home which was wonderful. We surfed, fished and ate lots of lovely food!!! We had a very warm, homely feeling staying with him which made us very comfortable and relaxed and it was very enojyable, cheers brother!

Heading back up north now we went back to Rotorua and stayed at Blarneys Rock which is where we stayed 3 years ago - it hadn't changed a bit! only Sonny and Annette, the old owners were no longer there. It was good fun nonetheless and we did some great trips - one day we checked out the 'Polynesian spa' this is pools heated by the underground thermal activity Rotorua is famously known for, infact the whole of the city lies in the crater of an old volcano! Rad. We also had a lovely afternoon at a Maori village where there are Geysers and natural hot springs. We had a tour and a 'Hangi' traditional underground oven meal full of lamb, chicken, pork and everything else you can wish for! we were stuffed.


Moving up even further north we aimed for Whangerei, way up past Auckland, near the bay of islands. This was a really beautiful spot. We took a whole day hike to the Waterfalls, Kauri tree forest and eventually ending up at an old fort sight with a lookout over the whole city. This was a wonderful day, tough but very rewarding. The next day we went round to Sandy bay, a gorgeous beach with some pumping surf - and no one out! classic NZ, i surfed for 3 hours, got sunburnt but had a few good rides and even some more little tube rides :) I was very stoked....until the next morning when we decided to take our time getting back to the airport....until we actually checked our flight time - it wasnt 7pm, but 4!!! At 11am we had only 3 hours to get back to Auckland, check in AND take the rental car back! We stepped on it, and just made it in time. We were the last to check in on a flight of over 300 people. crazy.

Australia

Being back in Sydney is amazing. It's so cool that you actually know this place, so far away from home!! Steven knew even more and he took us to cool markets and area's. We really enjoyed and appreciated the Western lifestyle again, it felt so relieving and comfortable!!! This is us in the IMAX, world's largest cinema screen, unbelieveble WICKED!?


And this is Bondi Beach, one of Sydney's beaches.



After 2 days we already got to meet with Martha at her house in Glenwood (a suburb of Sydney). It was so incredible good to see her and for her to see us. We went out for a lovely dinner and a youthservice of the Hillsongchurch, where she does her college as well.


On saturdayevening we met Luke, steven's friend from UK, and his wife Gemma, lovely to meet/see them. Again we had a great (Thai) dinner and for desert a delicious cocktail and good beer!



The next day we hired a little car for the next 10 days for a roadtrip up north towards Byron Bay (eastcoast). Steven picked up the car and came home with a BIG car! We got upgraded for free, Wow! Brandnew, automatic and fantastic..
First we drove to Don's house (in another suburb of Sydney) to meet/see him. Really nice guy!
Afterwards we went back to Martha to see her perform a song at her school. Yeah, we got another singing cousin in our Wattilete family!! Lovely warm, soulfull voice and a great apperiance!

The road to Byron bay was lovely - and awful. The weather was shining and the countryside was amazing although we decided to take a 'Tourist route' and got incredibly lost in a national park. A good lesson to stick to the highway! Arriving in Byron bay we found the campsite but it was the middle of the night so another evening was spent shacked up in the car. Awesome. Daybreak woke us from the confines of our car and we stretched out, pitched the tent and took our weary bodies to the beach, little wategos where we spent most of our days enjoying the warm weather and lovely sunshine, and each others company and appetite for lovely food! We cooked up a storm most evenings!!!

The following night however, after a lovely experience watching 'Inglorious Bastards' in the arts factory, the rain started to pour. We headed home but soon after we got into the tent, Thunder and lightning struck. Back in the car we 'tried' to get another nights sleep. As morning rose, we decided we couldnt take anymore and the weather forecast looked like rain for the next 3 days. We left Byron bay back for sydney in the hope we could spend our last days in Oz in the warm! the whole journey back was full of very heavy rain and many places were flooded, we didnt expect that. Apparently a huge storm hit the coastal area and ended up COMPLETELY flooding the area which led to them closing a 150km stretch of road. Luckily we got through just in time so we were not stranded, but safely back in Sydney...It seems like one natural disaster after another occur just behind us! we are very lucky indeed sometimes.

Last weeks in Indo

Last time we wrote was almost one month ago! Sorry guys...here we go!



After we spent time with the Wattilete family of Oma Nona, we had our last 5 days in Ambon with Oma Mado. Their house was slightly bigger and in an even more beautiful surrounding, and their backgarden backed onto the beach! We were very well looked after, constantly being fed and topped up with sweet orange water and tea, not to forget that we ate lots of Rujak (mixed fruit with a delicious sweet peanut kind of sauce yum!!) and mega delicious/tasty meals of tante Otti!! (we miss it so much now i'm writing this) They couldn't stop comparing Steven to my dad, who also LOVES the (spicy) food there because he couldnt get enough of the fish, noodles, rice and anything they gave him!

For a few days we visited family and enjoyed island life, in the evenings swimming in the natural pool created by the tide on the beach and enjoying the non stop music ambon provided us with. Just to make sure we had enough of the music, for the last 2 days they rented a karaoke soundsystem and local stud/ singer songwriter Lukie Wattilete showed us his music videos! What a treat.

On our last day in Ambon, We had one incredible adventure:
We woke up early that morning to go out fishing with oom No on his speedboat. And it was unbelieveble! Oom No was steering the boat and Steven and I had to fish, never done that before.. He gave us just a long thin fishing rope with a little hook, we had to throw it in the water and wait, while oom No speeded up the boat. And within no time, we catched about 24 FISH the length of my arm!!!! Oh yeah, and in only 2 hours!! They were amazed how much we caught, and their faces when we returned with the catch were hilarious, they even had to go back and get a wheel barrow to take back the fish!

Plus, our dream came true... We met our first "Little lucky", a turtle. We were soooo happy, it made our trip so complete. He was just floating around a bouy in the water and we got to hold him, take photos and then gently release him back to the water. Amazing.

Oom Jeffrey and his lovely family took us back to the airport very early in the morning where we flew back to Bali to chill, which we definately needed after 10 tough but really wonderful days. We got seriously badly bitten by many mosquitos all over our bodies and because of the heat and uncomfortable sleeping 'arrangements' we hardly slept at all! We were looking forward to some rest!

We also Caught up with Naftali & Shagiva again and had a great time, hanging out on the beach, surfing and going out in the evenings with Krishna and other great people we met in Ambon (all from holland). Nightlife here is one big experience though in Bali. Crazy indo's and tourists (mostly Australians) and lots of prostitutes... This is also the place where the bombings were a few years ago and we kind of could understand why there...
Mum and Naftali went back home after a week in Bali and we decided to leave Indo earlier as we had eaten, slept and surfed our brains out! We wanted to go to Sydney ASAP to visit Martha (my cousin), Luke & Don (friends of Steven).