Category: Andrew

After a ten hour delay we finally got on the plane to Honolulu. We got in at 10:00pm. We got put in a flash hotel because we missed our flight to Kona because of the delay. We then flew to Kona in the morning. We picked up our rental car and headed off.

Dolphins 🐬

We picked up the car and drove to a snorkeling place. I dived in to the semi tropical waters. And we headed out. Suddenly we saw some dolphins 🐬 in the distance. I quickly swam in the direction. And then I saw the amazing dolphins. They got so close to us. It was so magical.

Turtles 🐢

I walked backwards in my flippers to the water. I fell back ward and turned my camera on. I turned around and saw a rock swimming toward me. I then realised it was a turtle!! It was so beautiful. They were feeding on the rocks it was so awesome.

Surfing 🏄‍♂️

We arrived back to Honolulu and picked up another rental car. We then drove to the famous north shore. The waves there were so massively big. There was even a competition there so we got to watch the worlds best surfers!!

I used up the rest of US dollars 💵 on what is called a Dole Whip. It is basically a pineapple 🍍 soft serve 🍦 ice cream. It was really nice.

Over all I really enjoyed my time in Hawaii.

J.K.CORNEY™️©️®️

We have finally made it back home after one hundred and ten days over seas. It was an easy ride back and we watched lots of movies on the plane. We stayed at the north shore last night and had an easy and uncomplicated ride to the airport. We got back to gran and grandads at one o’clock in the morning and then all of us just crashed out on the bed.

The day before, Jake and I went to the Dole Plantation and did the 2008 worlds largest maze. It was fairly easy and we completed it within fifteen to twenty minutes. It was cool seeing all the pineapple farms on the drive there. And all the big waves of the North Shore.

By Mia.

Imagine going on a boat and landing at a isolated beach in Cuba 🇨🇺. Suddenly you get ambushed by the army. Out of the 83 who left Mexico you and eleven others survived. You split in to tiny groups and fight for you freedom.

Che Guevara was born in Roario, Argentina in June 1928. Guevara played rugby in his younger ages. He then Graduated from the university of Buenos Aires with a medical degree. Che then traveled to Guatemala. He then continued to Mexico.

In 1955 Che meet with Fidel Castro in Mexico City. They began to form an alliance called the Gurrillers. In 1956 Che and 81 others set sail for Cuba to fight against the government. When the Granma sailed to an isolated beach in southern Cuba they were attacked by the army. Out of the 82 on the Granma only che and eleven others survived. The Gurrillers then split up in to tiny groups and then stated to invade army bases. Che proved to be a good brave leader. Fidel then gave him the rank of a commandant in July 1957. In December 1958 he outsmarted the enemy that lead to the victory. Che then derailed an armoured train. To seal the victory. He was granted Cuban citizenship by the new president Fidel Castro.

Che then went to Bolivia to overturn the Bolivian government. He got captured by the Bolivian army and the CIA October 8 1960. The next day he got shot dead. Now he is a world wide symbol of revolution.

Jake™️©️®️

Mexico and Cuba are two completely different worlds. Mexico is all built up and Cuba is built down. Simplifying that is that Mexico has big city’s, lots of people and big grocery shops with a variety of food. These are just some of the differences between Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and Cuba’s Old Havana, Vinãles and Trinidad.

First of all the grocery stores and the queuing. I noticed it straight away. When we walked into the central square for the first time in Old Havana the first thing I noticed was the long queues of people outside shops or bakery’s. The reason why you see everyone queuing is because there shops are so small with limited stuff. We went into one of the supermarkets and there was one isle of rum and alcohol, one isle of dry foods such as pasta, one isle of biscuits and chips. Also when we were walking around the streets we would see one shop full of eggs, one shop full of meat, one of bread e.t.c. When I say shop I really mean a room with a door and a counter and whatever they are selling. Mexico is very different. No queuing and about five big supermarkets in each city.

The next noticeable thing would be the local transportation. One of Cuba’s transportations is old American cars. You see them absolutely everywhere. Blue ones, lime green, and we even saw one which was white with pink polka dots. It is amazing how they keep all these old American cars going. We went for a ride in a bright yellow nine seater fifty one Chevy from Vinãles to Old Havana. It was cramped and hot because the car didn’t have air conditioning and the windows wouldn’t open or close so if you were cold you would stay cold and if you were hot you would stay hot.

Another mode of transportation is the old horse and cart. If you were a local and couldn’t afford an old car, you would get around by horse and cart. It’s amazing how fast some of the horses can go. When we were biking in Vinãles a horse and cart raced past us and we reckon it was going 40kmph!! Auntie Bron and Uncle Ross went on a four hour tour of a Tobacco farm on horse back. They got from our house to the start of the track by horse and cart. Auntie Bron had a really sore bum after that.

Mexico is so different. It has all the newest model cars and flash local buses. We got culture shock going into Mexico because of their flash buses. Coming from Guatemala and Nicaragua and all the other countries with there way over crowed chicken buses, then the cheapest local buses in Mexico are first class coaches.

The third and final most noticible thing about Cuba would be the old colonial buildings. It’s cool seeing how much effort and detail that are in some of these buildings. Some of them are so huge and still standing but most of them are crumbling. The government is now restoring them to there original glory. Vinãles is different to Old Havana and Trinidad. It has one big church in the centre but that’s all. The rest is all colourful one story buildings attached to each other. It reminded me of Granada, Nicaragua. Mexico is just a different story again. All modern buildings and with each new building trying to be more flash than the last one.

As you can see Cuba is very old but unique in its own way and is very, very different to Mexico. With transport, buildings and shops Cuba is its own little country.

The door opened slightly, shouts went out from people in the crowd. The impatient shoppers surged forward in anticipation. I was almost at the front. Two people, one person, then I was in! Through the door, bag open, money on the counter, then 20 freshly baked bread rolls in my possession. I felt like I had just won 100 dollars! But you may think that that is strange because I was only buying bread rolls. Well, no this is Cuba. I had waited almost two hours.

Shopping in Cuba has many similarities to other Central America countries that we have visited. Food is cheap. For example a small pizza is $1.48 NZD, a mojito for $1.20 NZD and the twenty bread rolls that I bought were only about $1.00 NZD. They have similar souvenirs like keychains, magnets, painting and other knic knacs. However buying groceries is a very different experience.

Cuba does not have large supermarkets that we found in other countries. There are many small shops that only seem to sell a small range of items. For example, the small shop down the road from our casa in Trinidad only had pasta, rice, candles, cigars, matches and eggs. You will often see the locals walking around at all times of the day, bag in hand doing their daily shopping. It might take them a couple of visits to the local shops to get all they need-milk in the morning, bread at lunch time then maybe some meat or veges in the afternoon.

This appears to be a really inefficient system that seems to be part of Cuba’s communist way of doing things. In the bread shop it was quite chaotic with people pushing in line, shouting, waiting, before finally getting their allowance (I couldn’t buy more than 20 rolls). You also have to go to many different places to get all you need. However, there are some positives-the locals seem to enjoy chatting with each other while they wait in line and there is no excess packaging. Everyone brings their own bag (or bottle for milk) so this reduces waste.

Grocery shopping is all part of the travel experience, especially if you are on the road for over 3 months. Cuba certainly provided us with some challenges in this regard – we couldn’t even buy cornflakes here! But great to experience this unique country.

As Jake has already mentioned, we were invited over by Debra and Rootsman to have a Rastafarian dinner on the island of Caye Caulker. Rastafarians (also known as Rastas) believe in a spirit/god who they call Jah. It was really interesting talking to Rootsman and Debra and learning all about what a Rastas lifestyle is like.

Rastas do not believe in smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol or coffee. Interestingly enough, however, they do believe in smoking marijuana or cannabis, since this is to them a natural and beneficial herb. They smoke it as part of their worship. Also, as part of their pledge to their god, they promised to not cut, comb or clean their hair and that is why the true Rastas have dreadlocks. Also, to stay healthy and spiritually connected to the earth, Rastas eat a natural diet free from chemicals and most meat and salt.

The difference in cooking between a Rasta and an ordinary person like mum, is noticeable. The items and resources that Debra used were limited. One example could be the difference between Debras oven/stovetop and Mum’s. Debra had a little table with a plank of wood on top. On top of the plank of wood there were three bricks evenly spaced out. One in the middle and one on each end. On top of them, she placed wiring. That was it. When she needed something cooked she would ask Rootman to come over and light a fire underneath the wiring.

(the picture above is one of the crazy Rastas singing into his beer bottle. The Rastas always just crack themselves up and it’s funny watching them!!)

By Mia

While our family has been travelling, we have been seeing lots of different volcanos. Active, Dormant and Extinct. There are many stages of volcanos, from the magma under the ground to the lava that erupts that produces igneous rock.

There are four layers of the earth. Inner core, Outer core, Mantle and the Crust. The lava that comes out of volcanos is from the Mantle. The molten rock under the ground is called magma, and the molten rock above the ground is called lava. Molten rock is melted rock. Magma is formed by the melting of rocks in the earths lithosphere (the crust and the top part of the mantle.) The Magma finds a vent in a volcano and makes the lava pool that you see in most photos of Mt Kailua. When the pressure builds up under the surface, the volcano erupts.

After the volcano has erupted and the lava has cooled, it forms igneous rock. Rocks like obsidian and basalt are made by volcanos like the ones in Hawaii, where the lava flows all the time. Other rocks like Scoria, which has lots of big holes in it, comes from explosive volcanos like Krakatau. Volcanologists can tell that New Zealand was once like Hawaii when it was younger, because they found the same type of hexagonal pillars in both countries.

There are three different types of volcanos. Active, Dormant and Extinct. An active volcano is one with a lava pool. It could erupt at any time. An example of an active volcano could be Mt Kailua or Mt Fuego. Mt Fuego is in Guatemala near Antigua. We are there at the moment and we can see it constantly puffing out smoke and ash. A dormant volcano does not have a lava pool. It probably last erupted thousands of years ago. An extinct volcano is one that hasn’t erupted in millions of years and probably won’t erupt again. Mt Maunganui is an extinct volcano. It last erupted 2.35 years ago according to Wikipedia.

So as you can see, volcanos have many stages and are very dangerous. The lava, igneous rock and the history that volcanos leave behind are extremely fascinating. All the stages that the volcano goes through to erupt to then form rock is incredible.

On our trip around Central America we went to Caye Caulker, Belize 🇧🇿. One of the first things we did was go snorkeling. While we were snorkeling Mum met a lady called Debra, after a long talk they invited us for dinner. That’s how we had dinner with Debra and Rootsman. They lived on a sand spot on the other side of the split (the split is a channel of water about 30m long that a hurricane split through the island!)

When Debra showed us how to cook she taught us some things along the way. One thing was if she needed the food to be cooked at a higher temperature. She would ask Rootsman to break some more wood with his machete. For dinner we had a Vegetable stew with the best lentil stew in the world and some rice and fish.

Just after we arrived a teenager came along in his kayak with some fish. He then started to flit the fish. Rossco brought about 6 fish off him in including some snnaper and barracuda. He brought them for $12!! After the fish were cooked Debra put some salt, lime and black peeper. It was so yummy and fresh! Debra was saying that the kids have to work for money so that they can go to school. If they need a new pen or book they have to work for the money and pay for it themselves. Rootsman moved to Caye Caulker on his own when he was 15!!

Debra and Rootman choose to live are really chilaxing lifestyle. For a living Rootman paints, fish’s in his catamaran made from recycled bits of plastic and starafoam and he make jewellery for the tourists. He also own some houses that he rents out. He some times goes to a remote island with his mates and goes fishing for up to two weeks. One time he had to swim back to Caye Caulker because his boat motor fell off his boat in a hurricane.

Over all I had such an amazing time. I really enjoyed seeing how some locals cook there dinner, my favourite part was the lentils and the Baracuda. So if you ever go to Caye Calker we know where you should have dinner!!

By Jake™️©️®️

I woke up at 4.30am to get on the bus at 5.00am. We got picked up and started to drive to Tikal. We entered the national park and started to walk towards the Gran Plaza. When we got there I raced up Temple II. I had an amazing view of Temple I. I turned my head around a looked out to the untouched jungle and saw three toucans. But they flew away before I got a picture. We then walked to Temple III. It was still mostly covered in trees and stuff. We then ventured further in to the untouched jungle. Temple IV suddenly loomed above us! We climbed to the top of the 64.4m pyramid. The view was truly breathtaking. You could see the tops of the other Temples towering above the jungle canopy. We moved on to Temple V. It was mostly covered with trees and stuff so was Temple VI.

After the others left dad and I. We continued walking to all the other Temples and tombs. I was amazed on hw well the Mayan kept their time, because they build a twin temple every 20 years.

After a massive day at the office I was stuffed so I had a swim in the lake!!

By Jake

Continue reading “Tikal”

Lake Atitlan: The view was amazing when we walked for donkeys up a steep hill. We saw a great view of volcanos Atilán, San Pedro and Tolimán. The old school buses: Whenever we went to take a day trip to somewhere or just go somewhere of a short distance, the old school buses would pick us up. They all had fancy paint jobs and lights. Although they are made for children to sit on the seats, not adults!! Most of the time we had seventy adults or something on a forty seater!! Those were great days!Semuc Champey: Although climbing up five hundred meters of stairs, (which I reckon took us at least forty five minutes) it was worth the climb. The picture above is if the view when we finally got to the top. It was such an amazing sight. Also, going down into the pools and swimming in them was the best part. Especially sliding down the ‘slides’.

Isla de Flores festival: We were lucky enough to be at Flores during the festival times. They do it only on the 7th and 8th of December. I was so happy cause I finally got a big, cheap donut 🍩. I’ve been going on about wanting a donut in America somewhere along the line and now my wish has come true!!

Tikal: Tikal was probably my favourite thing that we did in Guatemala. It was interesting learning about it and just the fact that the ancient Mayans built these structures like 700BC and then some people have found some “big hill” that they want to dig up and 2700 years later they get re-discovered. The view from Temple four was my favourite.

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By Mia