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Hello all, sorry for lack of blogging but the internet on islands in fiji was either non-existent or very slow and expensive.
So from San Blas to LA
From San Blas we headed up to Mazatlan which is tourist spot with lovely beaches and a nice town, too many Americans though! We only spent a day there but we packed a lot in. In the morning we got the bus to Playa Bruja which should have been simple but turned into a bit of a mission because the Mexicans in Mazatlan apparently don't speak Spanish! We asked in a few shops where the bus stop was and every person looked at me blankly and then spoke back to me in English - it's like because they are so used to the tourists speaking English when one actually speaks Spanish they are not ready for it and just cant comprehend! ?or it could have been my awful Spanish! We finally made it to the beach though and made our way to 'Gingers Bilingual Horses' - my idea, I've always wanted to gallop along the beach and they actually have healthy, happy horses, possibly the only place in Mexico. We were shown to our horses, mine being called Sunny and Aidan's Domingo and we walked down to the beach. It's a really long stretch of sand with not too many people so it was perfect. We walked, trotted and cantered along the beach in the surf for about a mile, I loved it and Aidan cantered all on his own and did a very good sitting trot - very impressed! (AIDAN: cantering is easy i dont know what all the fuss is about, but i dont have enough meat on my bum for all the rise and trott - it hurt for about a week afterwards!). there was a donkey there and the guys there insisted that danni get on it which i found hilarious! That evening in an attempt to do something cultural we went in search of a cathedral by bus. From the bus we could see 2 spires on so got off at the next stop and went walking in the direction. The area started looking worse and worse and we soon found ourselves in the ghetto having gringo shouted at us from rooftops. We started back to town as quickley as we could! One car actually stopped and shouted "the beach is that way, gringo". We made it to town safely and before the sunset and managed to see the actual catherdral.
The next day it was on to Los Mochis just for a stop over in order to get the Copper Canyon train the next morning. The bus journey up should have only taken a couple of hours but ended up being much longer because of the crazy traffic stops that they have in Mexico. I think the journey to Los Mochis particularly bad because that bus carries on up to the border but we were still miles from the border and we got stopped 5 times to check for drugs etc! And getting stopped isn't the best experience. Firstly a man with a huge gun comes on and prowls up and down the bus and asks for passports etc, then everyone has to get off the bus where there are a load more men with huge guns and all the luggage has to be taken off the bus and laid out on the floor. Then a massive crazy Alsation is brought over to sniff over all the bags and then the guys pick out random ones and unpack them! So it does tend to slow the journey down a tad when you have to do this 4 times!
Having arrived in Los Mochis we found a hotel and went to bed early (although sleeping wasn't easy at 40 degrees C and no air con) because we had to be up at 5.30 in order to get the Copper Canyon train at 7.00am. The train journey was long but stunning: gorgeous landscape winding up through the mountains, through tunnels and along cliff edges. It was cool because there were half doors in the vestibules so you could stick your head out and take good photos. There was a stop off at Divisidero which is a look out point over the canyon - the view was absolutely amazing but we only had 15 minutes in which to take in the view, get some good photos and buy some lunch so it was a bit of a mission! We finally arrived in Creel at 6.00pm - long day! Danni spent most of the of the journey talking with 3 school kids who were keen to show off the english they had learnt at school - they actually counted all the way to 100, im sure that was great!
Creel is a very quiet mountain town inhabited by many of the indigenous Tarahumara people who have always lived in the canyon area and have their own language and still all wear traditional dress. Many of these people still also live in the surrounding tiny villages deep in the canyon or in caves in the sides of the canyon. On our first day in Creel we visited some hot springs which were right down at the bottom of one of the canyons - the scenery was beautiful and it was great chilling out in the pools for a couple of hours but then we had to walk back up the side of the canyon - not so chilled out but a good work out! The next day we went on a tour around the sites of the canyon, to a big waterfall, into a couple of the villages and to the valley of frogs and mushrooms (rocks that look like frogs and mushrooms!). We also visited some of the caves where the Tarahumara live, they were amazing and it was really interesting to see how they live.
The next day we got the bus to Chihuahua - yes the dogs do come from there and yes there are actually statues of Chihuahuas everywhere! We were with two Aussies that we had met in Creel and they were doing 'couch surfing' - this is basically a website that you can put your name down on and you then lend out your couch to travellers coming through your area and in return you can stay on anyone else's couch, people have joined from all over the world and its all for free! The guy the Aussies were staying with was lovely and invited us to stay too. It was a great house near the centre ?four young professionals really up for a good time. We had a bbq and sat and drank on their roof and then they took us out to their local for the rest of the night - great fun! The next day we had a wonder round the city centre and then had to catch our 22 hours bus up to LA. I really didn't want to leave Mexico or stop speaking Spanish and I certainly wasn't looking forward to 22 hours on a bus, but in the end we managed to sleep a lot of the journey so it wasn't so bad.
Having spent three months traveling round Mexico, Cuba, Belize and Guatemala I was quite surprised to find that I probably felt the most unsafe when we arrived in LA. The bus dropped us off on the side of the road in downtown LA. We had no idea where we were and obviously looked lost - 2 scruffy looking students with back packs on in what was pretty much china town! Luckily a nice American told us to follow him to the main street because if we went 2 streets in the wrong direction we would end up in the worst part of town and might get shot - which I thought was nice! On the main street we thought it would be easy to get a bus however we forgot that no one in the USA takes buses. A police car pulled up beside us to make sure we were ok and even they didn't know where the bus stop was! Anyway it was all fine and we eventually got a bus to Venice Beach. From that point on I loved LA! Our hostel was good fun and Venice beach is awesome?full of weird and wonderful people and its so funny walking down the boardwalk to muscle beach being passed by girls on roller skates with little dogs in tow?just like being in a film! Because we only had 2 days in LA we did the proper touristy thing. The first day we had bagels for breakfast - classic - and then went on the Hollywood tour. First we drove past the Baywatch beach whilst the tour guide played the song on the stereo - cheesy! - and then we went on through the city to Hollywood. We had an hour or so there to walk along the stars and go to the Chinese theatre and see all the handprints. Then we drove up into the hills to see the stars homes?up Mullholland Drive, Beverly Hills and Belair. We didn't really care who lived in the houses but the houses were awesome and I have to say it was cool seeing where john Travolta, Julia Roberts, Frank Sinatra and Barbara Streisand live or lived!
On the second day we went to Universal Studios. I've never been to a theme park before so it was so exciting! Awesome rides and stunt shows and a tour of the studios and sets.
Our flight was that evening, a 10 hour flight, and we crossed the date line so left on the 19th and arrived on the 21st - weird! And so we landed in Fiji?..
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