Heatstrokes and freezing showers

So came Christmas. We spent it in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Before getting into much detail about this tropical paradise, i wanna quickly mention what we have been up to before getting here couple of days ago.

Where I left you last time was Miami, i believe. We met a cool Finnish couple in the hostel we stayed in (called Jazz). If you're in Miami and looking for a an awesome location and cheap prices for accommodation, this hostel is really the place to be. 

The couple we met and eventually hung out with for the 2 days we were in town, happened to be from the same fairly small town in Finland as myself! We did take it pretty easy in Miami, had some awesome food (Latino/Caribbean food is really the shit in Miami) and caught nice sunburns on the beach. After 1 night we changed rental cars and headed to Palm Beach, where we were warmly welcomed and accommodated by my lovely godparents who have a beach apartment there. Looking back now, ending our Great American road trip in style with pressured, hot showers and comfy beds was exactly what we needed, as it is starting to look like we might have to wait to get that again when we get back home in May. In short, Palm Beach was a pretty interesting place. Zero crime rates, guaranteed sunshine, and what best, a relatively large Finnish population, which can apparently easily be spotted hanging out at the local Finnish bakery, including one national icon Eino Grön, witnessed to be blasting his own music in his convertible while popping in to get a korvapuusti. 

After relaxing in Palm Beach we headed back to Miami, where we flew down to Panama City on the 20th of Dec. Having no real knowledge about Panama, the place positively surprised us. We stayed in the one and only hostel in the Old Town or Casco Viejo (old helmet?) called Luna's Castle. As it was located up on a hill outside the city centre, we only really experienced that neighbourhood of Panama City during the few days we spent there. It was very historic and cultural but what one can not help to notice is the radical contrast of the rich and the poor, often literally being divided by one narrow street. Other than that, Panama City was pretty awesome. Havana style bars with cheap rum flowing, and salsa playing non-stop in one place or another. 

Tony being an engineer geek, he was pretty excited to go see the famous Panama Canal, which was only a short taxi ride away from the city. Personally, I was expecting it to be waaaaay bigger and perhaps a bit more mind-blowing, but it was still fun to see gigantic million-dollar cargo ships being dragged through a narrow canal. This fun was free as well, so if you were interested enough you could sit there all day and watch the ships go through.

 Panama city skyline from our hostel

Our first Panama lunch in the city. Super fresh!

 Thats me truly appreciating the engineering master piece of the Panama Canal

Casual salsa sesh at a local market corner

One thing worth mentioning is the fact that locals do not speak English so we were forced to brush up our Spanish. I even managed to stutter it well enough to buy us bus tickets from an intimidating lady at a busy bus terminal. Score! The day before Christmas Eve we took the bus to Bocas del Toro, a range of tropical islands on the Caribbean side of the coast.

Now this is our 3^rd day here, the first 2 days were pretty much a monsoon, which we were not expecting after great weather in Panama City. All cool though, luckily for Christmas day yesterday, the sun decided to show up and our xmas moods were finally lifted. Been eating and drinking pretty well so far. Local cuisine in Panama is soooo refreshing after heavy junk food in the US. It pretty much always consists of rice, meat and beans, and plantains (which we pretty much discovered for the first time!). And tropical fruits, especially papaya, which seems to be in season, are dirt cheap and available at every street corner. So bikini body, here I come! (Better late than never)

 Central American breakfast specialty: Huevos Rancheros

 Tony enjoying his 3-course xmas dinner. By far the most expensive meal so far! 

 Local street corner food in Bocas 

 Finally got to jump in the water after sweating our asses off for days

Xmas chilling on a bar boat

So a quick summary about Panama so far; not as cheap as excepted, at least in terms of eating out. American dollars used as the officially currency clearly symbolises the long-lasting US influence in the region. Learn some basic Spanish if you wanna get by! Although here in Bocas most people speak English as its pretty taken over by Americans, who mostly run a lot of the hostels here. And last but not least, showers everywhere are FREEZING! Really starting to appreciate the luxury of having a hot water tap in your shower :) I suppose it makes some sense considering the all-year average temperature of 30 celcius...Adios for now!

Useful links for potential travellers:

Cheap hostel in Miami Beach: http://www.jazzhostels.com/jazzsouthbeach.php?gclid=CLD25ZaPubQCFQeynQodBnoAew

Party hostel in Panama city: http://www.lunascastlehostel.com/

Naked in Flo-rida

After our heavy times in New Orleans, we got ready for the final phase of our Great American Road trip, making our way to the sunshine state of Florida. After a night’s stop at (another!) motel in Tallahassee we broke our driving record and drove a 900km stretch in one day ending up in Homestead, FL. A random stop, but convenient enough to head down to Key West the next morning. Americans have been smart enough and built a 170km BRIDGE highway connecting all the islands that make up the Florida Keys at the very Southern tip of Florida.

Happy Holidays y'all!

Arriving in Key West and doing some research on accommodation on the island, turned out that the very cheapest option for 2 people was $100 for a shitty hostel dorm room! So prepare yourself for the fact that this place is definitely not budget-traveller friendly. So having no place to spend the night, we decided to go with the flow and hope things would sort themselves out, hence we hit the beach. HELL YEAH, this was what we’d been waiting for since we left Europe. Sunshine and heat. Funny enough, without us having to sleep in the car (which btw is illegal everywhere in Key West), we ended up meeting up with a hilarious Serbian friend through Couchsurfing who eventually let us sleep in his place! Thank you Mircco.

That night we also hit some bars in the infamous Duval Street, which is pretty much a combination of Sunny Beach in Bulgaria and Ibiza. Long story short, we were taken into a bar called Garden of Eden. Literally, EDEN. Basically the third floor of this bar was clothing optional and unfortunately the people who opted for no clothes were not the people you would want to see with no clothes. It’s hard to enjoy a beer when there are old men and women dangling their bits everywhere. No kidding. We wish we could’ve captured this grossness on film, but unfortunately this bar, for some funny reason, did not allow any pictures being taken.

The next, before leaving Key West we enjoyed an awesome day on a private island just off the South coast of Key West. This place was a true paradise, and we finally got our tans on!

 Soon-to-be lobsters

 Just chillin on a private island

Tony loving winter time

After leaving Key West, we spend a night in a motel (no surprise there), so we could have easy access to Everglades, the famous national park inhabited with alligators. So today we spent the afternoon at one of Everglade’s many safari parks, and it was totally worth it! Only cost $23/person and we got to go on an airboat ride, and got to see alligators (and their babies), and even got to hold one!

Now we are in Miami, which we will post on later!

 Alligators are kinda adorable, eh!

 Bumped into turtle twins

Baby and his momma

Belly full of food and booze

Before getting into more detail about the last couple of days, we just wanna recap New Orleans real quick and say HOW AMAZING IT IS. In conclusion, if you are looking for delicious food and crazy 24h nightlife, this is the place to be. Here’s what we were mostly up to in NOLA:

 Local food heaven, Johnny's Po-Boys

 Tony had Johnny's special. YUMMMMMY!

Our local friends took us to an amazing bbq joint in the Upper 9th ward...

...where the food was true Southern soul food! (and cheap too)

 Our ''one daiquiri at the corner bar'' turned into a crazy long night with a new friend we made from Florida. Here, Tony and Jarid holding an infamous ''hand grenade''. This night we witness a man next to us first buying drinks to the ENTIRE bar, then puking at the bar, and finally put into handcuffs by 2 police officers. Standard Bourbon St. 

 After party @ 5.30am somewhere downtown.

Walking back from our after party at 12noon the next day...

Jazzin' in New Orleans

Last night we arrived in New Orleans, being nearly 2 days behind the schedule. In the end, I am happy we stayed in Tyler for an extra day as it enabled us to have our very first visit to a baby ward. Yes, my friend Farrah had a baby while I was in Tyler!Hence we had to expand our stay by a day so I could go see the cutie pie. And oh boy it was worth it!

On Saturday Tony also got to see his very first live football game when the town where my Texas family is from (Hughes Springs) played one of their play-off games in Longview. Personally i wasn't too fascinated by it, as I spent an entire year going to football games every single Friday. But Saturday night was priceless as I got to reunite with the rest of the family I haven't seen for over 5 years. And since the crowd mostly consisted of small town locals Tony finally got to see some real-life rednecks too!

Tony's cultural experience exceeded his expectations

Farrah's adorable little burrito!

After our hospital visit we really needed to hit the road in order to make it to New Orleans at some point in this life time. Our drive was rather exciting as we were literally in the heart of a crazy-ass storm pretty much the entire 6h on the road. Later it turned out that it was a start of tornado that hit some of Louisiana soon after. That night we spent in a motel in Baton Rouge, which by the way, being a state capital is so unexciting! (even pretty rough to say the least)

The Exxon power plant, one of Baton Rouge's famous tourist attractions :)

So we finally made it to New Orleans last night. We were lucky to have someone accommodate us while we are here, and the fact that he lives in the heart of the French Quarter is definitely a bonus. So last night we enjoyed a stroll in the neighbourhood, getting a taste of some of the delicious Louisiana cuisine, which we had no real expectations of. We discovered a popular restaurant on Decatur, which offered us an excellent taste platter of the most famous local dishes (and even some much-missed Europe-style cider!). As a dessert, we enjoyed some awesome rhythmic live blues in a music bar couple blocks away from the house.

 Tony trying out some gumbo, rabbit jambalaya, cajun chicken and red beans 

Old folks busting some awesome tunes!

Louisiana restaurant on Decatur: http://www.coopsplace.net/

Everything's Bigger in Texas!

We are now in Tyler, Texas for a week taking some time to relax after a few days constantly moving about.

Our travels in Texas started with a mammoth 550 mile drive from Roswell, New Mexico to San Antonio, Texas. I would love to say how picturesque the drive was but the truth is the whole of west Texas was incredibly flat and there was nothing except the odd gas station or deserted town for mile upon mile. After many hours we got to San Antonio and got our heads down finally at a cheap Motel.

The next day we got a chance to take a look at the city and were pretty impressed with the major Mexican influences and had a great time making our way down the well known 'River Walk' where you almost forget you are in a city.

San Antonio River Walk

San Antonio is also famous for German settlers who arrived at the turn of the century and made this place their home. This is evident in places such as the King William district where these people lived in very grand houses. We had our first meal in a German bar/cafe and the food was amazing and definitely very German. The crowds in this place showed how popular it was.

A trip to San Antonio would not be complete without seeing the Alamo which is famous for the siege which took place here. The downtown city area has been built around it so it looks slightly out of place, especially with a 'Ripleys, believe it or not' just across the road.

The Alamo

We finished San Antonio with a visit to the Mexican Market area where all manner of different bits and pieces can be purchased. Definitely time for a Margarita after quite a bit of walking.

Petra sipping on intoxicating margarita in San Antonio's Mexican vibed market square

Next stop a couple of hours north was Austin, supposedly the most culturally diverse cities in Texas (e.g. its a bit more democratic and full of hipsters). We stayed with one of petra's old friends just outside the city and that night he took us into town to sample the nightlife around 6th street. There are some seriously cool bars to check out including 'The Jackalope' and 'Handlebar'. Good drinks and good people to meet made for an awesome night out. Would definitely check this area out when you are in Austin. Next day sore heads were cured at a mexican restaurant called Trudy's. Stuffed avocados sound very weird but totally worth a try we can assure you.

Us on a life-size scale Jackalope in Austin (this  is a real animal ;)

Mexican Hangover cure. Tony holding one of the stuffed avocados

On the road again we headed up to the next Texas destination of College Station, TX. As the name suggests it is home to the Texas A&M College and most of the population seems to be students. We stayed with another of Petras friends in some student accommodation that was a bit nicer than back home to say the least. For the night we did what students do best and went for some drinks round someones house before heading out into town. It was entertaining to see bars full of guys in shirts and cowboy boots but thats how they do it out here, no trainers please! Another recurring theme in the US was all bars closed at 2am despite this being a weekend, which sucks but no matter you just go back to someones house and carry on.

Not being able to handle another night in College station we made for Tyler and got our first good nights sleep in quite a few days. This is where we were also reunited with our passports from the chinese consulate in LA. Who would have thought it, the Chinese granted us our Visas! Nice to have that worry off of our shoulders and our passports back in our pockets.

Now we are in Tyler where Petra lived for a year almost 6 years ago. The weather has been 25 degrees Celsius every day which is amazing as its early December! Tyler is not exactly a tourist hotspot and we have mainly been eating in chain restaurants and reuniting with Petra's old friends. We are currently staying with Tricia and her new awesome husband Marty. Tricia was Petras host mother on her exchange year here. Last night we celebrated Marty's birthday firstly at a Louisiana restaurant where the food was very good and secondly at a local dive bar where we hit up the pool tables and Jukebox. As this is a dry county we had to sign up for membership at the bar before we could be served any alcohol, this we found quite funny.

The picture wall of locals in the dive bar in Tyler. They are not in fancy dress.

Smoothie king. Petra's much missed hangout.

Food links:
Famous German restaurant in San Antonio: http://schilos.com/
The stuffed avocado place in Austin: http://www.trudys.com/
The world's best smoothie bar: http://www.smoothieking.com/

Why don't we have this in Europe!!

After Vegas we needed a break from alcohol-fuelled lifestyle and headed to visit some of America's most gorgeous natural wonders. So on Friday we drove to Utah to see the Zion national park. I did not see much on the way as I slept the entire 3,5h drive there. We ended up getting a motel room near the park, for only $40, which is a positive drop from the over $60 rooms in California. The next morning we woke up early and headed to Zion, since we were driving the admission fee was $25 per vehicle. Totally worth the money after seeing the beauty of it.

 Hiking time

 Oh deer!

After a long day of hiking and driving we decided to try out alternative accommodation and ended up setting up a tent in a camping site in a place called Page about halfway between Zion and Grand Canyon. Turns out camping isn't exactly the American way to do it as there was only one other couple camping out in a tent while everyone else had their flashy RVs. At first I was excited about the idea of camping as we had brand new sleeping bags and other camping stuff we had bought from Walmart, there was even free wifi in our tent!Electronic outlets and what not. As one can imagine, the sleeping experience wasn't for my personal taste as it got freezing outside and I had a youth sleeping bag (thought i was being smart and saving money), which I couldn't even fit in so I eventually ended sleeping in the car (which was also freezing). After a shit night's sleep we headed to Antelope Canyon only a 10-minute drive from the camp site. This place is owned by the Navajo people of Arizona so we were lucky enough to have a young native American tour guide educating us on the interesting stories about this AMAZING place. This cost $26 per person but was by far the most mind-blowing thing we have seen so far.

 How can this even exist!

One of Antelope's thousands of crazy walls

After Antelope we made a quick stop at the Horseshoe bend in the Colorado River as we had seen a picture of it in a local brochure. This place is free to visit and again, blows your mind. It's literally next to a highway, yet easy to miss if you're not reading the sign on the side of the road. 

Big horseshoe. i mean, HUGE. (notice the tiny white dots on the bottom of it, they're tents)

Back on the road again, we now started racing the sun to the Grand Canyon. We barely made it as it was about 5mins to sunset when we finally got there. After driving in the national park we stopped at the very first view point called the Desert View, and it sucked. Maybe due to the position of the sun, we just couldn't see much so we drove a bit further to the next view point (Grand view point), which fortunately did not disappoint. 

Grand Canyon was grand.

After it got really dark we left the park to go find a place to sleep in. We drove about 2h to a town called Flagstaff where we again ended up getting a motel room. We had planned to spend the entire next day on the road as our next destination was Santa Fe, New Mexico. Thank goodness we saw a sign on the side of the highway pointing to a meteor crater. Curious what this place would be, we took a turn and discovered the coolest thing in the world. At first we assumed it would be just a shitty hole on the ground, probably the size of a house maybe. But no, it was a gigantic hole on the ground created by a meteor from outer space 50,000 years ago. I'm not that into space stuff but the tour we got was SOO INTERESTING!

Alien landing?

After this unexpected space lesson we continued our way to Santa Fe, which was 5h away. That night we also had our first couch surfing experience at cool people's house in Santa Fe. And these cool people happened to have 2 puppies, which made this experience priceless. So today we drove from Santa Fe to Roswell, the alien capital of America. We are now reporting from a motel room in Roswell.  Will get back to you soon. Roger.  

What happens in Vegas...gets posted on here

Despite our hotel being the tallest tower in Vegas we seemed to have trouble finding it, ending up driving up and down the strip which is not a quick affair seeing as the lights seem to stay on red for about 10 minutes at a time. Gave us a chance to soak up the illuminations which are just plain crazy. We arrived at our hotel and good things started happening already. We managed to get a room upgrade for next to nothing and ended up on the 19th floor at the Stratosphere hotel with a view looking out over Vegas.

Our first day in Vegas was Petra's birthday. After spending the day sunning by the pool (in late november) we decided to go have a birthday meal date. Obviously there was no better place than Hooters! Surprisingly the food was pretty damn good and cheap. We had to get the wings as they are famous for them. 15 sauces to choose from. Found it pretty funny that there were so many kids there especially the large group of 10 year old boys that walked in. They were loving the waitresses.

After hooters we went back to the hotel to meet up with some people we had contacted on couch surfing. We met Tim and Rik our new dutch friends at the tower and after buying small cans of budweiser for $7 each we decided to go somewhere cheaper. Another couch surfing friend took us to a bar outside the strip that had karaoke and $2 pints. We could put up with a bit of crap singing for drinks that cheap. With drinks flowing nicely and a bit of dancing with some 40 year old party animals we left with the two dutch guy to head for the strip.

First stop was Bills Saloon where Petra found her love of blackjack as well as the free drinks brought round by the waitresses. Despite Riks expert guidance Petra managed to lose her money in the next casino although found an amazing tactic for winning it all back without having to gamble. Whining about losing loudly and drunkenly until someone feels sorry for you and gives you everything you have just lost back. Yes this did happen.

Overall the night was a huge success. Lots of casino fun, even a quickie at the legendary Ceasar's Palace, which is totally not designed for cheap traveller fun. Minimum bet for the bar machines $30 so our tactic of pretending were playing until we get served free drinks didn't go as planned and we ended up paying crazy money for the drinks we accidentally ordered. Do note that this does work in most places though. Hence getting hammered in Vegas is very cheap.

The original plan was to leave Vegas the next day as we had only booked the hotel for 2 nights. Somehow Vegas sucked us in for an extended stay and despite the worst hangover ever experienced the next day we somehow ended up repeating the birthday night, but unfortunately cannot write too much about it as none of us remember much. All we know is that we didn't get back to the hotel until 6am the next day. For this I blame the best 24h drunk food selection including fatty diners all over the strip. Check-out was at 11am so you can only imagine how fun it was to wake up and pack our backs. Hangover breakfast/lunch was enjoyed at the infamous Señor Frog's, where the food was rather disappointing. So if you wanna go there, make sure you only go there to drink. Saying goodbye to our new crazy friends, we finally hit the road heading to Utah. More on the national parks in the next post.

Birthday meal at Hooters!

Petras casual takeaway margarita from Hooters

Petra and her gambling partner Rik

Probably the one and only $100 bill I will hold on this trip

Us with Rik outside the 'real' Trevi Fountain

Couchsurfing friends. My have had a few by this time.

Us with Rik and Tim at the Jack Daniels piano bar

We totally finished the whole bottle and that was the last memory