Berlin reflections

Garry and I have arrived in New Zealand. The weather today has been glorious. We even found time to go for a wander along the beach near my parents house, enjoying blue skies, warm sunshine and gently lapping ocean waves. The irony of this experience wasn't lost on us. Barely 24 hours earlier we'd been swimming in the Caribbean Sea, marveling at the majesty of the ocean. Now, here we were on the opposite side of the world once again watching the ocean, bathed in sunshine and invigorating sea air.


I've also found a moment to share some highlights of our recent weekend in Berlin. Click here to read more. Stay tuned for a post on our tour of Chichen Itza in the heart of the Yucatan Peninsula.

LAX interlude

Garry and I have just arrived at LAX. Two flights down, two to go before our journey is over. We left Cancun shortly after 1.10pm local time today, transfered in Dallas, before finally arriving in Los Angeles an hour ago. Ahead are another 13 hours of flying to reach Tauranga, New Zealand - our final destination for today (or should I say 'tomorrow' - well Monday actually - we'll lose Sunday altogether when we cross the dateline later this evening).

As was our experience last year, the scheduled aircraft taking us out of LAX has been subsituted for another aircraft. However, we're a little more optimistic that we'll have Skybeds this time. Last year Qantas substituted aircraft and we lost our Skybed flight altogether. The inconvenience was marginally offset by A$600 in travel vouchers that Qantas mailed afterwards. These will get us to Zurich next January for a friend's 40th birthday. Fingers crossed we'll get a good night's sleep. It's already been a long day.

Crowd free Cancun

Our Central American vacation is all but done. Last Sunday, we flew from Panama City to Cancun, Mexico. Since then, we've spent our time lounging by the pool and swimming in a surprisingly warm ocean. As you’ll have read, I also took a day trip to Coba and Tulum while Garry’s soaked up more UV. We then spent two days in Chichen Itza, before returning to Cancun for a final night.  

Our route to Mexico was far from direct. The Round The World ticket we’ve booked restricts us to airlines within the One World alliance, so we flew to Cancun via Miami. Our American Airlines flight from Panama City departed shortly after 2:30 p.m. We arrived in Miami shortly before 6:20 p.m. and transferred onto our flight to Cancun. We finally landed in Mexico at about 8:30 p.m., an hour after sunset. Naturally, our transfer through Miami involved the usual immigration entry charade American authorities love.

I confess that I didn't appreciate that Panama City sat on the Pacific coast. We arrived at night so the Panamanian isthmus was hidden from view. However, our return flight to Miami flew across it in broad daylight. It's surprising just how narrow this strip of land really is. Our plane was still climbing as the Caribbean coast came into view.

As we flew out of Panama City rows of ships were anchoring off the coast waiting to transit the Panama Canal. Dozens of vessels were visible from the air. Unfortunately, my hastily snapped photos failed to capture the entire scene.

We booked ourselves into The Westin Resort. It’s located at the southern end of a gently arcing white sand beach that extends 13km along the Caribbean coast. Our room for the week offered a stunning view over the sea.  We've also discovered that the hotel is ideally situated for a relaxing beach vacation.

Much of the coast’s intensive tourism infrastructure is concentrated to the north in what’s known as the Hotel Zone. You’ll find a relentless cavalcade of American fast-food chains, bars and chaotic traffic here. Think Hooters and McDonalds. There’s very little that’s distinctly Mexican (and local Taco Bell wannabes really don’t count). Contrast this with the Westin. It’s effectively the final hotel along the coast. As a result, there’s limited road traffic, no shopping mall, and few people on the beach beyond guests staying in the hotel.

We’ve also discovered something special in the sand dunes nearby. Apparently, turtles still venture out of the sea to lay eggs above the high tide zone overnight. Local volunteers retrieve them the following morning and transfer them to a fenced-off zone in the dunes next to our hotel. We haven't seen any turtles, but it’s kind of cool to think there's a turtle nursery right next door.

We ventured out for dinner one night earlier in the week. However, the experience wasn't exactly memorable thanks to the traffic chaos and jostling throngs of people. In fact, the most authentic local meal I've eaten so far was lunch at a roadside cafe during my Coba tour. I enjoyed a classic Mexican Chicken Mole made with hot chillies, dark chocolate, spices, and tomatillos. Yes, you read that correctly. Chocolate in its raw, unsweetened form is a bitter ingredient that gives the sauce an earthy base.

We’re back at the Westin for our final night in Mexico. Sadly, the hotel booked us into a dungeon-like ground-floor room without a view. Although, on a positive note, it's abnormally spacious and comfortably air conditioned, which is perfect for watching the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony live on TV. Here we are, two Australian citizens, sitting in Mexico, watching live events in China. Tomorrow we fly to Auckland via Dallas and Los Angeles. How small the world has become.

Photos galore

I've spent a few hours in our hotel room sheltering from the intense sun outside. During my incarceration I took some time to upload photos from our holiday so far. Scroll down through the last five posts for a visual feature of Central American images. I've also published an old post about our neighbourhood fox. You can read this post just before those that capture our first week of vacation.

Tomorrow we check out of our Cancun hotel and head inland to Chichen Itza for two days. This is by far the most popular and most photographed of all Mayan ruins on the Yucatan peninsula. Stay tuned for more awe-inspiring images!

Jungle skyline

At the height of its power, between 600 to 900AD, the Mayan city of Coba supported more than 45,000 people. Then, for some unknown reason, it was abandoned in the jungle and remained hidden until the 1890s. Excavations finally began in earnest in the 1970s, eventually restoring more than 30 structures. Researchers believe that at least another 6500 remain hidden in more than 50 square kilometres of dense jungle. Today, after 90 minutes of highway driving, I got to see this remarkable inland city for myself (Garry remained poolside in Cancun).

Coba is most famous for its stepped pyramid, known appropriately as Nohoch Mul, or the 'big mound'. This remarkable stone structure rises an impressive 42 metres above the jungle floor, offering an unobstructed view of the northern Yucatan Peninsula. I naturally had to climb it. No fewer than 120 steep, uneven steps lead to a surprisingly broad platform, from which a small stone temple looks out across the jungle skyline.

From here you can see how unbelievably flat the Yucatan Peninsular is. There isn't a single hill in any direction for as far as the eye can see. My guide explained that any tree-clad mound we could see rising above the treetops was, in fact, an unrestored pyramid. I could also see a small grey-stone pyramid bursting from the jungle about 500 metres away. I later learnt that this is one of the only pyramids left in the region that tourists are still permitted to climb.

Other sights of note at Coba included two restored ball courts. These structures feature two parallel sloping walls, each capped by a large stone hoop. Two teams played against each other using only their hips and elbows to get a rubber ball through the hoop. This was clearly an athletic endeavour as the walls rise almost ten metres, with a rather dramatic gradient.

Incredibly, the game typically ended with a human sacrifice. Researchers are unsure who was sacrificed; the team captain or the entire squad. Equally, nobody can be sure if it was the winners or the losers who offered the sacrifice. My guide believes that the winning team offered human sacrifice because such an act was considered an honour in Mayan culture.

Our final stop in Coba was another giant pyramid. This is not open to the public but sits at the end of an impressive, long-stepped platform extending almost 100 metres into the jungle. I was captivated by a series of hardwood trees growing over the top of a narrow archway next door. This simple sight offered a tantalizing glimpse of how the jungle had once smothered the entire area.

From Coba, we ventured to the coast where the Mayan port city of Tulum can be found. These well-preserved ruins perch on the edge of a steep cliff overlooking the most spectacular turquoise-blue sea. A small white sand beach cove offers the only seaward entrance to the site, while the city's three remaining boundaries are protected by an impressive stone wall. The wall is seven metres thick and up to five metres high, with only five gates offering access via a narrow passageway.

The site is dominated by another stepped pyramid, El Castillo, which is topped by a collonaded temple. This temple also served as a lighthouse, guiding Mayan canoes through a small gap in the offshore coral reef. The entire structure rises from a series of equally impressive stone platforms. Spanish sailors first sighted the city in 1518. Within 75 years it was abandoned as Spain ruthlessly conquered the region.

My guide explained that the city buildings had once been boldly painted red, blue and white. Today, just the occasional faded fleck of paint can be seen on the odd stone. The sight must have truly astonished Spanish explorers. However, the sight that astonished me today could be found directly outside Tulum's ruins - the Voladores.

These are five costumed men who recreate an unusual ceremonial ritual from the top of a towering blue pole. Four men wind ropes around the top of the pole, then tie them to their feet and slowly lower themselves to the ground by spiralling around the pole. Meanwhile, the fifth man stands on a tiny platform at the top of the pole, simultaneously dancing and playing a flute. It was difficult to decide which person was the boldest, or perhaps more appropriately, the most insane.

Click here to read about our overnight tour of Chichen Itza.

NOTE: February 2025

I recently began retrospectively resizing old blog images. My original photos were saved using an extremely low resolution.  I've discovered that a handful of original images were overwritten by accident.  As a result, two photos in this post have been reworked using AI to restore them as higher-resolution files. This includes the image of me sitting on top of a pyramid.  These days I save blog images as 1000x750px files at least 250KB.

The sound of the ocean

Just a very quick update!

Garry and I are now five days into our Central American stopover en route to Australia. We arrived last night in Cancun, Mexico, after 2.5 fascinating days in Panama City. I've written a few posts on our Panama adventures, which you can read below. Photos will have to wait until I download them from my camera. 

However, right at this moment - as I type, I can see and hear the Caribbean Sea washing over a beach of golden sand directly below our hotel balcony. It's time to kick back and enjoy some full-time resort pampering.

UPDATE:  11 August

You can read more about our hotel and Cancun here.

Across the Continental Divide

Garry anointed today as Geek’s Day as this morning we completed a partial transit of the Panama Canal. Our day began with a short bus trip to the small town of Gamboa which sits on the shores of Lake Gatun in central Panama. Lake Gatun makes up almost a third of the Panama Canal’s length (24.2 kilometers across the isthmus). It’s an artificial lake, constructed to hold the vast amount of water required to operate the canals locks.


From Gaboa a small passenger boat took us along the canal, through the Gaillard (Culebra) Cut and on towards two sets of locks that finally lower ships 26 metres to sea level and the Pacific coast. Our entire voyage took little more than 3.5 hours to complete, taking us almost 40 kilometres along the canal’s 77 kilometre length.

Without doubt the Gaillard Cut is the canal’s most spectacular engineering feat. This 12.6km waterway slices through the Continental Divide separating each coast of the Panama isthmus. It’s simply an enormous manmade valley, 540 metres wide at the top, with walls rising an impressive 52 metres above the canal itself. More than 76 million cubic metres m³ of rock and soil was removed over several decades before the cut was finally completed in 1913.


Today the cut boasts another spectacular engineering feat, the Centennial Bridge. This is a cable-stayed bridge spanning 1,052 metres across the canal at an attitude of 80 metres. The sight of a Panamax ship passing under this bridge through the Gaillard Cut gave us the best possible sense of how incredible an engineering feat the canal had been. We were told that the bridge’s West Tower had been built 50 metres inland to allow space for the future widening of the canal. Such forethought was wise as we soon past a massive excavation site where the canal is now being widened to accommodate post-Panamax sized ships – all part of the new expansion program due for completion in 2014.


Passing through the three locks that take you down to sea level was an amazing experience – even for a non-Geek like Garry. Two separate sets of locks lower each ship in three stages. The first, single-stage Pedro Miguel lock, takes you down 9.5 metres from the Gaillard Cut to Miraflores Lake. The second stage, is a twin set of locks at Miraflores that drop you 16.5 meters at mid-tide along a 1.7 kilometres course. Mid-tide is an important distinction as the Pacific Ocean coast boasts tides that rise and fall almost six metres. As a result the final set of lock gates at Miraflores are the tallest on the entire canal, rising an astonishing 25 metres from the bottom of the lock.


The experience of dropping 9 metres inside a water-tight concrete chamber is almost impossible to describe. One moment you’re at the level of the surrounding countryside. Within minutes you find yourself deep inside a giant concrete arena with slimy, wet walls towering above. It’s another moment that brings home the canal’s amazing engineering feats. Geeky or not, today's partial transit was a journey to remember.


Our next stop in Central America was Cancun and the Yucatan peninsular. Click here to travel with us.

Panama City

Our first full day in Panama started with a mid-morning drive to the Miraflores Locks. Here two pairs of locks lift ships more than 56 feet from the Pacific Ocean to a small lake. This marks the start of an 80km journey across the Panama isthmus to the Caribbean. A four-storey visitor’s centre offers uninterrupted views of giant sea-going vessels passing through the locks. Almost 40 ships a day pass through these locks, more than 14,000 every year.


Watching these enormous ocean-going vessels pass metres away is breathtaking. We spent almost an hour watching a giant car-carrying ship vessel and an equally spectacular container ship pass through the Miraflores Locks. Each ship barely fitted into the lock with less than 50cm clearance on each side, hence the term Panamax (Panama Canal Maximum size) given to these ships. An increasing number of ships are built precisely to the Panamax limit, ensuring that the maximum amount of cargo can always be carried by a single vessel through the canal. However, the tight fit in each lock means that such ships are only allowed to transit during daylight hours.


An extensive museum inside explained everything in more detail, including a new $ 5.25 billion expansion of the canal that started last year. Here we learnt that it takes little more than eight hours for a ship to transit the canal, saving an alternative 16-day voyage around Cape Horn. The average toll is around US$54,000, rising to US$300,000 or more for a guaranteed priority booking.

Our tour guide then took us up Cerro Ancon, a small hill overlooking the canal. The summit also offered a stunning view of Panama Bay and the city’s rapidly changing skyline. After a brief stop for lunch, the remainder of our day was spent touring Panama City. First, we drove along the Amador Causeway, a three-kilometre breakwater protecting the canal entrance. Almost ten per cent of the fill excavated from the canal was used to construct this roadway linking four small islands to the mainland.

We then toured the city’s Colonial district, a small cluttered district that once formed the heart of old Panama City. The entire city had once been surrounded by a broad, protective stone wall. Today only a small remnant remains. However, the area's narrow French and Spanish-inspired laneways are a joy to explore. The streetscape bore more than a passing resemblance to the French Quarters in New Orleans, while a poignant waterfront memorial commemorates the 22,000 lives lost during failed French efforts to build the Panama Canal.


Our final stop for the day was Panama Viejo, the oldest European settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas. It was founded in 1519 by the conquistador Pedrarías Dávila and rapidly became the gateway for Spain’s conquest of Latin America. Today, nothing more than stone wall ruins remain. The entire city was burnt to the ground in 1671 during a fierce battle with the English pirate Henry Morgan.


One sight among the ruins captured my imagination - a simple old stone bridge crossing a narrow creek. This bridge was the start of a road that once took plundered Incan treasures from the Pacific coast, across Panama to the Caribbean, and on to Spain. Our guide explained that thousands of slaves had crossed this bridge each year carrying the treasure on their backs. Mules were never used because slaves were far cheaper to purchase and maintain. It's quite a contrast to the mighty ocean-going vessels that transit the same route today.


Click here to read about our own transit of the Panama isthmus.

Third world welcome

Garry and I have arrived in Panama. Our BA flight departed Heathrow shortly after 9.30am, reaching Miami nine hours later. The contrast between Miami airport and the efficient, shiny new Terminal Five couldn’t have been starker. Security took five minutes to complete at Heathrow. In Miami we queued for half an hour in a tiny immigration lounge for a regular entry visa.

International transit doesn’t exist in the USA. Its Government actively discourages such passengers, considering them a threat to national security. As a result, every arriving passenger is forced to enter the nation before catching their transfer flight. However, the US Government has decidedly odd rules regarding transit luggage.

At Heathrow we were told we’d have to collect our bags in Miami and transfer them ourselves. We waited in the baggage hall for 20 minutes. Not one bag appeared. We approached an American Airlines representative and were advised that the airline automatically transfers luggage destined for Central America. We later discovered that automatic transfer was only available to foreign airlines transferring bags to American-owned airlines. Passengers transferring from one American airline to another always have to collect their bags. Surprisingly, this restriction was introduced after 9/11. I wonder why are foreign airlines considered safer than American ones?

Our arrival in Panama took bureaucratic contradiction to the next level. Shortly after landing the pilot announced that our terminal gate was occupied. He went on to explain that we’d been instructed to sit for an hour on the tarmac until a gate became available. We eventually disembarked, only to be confronted with arrows to immigration and baggage collection pointing in opposite directions.

We took a stab at the right hand corridor and soon found ourselves standing at an immigration counter. It was here we learnt a few lessons in third-world border security. Garry entered the country within minutes despite the fact that his immigration officer had never heard of the United Kingdom. His paperwork was processed without hesitation. Meanwhile, I handed over the same paperwork to a second officer and was told I didn’t have the appropriate Tourist Card issued by my airline. No such card was mentioned during our flight and no airline representative greeted us on arrival with said cards.

Without warning the Immigration Officer took my passport and pointed me in the direction of the baggage hall. He instructed me to get a Tourist Card from the nearest airline official and come back to him. I couldn’t believe it. I was being invited to enter the country without a passport. For the next twenty minutes, in the middle of the night, I was sent from one airline representative to another, each vaguely pointing to opposing ends of the baggage hall in a vain search for a Tourist Card. I was even directed to go back through two passport control counters into the immigration zone.

Defeated, I returned to the immigration officer I had first encountered. He took pity on me and without a word of explanation walked me through the airport to a tiny temporary podium on the opposite side of the building. Here a young man was handing out American Airline’s Tourist Cards for US$5 each. I was now free to enter Panama.

Perhaps the most priceless moment throughout the entire experience was being escorted past Garry by two immigration officials. Given that I was confused as he was I simply shrugged my shoulders and disappeared into the distance. I'm sure he thought I'd been arrested.

Our next adventure involved our luggage. The baggage hall had six carousels. None had flights listed on their accompanying screens despite rows of bags circulating underneath. After several stampedes around the hall passengers on our flight were finally united with their bags. The fun continued as we exited the customs hall. We were now almost three hours behind schedule. It soon became apparent that our tour representative was nowhere to be seen. Several weary calls to the tour company ensued before being instructed to catch a cab to our hotel on the promise that all expenses would be reimbursed.

Almost 21 hours after we’d left home we finally found ourselves in a hotel in Panama. It was amusing to reflect on our experience passing through three airports. Two felt distinctly third world, one did not. Luggage transiting through the USA can be transferred automatically while people cannot. Two passengers, travelling on Australian passports, can gain access to the same country via completely different means for no apparent reason. American Airlines is unable to correctly instruct non-American customers on basic travel needs. If simply getting to Panama was any guide, the rest of our holiday was set to be one huge adventure.