Time to Go Home....Almost! Our Final Week :)

Well, the time has come for us to get ready to go back home. We have spent our final week taking it easy in Antigua, and we are taking our first flight tomorrow evening, with destination Madrid. After a short stopover, we will then fly to London, arriving at around 6pm on the 16th December. Although we are obviously sad for this trip of a lifetime to be coming to an end, we also cannot wait to get home and see everyone! Six and a half months has felt like an incredibly long time, and I honestly don't know how my brother, Tony, ever managed to stay away for 16 months!!! Let me say a huge thank you to everyone that has followed our blog and made comments....it makes it so worthwhile to know that people are enjoying reading about all of our experiences. Sorry we haven't always kept it very up-to-date...Vic doubted that I would get it finished by the time we left, but I have proved him wrong, and I must say, it is a huge relief to finish it :) We still have to add a few photos and videos, and I guess that will have to wait until we're home now. I'm also certain that the text needs some editing (I bet there are countless spelling mistakes), but after writing an entry, I'm usually too tired to go back and read it through again. It will be fun to read it through from start to finish and recall of the great memories we have made over the past months. We thought it would be a good idea to note down a few statistics from the trip....luckily Vic has already worked it all out and written it in his Spanish entry below, which makes it a lot easier for me :) For anyone considering going travelling, I would thoroughly recommend it, and especially this part of the world. Although tourism is steadily growing here, it is still a relatively undiscovered region and more importantly, it is one of the cheapest areas of the world to travel in, so you can come here for a long time without the need for loads of money. Obviously you need a fair amount, but you can keep to a very low budget by eating the local food everywhere you go and sleeping in dorms!

For anyone really interested, here are those statistics to give you an idea of what the backpacking life is really like: after travelling for 30 weeks, we have taken 120 (disgusting) malaria tablets (between the 2 of us), have broken four pairs of flip-flops (that's just Vic....my Haivanas are still going strong), we have travelled in/on 2 planes, 8 boats, 15 speed boats, 1 quad bike, 1 golf buggy, 2 bicycles, 1 horse, 8 pick-up trucks and 86 buses/shuttles. We have visited 7 Mayan ruins, climbed one mountain (something I will never do again!!!), seen 5 lakes, swam in one lagoon and two rivers, visited two caves and met people from 29 different countries. We have come across several different ethnic communities (including Tsotsiles, Tzeltales, Mams, Quichés, Cachiqueles, Lacandones, Garífunas and Miskitos), studied the Mayan language, Tsotsil, for 3 hours, sunbathed and swam on thirteen beaches (5 on the Carribean coast and 8 on the Pacific), crossed 7 borders, taken about 3,500 photos, visited 7 countries and 5 capitals cities. We have snorkelled 3 times, scuba dived 8 times, taught English to around 70 students, released about 4,000 baby turtles, rescued and buried 241 turtle eggs and unpacked and repacked our bags about 100 times (I argued with Vic that this should be more but he was insistent). We have used 7 different foreign currencies (colones in Costa Rica, cordobas in Nicaragua, US dollars in El Salvador, Pesos in Mexico, Belize dollars in Belize, lempiras in Honduras and quetzales in Guatemala) and tried at least one of the most popular beers in each country (Imperial in Costa Rica, Victoria and Toña in Nicaragua, Pilsener in El Salvador, Corona and Sol in Mexico, Belikin in Belize, Salvavida in Honduras and Gallo in Guatemala, which in fact won a prize in Brussels this year). Finally, we have read 11 books between the two of us, called home about 25 times each and updated this blog a massive 87 times!!!!

We hope you have enjoyed following us on all of our adventures....we have certainly had the time of our lives and we are really looking forward to getting back home and sharing our stories and photos with you all! Next stop: London!!! See you all soon and thanks again for keeping us company :) xxx