Swedish Nerd Vs. The World

Some countries have a lot of character and Mexico is definitely one of those. My friend Andreas and I were welcomed by a fake tourist town on the Costa Maya when we arrived by a cruise ship, but I don't mean that in a bad way. Some fake cities are awesome and some just have a hollow vibe, but I immediately loved this place when I saw it walking in on the long pier from the ship. It's like all of cliché Mexico condensed down into one small tourist place, and when you only got 1 day to spare in what may be the world's most dangerous country, it's perfect. We were greeted by people who looked like they performed a Day of the Dead ritual, a colourful mural, tequila bars, a mariachi band, taco restaurants and on and on. I was so intrigued to go into the small city, but we were gonna go by bus for an hour to visit the Maya temple called Chacchoben. First we saw a fake temple leaving the fake town, and I'm always one of those that sit and stare out the windo...

The DJ in the cruise port of Ocho Rios welcomed my friend Andreas and I with Bob Marley songs, while overseeing one of the greenest islands from our balcony. I was eager to get off the boat to go to the nearby Mystic Mountain. Right outside of the port I haggled with taxi drivers, who tried to charge a too high price and told me to walk when I said I would pay half. When I started to walk he came back to me and said "OK the price is fine!". I asked if I could pay by card but I couldn't so he would drive me in to town, which was like 3 minutes away, so I could withdraw money, but that would cost me extra of course. They just tried to get every penny of me they could and I'm so bored with that. For me it's better if you act nice and then you can get a tip instead, instead of trying to take 40 dollars for a 5 minute ride. It turned out the trip to withdraw the money was almost longer than the ride to Mystic Mountain, so we should have just walked there. Especially...

Honduras is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world, so my friend Amanda and I went to the safer island of Roatán outside of the mainland. We went there by cruise ship to have a VIP treatment at a private island called Little French Key, just off the coast of Roatán. We would swim with pigs, snorkel at the second largest barrier reef in the world called Mesoamerican, ride horses in the sea, get a massage on the beach, have a private area for ourselves and even a private butler and so on. We had really invested in this day to be the best ever! After a short ride with a minivan from Mahogany Bay to the French Cay, we got on the boat that would take us to the private island in just a couple of minutes. I hadn't been that impressed of the country along the way and now that I saw the island, it didn't live up to my high expectations. It looked alright, but not like the paradise I had seen in the pictures.  When we got ashore on Little French Key we were ...

My friend Andreas and I arrived at the port with a cruise ship at the second largest city in Costa Rica, Limón. With nothing much to see in the small city, which even the tour guide on the bus adressed, which is uncommon since they always want to hype their country, we headed out to the rainforest and the rescue center for sloths. I couldn't see any traffic lights on the roads and the guide told us they didn't need any, because the drivers would use eye contact when meeting traffic. Fair enough I thought and hoped to survive this. Since sloths are my spirit animal, I also just want to eat, sleep and be left alone, it was finally time to encounter them when we arrived. We were supposed to see the sloths, the infant sloths and then meet the superstar sloth named Buttercup, who had been with the sanctuary since 1992. Instead we got to see sloths in cages, more sloths in cages and then got the sad news that Buttercup had just passed away a couple of months ago.  ...

I went out on the balcony of our cabin on the cruise ship, while my friend Andreas was still sleeping. I was too excited to sleep because this would be my first arrival to South America ever, visiting Cartagena in northern Colombia. The fishermen in the small and rustic boats waved good morning to me, while condors hovered next to our ship. It was a new sight for me and I love experience something new still, so soon I will be ready to conquer all of South America. While entering the harbour it looked more like a cheaper version of Miami with all the skyscrapers. This pic was taken in the evening, so I can assure you that Andreas is not a morning drinker When we went off the ship we immediately found ourselves in a zoo with flamingos, anteaters and stuff like that.  So many impressions at once and suddenly a girl stopped and pointed over my head like in shock. I didn't dare to move until she said "look a monkey!", and I was so relieved it wasn't a...

A tenderboat in the Caribbean Sea took my friend Amanda and I into the small harbour of the capital Belize City, of the small country Belize in Central America. I had only heard bad things about the country before arriving, so all I knew was to stay out of the city if I didn't want to get robbed or murdered or both. We decided the jungle would be the safest place, and so the 1 hour bus ride to Jaguar Paw began with a tour guide on the mic. The bus was old and the speaker system the guide Bruce used, sounded like something from the 80's so he screamed on top of his lungs to make everybody hear. Thankfully I had my earplugs ready, but I loved the authentic feel of the state of the bus. This was another bus that we changed to in the jungle for a short ride over the hill Belize is a poor country and after we had been riding through what I assumed was a ghetto, Bruce said "so that was the rich part, and now we're getting across the river to see the sout...

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". I pretended it was as important to be the first ever tourist to visit the brand new Ocean Cay island in the Bahamas, as it was when the first man took a step on the moon. The opening of MSC Cruises' private island had been postponed and postponed, because of their hard work of turning a before industrial sand excavation site into a thriving marine reserve. It was supposed to be opening in March 2018, and then in November 2019. Just weeks before I would go there they postponed the opening to the date I was going, it would now open on December 5th. I was sure it would be postponed again, but to my surprise I stepped outside in the morning on the balcony of my friend Andreas and mine cabin on the MSC cruise ship, and saw the island that I had only seen drawed images of before.  The characteristic lighthouse looked amazing from a distance and the island looked so small compared to our huge ship...