Road trip in Australia

        Not only was I in Hawaii last year, but I spent all of last December in Australia.  Arriving to Sydney on the the 2nd of December; I didn't really have any idea what I was going to do or where I was going to go. All I knew was that I had a car rental and only one contact; a friend's cousin who lived in Sydney.  I was fortunate in that, my friend's cousin, Fabian, allowed me to crash at his place for several days until I was settled and planned out exactly what my trip would entail.

        After only the second day and with little idea of what I would do, I realized that having my car rental parked on the street where it cost $3.50 Australian dollars per hour was completely irrational. It made no sense to me to sit around with reliable transportation that I was paying for; I had to make a move quickly.

      On the third day of my adventure in Sydney I finally came to my census and was determined to begin traveling.  I was most eager to witness the Great Barrier Reef, so I decided to drive straight North in hopes that I would reached Cairns, Queensland. From there, I hoped to work my way down South back to Sydney. The drive to Cairns is roughly 27 hours, in which I would have to split the drive into two parts. This drive would be like driving from Boston to the Key West, back and forth.

      Next, I had to determine where I would rest between the massive drive I would experience.  I google mapped the route and found St. George, which appeared to be a main towns or city.  I left Sydney around 10am and arrived to St. George around 8pm.  I stopped to put gas or "petro" like the Aussies called it and did not feel tired so I deciced to drive to the next major town, which was Roma.  I got to Roma I was still not tired so I decided to drive on to Emerald where I slept in my car in the parking lot of a large super market.  The next day I woke up to a Outback sunrise, brushed my teeth, and headed off to Townsville.

    The whole time I had been driving through what is considered the Outback, but this portion is where the landscape really started to looked like what I thought the Outback would look like.  Dry, sand, desert like, with a ton off road kill; mostly kangaroos.  The dashboard reading of the temperature outside was 36 celsius or 96.8 fahrenheit, which made me laugh because I knew back home in Rhode Island there was a snow storm.  A few hours before getting to Townsville I had to stop for gas and had a chance to shower in the public bathrooms.  I had never showered in a gas station, but this had to be one for the most refreshing showers I have ever had.

       I finally arrived to Townsville but I was still lost: I had no idea what I was going to do, where I was going to sleep, or what was my next step. After driving around a little I located the tourist information office and found out one of the main attractions of this area was a island names Magnetic Island.  A island with 90 plus heat did not sound like a bad idea; so I booked a hostel on the island, bought my ferry ticket, parked my car, and headed off for the weekend.   

    Once the ferry got to Magnetic Island it was to dark to do anything I decided to go to sleep early so I could wake up early and get to know the island.  In the morning I meet Saya from Germany and we head off together to explore the island.  We went to a local Christmas market,  swam at Horseshoe Bay, hiked to The Forts, fed the wallabies, and watched a beautiful sunset in Arcadia Bay.

       Saya told me she was trying to get to the Wallaman Falls which is highest free falling waterfall in Australia, but could not figure out how to get there because she was traveling by bus.  I told her I had my own car, so we could go see the falls together, and after we could head to Cairns.  She agreed and the next day we headed off together.    

Finally Tikal, Guatemala

     La Ruta Inka ended in the accent Mayan city of Tikal and of course I was really pumped to get to see this fascinating place.  The day we got to Tikal we decided not to go in till the next day since we had arrived late and wouldn't have that much time to explore.  I was told for 50 bucks I could get snuck into the park before they opened and see the sunrise from the highest temple.  That night we camped right outside and there was a down pour, I thought it wouldn't of been worth it to go in for the sunrise since you probably wont be able to see much,  but I did swear to my self to go back and see the sunrise.

    The next day some friends and I got a group together, got a tour guild, and started our hike into the jungle to get to the temples.  As soon as we started walking the tour guild told us that everything we saw when Tikal was at it's prime had no trees at all and was just building after building like NYC.  As you hiked you could see a hill after a hill after a hill and a nicely made rode between them, this is because each of them hills are temples/buildings under all the dirt.

     You can't image the size of the largest temples until you see them in person.  Just image hiking on a trail threw the jungle and then getting to a clearing wheres there's a stone wall and you look up and you just can see any end to it.  There are only a few temples you can go up on but the climb up them is quit an adventurer it's self and then the climb down scares the shit out of you.  The steps you use to go up are straight up into the air, they're more like a ladder then steps.  The average height of the temples are about 20 floors high, so just imagine climbing up the side of a 20 floor building on a ladder and then when you get to the top there aren't any railings and then you have to climb back down that ladder.
  

     The hypothesis why Tikal was abandoned is that all the trees you see below were all cut down by the Mayans to build temples and buildings.  So because they had cut all the trees down area dried out and it was uninhabitable.  What blows my mind is the fact that 100s of years later Mother Natural has taken this area back and you can barley see the huge city that was once there.

  
   The image below was taken from same spot that was used for Star Wars.  I've post a clip below from the film so you can compare.

   If you zoom in to a small section of the middle of the left side in the image above you find these two little guys below.  Tikal is a real jungle and there are no cages at all, the animals are in the wild and roaming freely.  

  
    I'm a huge Patriots fan and when I seen this lady, with a Pats hat, in Tikal, the middle of a jungle, you best believe I was pumped.  It was just great benign able to be at the NYC of the ancient world and then seeing another Pats fan there what more could I ask for.