A global ramble - RTW 2017

[JohnM]

Trying the pics from the app as I had trouble with loading pics on the web site yesterday using my iPad.

 

[TomVexille]

Working for me.

 

[JohnM]

Working for me.

The problem is that it's erratic.

 

[love_the_life]

And it just did it again for me - not logged in so have to log out then in again - so inconsistent and you never know if it will work or not.

 

[RooFlyer]

Bugg**! At least 4 AFFers (including me) look at their new camera with suspicion .

Some of those climbs at Carocol would have been dicey in the wet.

 

[love_the_life]

Bugg**! At least 4 AFFers (including me) look at their new camera with suspicion .

Some of those climbs at Carocol would have been dicey in the wet.

Do you have the same kind?

 

[JohnM]

Do you have the same kind?

Yes - there was recently a very good deal on that model.

 

[love_the_life]

Yes - there was recently a very good deal on that model.

That could be unfortunate then. Not the humidity that locked the camera - I once had one that seemed to just die (with the lens extended) but when it had 'rested' a bit in a less humid environment it was fine. It was particularly annoying as I was using it to take photos of a graduation for work.

Stunning ruins in your photos.

 

[JohnM]

That could be unfortunate then. Not the humidity that locked the camera - I once had one that seemed to just die (with the lens extended) but when it had 'rested' a bit in a less humid environment it was fine. It was particularly annoying as I was using it to take photos of a graduation for work.

Stunning ruins in your photos.

No, it's totally died now. At first it said 'Power off then on.' but that had no effect in resetting it. Now nothing appears on the screen.

 

[Daver6]

Nothing really to report yet except a painful experience getting into LOTFAP at DFW yesterday. The last few years I've cleared immigration through the automated kiosks immediately, collected and re-checked my bag and been in the Admiral's Club inside 20 minutes (with the wait for the luggage most of that). This time it looked like about 50% of the pax were having their kiosk slips 'randomly' marked for secondary manual screening. This included quite a few of the crew.

It took an hour to get through a very undermanned (and very grumpy) passport control. I had decided to stay over for two nights to get over jet lag and briefly check out Austin before going to Belize so I was more fortunate than some who may have struggled to make connections.

Getting out of this place tomorrow morning...

Hold on...when were you in Austin? Friday/Saturday night? I recall discussing this with you and sure we concluded we were there at different times. Fun town though. I loved it.

 

[JohnM]

Hold on...when were you in Austin? Friday/Saturday night? I recall discussing this with you and sure we concluded we were there at different times. Fun town though. I loved it.

We did discuss but there was no overlap. I ended up being Wednesday night but after the shemozzle of getting through LOTFAP immigration it was a bit too late to enjoy E 6th, so I just had a look around on Thursday and then went back to DFW overnight Thursday before heading to Belize.

 

[JohnM]

Excellent day trip today to Tikal Maya site about 100 km into Guatemala. Dry weather and another excellent guide giving deep insights into Maya history and culture.

It's a spectacular site of major temples and palaces.

 

[JohnM]

And more.

 

[JohnM]

And the best I could manage with my phone:

 

[JohnM]

After a substantial 3pm lunch following, and included in, the Tikal tour I was not feeling like a large dinner. Wandered downtown about 9pm and some nachos and a couple of glasses of Argentinian Sauv Blanc hit the spot on a gorgeous but quiet Monday evening in chilled little San Ignacio.




Wine is not big in Belize (get the glass...). Beer is the bevy of choice and the national Belikin is a very nice pilsner style. Some local guy walked past and commented on how strange it was someone eating nachos with wine!

For the curious, Belize is a former British colony (and still a member of the Commonwealth) and English is the official language, so it's an easy-peasy place. The currency is fixed at 2BZD to 1USD, and both currencies are accepted everywhere, making things extra easy.

Heading back to Belize City tomorrow morning for one night before braving LOTFAP immigration at DFW again.

 

[JohnM]

Transferred to Belize City today and did a combined tour of the town and a trip out to the zoo (40km). The town is pleasant enough and clean but doesn't offer anything unique. It's quite small (c. 70K people - of 360K in the whole country).

Further to the history of Belize, it was formerly British Honduras until independence in 1981. Belize is derived from a Mayan word.

The zoo is very good and specialises in indigenous and rare fauna.

The keel-billed toucan is the national faunal emblem.




Poor shot of a macaw.

 

[JohnM]

Puma.



Jaguar.



Pretty sure this is a margay, not an ocelot (one of them was too difficult to get a shot of.)



Spider monkey.

 

[QF WP]

Strapped in and tray table is in the upright position, ready for this TR from you three.

I just had a 'not logged in message from the app' when trying to load my 4th pic, then couldn't upload the text. Back to the web version and just doing the text at the moment.

if this continues, I'll abandon the TR until I return home.

I have found that for text-based messages, I use the web version. If I need to post photos with iPhone, I use App but I log off at the end of every session. So when accessing App, I log in and can generally get my photos posting (particularly back-to-back posts). It only seems to give me the red message of death if I've been going in and out of threads. YMMV.

 

[VPS]

Great TR thanks - I had a couple of minor issues with mine for a couple of days where you'd switch it off and then it would just turn on again but was fine apart from that - very annoying because I know the iphone takes good photos but you can't beat a decent camera

 

[JohnM]

Chill-out yesterday morning before afternoon flight BZE-DFW. This time sailed through immigration without secondary checking.

Pleasant lunch over the Gulf of Mexico as the sun was going down before seeing some chemtrails being laid down around Houston and final approach just on sunset.

Today it's DFW-SJD for the next four nights.