David Coats » Central America

Man shot dead in Lapa, Rio de Janeiro

David — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:41:46 +0000

Last night a 20 year old man was shot dead outside the front gate of my flat on Rua da Lapa, Rio.

Marju and I were woken at 6am by 8 to 10 massive gun shots resonating through our building. At first I tried to pass the noise off as fireworks, but clearly it wasn’t. Once the shooting had stopped, we lay silently in bed before nervously venturing to the window to see what was happening.

Everything seemed pretty normal with a few people strolling down the street and the light slowly creeping in over the airport, however, within a minute, from all three roads approaching the building came a stream of maybe 10 or 15 blue Rio Polícia Civil

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Hello South America

David — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:06:58 +0000

I’m on the plane from San Jose, Costa Rica to Lima in Peru, 10km above a desert coastline which is presumably Equador. After my last post things changed fairly dramatically. Aoifer couldn’t cross the Costa Rica/Nicaragua border, despite having a photocopy of her old passport, a police report, a document from the Italian (EU) consulate in Granada, Nicaragua and a fax from the Irish embassy in Mexico. Paul and Aoifer therefore left us at the border not to be seen again which was an abrupt way to say goodbye to two great people. Then the following day we decided to leave the tour, despite there still being five days left, we headed off in search of sun rather than the

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Nicaraguan Passport thieves

David — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:44:31 +0000

I’m nearing the end of my time in Central America which i’m feeling quite sad about, as this has been such a great place to explore. Despite a few hiccups – breaking camera, damaging iphone and the copious amounts of rain, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua have been fabulous. They are all such different, diverse and interesting countries. Mexico with its vast array of tacos and fried food, Belize with beautiful island paradises full of caribbean men who love cocaine and the Queen. Guatemala with its friendly traditionaly-dressed people crowded onto chicken buses careering around stunning volcanoes and mountain scenery. Honduras with its bland western high-heeled culture, Hurricanes and big guns. And finally, Nicaragua with its street dining wide

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Central American Adventure

David — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:35:28 +0000

Been a while since I updated, but I can explain…. I´ve just been having too much fun!

Sydney was simply awesome. Big thanks to Alex and Dorota who were fantastic hosts and showed me a really great time. My Sister is also in Sydney so it was like taking a brief break back home. After Sydney and a 14 hour flight to LA where I landed before I left (thanks International Date Line) I continued on to Mexico where I began an organised tour of Central America with Intrepid.

After nearly 2 months of lone travelling it was so nice to have everything done for me. On some days in South Asia and India, it felt like a full time

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