The Best of 2006

A picture is more than thousand words... that is what people say. So here is a collection of pics that represent most of the things I did last year!


January in Oaxaca, Mexico. Abel, me, and Rouss.


March in Real de 14, San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Thomas, me, and Joel.


July in Sydney Opera House. Sydney, NSW, Australia.


September in Fox Glacier, West Coast, New Zealand. David, me, Arnau, Ruben, Stephanie, Linda, and Laura.


November doing the Open Water Diver course. Nelson Bay, NSW, Australia. Bree, me, and David.


November in front of the Bass Strait. Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia.


December in the southern hemisphere. Fraser Island, Queensland, Australia. Me, Arnau, Ruben, David.


December in Manhattan (New York City), NY, USA.

The Big Apple

My parents invited my sister and me to New York City for this Christmas and of course we accepted. First of all, this trip was to relax a bit, so we did not have to hurry for visiting anything because we have been there before. We arrived in the afternoon of the 22nd of December. As soon as we got to our room in the hotel just in front of Times Square we left it for having a walk in the city. There were so many people!!! Rockefeller Center was our first stop. We continued walking and walking in the 5th Avenue looking for some gifts and then we decided to have dinner in an italian restaurant.



On the 23rd we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where we saw some masterpieces from different painters, jewelry and art from ancient cultures, sculptures, modern art, and many other things. Then we ate some traditional pretzels and hot dogs. We did some shopping and walked along Times Square, then we had dinner in another very good restaurant.



The 24th was pretty good. We headed to the Top of the Rock (Rockefeller), a very high building in which we had a panoramic view of the city. It was excellent! Then we just walked in the 5th Avenue, which was very very very crowded. We got prepared for the Christmas dinner in the hotel.



On the next day we went to a Christmas show in the Radio City Music Hall. I really liked it. When it was over we hopped on a sightseeing city bus for going to the place where the Twin Towers (World Trade Center) were situated. There were pictures in a chronological way from the 11th of September 2001. The weather was getting worse and worse. It was rainy and very cold. We took the bus again but now for going back to the hotel, rest and then take a taxi for another excellent restaurant (this time was a japanese one). This was all our trip. We came back to Oaxaca, Mexico on the following day.

Queensland + New South Wales

This trip was our last trip in Australia before summer vacations. We (the six of us) flew from Adelaide to Cairns and on the 2nd of December our Daintree Forest tour started. We took a safari boat in the middle of the jungle so we could see some crocodiles. Indeed we saw them though they were a bit smaller than what I expected (because they were young). This jungle looks a lot like Veracruz, and it is because the proximity with the tropic. After this tour we met with Anne again.



Later on we returned to Cairns and took a boat to snorkel (or dive in my case) in the Great Barrier Reef. It was incredible. You could see many types of coral and colourful fish all around you! In the afternoon we started driving south. Our second major stop was Magnetic Island. In this island we found some wallabies in the wild close to the road. We also made some walks but it was so sunny and hot that we decided to take a bus for the way back to the hostel.

David and I booked the Yongala dive which is one of the top 10 dives in the world. Yongala is a ship that sank many years ago and now it is home of millions of fish and types of sea life. There are no words to express what it feels to be diving this wreck. There were so many fish that it left you stunned. Rays, clown fish, sea snakes, barracudas, bat fish, anemones, corals, sea turtles, billions of colourful fish, etc.



On the next day we took a trip to the Whitsundays, which are some white-sand-islands in the Great Barrier Reef. It was very good but the weather betrayed us (cloudy and rainy). Though, we had parties and we played tennis and golf in the resort we were sleeping in. After the three days in the islands we moved on to take the other tour we booked.



Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world and was really good. We had a real 4x4 for eleven people. Four people joined us (2 British, 1 Brazilian and 1 Norwegian). We saw incredible lakes, dunes, a wreck on the beach, tiger sharks in action, jungles, stars of the southern hemisphere, dingoes, etc. We spent 3 days there and when we came back, Linda left the trip because she had to take her flight back to Germany.



We drove to Noosa where we had a cloudy day and then we decided to go to Brisbane for a coffee. We continued through the Gold Coast arriving in Surfers Paradise, a fast-growing city. Finally we went to a club on that night and on the next day we went to the beach to swim and suntan again. This time, we drove Stephanie to the airport because she was leaving too. Then, we spent a few hours in Nimbin and drove to Byron Bay. We hired some bikes and rode them in the little but nice town. We spent the day in the beach with some boogie boards catching some waves. The five of us had our last typical lunch (sandwich of ham, cheese, tomato, cucumber and bbq sauce).



On our last day we visited Luke (an Australian friend) in Nelson Bay. We had really good time there eating fried calamari and going to Fingal Island. This was the end of our trip because on that day we arrived in Sydney for the last days before leaving.