K and L
Kirstine and Laura Joined: April 14th 2009
Logged in: October 11th 2009
Logged in: October 11th 2009
Welcome to our travel blog. We hope you enjoy keeping up with us as we travel through from Mexico to Brazil.
Speak soon!
Kirstine and Laura
Travel Blog Posts
So as you can tell we are back safe and sound from our expedition into the jungle and I have to say it was the experience of a lifetime. I have never been on such a good trip. Unfortunately it has been marred by the fact that while I was getting off the boat when we got back someone stole my camara so I have no pictures. The group included Stav (Israeli), Paul, Emma, Will, Laura and I (all English) with our guides Kid and Giro. Some other guys joined us later on but I think they were just friends of our guides who fancied a fishing trip and a bit of a jaunt. Our trip started with a long ferry ride (30 hours) to a village where we stayed the night. The beginning of the ... read more
This seemed to be the chosen pose by everyone so we went with it
After a late and slightly fraught flight to Quitos (at one point only Laura had a seat on the plane) we spent our first day relaxing and wandering around the city. It is surrounded by the Andes on one side and on the other it dips to the beginning of the Amazon Basin so the surrounding area is absolutely stunning. Quito itself however is much like any other city. On our second day we heading to the Cuidad del Mundo, the place the gives this country its name, the equator. At the site there is a large statue with a museum inside and a small town set up around it for the tourists to buy various carfts and souveniers. We did the usual tourisy bit and took our pictures in front of the statue, along the ... read more
Laura wearing a headress
24th June- From Quito we headed north to a town called Otavalo which is known for its craft market. We arrived late afternoon on Wednesday (never believe them when they say the bus will only take 2 hours!) and having found somewhere to stay, we headed straight out into the market. It is colder than we were expecting in Equador so Alpaca socks, hats, blankets etc were the order of the day! You can get pretty much any craft that you want in this market, and in about any colour so we found it a bit too easy to part with our cash and soon realised that we would be sending a parcel home full of the things we had bought. Amongst other things we bought beaded jewellery, blankets, hats, wooly socks and pan pipes (why ... read more
Panama City from Casco Viejo
We arrived in Panama and planned to spend 3 days there before heading to Equador however soon realised that due to our own lack of organisation we were going to have to spend 5 days there before we could get a flight. As it turned out though we loved Panama City so this was no hardship. The hostel we were staying in was called Lunas Castle which was a massive restored colonial building with balconies and views over the bay. It was a really sociable hostel and we quickly ran into Stephanie and Sach who was had origianlly met in Ometepe, Nicaragua. Our first day was spent walking arround Casco Viejo which was the area we were staying in also known as San Felipe or The Old Town. Its got a nice small town feel to ... read more
Preparing the Cathedral for the festivities
From Tamarindo we decided to head to Monteverde. 3 buses and serveral hours later we found ourselves stuck in a small town called Tilaran, we got off of the bus and found ourselves as usual fending off the local taxi drivers, on this occasion howver the were quite helpful and informed us that we wouldn´t be going anywhere until tomorrow unless we took up their offer of a $40 taxi! No thank you. So we had to resign ourselves to staying the night and on direction of the taxi drivers made our way to the Central Plaza (yet another one) where we found accomodation in Hotel Mary. Thankfully we were welcomed by friendly owners and hot showers. Once we had found somewhere to stay we went for a little walk around and realised that there was ... read more
Tamarindo Beach
On arrival in Costa Rica we travelled to the nearest town of any size, and found ourselves in rainy Liberia. The hostel that we stayed in was apparently the only tourist information in the town and the owner was particularly knowledgable and helpful according to the guidebook. When we asked him for advice on where to go he told us to rent a 4x4 and go anywhere that was not in the guidebook. Great advice. So the following day we followed our original plan and went to Tamarindo. The hostel we stayed in was La Botella De Leche which was where Laura had stayed when she came to Tamarindo 5 years ago. It had changed premises but was still owned by the same Argentinian lady, whose sons ran surf lessons on the beach. In Tamarindo we ... read more
Volcan Conception and Maderas in the background
On Tuesday we made our way from Managua to the Island of Ometepe. The island is formed by 2 extinct volcanos and is surrounded by the Lago de Nicaragua. The lake was originally joined to the sea but was closed off due to volcanic activity, resulting in sea fish being trapped in the lake. As a result the Lago de Nicaragua is one of the few places in the world which has freshwater sharks. We arrived on the island and jumped on the last bus which runs around the island, luckily there was quite a group of gringo's on the bus so we teamed up and all decided to stay at the Finca Magdelena, this is an old coffee plantation which is is still in use to this day. The bus dropped us off in the ... read more
Granada
When we arrived in the capital of Nicaragua from El Salvador we decided to head straight for the city of Granada for a few days. We both felt that we needed a couple of days in the same place and it also meant that we could do all the boring things like laundry etc. Granada is another colonial city and was very pretty. On our first full day there we explored the city, climbed up the bell tower of one of the churches for views of the volcano from the city (it was so lovely and cool compared to the humidity on the ground that we managed to stay up there for about 20 minutes) and generally just relaxed in the city. The next day we headed to Masaya which is supposed to have the best ... read more
Beach at El Tunco
So we have been and left El Salvador but we loved it so much that we want to tell you all about it. We arrived on 17th May and spent our first few days at the beach. We managed to catch our first chicken bus and headed for Playa El Tunco which is THE place for catching waves in Central America and is a mecca for surfer dudes. Naturally that meant we had to pay it a visit, with the intention of having surf lessons. When we arrived we checked into Hostel Papaya which was in the estury but also in view of the beach, cool little place with lots of hammocks and some nice decked areas to relax and chat to the other people that were there. The beach was volcanic so the sand was ... read more
Market stall
Yesterday we arrived in Panajachel which is a nice little town on the edge of the Lago de Atitlan. The town is very small and the only things to do here really are hang out and shop for handicrafts...so thats what we have done. This morning we took the boat across the lake to a village called Santiago Atitlan which is between 3 volcanos. The journey over was in a Lancho Publico (public taxi boat) and when we got on we sat at the front for the best views. We heard some people laughing behind us but decided to ignore them. Then the boat started and we found out why they were laughing, we got sprayed by the water as soon as the boat started moving and until it built up some speed. The journey only ... read more
