SarahP

We began our Honduras adventures with white water rafting at Omega Lodge, a hotel/tour company just outside of La Ceiba, close to the beautiful Pico Bonito National Park. We got a free night in the lodge for doing a tour, and it was very nice, the highlight was the freshwater pool - very nice after a sticky hot chicken bus ride! There was a resturant at the lodge and we had homemade German style pasta for dinner - a little expensive but yummy, also nice to have a candlelit dinner surrounded by jungle... the mossies love it too!! Next morning we went off to the nearby Cangrejo River (Crab River) for our rafting - which was ACE!! We went down loads of rapids, including one where we didn't quite clear the distance we needed to at ... read more

We were excited to visit San Francisco Libre, the Nicaraguan town that is twinned with Reading. It certainly had an air of mystery to it as it is not mentioned in any guide books that we've seen (it is not yet a tourist destination by any means), and internet searches reveal little other than the twinning links and statistical information. Due to the twinning links we were able to really scratch the surface of this Nicaraguan town in a way that would be near impossible in any of the tourist towns, such as Granada, without a lengthy stay. We arrived mid to late afternoon after a few bus rides, including a short wait in the dingy highway town of San Benito and an hour or so of the San Francisco Libre chicken bus picking it's way ... read more

Isla de Ometepe Back on the good old (and sometimes very old) chicken buses, we were heading for our first Nicaraguan destination, Isla de Ometepe. After a bus ride with our Canadian counterparts, then a taxi to the ferry port, then realising we needed to get some money another taxi back to town, then a bicycle taxi part of the way out of town, then a hitchhike back to the port, we were on the ferry. A lot of travelling considering that earlier in the day we had our 6 hour bus from La Fortuna in Costa Rica! Ometepe is an island formed by two volcanoes that rose out of Central America's largest lake, Lago Cocibolca (the indigenous name meaning 'sweet sea' - indeed here freshwater is called 'agua dulce' which means 'sweet water'), later renamed ... read more

Crossing Into Costa Rica To cross into Costa Rica we needed to take a boat from Bocas to Almirante on the mainland, then a short taxi to the bus-station (we were in fact taken to the wrong bus-station, but our bus passed it, fortunately), then a bus to the border town of Changuinola. It had been pouring with rain for most of the journey but was thankfully clear and sunny by the time we got to Changuinola. This border crossing was one of the more interesting we've experienced in Central America. Notwithstanding the problems at the immigration office, the actual crossing was quite fun. It involved walking across a dilapidated old bridge that crosses a big brown river, making sure to step over the big holes, and not into them and consequently into the river. The ... read more

El Valle Feeling the heat of Panama City we decided that we needed a spell in the cool airs of a mountain town, and the closest one to us that looked appealing was El Valle de Anton, more often referred to simply as El Valle. It is situated within a huge crater of a volcano that blew itself apart 3 million years ago. It is quite spectacular to look up and around you when in the town and imagine it as a volcano all that time ago. After a brief unintentional detour to Anton, which luckily for us isn't too far out of the way of El Valle de Anton (two completely different towns, as we now know), we were in the refreshingly cool climes of 1000 metres altitude. We stayed a little way out of ... read more