El Salvador is the next country on the itinerary for my friends and I while travelling through Central America. We are all pressed for time due to various reasons and need to get a wriggle on, so we hoofed it to the bus terminal at Santa Rosa in Honduras and jumped on an international bus south to the border and on to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. While passing through border immigration we met a kind expat who is living in San Salvador and he invited us to dinner at his Chinese restaurant on arrival. We jumped back on [View Full Entry]

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The people of Honduras greet travellers with openly friendly and smiling faces, and the infectious friendliness of the locals quickly wins you over. This is a country that does not see many tourists but the warm hearted locals make for a very pleasant stopover. My friend and I started our visit with a bus journey from beautiful Leon to the Nicaraguan border through a very undeveloped area of the country. We were puzzled to see three very well dressed chicas jump on the bus in the middle of nowhere only to jump off the bus after an hour or so; still [View Full Entry]

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My whirlwind tour through Central America continues with selected highlights from Nicaragua. Time constraints limit my options at this particular stage of the trip yet if the choice is between a short visit to these wonderful countries or not being here at all I certainly won´t need to phone a friend as the decision is a no brainer. I booked a seat on an international Tica Bus from San Jose across the border to Rivas in the south of Nicaragua. From there a further short taxi ride and then a one hour ferry crossing landed me at the magical Isla de [View Full Entry]

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The irresistible lure of the caribbean cast a further spell on me and has led to a change of plans to see in the new year. The original plan was to spend New Years Eve in Panama City but I found myself on a bus the night before through the Panamanian countryside and on to Changuinola. I met a Dutch couple travelling with a Costa Rican on the bus and we shared the cost of a taxi to the border with Costa Rica. An uneventful border crossing ensued and then we waited two hours for a connecting bus. After an hours [View Full Entry]

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Christmas in Cartagena was great but then again so was christmas eve and boxing day. Without friends and family it was just another good day on the road. The German owner of our hostel didn´t make a fuss, it was business as usual but a good business so I was glad to be in his hostel. Cartagena provided me with a wealth of new information to assist in the next stage of my travels and serves as a half way house between South America and Central America. The colonial town is also a superb tourist destination and provided for very picturesque [View Full Entry]

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I caught an overnight bus from Merida Venezuela north to Caracas and met two nice travellers to start off one of my most unusual travel tales. It was a good feeling to be in a city right near the caribbean coast of South America having travelled to the southern most city in the world Ushuaia in Argentina during 2003. Perhaps it does not have the same ring to it as Cape Town to Cairo but I felt it was a nice achievement. In a bizarre twist I stayed in Caracas for only five minutes. My story follows... The travellers were in [View Full Entry]

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I've been on the bounce since last sharing travel adventures with you, dear reader, and the journal continues from Cali in Colombia. After a relaxing stay in a quality hostel it was time to move on and north is the plan. I booked on a bus to Bogota and for the first time on this trip I was the only foreign traveller on board. The journey was through mountainous terrain along winding roads and the bus arrived in Bogota in the early evening. Bogota is the capital of Colombia with a population of seven million inhabitants at an altitude of 2600 [View Full Entry]

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My friends and I continued north from Riobamba Ecuador to Banos which is a picturesque town in the centre of the country surrounded by mountains and known for adventure activities. We spent a quiet day at the local pool in this lovely town and enjoyed good food but had to press on north to Quito, the capital of Ecuador. We had a very bad experience within two hours of arrival despite being out early in the central tourist area and being within a block of two security guards with dogs. Fortunately we were not really hurt and my friend's possessions were [View Full Entry]

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My last night in Lima coincided with the final world cup qualifier in Sydney for Germany 2006 between Australia and Uruguay. I watched the first game in Huacachina with a Uruguayan girl I met on an earlier tour, it was great fun and a predictable result. Of course I was extremely gracious in defeat. The return game started at 4:00am local time, and by coincidence there were up to ten Australians at the hostel in Lima. The place was jumping around 7:00am when Australia slotted home the winning penalty, as we started hopping about like mad kangaroos to celebrate a terrific [View Full Entry]

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It seems the best cure for walkers who have completed the Salkantay or Inca trails is to party hard when you get off the train back to Cusco, and who am I to argue with this tried and true remedy. As such I went out to Mama Africas that night with the hostel crowd for much therapeutic drinking and dancing all night. I booked on an overnight bus trip the next day south west to Arequipa with two English girls who had become travel friends. By now, there have been some travellers I have bumped into at least four or five [View Full Entry]

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