Well we arrived in Costa Rica on the 8th of November and traveled by ferry to a town called Montezuma on the Nicoya Peninsula. Montezuma is a bohemian beach town where dreaded expats sell handicrafts by day and hit bongos by night, we theorize they also hit something else as well. We stayed in a hostel next to an outcropping of rocks about 50 feet from the water. Being so close to the ocean was wonderful, but as we both read The Perfect Storm this week, the crashing of waves brought images we didn't wish to conjure up. While here we [View Full Entry]

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Today we sleded down a volcano. The record speed is 82 Km per hour for boys and 79Km per hour for girls. Yes they have a speed gun at the bottom. Valentin came in at 40Km and Lisa got sissified. The Volcano is only 150 some years old, the youngest in Central America, and it´s last eruption was in 1999. It took about an hour to hike up and just a few short seconds to get down on a piece of plywood with a slippery surface attached to the bottom and a string to hold onto. We had a very fun [View Full Entry]

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Guatemala City to Esteli, Nicaragua While traveling by school bus from 3pm until 7am, we listened to select favorite tunes of the bus driver nonstop. At 4am, Lisa awoke to hear "Pump Up the Jam" by Technotronic blaring over the speakers and did a little "Dawes Dance" to the beat. Sing along outloud to understand our journey through Honduras. Bus enters Honduras music ques- Pump up the jam Pump it up While your feet are stompin' And the jam is pumpin' Look at here the crowd is jumpin' Pump it up a little more Music pauses, bus stops, Honduran cop enters [View Full Entry]

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Festival of Kites From Antigua we traveled by overcrowded bus to Santiago de Sacatepequez to partake in the All Saints Day, Festival of Kites. After walking through streets lined with vendors and crowded with hundreds and hundreds of people we arrived at a crest of a hill upon which the town cemetary stood. It is worth mentioning that, far from their morose and quiet atmosphere common in the US, cemetaries in Central America are generally full of bright colors like pink, tourquoise and yellow and the graves are often covered with flowers and arrangements. All Saints Day brought eve [View Full Entry]

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Real Live Lava After a nice climb through a forest, up a black sand trail and over hardend lava flowage we arrived near the crater of an active volcano. Looking up we saw the smoke blowing from the volcano´s summit. A cool breeze blew across the volcano´s sides while our feet were warmed from lava flowing underneath the newly formed volcanic rock. Peoples shoes were literally melting and the guide informed us that the trail we now walked upon was as young as three days old! We walked with hiking sticks that when poked near glowing red crevices immeditely lit on [View Full Entry]

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Hey all, Well Antigua is a lot like we´ve read and heard about. Full of tourists and not to be missed. The city has afforded us a nice market, a good hostel with a kitchen, free breakfast, coffee and plenty of surrounding towns that are worth visiting. We were happy to find out that every October 28th a local town, San Andres de Itzapa, has an all day/all night festival to honor its pagan saint, Rilaj Maam, who´s likeness is always displayed with a big cigar hanging from his mouth and bottle of booze clutched in his left arm. Accordingly, in [View Full Entry]

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Mayan Ruins Tikal Tikal was phenomenal. Just the expanse of these ruins was enough to impress but then sitting on top of a 200 foot tall temple overlooking Guatemala as far as the eye can see really did us in. If you ever have the chance to visit this site, take advantage. It felt as though everywhere we walked on the vast grounds was actually a Mayan ruin covered in jungle, and it just may be. Valentin climbed up one 200 foot temple on a staircase that more resembled a ladder. Lisa stayed on the ground craning her neck to watch [View Full Entry]

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Gastronomical Fair The Gastronomical fair was not for vegetarians, meat galore. We had two interesting meats (no snake available) armadillo and rabbit. Both tasted a little gamey but were really quite tastey. After the fair we walked to the waterfall that had a pool under it and went for a dip to cool down and let our meat coma wear off. On the way, Valentin spotted the deadly venoumus Coral Snake. Thankfully it was dead, and was still really quite bright and beautiful. The next day we hit the road for Guatemala. Guatemala City After a scenic couple h [View Full Entry]

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Coffee Country Again We arrived in Juayua, El Salvador on the 14th after riding several chicken buses, at one point while waiting for the next bus to arrive, Valentin played a little music for the locals who were very helpful and friendly. We left Playa el Zonte because the beach isn´t good for much other than surfing and the swell was too large for us beginners, so instead we headed for the cool air of coffee country again. It seems that the mountain towns are usually a little more relaxed, time moves a little slower up here, and the people have [View Full Entry]

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San Miguel We arrived in San Miguel, El Salvador on the 10th of October after about 12 hours of travel on a variety of buses and a taxi cab. We have been taking buses as often as possible because they are so affordable, so his taxi ride was unexpected. We were on a bus ready to ride to the Nicaraguan/Honduran border when the bus driver told everybody to get off the bus, there weren't enough passengers to make the trip profitable. So we got off the bus and jumped into a cab. Riding in the cab was the driver, four people [View Full Entry]

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