In late October I met up with two friends. Mark has been living in Buenos Aires for the past year and was traveling North making his way back to the US. His girlfriend Sarah got time off of work to come down and meet us. The three of us booked a trip on the Inca Trail some time in July. I was still in Costa Rica and up until then had not made any plans this far in advance, but being in Peru by late October seemed like a good thing to shoot for. Mark and I know each other [View Full Entry]

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Just a few days short of spending six whole months in Central America I took a flight from Panama City to Cartagena, Colombia. Easily the most famous and most important location on the Caribbean that helped Spain become the most powerful empire in the world in the 16th century, as well as conquer and forever alter the future of the Americas. Today it is an over-crowded touristy town with plenty of beautiful old Spanish Colonial architecture to admire. Not to sound overly jaded, but on this trip I have had enough of that. After spending a few days in Cartagena [View Full Entry]

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After spending a few days in San Jose I headed to the Nicoya Peninsula to visit my friend Derek. We studied together in Sevilla and both went to Colorado. He lives in the tiny town of Los Angeles. There are little over 400 people living in the town. Derek has lived there for almost 2 years volunteering in the Peace Corp. I arrived right in the middle of Semana Cultural, which is more or less a semi-organized town Olympics. During this week pretty much everyone stops working and they play games all day. There was everything from relay races, egg toss, [View Full Entry]

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The majority of June was spent in Nicaragua with my girlfriend Julia who flew down from the states to meet me. We began in the Corn Islands, which are two very small Caribbean islands off the coast. We got there by flying from Managua in what looked to be an old Soviet Cold War era aircraft; luckily we made it there and back safely. There are two islands, one is Big Corn and the other is Little Corn. We spent most of our time on Little Corn, which was a 30 minute boat ride from Big Corn. Little Corn is very [View Full Entry]

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I left Antigua for Honduras where I met up with my mom, sister, Susan, Mary and Hayden. We arrived in Copan Ruinas very near the Guatemalan border. This is a nice town tucked into a valley surrounded by mountains. Copan is also the site of the southern-most large Mayan city. This ruin site, like all the others, had its own unique features to offer that other sites may not have had. Copan in particular is known for its carvings and hieroglyphics. What makes these special is how deeply carved in the rocks they are, the rulers or city designers here [View Full Entry]

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I left Belize for Tikal, the most popular destination for Mayan cities. This is by far the largest Maya city ever built with one of the tallest Temples in the world, taller than the ones in Egypt. I ended up staying right by the park where there are just a few hotels instead of busing it from Flores, an hour away. This allowed me to get to the entrance of the park at 6am when it opened. I ended up jumping in with a small group with an English speaking guide. There were about 6 of us in all so not [View Full Entry]

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Well it has been quite a while since my last update, and I have covered a lot of ground since then. From San Cristobal I made my way to Palenque to see maybe the most impressive Mayan city. (Unfortunately I sent home my memory card with Palenque photos!) I got up and made my way around the ruins when they opened to avoid most of the crowds. Without a doubt my favorite ruins thus far. I could elaborate more, but words cannot do this place justice. From there I made my way to Cancun for purposes different than the majority [View Full Entry]

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Well I left Cuernavaca behind to head to the state of Oaxaca. It is just about the southern most state in Mexico with a coastline on the Pacific. From Cuernavaca I went about 3 hours straight East to Puebla where I switched buses, from there I went South to the city of Oaxaca, the capital of this state. The ride from Puebla to Oaxaca was every bit of four and a half hours, but we drove through some pretty enormous mountains that were definitely impressive. The City of Oaxaca is extremely aesthetic. Narrow streets and almost an old Spanish church everywhere [View Full Entry]

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I started my trip in Mexico city on the 25th of January. I went to all the popular spots in the city. The Zocalo is the huge city square with the presidential palace and National Cathedral. I stayed with a very nice family while I was there. They live in Xochimilco, which is in the southern part of the city near the University of Mexico. In this part of the city there are canals that the Aztecs built and used for obvious agricultural purposes, but today it is mostly used for some fishing and on Sundays families come out and [View Full Entry]

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