Blogs from Central America Caribbean - page 15

We arrived in Uvita. I visited that region 16 years ago. The village is much more developed than before, especially the new richer part. Land is being sold mainly to strangers all over the place. You can see signs about it all along the main road. Talked with a local about it. People from richer countries can afford to buy a very small piece of land for 50 000-100 000$ US dollars. But with more pieces of properties being sold to strangers, and big houses being constructed, the cost of living rise accordingly in the region, and some locals can't afford to live there anymore. That's a reality that can be seen all over the world. On one side, a quiet little paradise is hard to access to, with almost no infrastructure, but real cheap prices ... read more

The boat arrive to Drake Bay. No dock, so you need to walk barefoot in the sea to reach the coast. This adds to the experience. :-) Drake Bay village is not compact as many little hills and ravines are interspersed all over the place. Our transport brought us inland in Los Planes little village, close to one of corcovado's entrance. We rented a small hut, directly beside the forest. Gardens are splendid and full of birds!! I also saw tapir's tracks near my hut. They sometimes come in the night to graze on some of the plants garden's. One thing I noticed is the abundance of big birds like toucans and macaws which you can see and hear all day. I got good shots of toucans. For the macaws, it's a bit different: they are ... read more

Plannen om weer op vakantie te gaan! September 2022 We zijn een paar jaar niet op vakantie geweest, eerst doordat we toch wat moesten sparen na onze laatste reis naar Zuid-Afrika en Botswana, gevolgd door de Corona pandemie die zorgde dat onze wereld niet veel groter was dan de directe omgeving rond ons huis. Gelukkig zijn we in het bezit van een tuin en een moestuin, waardoor we in ieder geval buiten konden zijn. Toen eenmaal de coronamaatregels waren verminderd en uiteindelijk verdwenen, bleven er nog wat haken en ogen over om te gaan reizen. We waren al langer van plan om kippen te gaan houden en begin 2020 was het zover en breidden we onze beestenboel uit met een koppel zijdehoentjes. Heel erg leuk, we hebben er veel plezier van en de fijne bijkomstigheid is ... read more

We embarked onto "Makin Memories", a 41 foot sailboat from Sunsail in Tortola, BVI and sailed across the Sir Francis Drake Channel to The Bight on Norman Island where we tied on to a mooring buoy for the night. Often referred to as "Treasure Island" by the locals, the island is thought to still hold buried treasure. The restaurant, aptly named "Pirate's Bight", is 5 star. After snorkelling at the Caves in the morning, we sailed for 3 hours into a 20knt breeze only to find there were no vacant mooring buoys in Manchineel Bay on Cooper Island. We decided to motor north to Spanish Town on Virgin Gorda. Within sight of the marina, the engine died a slow death. Now under sail and with the assistance of a couple of passing fishermen, "Makin Memories" was ... read more

The pandemic has done strange things to all of us. For me, it's made me lethargic at times, a little more guarded and inward. It's a weird feeling, all of my life I've been able to travel to remote places on the planet, interact openly, meet and hug people, feel like we were all connected. Suddenly, as a traveler, I wasn't able to travel everywhere, and some of the places that were open to travel had dismal COVID transmission numbers. Honestly, it made me hole up for awhile, but a wanderer can only be kept down for so long. In the fall of 2021, I thought, where is a place that has good vaccination numbers, where the consciousness and culture of taking the pandemic seriously is important? I've also been commuting back and forth to Miami ... read more