Blogs from Central America Caribbean - page 1886

Our Panamanian journey started in Portobello, so named by Chris Columbus as he thought it was a beautiful port - it was. We only spent a night there after our boat trip and got swept up by the umpteen marching bands that were celebrating Independence Day from Columbia, some were better than others but none really had a good rythum. After visiting many fortresses - once you have seen one fortress you have seen them all - we headed into Panama City. The highlight of Panama City is the Canal, to you readers that sounds very geekish but it was sooooo interesting. It was built yonks ago and was an engineering feat in its day and still is today - it was very cool to just stand and watch these huge boats squeeze through - there ... read more

Sur plusieurs plans.Tout d'abord, une vague de chaleur nous a envahi a peine entree au pays. La temperature atteignait facilement 35 degre, c'etait insoutenable. C'est aussi un pays de latino au sang chaud, nous n'avons jamais fait tourner autant de tete. Finalement, c'est sans hesiter le pays le plus dangereux visite jusqu'a present. La pauvrete, la delinquence et la violence y est tres presente. San Salvador est de loin la pire ville visitee. J'ai eu la mauvaise idee de sortir a 6h le soir pour trouver un restaurant Subway que les gens disaient proche. apres une serie d'indications differentes, Pascale a decide de rebrousser chemin, ce qui etait une merveilleuse idee, surtout que nous nous enfoncions vers l'inconnu dans un quartier peu recommandable. Le journal annoncait 15 assasinats dans les 30 dernieres heures dans la ville, ... read more

Ok, my stop in El Salvador was in fact only 49 minutes while waiting for my connecting flight to San Francisco. However i did play a song on ye olde guitar to a rather bemused collection of American business travellers and some El Salvadorian airport workers. Hence i feel i'm allowed to blog the place. Also i managed to nearly get arrested in the airport despite my breif stay for.. carrying toothpaste. Yep, apparently although taking umpteen TACA airline flights before, because this one was bound for the states, all of a sudden we were not permitted to "..gather in groups of more than 3 people in any area..." ooo! Also my innocent Colgate toothpaste was suddenly deemed a security risk. However after negociations as to the actual risk toothpaste poses, and demonstrating that it was ... read more

We started our Sunday by going up to the Poas Volcano and hiking around, since we couldn’t see the crater due to dense fog that had rolled in we hiked their trails. The hike was amazing; the paths take you through these amazing habitats where you feel like you are walking through fairy tale woods. After we left Poas, we went to meet one of our contractors who wanted to take us on a tour of a local coffee plantation. We have other plantation tours near our house, but they give you a somewhat glorified view of what coffee plantations can be- they are coffees that don’t get exported and are not the best quality place. This place on the other hand is a REAL coffee plantation, owned by a 3rd generation coffee farmer. It was ... read more

After an evening of fun and dancing Costa Rican style up in San Jose, we had an early wake up call (very early by my Argentinian sensored brain) to get a bus up to the cloud forest area of La Fortuna. As usual slight hicups were plentilful when trying to figure out transportation in Latin America, but by 8.40am (sat 11th) we were on the Tica Bus, taking the 4 hour journey north from San Jose. The journey itself was pretty spectacular, and as Costa Rica is in transit from the rainy season to the slightly less rainy season at the moment we were givem spectacular views of clouds, sun, rain. mist, more cloud, all against the backdrop of stunning cloud forest. palm trees and quaint little Costa Rican villages. The first thing i've noticed about ... read more