Hola. Uvita is a small town on the Pacific coast that boasts some fine beaches and prime wildlife habitat. We stayed in a permaculture retreat on the side of a hill a couple of kilometres from town and enjoyed the sounds of the jungle as we melted in the heat. The retreat was set in a gorgeous tract of rainforest and all around us was lush green wilderness. There were nearby waterfalls with nice swimming holes to cool us off and a background chorus of insects and birds. Interestingly, the guy who ran the retreat was from Spain and was a native speaker of Euskara (Basque), one of the oldest remaining European languages! What an awesome sounding language - totally peculiar! The Marino Ballena National Park was gorgeous, with golden-sand beaches thickly lined with palms and ... read more

Hola amigos! La Isla de Ometepe, an island born from two volcanoes that rose from a lake and merged together. Despite what the brochures say, Ometepe Island is not the world´s largest island in a lake, but nevertheless it is an impressive chunk of land. We spent some quality time in the Charco Verde area enveloped by nature. There are a lot of great hikes in the area and we spent many hours marching through the lush forests that wrapped around the lakeshore. Watching the howler monkeys swinging in the trees was quite mesmerizing, as was searching for the Arraca, a beautiful Magpie that is fairly abundant on the island. On our days in the Reserve we were being watched by countless lizards and even a snake or two, a truly amazing place! On the North ... read more

Hola amigos! Continuamos nuestra viaje... We headed to Granada to meet up with our travel buddies, Pat and Rob, from Vancouver Island. Granada has a lot of colonial buildings from the time of the Spanish conquest, many of which have been restored as the earthquakes in these parts tend to level cities from time to time. It is a very pretty place with a lot going on from street performers and musicians to beautiful buildings and architecture. There was a boy who kept bugging us at our table one night, to eat the food from our plates. The story out there is that many kids will hit the tourists with stories of not having money, in order to eat westernized food. We were warned not to comply with their begging as western food is not really ... read more

Hola todo el mundo. We found ourselves in a quaint little city called Copan Ruinas. And guess what? There were Mayan ruins called Copan Ruinas in the vicinity. What makes Copan so special from the other ruins that we have seen so far is that many of the carving details have been well preserved. This means that the symbols on the stelae (standing stones) tell the full story of the past leaders or kings. Even some of the paint is still intact. There were some cool names like The Temple of the Underworld and The Cemetery. The Cemetery was not even a cemetery, the Spanish just called it that due to the fact that they found skeletons underneath the brick-walled homes. The Mayans actually buried their ancestors under their homes, you know, to keep them nice ... read more

Hola! Tikal Mayan ruins were nothing short of spectacular. The ruins are amazing - as is the setting! Set deep in the jungle and sprawled over 25 square miles you walk through a series of trails to each site whilst monkeys and birds sit above you in the canopy. The excavation work that has been put into recovering such an interesting settlement has been in itself amazing. Imagine having to remove centuries of the rainforest growth in the blistering heat and humidity, when all you have is a machete? Many Mayan sites have been dated between 2000 years BC to 900 years AD, or later until the Spanish arrived in the 1500's or so. There are periods of classification during this time to indicate the type of building style they used, the style of ceramics they ... read more