Dan Cameron & Ash Cowan

We are the Foreigners

Dan Cameron & Ash Cowan

We're a couple doing a round the world tour for a couple of years. This blog is mainly a way to keep people back home informed of what we're up to; but we've since realized that Travelblog can be quite a resource for other travelers. We're trying to include some more detailed information (costs of entrance/transportation/travel times about places they want to go; but we won't be taking out the story telling, personal aspect.
Hope you learn a little and maybe enjoy our stories.



North America » Mexico » Oaxaca » Puerto Escondido September 21st 2015

We made it through our last major border crossing in Central America back into Mexico. None of the borders were difficult to cross, maybe just a little hot and stuffy while we waited for our passports to be stamped. We made our way back to San Cristobal for a short visit because we really enjoyed it the first time around. While there, we ate delicious tacos at the market, made fresh guacamole from market ingredients and visited Vina de Bacco a cute downtown wine bar that has a glass of wine and a tapa for the equivalent of CAD1.80. The excitement of our time in town was the twister that hit in the shanty town just north of the hostel. From the roof we could see winds picking up corrugated tin walls from the houses, that ... read more
Dan is loco for Coco Locos


What a Blast Central America has tested & tried us and given us loads of great opportunities and memories. All told we wandered around this area for 156 days or 5 months and 6 days. It's been a lazy bit of travel since we don't tend to give ourselves timelines or a schedule. That has been a blessing at times, when we weren't sure if the bus/boat we wanted still ran, and a curse at others, when we might sit in a hostel for a couple days lacking motivation or inspiration. While we could often pass those days off as 'resting' or 'recharging' more often than not it was just us being lazy. But it's who we are, we've come to terms with it. We met loads of people spending time going through Central America. Some ... read more

North America » Mexico » Distrito Federal » Mexico City July 17th 2015

Ashley was happy to get to Mexico City as it marked our last long distance bus ride for a good long while. Our time in the city was short; maybe we could've fit more sightseeing in but between both of us still not feeling 100%, it just wasn't meant to be. Perhaps we'll return another day. When we got to the city, we easily found our way to the historic center on the metro and we found a hostel just behind the cathedral on the zocalo in no time. We set out on a fairly long walk to the grocery store and found a pleasant pedestrian street which is where we found a Coca-Cola store which was weird but novel. We ventured out of the city one day to visit the ruins of Teotihuacan. We didn't ... read more
Not dead at the top of the Pyramid of the Sun
Hostel View

North America » Mexico » Oaxaca » Oaxaca July 13th 2015

After a long 13 hour bus ride that was only supposed to be 10 hours, we made it to Oaxaca just before dark. We were again having trouble pulling money out of the ATM's even with our credit cards so on our first night we spent our last MXN40 on a small dinner shared between us. Fortunately, the next morning we found a Scotiabank (side note: who knew there were Scotiabanks in Mexico) that worked and we needn't worry any longer. Our first day was fairly relaxed; we wandered around the city center, saw crickets for sale in the market and stopped by a cafe for a coffee and apple strudel. The climate in Oaxaca seemed to be right up our ally; being in the mountains, it was cool but not quite as cold as San ... read more
Textile Town
Falls But no Water


Well, being up around 0500hrs has gotten unfortunately common. Today we were looking to head back into Mexico from Flores, Guatemala. Being up this early allowed us to catch up with Jon, a dutch guy doing a border run to reset his visa. We tagged along on his coat tails since it sounded like he'd done this before. We wanted originally to cross at near Bethel and do a river border crossing, but Jon was crossing at El Ceibo so we went along with it. During the long bus ride we learned Jon had opened a surf school on the pacific coast of Guatemala and it had only been open three weeks. It was cool hearing about all the stuff he had to go through to get it going. Anyways, we were able to take a ... read more


Off again for another early morning border crossing, from Honduras back to Guatemala. We had a long way to go from Copan Ruinas to Flores so we were up bright and early making our way over the border to Chiquimula. The bus from the border was uneventful and all the research about buses north went out the window when we reached Chiquimula. Our Letigua (it's a company) bus driver had us get out near the main market when we told him we were heading north and another man helped us carry our bags to the Maria Elena (another company) office near the main bus stops; he didn't even pause for a tip when we got there. We originally bought a ticket to Rio Dulce but later realized they ran a bus an hour later the full ... read more
Hanging out on Yarvin IV
Close Bird


We made it through yet another border crossing ourselves, narrowly escaping getting stuck behind a coach full of people entering Honduras. Like any other border crossing day, we had to rise and shine bright and early for a 0540hrs bus to to Aguilares. From there we got another bus to the border crossing at El Poy. At the border, there is no public bus so we had to get another micro bus to Ocatepeque. In Ocatepeque we got a bus to Santa Rosa de Copan where we transferred to one headed to San Pedro Sula but disembarked in La Entrada where we caught our last micro bus to Copan Ruinas. It was rather glorious as the bus from the border climbed into the mountains an we cooled off (Ashley even got goosebumps!!!). Our only hiccup was ... read more
Hieroglyphic Staircase
Making New Friends


Our next stop was Santa Ana because we heard from friends it had the best hostel boasting a well deserved high nineties review rating for little over USD11 per night. Make sure you take extra change from home to Santa Ana since there is an ice cream vendor (we encountered him near Parque Libertad) who seems to genuinely want to chat and collect foreign change. He was excited to show us his collection that he stores in a styrofoam cup, but we still made sure to be watching our backs since we can never tell what kind of distractions people may come up with to get a drop on you. From Santa Ana we were able to take a bus to a national park, Cerro Verde, that contains several volcanoes, including the Santa Ana volcano. We ... read more
Where's Daniel?
Los Tercios waterfall


On our arrival to San Salvador we as usual had no idea where we were in the city and had a few pictures of maps showing where our planned hostel was. Getting off the intercity bus we were faced again with taxis willing to take us where ever we wanted to go, but we persisted in finding public transport. Just outside Terminal de Oriente where we disembarked is a major thoroughfare where Avenida Peralta/Bulevar del Ejercito Nacional meet. Here we found a very fancy transit stop with big, modern city buses and turn-styles for access. While we were waiting politely for assistance at the window to buy tickets someone from beyond the turn-style was calling to us. It was a younger lady travelling with her mother. She was extremely kind and helpful giving us bus directions ... read more
Joya de Ceren


We only had the privilege of spending 9 days, in what is perhaps Ashley's favourite country in Central America, because of time constraints. There is so much to El Salvador that we didn't get to experience like the beaches, the surfing and the hiking but our time here was incredible nonetheless. First off, let us just say that El Salvador seems like a daunting country to visit because we hear that it's dangerous and you don't hear of many people travelling there on holidays. However, it was fairly easy to take local buses everywhere including in the big city of San Salvador which has a comprehensive transit system. Before going, locals warned us that the crime rate is at an all time high and to be very careful. We encountered nothing but warm helpful people who ... read more
Laguna de Alegria
Wall Art in Alegria




Tot: 0.113s; Tpl: 0.007s; cc: 15; qc: 66; dbt: 0.0477s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb