Panama, Nicaragua & Guatemala

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Panama was more like a recovery destination for us (we needed a couple of days to recover from Carnival in Rio). Aside from doing a super quick tour around the city, and seeing the canal, we didn't do much else.

Afterwards, our real adventures began.
Our first stop in Nicaragua was Isla de Ometepe - a volcanic island which we loved. It was just so.. island like.. and so rough and raw. We hired a scooter and we were so entertained simply by scootering around for a couple of days just looking at everything and everyone going about their daily island life. And there were animals everywhere just walking around! Dogs, chickens, horses, cows. They just walk around and mind their own business!
Next for Nicaragua we went to the beautiful colonial town of Granada. It was surprisingly pretty with grand colourful buildings that made everything seem quite romantic (except for the super hectic market which was just crazy)

Antigua, another old colonial town, was our first destination in Guatemala. We found some nice hidden away places, nice places to eat, and an even crazier labyrinth of a market. We actually cut our time in Antigua short because we found out that the nearby volcano was ACTIVE!!! And even though we are not hikey people we just had to do this hike to see this sight of a lifetime!! Seriously it was incredible. So we hiked 6 hours up Volcan Acatenango (non active volcano) to base camp which was at 3600m above sea level and directly beside Volcan Fuego (active volano) and a few other volcanos in the distance. We got to base camp a couple hours before dark but it was unbelievably windy and freakin FREEZING, and at that point we were completely surrounded by clouds and could not see a thing so we just had dinner around the fire and went to bed early, waiting for the clouds to clear and hoping that the volvano will actually errupt this night. We woke around midnight to a perfectly clear sky and luckily 5 minutes later the erruptions started!! It was so so so incredible. Not many people could stay up all night, especially in the cold, but René and I were so excited that we stayed up the whole night till sunrise to see as many explosions as possible. They were so sporadic - sometimes there would be 2 or 3 in an hour, sometimes there wouldn't be any for 2 or 3 hours, and they only last for about 30 seconds so you have to be waiting or you'll miss it! René and I were actually the only ones awake when two of best explosions of the night occurred - actual huge bangs and lava shooting into the air!! That night will be the memory of a lifetime.
Next for Guatemala, we went to Lake Atitlan and stayed at the lakeside town of San Pedro. This little town was very cool. Small but quite built up and dense with very narrow streets filled with people and speeding tuk-tuks. We caught water taxis to all the other little towns around the lake. I loved that all the women still wore their traditional dresses every day. I loved it so much I even bought my own outfit 😊
Lastly for Guatemala we went to see the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal. We stayed in a lodge in the middle of the jungle and got woken up at 5am by such strange noises right outside our room like a T-Rex / panther / wild pig / barking dog all-in-one calling out to a thousand other animals in the jungle who all woke up at the same time. I thought I was dreaming of dinosaurs until I realised this must be the sound of the howler monkeys we got told about. Overall, René and I agree that Guatemala has been our favourite part of the whole trip so far.

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