Blogs from Central America Caribbean - page 1736

After spending the longest period of time of my life without travelling to another country (10 months), dad took me to Costa Rica. It was a fast trip, only for 3 days/2 nights. It started out kinda rough as we were delayed for over 2 hours in the plane in Miami, and arrived too late to catch our connecting flight in Costa Rica. It worked out okay because Dennis (dad's highschool friend) met us at the airport, and we took a 2 hour taxi, then a 1 1/2 hour boat ride, then a short taxi ride and we arrived to paradise....Curu Wildlife Reserve. It was a place were dad studied howler monkeys 17 years ago, and has visited many times since, but not in the last 10 years. It was awesome!!!! Monkeys all over the ... read more

Things have changed a bit here since our last visit a year and a half ago. There has been more restoration work and more hotels and other businesses opening but there has also been an increase in crime and general seediness. There was an American ex-pat (who we actually knew from our previous trip) who was brutally attacked the night before we arrived and who died from her injuries two days later. I was approached in a cafe by a guy who---absolutely unsolicited and in broad daylight----offered to sell me drugs. I heard stories from both locals and ex-pats alike that crime is rapidly increasing in the city and that the local police is unable----or unwilling----- to do anything about it. I must admit, I noticed a lot of things here that I didn't remember from ... read more

Haiti - what a place! We arrived mid-afternoon and received warm greetings from the Divisional Commander, Major Lucien Lamartiniere. Straight away, we found the country fascinating - there are UN troops everywhere, driving around in their utes with mounted sub-machine guns! There hasn’t been a coup here for two years, but if you ask anyone around here they’ll tell you that it’s not a matter of IF there will be another one, but WHEN. Apparently this country has had 100 presidents in the past 200 years… that’s a lot of conflict. And you can see the effect that it’s had on the people. Haiti is a very, very, very, very poor country. They say the unemployment rate here is 90 percent. People survive by buying and selling goods at little street stalls. Others rely on ... read more

Costa Rica 13th to 27th May 07 by Dan’s Mum Barbara Before meeting up with Dan,. I too didn’t see turtles in Tortuguero and wondered if the 14 year old looking pilot really knew how to fly… Anyway, great excitement on Friday 18th may when I took a 5 hour journey (which hugely improved my non existent Spanish), to meet Dan whom I hadn’t seen since January. I attended his Spanish certificate presentation (bit different from speech days) and we set off for our first night camping in the rainforest with poisonous green and black frogs, red frogs wearing blue jeans, tarantulas, toucans, army ants up your trousers and scorpions in the loo (pit)… fantastic… I love all this and was impressed that Dan too only wanted to squash the dengue fever mosquitoes - with ... read more

Guatemala Von San Ignacio in Belize gings dann also weiter an die Grenze zu Guatemala. Einreisen ueberhaupt kein Problem, noch rasch Geld gewechselt eindringlich darauf hin gewiesen worden, beim Zahlen nur kleine Mengen Geld zu zuecken. Na super hab ich mir gedacht aber mich nicht weiter damit aufgehalten sondern nen Minibus (Toyota Hiace) nach Flores gesucht und gefunden und dann gings los mit Gaesten aufnehmen. War bruetend heiss und n Maedchen machte dann das Fenster zu und ich dacht das wird schon nen Grund haben vielleicht Steinschlag, fiese Insekten oderso und fing aus lauter Langeweile und Mangel an Alternativen mal an, heftig zu transpirieren waehrend der Fahrer rumgefahren noch andere Fahrgaeste aufgenommen hat. Beim ungefaehr 17ten Gast dacht ich, jetzt koennt's eigentlich losgehen aber da war ja noch Platz bis schlussendlich 24 Leute und ein H ... read more