While Away...

Again apologies for the lateness of this post. In the jungle it is easy to lose track of time! Continuing from last time..... Time was ticking- we were aiming for a volunteer project in Costa Rica, so it was soon time to leave Nicaragua. We decided to skip Isla Ometepe (one of the most popular destinations in Nicaragua), as we would be returning to Nicaragua after volunteering in Costa Rica. So we headed off on a chicken bus to Rivas, with hordes of other travellers mostly on their way to Ometepe. A couple of French girls invited us to share their taxi to the border and caused us a great amount of stress when we found that they were heading to Ometepe instead. Needless to say, we wasted some money, half an hour and many frustrated/angry words on the taxi back to Rivas and were unceremoniously dumped on a street next to a man selling puppies in a cage, to wait for the next bus to the border. Great Tailed Grackles at dusk in the central park of Liberia Once we got on the b...

Easy instructions to reach Santa Ana. Unfortunately we didn't find R-276 so had to take 3+ more buses!   So our original plan was to visit the Ruta de las Flores (Route of Flowers) after finishing our workaway. As Suchitoto was on the way (sort of), the journey to Santa Ana and the Ruta de las Flores should have been simple. Needless to say, the first bus was 45 minutes late and the supposedly final bus probably wasn’t running. This resulted in taking three more buses, making it a 5 bus day. One of the reasons for stopping in Santa Ana on our way to the Ruta was to stay in the hostel voted best in El Salvador for the last 5 years. This hostel has everything required by a traveller: single beds with personal fan, box to put smelly shoes and socks in, power shower, fully equipped kitchen, swimming pool and more. The next day we visited the Santa Ana Volcano with some other people from the hostel. After purchasing some pupusas for breakfast and bananas for lunch, we hop...

It seems every time I sit down to write our blog I am apologising for the length of time between writing. Well, it has been another long break before getting you folks up to date with our adventures. Last time we left you we had just finished our time in Copan Ruinas in Honduras. Our next destination was the country of El Salvador where we had a WorkAway arranged with a tourist cooperative called Nubes del (Clouds of) Pital. For the uninitiated, Workaway is a website which connects volunteers with hosts who offer accommodation and food for help on projects such as organic farms, hostels and many more. Back to the story. We left Copan at what we thought was the reasonable time of 9am in the morning, which later you will see came back to bite us. We had many bus changes from there. The journey was longer and more tedious than expected even with the beautiful countryside. Suffice to say after 4 long bus journeys we got to the border a lot later than expected and thou...

Chicken bus to Xela Sorry for another long break since our last blog. Lots has happened and loads of plans have changed, hopefully for the better. One of our objectives when going away was to go with the flow and take opportunities when they arise and hopefully in the next couple of posts you will see what I mean. For now I want to describe our reasonably straight forward and fun filled time in Xela aka Quetzaltenango. Fresh off the bus from San Pedro La Laguna, Xela was a bit of a shock. A lot more crowded than the picturesque Lake Atitlan, Xela is the second largest city in Guatemala and offers itself as a vibrant new urban scene, if a little rough around the edges. It is a city reflective of a developing economy with new bars and hipster restaurants but bad roads and a lot of stray dogs.  View of Xela from roof of Kasa Kiwi We quickly found ourselves at Kasa Kiwi, the most reasonably priced hostel in the City. We found it to be very welcoming, clean and safe,...

We've finally completed one of our objectives for our Central American adventures: a weeks intensive Spanish course.  However, I need to start at the beginning. On the 25th January, Bryony and I decided to change our plans. Originally we were aiming to head from Antigua (see previous post) to Xela (Quetzaltenango) in order to find a Spanish school but upon looking up some information on Lake Atitlan we quickly had a change of heart and booked ourselves a 3hr transfer to San Pedro La Laguna; a small but bustling pueblo right on the glittering turquoise shores of Lake Atitlan, in the shadow of the San Pedro volcano. The transfer minibus was small and full of other tourists as it pulled away from Yellow House hostel at 8am the next day. As is normally the case in Guatemala, the driving was somewhat dubious and the actual rules of the road difficult to see under a fog of interpretation. Furthermore, the driver seemed to also have other errands to run whilst on the way to our...

Relaxing in Antigua I am writing this first (and second) days blog from the balcony of our first hostel, Yellow house, Antigua. The sun is setting and the street bustle is changing it's tone from that of business to leisure. Our first day has been exciting, full of new sights and sounds. However, I would like to begin by recounting our journey.  From Gatwick our first flight was to Toronto. Thanks to a lift from my Mum (@MooGardener) we managed to get to the airport with ample time to have a coffee and say goodbye. We sailed through check-in, security and before we knew it were on the plane. However due to an imbalance in the hydraulic fluid we were not allowed to take off until they replenished it. Disaster! The Toronto connection was already a tight three hour change over. We both watched the clock with rising tension as 10 min turned into an hour. An hour and a quarter later we finally pulled away and left little old blighty for our Central American adventure. The fl...

                4 things we learnt from traveling and what we are doing  differently   Since the writing of my last blog I have moved exactly zero meters. This blog is going to center around mine and Bryony's previous trips, with a few pretty pictures, what we normally do and things we learned along the way.   ©  GWilgar 2015 So, full disclosure our trips have so far have focused around looking in bushes for reptiles and amphibians. Yes, you read right, what most people try to avoid when in the countryside we try to find. For the last four years both in the UK and abroad we have gone out in to the wilderness to either survey herps (reptiles and amphibians) for science or photography (see above image). Neatly bringing me on to our first regret.   Language and culture   One of my big regrets is not spending more time immersed in the wonderful cultures we have passed through on the w...