Central America

This picture-perfect sunset at Manuel Antonio beach in Costa Rica was so beautiful the crowd applauded as it set. Where has your most beautiful sunset been?

If you’re going to go flying down a volcano on a board, you should at least have a good idea what you’re getting into. Read on for the experience of two volcano-boarders (us!) while in Leon, Nicaragua.

We had just gotten to Guatemala and stayed in the city of Flores for a couple of days, which is actually a beautiful island in Lake Peten Itza. One day, as we sat on the dock just soaking up the sun, an Guatemalan ‘anciano’ (or really old man) came over and started to chat with us. He introduced himself as ‘Miguel de San Miguel’, Miguel from San Miguel, a little village on the other side of the lake.

Following our reflections on 200 days of travel, here are the tops and flops of our last 100 days on the road:

If you go to the Corn Islands off Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, make sure you know the difference between the two. It can make or break your holiday experience.

We met Frank walking through the jungle on Little Corn Island. For $1.50, he offered to climb up the tree and cut two coconuts open with his machete for us. You don’t turn down coconuts, and you sure don’t turn down a man with a machete in a jungle.

Antigua’s Central Park is home to a quite unusual fountain – four mermaids on each side of the fountain are spraying streams of water out of their breasts. The fountain, ‘Fuente de las Sirenas’ in Spanish, was built by Diego de Porres in 1738, who took his inspiration for the fountain from the Neptune Fountain in Bologna, Italy.

Antigua, the former capital of Guatemala, has frequently been hit by earthquakes, but especially the earthquake in 1773 left severe damages, and up to today, dozens of ruins of churches and convents can be seen throughout the city.

We ended our time in Costa Rica with an action-packed couple of days in La Fortuna where we hiked to a volcano and a waterfall and admired the countless hummingbirds!

Manuel Antonio is Costa Rica’s most popular National Park – even though it is the smallest one in the country! Often listed as one of the most beautiful National Parks …