San Jose – Tortuguero – Quepos – Manuel Antonio – Monteverde – Arenal – Cano Negro – La Fortuna – San Carlos – El Castillo – Altagracia – Granada – Lago de Apoyo – Managua – Lago de Yajoa – Copan Ruinas – Antigua – Lago de Atitlan – Semuc Champey – Rio Dulce – Livingston – Sittee River – Glover’s Reef – San Ignacio – Tikal – Flores – Palenque – San Cristobel – Mexico City
We’ve now completed our 2 month tour through Central America taking in six countries and as I did for South America, I wanted to look back on all that we’ve seen, done and experienced along the way.
Best Food
Unlike South America, there weren’t any particular stand out food moments, but we did have some nice meals along the way:
· The chocolate cake at D&D Brewery was so moist and chocolatey we had to have a slice each night we were there. I even got the recipe off the owner!
· The massive river prawns we had in El Castillo were memorable as neither of us have seen any that big before and they were juicy and tasty.
· The expensive Italian dinner we had in Flores was particularly nice – Le Roux had a succulent, non-chewy steak and I had succulent large prawns.
· I have to say that the chalupas we made at our Mexican cookery lesson in San Cristobel were really tasty and we’ll definitely be making them again!
· Best local food has to be the Honduran feasts cooked up by the ladies at Finca El Cisne. We got to try all sorts of different dishes made from fresh home grown ingredients.
Worst Food
· Top of the list was the empanada we bought from a cafe in San Carlos in Nicaragua. It was the greasiest thing ever and hardly had any filling. It was so bad that we both threw it away after just a couple of bites.
· Following close behind was our first meal in Guatemala. The shuttle bus between Copan Ruinas and Antigua stopped at a restaurant on route for breakfast which comprised a very skinny omelette with cold ham and unmelted cheese in the middle, a dodgy hot dog, a lump of funny white cheese and a scoop of salty solid refried beans – horrible!
Favourite Country
Guatemala – we saw such a variety of things across the country from a beautiful colonial city to a serene lake surrounded by volcanoes, colourful markets, pretty limestone pools, extensive caves, a gorgeous river and last but not least, world class ruins in an amazing setting.
Best City
It is difficult to choose between Antigua in Guatemala and San Cristobel in Mexico. Both are lovely colonial cities with such character and interesting architecture, but on balance I think Antigua was my favourite. The main square was really pretty and there were interesting ruins all over the city. With plenty of good restaurants and bars, and the backdrop of volcanoes surrounding the city, it was a great place to hang out for a few days.
Best Village
3 hours down the San Juan River from Lake Nicaragua was the little village of El Castillo which we fell in love with. You can only reach it by water and there are no cars, only bicycles and horses. Lots of the houses are built on stilts over the river and there were many loose animals wandering around the town. The Spanish fort on the hill overlooking the village provided lovely views. It was such a relaxing place.
Worst Town
This award goes to San Carlos in Nicaragua. We stayed in what was supposedly a good hotel, but there was no running water most of the time and the room was horrible – more like a prison cell! The town had no redeeming features and it suffered regular power cuts during our time there. We couldn’t wait to escape down the river to El Castillo!
Best Natural Wonder
· Glover’s Reef in Belize was so beautiful – it truly felt like a little piece of paradise. The palm tree covered, white sandy island was surrounded by an ocean of several vivid shades of blue which was home to a huge variety of sealife. We really didn’t want to leave!
· Semuc Champey in Guatemala – a series of limestone pools set in mountainous forest was also very pretty.
Best Manmade Sight
· This award goes to Tikal as the ruins were very impressive, with the very high temples, quite a few of which you could climb. Also the jungle setting was beautiful and the array of wildlife that lived there including our favourites, monkeys and toucans, was great.
Favourite Activity
Again, we’ve done some amazing things over the last 2 months including:
· Snorkelling in the Caribbean amongst the pretty coral and abundant sealife.
· Horseriding at Finca El Cisne in Honduras was great fun as we actually got to ride the horses rather than just following the one in front, and the farm was really pretty.
· Zip-lining in Costa Rica – whizzing along through the rainforest with views of the Arenal volcano and lake, and one of the seven cables was 750m long.
Worst Journey
There are a number of contenders for this category:
· The minibus shuttle from Semuc Champey to Rio Dulce in Guatemala was one of the worst journeys we had to endure. Crammed in with us and 9 other tourists were a local guy and his several hundred eggs. The eggs got two seats to themselves while the local guy hung out of the window for 3 hours, blocking the air flow so the chicken s**t smell built up. The stink, along with the bumpy, twisty roads made half the bus feel travel sick and the little girl in front of me actually threw up. The driver exacerbated the issue by going over some bumps too fast and some of the eggs escaped their packaging and smashed on the floor of the bus causing the smell to worsen. We then had to try and get our rucksacks out of the way in the limited space. All of this combined with the lack of legroom and uncomfortable seats, meant that we couldn’t wait to get out of the bus in Rio Dulce.
· Another terrible journey in Guatemala was the return trip from Lago de Atitlan to Antigua. It was a 5 hour journey that felt a lot longer! The bus seats were so small that Le Roux and I couldn’t fit properly on a double seat – one of us had to sit forward to accommodate our shoulders and Le Roux could only get one buttock on the seat. The legroom was totally inadequate and I spent the whole journey with my knees wedged into the back of the seat in front which had wires in it that cut into me. When we reached Antigua and they said we needed to get on yet another bus, we made our escape and walked the last leg to our hostel.
· We put ourselves through a hair-raising experience on Ometepe Island in Nicaragua by hiring a motorbike which was definitely not appropriate for the rough terrain. We were fine on the paved roads, but as soon as we hit the very rough rocky, undulating roads leading to the waterfall, we had issues. The bike was low to the ground and had road tires and didn’t cope well with the bad surface. I hung on to the bike and Le Roux for dear life as he struggled with the bike over the bumps. We had further issues when a pig ran out onto the road in front of us causing us to swerve and break suddenly. It was the least relaxing day ever!
· The boat ride between Livingston in Guatemala and Punta Gorda in Belize was memorable for all the wrong reasons. We were in a small open wooden boat and the sea was choppy. As we raced along we bounced over the waves causing me to feel sea sick and as we slammed down after each wave the base of my spine smashed into the hard seat. To top it off we got wet too as the waves splashed over the sides. I was so relieved when we reached dry land!
· The final contender is the car journey from Arenal to Cano Negro which included 35km of dirt road littered with potholes. We arrived at our destination completely shaken up and exhausted by all the bumps and swerving.
Funniest Moment
I think the funniest moment was watching the white faced monkeys and raccoons steal food from unsuspecting tourists on the beach at Manuel Antonio National Park. They were so clever that they could unzip back packs to remove picnic items and the monkeys even managed to open bags that had been tied up in the trees to keep them safe.
Scariest Moment
This award would have gone to the water caves in Semuc Champey, but I was so scared of the idea of water in caves with only a candle for light that I didn’t even do them! So I have come up with a couple of other scary moments:
· When we got off the international bus from Nicaragua to Honduras in a little place called La Guama we were pretty unnerved. The last thing the bus conductor said to us was watch out for the bad boys hanging around and given it was dark and we needed to catch a local bus or find a taxi, this made us feel particularly uneasy. Things got worse when we discovered there were no buses, no taxis and not even a hotel we could stay in for the night. Luckily the police were attending a non-serious traffic accident and so we asked for their help. The local mayor also came over and persuaded the police officers to drive us the 12km to the D&D Brewery by Lago de Yajoa. We were very relieved to arrive at the hotel safe and sound!
· A close encounter with a barracuda while snorkelling on my own in Belize was pretty scary as Jared and Katie had returned the previous day with tales of a hair-raising moment when one would not leave them alone. Luckily for me the barracuda left after eyeing me up briefly.
· After 5 months without a haircut, I decided I would have to be brave and get it done. I risked it in La Fortuna in Costa Rica in the hope that because of the number of rich American tourists there, there would be a reasonable salon with an English speaking stylist. I was recommended a place by the tourist office, but a random guy in there had to translate what I wanted for the stylist. In the end, the haircut wasn’t perfect but not bad, and it was cheap!
Favourite Animal
Monkeys and toucans are still top of my list, but in Costa Rica we came across a new animal – the sloth – which I really like. There are two types and we’ve managed to see both in the wild as well as in the rescue centre. They are funny looking creatures that live up in the trees all the time apart from a weekly toilet trip down to the ground!
Best Wildlife Encounter
The sighting of the elusive Quetzal in the cloud forest in Monteverde was such a great moment. I am normally very bad at spotting things, even when they are clearly pointed out to me and so when I managed to clap eyes on the very bird we were desperately trying to see I was really proud of myself. Our decision not to hire a guide proved to be the right one, and all the twitchers with their guides who hadn’t seen it were very envious of us. Le Roux even managed to capture it on camera so we have evidence of the sighting!
Most Disappointing
The most disappointing thing for us was the fact that every active volcano wasn’t actually active when we were visiting. In Costa Rica, the Arenal Volcano has been spewing out hot lava since 1968 but stopped in September 2010, 5 months before we got there. Also, in Guatemala the volcanoes around Antigua were not active while we were there, so we haven’t had the chance to poke a stick in hot lava. Our quest for an active volcano continues...
Least Privacy
I forgot to include a worst toilet category for South America, for which there were many contenders, but I have a new category for Central America – least privacy.
· The room we stayed in at D&D Brewery had the bathroom in the tiny bedroom, with only a shower curtain to pull around yourself while sitting on the loo. Not quite sure why anyone would actually design and build a brick building like that!
· The second similar instance was at the guesthouse at Sittee River. Our little wooden cabin on stilts only had thin curtains to separate the bathroom from the bedroom, and the top half of all the walls was wire mesh, with curtains on only some of the windows. So it wasn’t only lack of privacy from each other by from people outside too!
Most Obnoxious Person
On the whole we’ve met many nice, friendly people, both locals and fellow travellers. However, a couple of people have stuck on our minds for all the wrong reasons.
· The first obnoxious person we met was in the hostel in San Jose. He was an older Belgian guy who was friends with the owner and his family. He started talking to me despite it being obvious I was in the middle of doing something and wasn’t up for a conversation, and then he wouldn’t leave me alone. He became drunker and drunker and made all sorts of racist and sexist remarks and on the whole was a pretty nasty person. As soon as I’d eaten my dinner I headed back to our room to escape, as that seemed the only way out, as he kept following me around the common areas.
· The other obnoxious person we came across was a red neck American in a bar in Rio Dulce, Guatemala. We had been chatting with various people in the bar and I asked if this one guy had a boat as most of the Americans there own yachts which they have moored in Rio Dulce for the winter. The guy across from him, laughed at this and said he used to. It turned out to be a crazy story as the guy had just broken up his 4 year relationship with a local lady and she had in turn burnt and sunk his boat, which he’d just had done up. The term he used to describe his ex girlfriend defied belief – a n***er bitch - I didn’t think people would actually use the “n” word to describe a coloured person especially with people they’ve just met in a bar - incredible.
Worst Night’s Sleep
The worst night’s sleep we got, excluding night buses which are always terrible, was at the Jungle Palace in El Panchan near Palenque. It had nothing to do with the room or bed, but with the noisy howler monkey who took up residence in the tree above our little hut. It managed to keep up its spooky loud howling for a large chunk of the night and we got up the next morning pretty sleep deprived.
Biggest Regret
My biggest regret is not taking the time at the beginning of our trip to do a crash course in Spanish. In hindsight we have missed an opportunity here not only to learn a new skill, but I think we would have had more interesting interactions with locals had we been able to converse with them.
Things I Will Miss
· Fresh tropical fruit – so ripe, sweet and juicy!
· Random sightings of tucans and monkeys
· Friendly locals
· Warm climate
· Glover’s Reef scenery and lifestyle
· Colourful cheap markets
Things I Will Definitely Not Miss
· Having to put toilet paper in a bin and not down the toilet
· Cold showers
· Bad food – there was so little variety and far too many bad meals!
· Ridiculously small and uncomfortable bus seats
· Potholes and speed bumps
· Lugging my backpack around on buses
· Spanish TV – there are TVs everywhere and they are always on loud on the terrible soap operas even if no one is watching
· Stray, dodgy looking dogs
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