Belize doesn’t seem to be part of Central America anymore, it’s much more a Caribbean country. People speak English and Kriol (and Spanish, and Garífuna, and a whole lot of other languages), rice is flavored with coconut (in my opinion that should be the normal way to cook rice), the houses look different, and once…
Category: Central America
El Mirador: A Pyramid With a View An ancient Maya city hidden in the jungle of Guatemala
About 40% of Guatemala’s 15 million inhabitants are of Mayan ancestry. “Maya” is actually a collective term for Amerindian people who, to some degree, share cultural and linguistic heritage. Apart from Spanish, 21 Mayan languages are spoken in Guatemala but they are not recognized as official languages. A Highly Developed Civilization The pre-Columbian Mayan civilizations…
Honduras & El Salvador: Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover Lago Yojoa, San Pedro Sula (Honduras), and Santa Ana (El Salvador)
How can there be so much violence in a country where people are so nice and friendly? I asked myself this question many times in both Honduras and El Salvador. Both countries have a very bad reputation because of their high crime and murder rates and therefore a huge image problem. Are these really the…
León: Smoking Mountains Nicaragua
The Lonely Planet says, “Many people fall in love with Granada, but most of them leave their heart in León”, and I agree with the travel guide. Granada Granada is lovely, the old colonial buildings have been beautifully restored, there are lots of art galleries, handicrafts shops, and stylish restaurants. The central plaza is green…
Isla de Ometepe: Two Volcanoes and a Lake Nicaragua
Our first destination in Nicaragua was going to be the island of Ometepe, an island with two volcano in the enormous Lake of Nicaragua. Getting to Nicaragua We left Monteverde on the 4.20 am bus to Puntarenas and got off at the Panamericana in La Irma. 4.20 am was obviously way too early after our…
Monteverde: Nature & Adventure Costa Rica
Monteverde is a major tourist destination in Costa Rica. Several national parks and reserves protect the cloud forests in the area. Monteverde itself is a very small village, most of the hotels, restaurants, tour operators, and shops are actually in the town of Santa Elena. Going to Monteverde Monteverde’s bus terminal too is in Santa…
Península de Osa: In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle Costa Rica
The largest national park in Costa Rica, Corcovado National Park, is, according to National Geographic, the “most biologically intense place on Earth in terms of biodiversity”. The park conserves primary forest as well as one of the few remaining bigger areas of lowland tropical rainforest in the world. A huge number of species live in…
San Blas: Lost in the Caribbean Panama
What if there was an archipelago in the Caribbean with an island for every day of the year (and a few spare ones)? With white sand beaches and turquoise water, where you could let the days pass by swinging in a hammock underneath palm trees, drinking from a coconut, and not worry about anything? What…