8: Lago de Atitlán and Xela, Guatemala

After Antigua, we visited a lake called Lago de Atitlán, which was formed out of the crater of a volcano a very long time ago (about 84 000 years). There are a few towns and villages on the edge of the lake, and we stayed in a village called Santa Cruz, one of the smaller and quieter ones. We stayed in a hostel called La Iguana Perdida, which was recommended to us by a Kiwi couple we had met in El Salvador. The hostel was great, very relaxing and pretty quiet. Meals are a bit different there, as they are served as one big "family" meal in the evening, everyone eating together (both staff, and guests).


The lake was great, but unfortunately there had been an algae bloom the week before, which meant that swimming was out of the question and anything else, like kayaking, wouldn't have been very pleasant. During our one full day at the lake, however, we went on a walk to another village round the edge, which was great but pretty hot!

View of Lago de Atitlán from our walk (you can see the algae)

After spending an awesome and very relaxing time at La Iguana Perdida, we (sadly) had to move on, and came to a city called Xela (pronounced Shey-la), which is sort of our next step up to Mexico. We arrived here yesterday, but personally I am missing the lake as the hostel we're staying in now isn't half as nice (called La Casa Argentina).

We did have some fun today though, as we went to a couple of great places. First we went to a village outside Xela (open air in the back of a truck which was fun) called Almolonga, where it was market day. It seemed to be a big vegetable exchange, as I gather quite a lot of fruit and veg is produced nearby. All the women were dressed in their local typical dress, as you can see below:

Market at Almolonga

 After the market, we headed up to Las Fuentes Georginas, which are some amazing hot springs. We spent quite a while there bathing in the hot water, it was really incredible! One of the pools was too hot though, and it was only possible to go in for a few seconds, but I was too much of a coward to even do that!

Las Fuentes Georginas

 So that's all for now, folks. I'll hopefully be updating this soon, but you might have to wait until we get to Mexico!!

7: Antigua, Guatemala

It is Saturday now, and on Thursday we arrived in Guatemala. We caught a bus from Santa Ana in El Salvador, straight to Guatemala City, where we changed and caught another bus to Antigua, which is where we are staying now.

Antigua is an old colonial town, I believe it used to be the capital of Guatemala, a long time ago. It´s very well preserved, with lovely cobbled streets and nicely painted buildings. Because of strict building regulations, shops don´t even seem to be allowed their traditional signs - MacDonald's even has a classy wooden and gold one!

Yesterday we spent most of the day exploring the town and seeing a few sights. Below you can see the Santa Catalina archway in the centre of Antigua. After that we visited La Merced, which is a big church in the town, followed by Las Capuchinas convent.

Santa Catalina archway

Panorama of Las Capuchinas Convent, and Johnny

 

 

 

Today we visited a small village outside the town called San Juan del Obispo. There is a big "Palacio" there, which is where the first ever bishop of Guatemala lived, and introduced Christianity to the country (as far as I understand). It was a lovely quiet village, nice to escape the touristyness of Antigua. You also had a great view of the Volcano (Volcan de Agua) from the village, which is the volcano that shadows the whole area.

 

 

 

Volcan de Agua, as seen from San Juan del Obispo

I think we will spend the rest of the day chilling out, and tomorrow we're going to head on to Lago de Atitlan, so will let you know how we get on hopefully! Here's a couple of extra photos I thought you might like:

Bus library, in the centre of Antigua

View from the rooftop of our hostel

6: Moving on... El Salvador!

So, I have now left everything behind in Costa Rica, and am now in El Salvador! Johnny and I took an 18 hour bus from San José, Costa Rica to San Salvador, El Salvador: leaving at 3am on Sunday night/Monday morning (depending on how you see it) and arriving in San Salvador at about 9pm. We spent the night in a niceish hotel in the city, but moved on quickly the next day to Santa Ana, a smaller and more manageable town about an hour's bus ride away from the capital.

The bus ride was pretty entertaining, we even had our own clown, performing interesting (though perhaps not very convincing) magic tricks in return for any tips or donations the passengers were prepared to give. It seems that the best way for street sellers to make money here is on the buses, seller after seller jumps on any bus they can, selling anything from cashew nuts to herbal tea with "magical properties", to spongebob stickers (which of course Johnny bought - the guidebook is now covered in mini spongebobs).

We spent the day yesterday relaxing around Santa Ana, which is quite a pleasant town. After a couple of beers on the rooftop we visited the Cathedral (see below) and then headed in to the central market, which was busy and smelly, but a lot of fun.

Cathedral in Santa Ana, El Salvador

Today (Wednesday) we went on a day trip to a local national park, ´Parque Nacional Los Volcanes`, which is a couple of hours bus ride away from Santa Ana. We planned to climb up Volcan Santa Ana, apparently (or so we were told) the nicest of the three volcanoes in the park. Once we arrived we had to wait until 11am for a guided tour to start, as you are not allowed to climb up on your own, due to crime/muggings, etc... In the end we had a guide, and two police escorts! (Unfortunately we had to pay about $8 each instead of about $3 that we were expecting).

The guide was going at quite a pace, so it was a bit difficult to keep up. The whole trip (up and down the volcano) was supposed to last 4 hours, but we did it in about 3! The whole climb was really cloudy, but luckily we could see the crater once we got to the top:

Crater of Volcan Santa Ana

After getting back down and waiting for the bus for about 1h30, we got back to Santa Ana ok in the end! We are currently deciding what to do next, but it looks like tomorrow, we're heading to... Guatemala!!! Will keep you updated, hopefully :)

5: Nicaragua

This week I went to Nicaragua so that I could renew my visa (UK nationals - and many others - are only allowed to stay in Costa Rica for 3 months at a time). Joanna, Johnny and I set off last Sunday at 6am and started on the 9 hour bus ride to Granada, which is on the Western side of Nicaragua. The capital of Nicaragua is Managua but we were told to avoid it and stick to the more interesting and picturesque Granada. On arrival in Granada we checked in at a hostel called The Bearded Monkey which turned out to be pretty cool, despite the grumpy receptionist. We also met a girl called Annefleur, from Holland, who ended up sharing our dormitory and joining us for the following couple of days.

We spent out first evening and full day exploring Granada, which looked something like this:

Granada from above

The town has a lovely feeling about it, it was full of tourists but it didn't really matter - the colourful buildings and the atmosphere of the place made it worthwhile. Horse and carts were trundling around the town carrying tourists and, seemingly, some locals too. Granada was originally founded by Spaniards and architecture is famously colonial, very different from anything I have seen in Costa Rica.

On our way to breakfast at "Kathy's Waffle House" - which was excellent, by the way - we realised that something interesting was going on... there seemed to be a film being made, with lots of people wearing red t-shirts and bearing flags running enthusiastically up the street. It turned out that an advert was being made for a presidential campaign for "El Gordo Presidente" (The Fat President). It seemed very fun and the latino music was blasting out of the speakers. I'm not sure a campaign like this would go down well in Britain!

Making of a TV ad for El Gordo Presidente

On our second day we made a day visit to Masaya, a town which is about 45 minutes away from Granada and famed for its craft market. We spent the day walking round and discovering the town, and made a few (cheap) purchases in the market. The town and surrounds were a lot "rougher" than Granada, perhaps more indicative of the "real" Nicaragua (unseen by tourists)... but we still had good day.

In the evening we went to a local Irish Pub (run by a genuine Irishman) and had the best fish & chips I've tasted for a while! It was a real taste of home, although slightly odd knowing that home was such a long way away.

We decided to leave Granada on day three (Wednesday) to head to Laguna de Apoyo, where we spent the night. The lake was lovely, and we spent a lot of time lounging around reading and using the facilities provided by the hostel (such as kayaks). Here's our view from the hostel:

Laguna de Apoyo

We went back to Granada on Thursday and then made an afternoon trip to a place called Coyotepe. This is an old fort that was used as a prison up until the 1980s. A volunteer from the Nicaraguan boy scouts took us round on a tour of the place, and told us about the gruesome history of the place. Some pretty chilling stories! It was principally used for prisoners of war during the Nicaraguan Civil War, and we were shown pitch black cells and torture cells where prisoners had had to endure some pretty horrific things. All in all an interesting but slightly chilling experience (and there were plenty of bats flying around above our heads too).

Sadly we headed back to San José on Friday, but having had a taste of Nicaragua I want to go back and see more! I just hope I have the time and the money to do so...

Check out the photos here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=280593&id=614663552&fbid=10150128491258553

4: About time for some news!

Well, it has again been a while since I posted anything, but for some more good reasons... I have been travelling around and was lucky enough for Mum to come and visit for a short while!

The first two weeks of February were more or less work as usual, and then for Valentine's weekend Johnny and I went and had a lovely time in Manuel Antonio (which is rapidly becoming one of my favourite places in Costa Rica). Then, later that week, Mum arrived (on the 18th) - very exciting! After collecting her from the airport on Friday night, I had to go to work on Saturday morning, but we made our escape on Saturday afternoon and jumped on a bus to Playa Brasilito in Guanacaste, close to where Johnny is staying.

I had booked a room in the Brasilito Lodge, a hotel I had found on the internet, and it turned out that there was a reason the hotel was not listed in my Lonely Planet guide... as we approached we realised that it wasn't exactly a nice and cheap hotel, more of a "big house" that was still under construction. The room was an interesting lurid green colour, similar to a hotel that James, Sarah, Johnny and I experienced in Agra in India, and it brought back a few memories! The German (and rather fat/lazy) hotel owner seemed quite apologetic over the room and said that we could have an alternative room the following day, so we stayed there for three nights in the end.

The next couple of days were spent on the beach, first at Playa Conchal and then at Playa Prieta. Both were beautiful beaches, with amazing clear blue water. Conchal is famous because instead of sand there are crushed seashells, which means that the water looks amazing. Here's a photo:

Playa Conchal

Once we left Johnny and the beaches behind, Mum and I headed on to Liberia, which is the central town/city in Guanacaste. The idea was to go to and visit the famous Arenal Volcano, however when we arrived at Liberia it transpired that it was too hard to get there so we decided to change our plans and after a lot of discussion we ended up spending the next day hiking around the Rincón de la Vieja National Park. The centre of the park is the Rincón de la Vieja volcano. So, in the morning, we checked out some of the volcanic activity: 

We didn't go to the crater of the volcano because it was too far, but it was still incredible to see bubbling mud and steam and other things coming out of the earth! In the afternoon we went for a trek in the opposite direction, to a waterfall called La Cangreja. The walk was very long and quite hard work, but it was worth it since this is what we found:

Catarata La Cangreja

The blue water is due to dissolved copper salts, according to Lonely Planet. We had an awesome swim there but then unfortunately had to head back before the park closed at 4pm. 

We spent the next couple of days back in San José recovering from the long day hiking in the national park, and then on Saturday I was back at work all day. After work, however, we caught the bus to Manuel Antonio (yes, again) and arrived at the hotel by about 9.30pm. Sunday was spent walking round the park and lying on the beach, a perfect combination really! Excitingly, we saw a sloth - although I did (and still do) feel incredibly guilty since Johnny has been wanting to spot one since he arrived in Costa Rica. Here it is looking down at us:

On Monday we spent the morning lounging around the hotel pool, had lunch at an great aeroplane bar/restaurant and then went to buy a few souvenirs before heading back to San José. Mum left yesterday morning and I gather that she has safely arrived in the UK now! All in all it was a great week and I was very happy to be able to show my Mum some of Costa Rica.

The rest of the photos can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=614663552&aid=274115
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=614663552&aid=271501

3: January... High Season?

Sorry it has been a while since my last post, however half of December and January were taken up with going back to England! It was fantastic, but winter in the UK was somewhat irrelevant to this blog...

Anyway, I have been back in Costa Rica for almost a month now. The summer has officially started and the rainy season is over, which is a bit of  a shock having spent a good month in one of the coldest winters that Europe has seen for a while. Temperatures in San José seem to stay in the comfortable mid-twenties and the sun comes out nicely most days.

This last week I was lucky enough to go up to Guanacaste and visit Johnny where he's working at Playa Potrero. We spent a couple of days there and went to Playa Prieta, where we saw a cool lizard:

Cool Lizard seen at Playa Prieta

The beach itself was almost deserted, apart from one tico family having a picnic. Unfortunately the waves were a bit to big to have a relaxing swim, but it was a good place to start for a tan!

After having spent a couple of days at Playas Potrero/Penca and Prieta, we decided to make our way down the coast to Sámara, which is a bigger and slightly more touristy beach. The three buses we had to catch to get there took a while, but I would say it was worth it in the end! The beach and smallish beach town felt completely different to Potrero and Brasilito up North, but it had a nice vibe to it. We stayed in a small hotel called Posada Matilori, run by an Italian called Stefano. He was a good host, and very helpful, and in fact the person who's Spanish I have understood the best since being in Costa Rica! (good enunciation)

We spent the next three days lying and relaxing on the beach, and using the body/boogie-board provided by Stefano. This is where we spent most of our time:

Sámara Beach, on the right you can see a surf school

We had a lovely time in Sámara, and went to various bars and restaurants in the evenings, however there was one thing that remained puzzling... in all the bars and restaurants that we visited, we were practically the only customers! It is supposed to be high season now for these beaches, however I would like to know where all the tourists - both Gringo and Tico - were, in the evenings, at the weekend, during the high season. I am not complaining of course, I am just quite puzzled!

I would definitely recommend Sámara if you want to visit a different beach on the Pacific Coast. It wasn't the cheapest of places, but the size of the beach meant that there was plenty of room for everyone. I hope that I will be able to return soon!

2: San José, en Diciembre...

San José, or Chepe, as known by Ticos, is hardly the London or Paris of Central America. It is commonly regarded as a dangerous city, with little or no charm. It can certainly be said that the architecture leaves a lot to be desired, apart from perhaps the Teatro Nacional located in the centre. There is no doubt that it lacks personality and feeling, and in fact it does not feel like a capital city at all.


It is now the first week of December, Chepe's busiest time of year. I spent yesterday (Monday) afternoon, Christmas shopping in the centre. Unfortunately though, this wasn't exactly the bright idea that I imagined it would be. I have never experienced the city so busy before. I was already regretting my decision early in the afternoon after having nearly knocked over a toddler.


Something that I had never witnessed until last week were the large platforms with armed policeman looking down at the crowds, dotted around the centre of the city. When I first saw them I thought a big crime had taken place, but apparently the 'platforms' are normal for this time of year, due to the sheer number of shoppers that take over the centre of the city and the following rise in crime.


One of the reasons behind the shopping sprees - apart from normal Xmas shopping/preparations - is what is called the 'aguilnaldo', which is the word for Christmas Bonus. In Costa Rica, companies are legally required to give employees double their normal salary in December. Sadly I do not receive this bonus as I have not been working for 6 months and I am a trainee/intern.


Despite the crowds and the frantic Christmas shopping, there does seem to be something a bit more endearing about Chepe at this time of year. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the Mercado Central (central market), where I found a strange mixture of fish heads, various offal, flowers, souvenirs, and lots and lots of Tinsel. Maybe San José is finally growing on me...