We were lucky to stumble upon our Spanish teacher Fernando and his wife Maria on our second day in Nicaragua. We visited a few different Spanish schools. Most of them only offered classes in 2 or 4-hour blocks, five days a week and their times were not flexible. That was too intense for us. As we were walking around town…
Our first month of travel in Central America was fast. A week here, a week there. That sort of travel, for us, is not sustainable. We decided to slow it down a bit and spend one month in San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua. We chose this town because of the things we read about it online. We read that is beautiful, family-friendly…
Many people might think we are living a glamorous and exotic life in Nicaragua. Many people might think we are crazy for deciding to stay here. The reality is that we are staying at home like most everyone else that we know. The only time Michael or I leave the place we are staying is to get groceries. The kids…
Lucas and Henry love each other, but for the past several months they have spent most of their time together. They are developing a strong bond, but we are also always on the lookout for opportunities to socialize. Judy found the hotel on Ometepe by reaching out on Facebook before heading to Nicaragua. We decided to alter our plans and go…
We decided to build in a few days in Ometepe, an island in Lake Nicaragua. Ometepe is made from two volcanoes joined by an isthmus (a narrow strip of land with sea on either side, forming a link between two larger areas of land). Concepción is the active volcanos on the northern half of Ometepe, Maderas is the dormant volcano…
Tamarindo is a melting pot. The owner of our hostel told us that it is a city built by immigrants. He is Argentinian. The restaurants reflect the diversity of the city. We enjoyed poke, Mediterranean food, vegan burritos. Henry even got a hamburger he liked (he had not found one yet since we arrived in Costa Rica). We went out and…
We woke up at 6:30 am to catch our bus at 7:30 am. We had to lug our luggage about 100 yards down the poorly paved road from the hostel to the bus. We need to rethink our packing. It is hard to lug two suitcases and 4 heavy backpacks around. We opted to take buses to the border because of…
We had not made it very far in our travel plans when the Coronavirus hit. We set out in December to explore the world and by mid-March, we found ourselves in Nicaragua while the world was shutting down. Deciding to Stay Our plans to travel to Mexico in April are not happening. We talked about going back to the United States,…
Sweaty palms, elevated heart rate, a pit in your stomach the size of a small watermelon, a lump in your throat the size of an avocado pit. You are decked out in a helmet and a harness. Two people have checked to make sure the harness is secure. You walk across a narrow bridge and approach a small platform with…
There is something that draws us to mud. We found more of it while hiking at the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve. There are three main cloud forests in Monteverde. The most popular is the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve. We chose the Santa Elena Cloud Forest to avoid the crowds. There were still plenty of people there, but we…