Tag: Budget Travel
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Medellín: From Notorious to Noteworthy
So… We were supposed to be going to Panama next, to complete the journey through central America, then fly onward to Colombia afterwards. But as I was starting to seriously plan the Panama trip (aka looking the land border crossing, the bus to David, then a bus to Almirante (the port for boats to Bocas…
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Corcovado: Costa Rica’s last wild frontier?
Our next stop in Costa Rica was the biggy – Corcovado National Park. Located on the Osa Peninsula, on the south west coast, this region is a biodiversity hotspot, it’s the most biodiverse place in central America, not just Costa Rica. It’s a lowland rainforest, think hot steamy jungle, with brown muddy rivers, crocodiles, sloths,…
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La Fortuna: Frogs, forests and free hot springs
Miguel dropped us at the bus stop in Katira, a town on main road towards La Fortuna in the Rio Celeste region. We didn’t have to wait long until a direct bus turned up, and(!) we got seats this time! 🥳 The bus was big and comfortable, meaning we could really relax and enjoy the…
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Liberia: the gateway to Rincon de la Vieja
Costa Rica has been at the top of my travel list for a long long time. I am a big wildlife lover and pretty much all of my trips in the last 6 years have been wildlife focused, from hiking to see wildlife mountain gorillas in Uganda, a snorkelling expedition in Philippines, Mashpi Lodge and…
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Sunsets in San Juan del Sur
After a great few days on Ometepe, we moved on to our final destination in Nicaragua, the beach town of San Juan Del Sur. Admittedly, neither of us really wanted to come here(!) we wanted to visit the amazing beaches of Nicaragua’s Pacific coast line, but we’d heard San Juan town was not the nicest,…
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Surprising Santa Ana
From Juayua we got the public bus to Santa Ana, which is direct for just $0.70 each. However we had to wait a while, we heard the bus goes every hour at 10 past, so at about 11am we headed outside the hostel. We were on the street where the bus would go down, turn…
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A-maze-ing Ruta de las Flores
Our time in Guatemala was at an end, and so we booked a shuttle to take us across the border into another new country for the both of us; El Salvador. We booked with Gekko Travel, but a G Adventures bus is what eventually picked us up (about 40 minutes late). It had come from…
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Motmots, Volcanoes and Alfombras in Antigua
To get from San Marcos on Lake Atitlan to Antigua Guatemala by public bus looked like a bit of a mission, with potentially 5 different buses changing in 4 towns… So we booked a tourist shuttle to take us for Q140 each which we didn’t think was bad for such a long journey. We arrived…
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Exploring Lake Atitlan
From the city of Xela it’s only about a 2.5 hour drive to the scenic Lago Atitlan, nestled in a mountainous cloud forest region surrounded by volcanoes. We were super excited to visit. We headed to the main Xela bus terminal in a £1 Uber, and then some locals helped us find the bus to…
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Unexpected Birding in Xela
The next stop in our Guatemala adventure is the town of Quetzaltenango, also known as Xela (sheh-lah), since its original name in the Kʼicheʼ Maya language was Xelajú Noj. We wanted to come here for another slice of authenticity. Basically, we’ve heard that although Antigua Guatemala (Old Guatemala city) and the towns around Lake Atitlan…
Ocean to Jungle 