-
The Galapagos Islands: Our 3 Week Itinerary
Many people do the Galapagos in a very short trip either by island hopping every other day and paying for expensive tours to capture the 360* highlights or use a hugely pricey short cruise. We decided that we didn’t need to rush the adventure and we could maintain our budget by just snorkelling from every…
-
Cotopaxi: hike hard or hang out
A TikTok we saw 5 months ago that promised gorgeous views of a volcano from your bed in the morning coupled with llamas has finally come to fruition. The Secret Garden Hostel at Cotopaxi has a magical formula: a snow-topped volcano, copious amounts of food, family dinners where people can’t help but get to know…
-
Catching our breath in Quito: the highest capital city
We flew over the Panama Canal with Copa Airlines again. Weirdly, we’d flown this route to get to Costa Rica, doubling back on ourselves after a brief stop at the airport, but this time we were there briefly to transit on to Quito. Annoyingly not a country we can claim to have been to, though….
-
Drifting in Drake’s Bay
The journey: We knew getting to Drake’s Bay was going to be a bit more of an interesting journey: there is information on the internet but the specifics of where you catch the actual bus out of Uvita were somewhat sketchy. Our glamping host told us to be at the ‘Flutterby’ bus stop in the…
-
Costa Rica Part Two: Journeying down the Pacific Coast
Monteverde to Quepos So, we left Monteverde at 7.45am on the Transmonteverde bus for Puntarenas (the first leg of a journey to Quepos) from the ‘station’ below. Our bus was basic and there was no putting your bags underneath, which was a kind of relief as you always have to be hyper alert when the…
-
Costa Rica Part 1: Buckle up – it is a long one!
His tale: Coming to Costa Rica filled me with excitement and trepidation in almost equal measure. It has been top of my ‘wish list’ for so long that I cannot think of where the replacement will come from (probably Russia), there is also the old adage about never meeting your idols. Fortunately, the capital, San…
-
Lake Atitlan: From one extreme to another!
Lake Atitlan is a water-filled crater created by a super volcano and now surrounded by impressive volcanoes itself, one of which Stewart climbed in record time, without a guide, making him somewhat of a hero in our teachers’ eyes! There are a number of towns around the lake, each with its own distinct character which…
-
Wandering Antigua: A Laid-Back Look at the City
From the moment you arrive Antigua feels expectant – I can only compare it to what gold prospecting towns must have felt like – there’s an air of anticipation; there’s the people who’ve been there a while, living in the valley of the 3 volcanoes, and have climbed Acatenango to see Volcano de Fuego’s fountains…
-
One City: Two Tales
His Tale I really like Mexico City. As a capital city it offers you everything you could possibly want: markets, street vendors, Michelin guide restaurants, green spaces, plazas, history, millionaire pads, even bloody expensive gluten-free dedicated restaurants! It has a brilliant and varied transport system that would be a match for any European one. The…