Tag: Backpacker
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World-Class Birding in Manizales
From Jardín, our journey continued along some of the most scenic roads in Colombia towards the city of Manizales. Nestled in the Central Andes range, Manizales sits at a higher altitude of around 2,150 metres and is surrounded by diverse ecosystems, including cloud forests and montane rainforests. It also lies in the shadow of Nevado…
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The birding starts in Jardín
If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you might have noticed a significant trend over the last year we’ve been travelling… More and more birds popping up in the posts. Yeah… sorry about that 😂 I’ve always been into wildlife, more than the average person, for sure, and most of my travels in my…
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Finding peace (and Quetzals) in San Gerado de Dota
Since we’d had such a hard time spotting Quetzals in Guatemala – we tried three separate places with no luck, I hedged my bets here in Costa Rica, and although we’d already had an amazing Quetzal experience in Monteverde, our next stop was another quetzal haven (just in case we hadn’t seen one) and was…
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Sloths and Snakes in Rio Celeste
Next stop in Costa Rica was the Rio Celeste region. Here, two clear rivers (the Quebrada Agria and Río Buena Vista) meet. One is slightly acidic, the other is rich in aluminosilicate particles, both thanks to the local volcanic activity. When they merge, the change in pH causes the particles to clump together in just…
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Petroglyphs and Motorbiking on Ometepe Island
From the lagoon we got a taxi to the nearest town of Masaya. Before entering Nicaragua we’d heard that it wasn’t the safest country (only in terms of petty crime like theft etc) and we’d been advised to get tourist shuttles and avoid local transport like buses, which is what we’d done so far. But…
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Granada: Hot Streets and Cold Peaks!
Our next stop in Nicaragua was the pretty, colonial city of Granada on the shores of Lake Nicaragua and in the shadow of Mount Mombacho, another active volcano. We had booked 4 nights here as there seemed to be a lot to do in the region. We looked at public transport and all the buses…
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Viva León!
After a bleary-eyed 2:45am pickup from our apartment in El Zonte, we finally bagged the best seats on the shuttle – marginal win! With a quick stop in El Tunco to scoop up a few more travellers, we were soon winding our way towards Nicaragua, ready to trade surf towns for smoky volcanoes, political murals,…
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Facing the waves in El Zonte
We hadn’t planned to stay too long in El Salvador – more to claim back some days from staying longer than expected in Guatemala! We had planned to visit Honduras next overland on our way to Nicaragua, but just at the start of this year the Honduran government changed it’s entry requirements for British citizens…
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Incredible Wildlife and Ruins at Tikal
From San Ignacio in Belize our next stop was Flores in Northern Guatemala. Once again we waited at the bus stop for over an hour to get a bus to the border town of Benque, then hopped in a short taxi ride to the actual border. Entering Guatemala had to be one of the easiest…
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Sweating in San Ignacio
The next leg of our journey takes us inland towards Guatemala to the popular town of San Ignacio in Belize, close to the border. We had planned on getting the bus again from Dangriga, it would have been the same one we got there, but Robbie and Ciara who we met in Tobacco Caye were…
Travel Alchemist 