Erik & Heather's RTW Trip

Monthly Archives: September 2010

Exploring the Cloud Forests in Costa Rica

After a slightly disappointing time in Nicaragua, we were ready to move on to our fifth country, Costa Rica. Most of the things we had heard about Costa Rica were fantastic, so we had high expectations for this country. It is said to have amazing cloud forests, incredible animal life, beautiful landscapes and fantastic beaches.  [...]

Nicaragua by the Numbers

Entering Nicaragua, the largest country in Central America, we were excited to see some of its many volcanoes, my new favorite obsession. Nicaragua is home to more than a dozen volcanoes that dot its majestic landscape and the largest freshwater body in Central America, Lake Nicaragua. While we spent just under two weeks in the country, [...]

Erik’s 30th Birthday – Ometepe Island, Nicaragua

Nicaragua was noticeably poorer than neighboring Central American countries we had visited, and we were prepared for travel conditions to be difficult. From our first stop in Leon, we grew accustomed to the crumbling infrastructure, frequent blackouts, water outages, and work horses pulling carts down city streets. Years of political and economic misfortunes have dealt [...]

More Amazing Volcanoes – Granada, Nicaragua

Our next stop in Nicaragua was to its fourth most populated city – the quaint and colonial city of Granada. After seeing this city in an episode of Househunters International, we had high hopes. When we were dropped off at night at Mochilas Hostel, we were less than thrilled. After the swarm of bugs in [...]

Volcano Boarding – Leon, Nicaragua

We arrived in Leon after three nonstop days of bum-numbing travel from the Utila Cays. The journey involved one very scary speedboat, a ferry, three taxis, three buses, a six hour traffic jam, and two overnight stops (La Ceiba and Tegucigalpa). Understandably, we were happy to arrive in Nicaragua – the land of lakes and [...]

Honduras by the Numbers

Entering Honduras, we had no idea what to expect. Nobody we know had ever traveled or lived there, and the only things we’d really heard about the country were the great diving and the recent political coup in 2009. While we only spent time in Copán and Utila, we found Honduras to be full of [...]

Diving & Snorkeling off the Utila Cays

During our week on the Caribbean island of Utila, we heard of some smaller satellite cays off the far western end. The Cays promised a slower pace of life than party-hardy Utila, along with uninhabited coconut islands with perfect beaches and the best snorkeling in the region. The largest of these tiny islands, Jewel Cay, [...]

10 Things We Love About Backpacking The World

A while back, I got some heat about our “10 Things We Miss About Home” post. I think some readers misunderstood the angle I was going for and the suggestion was made to write a future post about the positive side – which we thought was obvious! There are numerous pluses, of course, so here [...]

Learning to SCUBA Dive on Utila Island

I knew before we had even started our trip that I wanted to learn to dive. And the Bay Islands – off the Caribbean coast of Honduras – was where I wanted to do it. The Bay Islands consist of Roatan, Guanaja, Utila, and a number of surrounding Cayes which are historically and ethnically detached [...]

First Class Delivery – A Break from Backpacking

After more than two months on the road, we faced a little problem. I was issued an entire new set of bank and credit cards, and the ones I had with me would expire by the end of the month. The new cards were already with my parents in Massachusetts, where my mail is forwarded; [...]