Backtrack to Granada- Photos!

 Here are some pictures of Granada, Nicaragua and our chocolate making class!  We learned how to make a bar of chocolate from the raw cocoa bean to the finished product- delicious!  Then, we climbed to the tower of La Merced Cathedral and saw the most beautiful views of the city! Nearly every building has a courtyard...you can see them from the birds eye view in the last picture. 

 

In Antigua everyone!

Well, we have been a little slow on updating the blog the past few days. We left Granada on a two day bus to Antigua which was very interesting. If you thought sitting on a plane for 16 hours is bad, try sitting on a bus with a crazy bus driver for two days! We left Granada on a 1 hour chicken bus to Managua where our main bus was leaving from. The best way to get around in Central America is by Tica bus. This is a company that goes from capital city to capital city. Much cheaper than a plane ticket but much harder on the soul. We left Managua around noon and didnt get to El Salvador until midnight. There were two stops in El Salvador, both in the capital, but the first stop was a nicer hotel and the second was..... well lets just say it was not much of a hotel at all. Sadly the nice hotel was all booked up so we had to go the the other one, which was safe because it was run by Tica bus, but consisted of two very small beds, a toilet with no toilet seat, something like a shower but we didnt try it, and a window. We didnt really mind because the bus was leaving the next day at 5am so we were only going to get about 4 hours of sleep! Well, once we got back onto the bus the next morning, we still had another 8 hours of driving until we got to the capital of Guatemala. Once we got there we jumped the first shuttle to Antigua, which should have been a one hour drive but ended up being 2 and a half because we had the slowest driver in Guatemala, and finally once we got the Antigua we found out that we had not eaten since the day before! So we found the first restaurant and ate the largest plate of food we could get. We then got lost for about 2 hours trying to find a hostel we were going to stay at and finely decided to just pick another one, unpack, and go to sleep! So, needless to say that those were a few rough days, and sadly Ashley and I also get sick yesterday from some bad food but..... we did find an amazing apartment to stay in for the next month and Antigua is one of the most beautiful cities we have seen yet. We are feeling much better now and should put up more pictures soon and also a long story about Costa Rica that has been waiting to be published on the blog. Thanks for all the emails and good thoughts and keep a lookout for more posts!

Out and about in Granada

What a beautiful city! Today is our first day but so far we have walked around a lot of places and have a chocolate making session tomorrow and massages on Tuesday! You can't beat a $25 package that includes a 1 hr massage and lunch at a great cafe! Granada is treating us well so far: we still have to plan a day of sailing and kayaking, trip to an art market and la Laguna de apoyo! The first picture is our hostels courtyard.... Check out hostel el momento online; it's gorgeous!!

Black Friday Christmas parade in San Jose!

San Gerardo de Rivas

Now that we have regular internet again, here are some photos of what we've been up to for the past few weeks!  The first pictures are of the hostel we worked at...Casa Mariposa: a beautiful retreat near the bast of Mt. Chirripo and Cloudbridge Reserve.  It was such a cool place to be for a few weeks; mountains, rivers, jungle and nice cool weather!  The next photos are of a hike we did on Ashley's birthday to some waterfalls and gardens.  The last are of Mt. Chirripo itself....what turned out to be a grueling 2 day hike.  9 hours up, 6 hours down.  A great anecdote on that adventure will follow soon!  Enjoy!

Out of Touch

Hey guys!!! So the internet does not work too well where we are in Costa Rica...considering we are at around 5000 ft on the side of a mountain I guess it's understandable!  We have had a good time so far at Casa Mariposa...learning a lot about gardening, composting and how to build stone walls.  We will be in San Jose, Costa Rica next Friday and will be able to resume regualar posting!  Costa Rica is a wonderful country and soooo beautiful.  We went on a long hike this morning for my birthday and hopefully will be climbing the giant Mt. Chirripo next Monday and Tuesday.  We are sure some good stories will come from that excursion!  Thanks for bearing with us and be prepared from some amazing pictures at the end of next week!!
Love,
A&D...Venturing Out

Hitting the hills with a Harley

So we had quite an adventure yesterday....we rented a moped to go cruise around up in the mountains, see some waterfalls and visit a gorgeous (but super expensive coffee farm/resort).  So we spent 3 hours seeing the area...Derek drove the entire time except for the 5 min that I attempted.  We both agreed after that time that it would probably be in both of our best interests to let Derek do the driving!  Anyways, we made our way up to a beautiful lookout point that also happened to be a cafe and were busy with a piece of chocolate cake when the skies opened up and it started to pour.  Needless to say we were not going to venture out in that so we decided to wait.  After 30 min, however, we realized that if we didn't return the scooter on time we would be charged.  We're serious about our budget and there's no way we're wasting any money......so what do we do?  Put on our rain jackets and head out; it had lightened up a bit by now.  Little did we know it was about to come back full force. So here we are driving down the mountain, in the pouring rain, on a moped that we didn't have that much faith in...and it's probably 60 degrees so we're getting a little cold.  Add in the ridiculous looks we got from passing cars and people taking shelter and it was a pretty comical situation.

The pictures/videos below are obviously from earlier in the day...before the storm.  Enjoy!

Boquete

This town is amazing! Went on a "trek" down the river this morning. Tried to cross is but got half way and decided it might not be such a good idea considering the fast current and the fact that our feet were numb! Went on a coffee farm tour in the afternoon.... Amazing! Had the best coffee I've ever had and realized I can no longer blame my coffee pot for making bad coffee. If you have good quality coffee (apparently a rarity in traditional grocery stores) a $10 coffee maker works just fine!!

More Photos

Below are a few pictures of our time in Bocas del Toro...great views from the water, Mantis Restaurant on Isla Bastimentos and views of Isla Carenero.  We had a great time, but have arrived in our new destination...Boquete!  It's much cooler (60 degrees or so) and we plan to do a coffee farm tour and some hiking!  Time to head inside before this storm hits us!

A&D...Venturing Out

Pictures!!

Here are a few pictures of our time in bocas del toro! We are off to Boquete, Panama tomorrow! More pictures to come in a few minutes!