It is said that looking into this volcano is like looking into the Gates of Hell. We follow along with writer Dale of The Maritime Explorer as he recounts a wonderful day on our Central American tour.
At the end of my last post on Granada and Los Isletas I promised that on the next post we would travel to Ometepe Island in Lake Nicaragua. I lied; I’ve decided to go to hell instead. This is day two of our sojourn in Nicaragua as part of Adventures Abroad Central America tour designed and led by veteran guide Victor Romagnoli who has spent a great amount of time in many of the seven countries on this tour. Adventures Abroad is returning to Nicaragua for the first time since the uprisings of 2018 that were brutally suppressed by the Sandanista regime and so far everything is copacetic. Let’s hope it stays that way as we head for the nearby city of Masaya and its active volcano of the same name, which the Spanish on first climbing to the rim and looking down, likened to the Gates of Hell.
Granada & Los Isletas – Welcome to Nicaragua
Continuing on with our Central American adventure we venture into Nicaragua with Dale of The Maritime Explorer .
In my last post I gave an overview of my experience in Nicaragua travelling with Adventures Abroad ace guide Victor Romagnoli on his custom designed tour of Central America. Despite being a police state and the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, my overall impression of Nicaragua and its people was very favourable. We split our stay between the Spanish colonial cities of Granada and Leon with a stop in Managua in between. In this post I’ll describe what I did and didn’t like about Granada and then we’ll go on a boat ride through Los Isletas which was a highlight of the stay in Granada.
Nicaragua – Some Random Thoughts by Dale the Maritime Explorer
We have just completed the Nicaragua portion of Adventures Abroad’s Central America trip designed and guided by Victor Romagnoli who is one of the few people who has more than a passing interest and knowledge of this misunderstood country. While I will be writing specific posts about many of the places we visited in Nicaragua much as I just did with Costa Rica, e.g. Monteverde cloud forest I thought a general post about my impressions and random thoughts about the place might be a useful introduction. So here it goes in no particular order.
Manuel Antonio – The Most Popular Park in Costa Rica
Many of you will have heard of Monteverde National Park but have you heard of Costa Rica's most popular park, Manuel Antonio National Park? Join us as we tag along with Dale of the Maritime Explorer for another exciting adventure in Costa Rica.
This is the first true post on the Adventures Abroad’s 2020 tour of Central America led by guide extraordinaire Victor Romagnoli. In my last post I extolled some of the virtues of the Costa Rican capital, San Jose before joining up with the rest of the group who began this tour with Victor in Panama a week earlier. After spending a second night at the excellent Gran Hotel Costa Rica we are now boarding the bus and heading for Manuel Antonio National Park just outside the small town of Quepos on the Pacific Ocean. Although Alison and I have been to Costa Rica before, we’ve never been to the Pacific side of the country which is where most of the seaside resorts and attractions are located. It’s about a five hour drive even taking what is a newly opened portion of highway to shorten the distance to this popular part of the country. However, Victor is a great raconteur and between his history and biology lessens combined with some great stories from past trips the time to our first stop passes quickly.
Monteverde Redux, Costa Rica - The Second Time Around
Have you ever adventured to the same place twice? Dale of the Maritime Explorer has. However, this time he is joined by our beloved Victor for a journey in Costa Rica's most famous national park. Read on to find out what they got up to.
I first visited Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica in 2018 and was blown away by its beauty and birdlife which I described in this post. I have returned early in 2020 on the Central America trip led by Victor Romagnoli for Adventures Abroad the same Canadian company I traveled with on the first visit. At first I was simply going to do an update on the original post, but this visit included a number of new adventures as well as a repeat of the highlights of the first. Please join our Adventures Abroad group in exploring this magnificent area of Costa Rica.
San Jose Costa Rica – The Way & the Why
Recapping the start to our Costa Rica tour, we are sharing the words and thoughts of Dale The Maritime Explorer about why you should put Costa Rica on your travel wish list.
(and making sure a song gets stuck in your head) Dionne Warwick famously asked “Do you know the way to San Jose?” in her 1968 hit song lamenting the insanity of Los Angeles and longing for the breathing space of San Jose, California. Fast forward some fifty plus years and I doubt that anyone would consider that apparently once idyllic small city to be a place they would go to get away from it all. As the centre of Silicon Valley it’s now the tenth largest city in the U.S. and totally unaffordable to all but the highest paid hi tech execs. But there’s another San Jose and while it’s not on most people’s radar as a tourist destination, it does have a some good qualities that merit finding your way there. Here’s why.
