Central America

Note: The following is an excerpt from the forthcoming travel memoir, Talking Tico.

  Despite the research, casual reading, following local news and boning up on the language – I still had no idea what to expect. Traveling in of itself can be the most stressful portion of any trip or move, let alone to a foreign country where you fumble through basic sentences at the speed of a 1985 Macintosh computer.

  I tried to picture everything from landing at the airport to arriving in Ciudad Colón. The airport, I imagined, looked like any other capital city airport. Clean, modern and relatively easy to navigate. In other words, I’m wasn’t expecting chickens to be running around as I had seen in a certain airport that shall go unnamed.

(Truth be told, I rather enjoyed the livestock presence at the aforementioned airport. It brought some aspect of character to the experience. I’m still not quite sure what exactly that character was, but it was definitely something.) Continue Reading →

There was always the question of bugs, insects, spiders when considering the move to Costa Rica. For all its utopic promises, there was never escaping the reality that paradise is also a draw for creepy crawlers. Beasts of the underworld. What we humans find preferable in our weather is pretty much also agreed upon in the world of horrific, nightmarish creatures that bring out our most murderous instincts. Continue Reading →

We came into Antigua after a five-hour shuttle ride from El Tunco, El Salvador that included the obligatory bureaucratic wait at the Salvadoran-Guatemalan border. Inevitably Melanie and I were some of the last to be dropped off at our hotels, bouncing along the Antiguan cobblestones as fellow travelers were left to their respective hostels. Some of course hadn’t bothered to reserve anything in advance. I’m all for the carpe diem, impromptu spirit when it comes to travel, but not when it screws with my eating schedule.

Those minor inconveniences aside, our excitement was beyond description to finally be in Antigua, Guatemala. Continue Reading →

I’ve been in a bit of a funk. Three weeks ago I was hit by a car, crashed a mountain bike and sent to surgery to fix some arteries with cow parts. Suddenly my travel schedule was wiped clean and I had to give up physical activity for six weeks.

While forced to the couch, my Costa Rica anniversary came and went. Like any other anniversary of a momentous occasion, it felt impossible that a year had already passed. I found myself missing Costa Rica, Central America, Latin America like a normal person might miss a significant other.

To put a band-aid on these — what are they called? — feelings, I went searching for a connection back to those adventures in my library of work from Central America that I still need to edit. With that, I landed back in Antigua, Guatemala — without question one of the most popular destinations in all of the Americas. Below enjoy 16 photos from our four days in Antigua, fresh off a week in El Salvador back in January before heading to Lake Atitlán. Continue Reading →

No puedo creer que ya ha pasado un año que me he mudado a Costa Rica por 10 meses con mi esposa Melanie. He sido tan afortunado de vivir en el extranjero, no mencionar en un país como Costa Rica. Continue Reading →

Arco Iris Lodge sits just up the hill from Santa Elena, Costa Rica. The rustic feel and location makes it seem as if you’re in the middle of the Monteverde Cloud Forest when town is really just a short walk away. Continue Reading →