A Travel Blog by Katie Chavez
Our first stop in the Coffee region of Colombia was stunning Salento. Salento is a small town surrounded by verdant mountains and coffee farms, and is a popular stop on any Colombia backpacking route. We stayed at a lovely hostel on the outskirts of town that is also attached to a working coffee farm owned […] Read more…
We started our time in the Colombian Andes in San Gil, a small and busy town that is nice enough but nothing special. Most people come to San Gil to do the various adventure activities in the surrounding area, and to visit the colonial mountain town of Barichara. We arrived exhausted and spent the first […] Read more…
Cartagena is a beautiful and vibrant city with colourful baroque and modernist architecture. The street food in Cartagena is ever present and we had fun trying different varieties such as the Colombian staple arepas, which are like thick tortillas made with corn. You can eat them plain or stuffed with egg or meat. My favourite […] Read more…
So I left off last time with a brief mention of our epic journey from Managua to Panama City. We had decided that, as we are on a tight budget, we would take a bus across three countries in two days as it was a quarter of the price of a flight; turns out it […] Read more…
I was already quite nervous about spending a night in San Pedro Sula, Honduras so I wasn’t overly thrilled when we got there and were told that the bus the next day was full and that we would have to in fact spend two nights there instead. Things didn’t improve when we couldn’t get Trav’s […] Read more…
We met up with our friends Lynn and Pete in Rio Dulce, a small but busy town named after the Rio Dulce, a river that runs from Lake Izabal to the Caribbean sea at Livingston. The Izabal region of Guatemala is densely jungled and very humid, quite a shock after the dry weather and cold nights in […] Read more…
We blew into Panajachel on the wind, a very strong wind which made our lancha ride across to San Pedro la Laguna very bumpy and wet. Perhaps they were the winds of change as the date was 21st December, the end of the Mayan Calendar and the supposed end of the world. San Pedro is […] Read more…
Our first stop after the humid and jungle covered North was in charming Colonial Antigua; the touristy gem in Guatemala’s crown. Antigua really is a beautiful town despite the tourists. It reminds me very much of San Cristobal de las Casas in Mexico which I hold dear to my heart. Cobbled streets, leafy squares, colourful […] Read more…
A land of giant Ceiba trees, tiered waterfalls and jungle covered ruins: this is the North of Guatemala. We arrived from Belize on a minibus to Flores. Flores is a cute little town on an island in the middle of Lake Peten. Although touristy it has a certain charm to it and was very peaceful […] Read more…
Our first glimpse of Belize was our 30 minute stop on Ambergris Caye to clear Customs and Immigration. It is the first country I have been to where you can go through Customs with bare feet; the building is a shed and the floor is sand. On arrival on Caye Caulker, we were greeted by […] Read more…
