After having thrown up and downed some Dramamine and Imodium, I slept in a drug-induced state the five hours to Tela. I could barely wake myself to get off the bus once we arrived.

Our taxi driver told us that the hotel we wanted to go to was closed, but we didn’t believe her since that was a common scam by taxi drivers who want to take people to hotels where they can get a commission. We made her take us to the hotel anyway where we discovered it was indeed closed for renovations. Per her recommendation, we checked into another hotel that was clean and had a real treat — cable TV. (more…)

The bus from Nicaragua to Honduras didn’t actually leave from Granada. It left from Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, headed for Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. We had heard bad things about Managua (”it’s dangerous,” “there’s absolutely nothing to see,” “if you can in any way avoid it, you should”) and although we had heard these types of warnings about other capital cities, these seemed particularly universal and foreboding.

Unfortunately, the bus left Managua at 5am — too early for us to catch a bus from Granada to Managua the same day. Our options were to go to Managua and spend the night, or to take a $30 taxi from Granada to Managua that morning. We opted for the taxi. (more…)

The Barkers

Uncle Greg: We’re the Barkers.  This is how we do it.  We’re late in every country, in any place, at any time.

(more…)

We arrived in Granada, excited for the sites and low prices. We picked a hotel from the Lonely Planet and had the taxi driver take us to it. We walked in to ask the price and were shocked to hear how out of our price range it was - over $20 per person. We started wandering around to look for a better deal.

We went one street over and found all the deals. It turned out that the hostel we were looking for was right around the corner. There were two places with similar names: one was a “hospedaje” and one was a “hotel.” While we obviously wanted to cheaper one, the taxi brought us to the upscale hotel option. We found a place, settled in, and turned on Forrest Gump.

That night we walked around Calle La Calzada that was lined with cute restaurants, bars, and people lounging around at outside tables watching people go by. We settled on a restaurant that had some Mexican food and sat down at an outside table. We had noticed some girls sitting behind us and thought that maybe one or both of them were “family,” as we like to say. (more…)

Uncle Greg and Aunt Susan generously dropped us off at the bus station in Liberia after dropping off Channing, Whitney and Tony at the airport. It cut out at least one bus ride for us — probably more.

When we arrived, we discovered that the bus left an hour later than we thought it did. So the four of us decided to get lunch together. Despite telling the waitress (and reminding her several times) that we had to eat and leave within half an hour, our food didn’t arrive until it was past time for us to go. We all ended up wolfing down our food in record time and running out to the car.

“We’re the Barkers. This is how we do it,” said Uncle Greg. “We’re late in every country, in any place, at any time…” (more…)

The next morning we woke up early. Well, early by our standards — around 7:30am. Uncle Greg and Aunt Susan had been up since 5:30.

They had a big day ahead of them: they had to go to Santa Cruz and set up a bank account and electricity and other accounts to move their up and coming house-building process along. Lauren and I were going to be spending the bulk of the day by ourselves. (more…)

Beth and I set out from Jaco to find the luxurious and remote Playa Negra, where my Uncle Greg and Aunt Susan were renting a house for the week with some of their friends. Part of the reason we had conceived of coming to Central America was because our timing for Costa Rica overlapped with theirs, and so we were excited to finally see them after so many months of planning.

But we had to get there first. (more…)

When we finally settled into Jaco (before the whole witches stuff happened), Lauren and I went out to do the worst errand to ever face women: swimsuit shopping. My swimsuit no longer fit and hers had developed a strange, constant itch. After having been in a dozen different oceans and lakes, it was time to retire our old swimsuits and get new ones.

But that is a task easier said than done in Costa Rica. Apparently, women who go swimsuit shopping in Costa Rica have no need for any support (up top) and no need for any room (down below). What was supposed to be a 1-2 hour errand ended up taking all afternoon during which we probably tried on more than thirty different swimsuits, all in cramped dressing rooms with highly unflattering lights. In the end, by combing pieces from two different shops, I was able to make something work. Lauren gave it her best but in the end, we gave up.

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After much deliberation, we decided to head over to Jaco on the West Coast due to its close proximity to San Jose. Kassie only had a few days left and didn’t want to spend them traipsing across Costa Rica on a bus. I was thrilled to head back to an old stomping ground that my good friend and travel buddy Katie and I had traversed a few years back.

Our experience in Jaco had been interesting, to say the least, and we emerged with one of the travel tales that has gone down in our Greatest Moments collection. I still have the scars from it today… (more…)

Pop-Snorkel

Beth: Hey, you know the fish that Ellen played in Little Nemo?
Lauren: Ya…
Beth: It’s over there. (more…)