Travel Planning through Central America…So Far
We decided on a temporary endpoint for our tour of the Americas: we aim to be in Mexico City, starting November 4th (come visit us! We plan to be there for at least a month.) Other than that, we’ve been tooling around Panama with a pretty loose plan.
But all of a sudden, we decided it was probably time to get serious.
In the next six weeks, we still want to overland through four more countries, have a ridiculous number of places we want to check out, and have finally accepted that aimlessly meandering can waste precious travel time. Plus, there’s a practical reason to firm things up: we have a whole lot of border crossings ahead of us and each one wants proof that we actually intend to leave.
Apparently, saying, “Trust us, we’re just wandering around Central America for a while” isn’t sufficient.
At many of these borders, we need proof of onward passage—a return flight (we don’t have those!), bus ticket, hotel reservation, or some other evidence that we aren’t planning to move into the country permanently.
So today, we spent most of the day doing something very un-nomad-like: researching, coordinating, and booking the next six weeks of our lives.
Here’s what we’ve got so far.
Costa Rica
First up: getting from Boquete, Panama, to Uvita, Costa Rica.
This is going to be a little adventure in itself—a combination of private taxis and buses. We have the private taxi reserved—we asked our Uber driver directly, but not the bus yet. We’ve been assured there are “plenty of buses” once we get to Costa Rica, which sounds reassuring…or like something we’ll be Googling frantically from a bus station.
Next week, Uvita.
We’ll stay in a house near the ocean on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast for a few days. Uvita is famous for its enormous whale-tail-shaped sandbar, and this is also prime whale-watching season. Humpback whales are migrating north, including mothers traveling with their babies.
So naturally, we’re hoping to see some whales.
Then: Monteverde.
We discovered a shared van service called EasyRide and reserved the eight-hour trip from Uvita to Monteverde. Eight hours in a van may sound like a long time, but after figuring out Central American transportation, a direct ride that actually knows where we’re going feels like a luxury.
And speaking of luxury…
We’re splurging in Monteverde at the Hotel Belmar, a luxury eco-lodge tucked into Costa Rica’s famous cloud forest.
I’m already looking forward to sloths, toucans, and whatever other creatures decide to make an appearance. We’re also hoping for a night safari, which means we’ll be wandering around in the dark looking for things that probably would prefer not to be found.
Nicaragua
Here’s where things get even more interesting.
EasyRide is supposed to pick us up in Monteverde, take us across Costa Rica, across the Nicaragua border, and deliver us all the way to Granada.
Because apparently, we’ve decided that crossing an international border in a van is a perfectly normal way to spend a travel day.
Granada is a beautiful colonial city sitting alongside Lake Cocibolca—the largest freshwater lake in Central America—and surrounded by volcanoes. We’ll be there for 10 days, so we’re giving ourselves enough time to slow down a little and actually experience the place.
For accommodations, we’re staying in a hotel that happens to have exactly one apartment-style unit, which we were able to snag because of our longer stay.
We did look at some of the gorgeous colonial villas on Airbnb, many of which are surprisingly affordable. But the more we researched, the more we realized that Nicaragua’s infrastructure can still be a little…let’s say unpredictable.
Some of those beautiful villas also appear to be a little worse for wear.
And while we’re adventurous, we decided we didn’t really want to spend our vacation figuring out what to do when the power goes out or the water stops working.
So: hotel it is.
After Granada, things are still a little murky.
Our current thinking is that we’ll skip Managua, the capital, and head instead to León, another colonial city that is a little less polished and a little grittier. It’s known as the cradle of the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Revolution, so there’s plenty of history to explore.
And then there’s an active black sand volcano—Cerro Negro—where you can “sand board” all the way down.
Obviously, that needs to happen.
Honduras
The general idea is to find a way from León, Nicaragua, to a beach town in Honduras where we can see some of the turtle conservation work happening along the coast. Possibly Playa el Venado or Playa Punta Raton.
The Pacific side of Honduras is a small area so it won’t take long to travel through Honduras and it happens to be turtle egg-laying season!
So we’re hoping to catch some turtles doing their thing, assuming our transportation plans and the turtles cooperate.
El Salvador
For the last week of October and into early November, we want to explore El Salvador.
What exactly do we want to see?
Ummm…still working on that one, too. But for sure, we would like to fill up on as many pupusas as possible.
This is about as far as we got today.
But we do know what comes after El Salvador.
Guatemala and Belize
For this tour, we’re skipping these two countries for time’s sake and because we’ve been-there-done-that before.
Mexico
We’ve booked a flight from San Salvador to Mexico City on November 4 because…
Mexico City!
We have an apartment reserved for an entire month, from November 4 through December 4.
Which means we’ll apparently be spending Thanksgiving in Mexico. Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias to us!
After six weeks of buses, vans, taxis, border crossings, questionable transportation logistics, and figuring things out as we go, a month in one apartment sounds pretty darn good.
And, of course, an open invitation to anyone who wants to visit Mexico City in November and December, we’ll likely be waiting for you.
A final tip: there’s a Mail Boxes Etc. store (remember those?) right here in Boquete, so we’re going to print out as many of these confirmed reservations on paper for immigration purposes. It’s never ideal to hand over our smartphones to the border agents for the information they need…but we’ve done it too often.
