For a night owl like me, having to wake up at 5:30am is something I normally avoid or ignore. But today I had no other option – I needed to load my car into a container at the port in Colon. Darien gap, an infamous jungle between Panama and Colombia, is the only part of …
It turns out this is my favorite combination as a dinner when 1) I can use a kitchen 2) I have time to do grocery shopping and cooking 3) and I am not interested in trying the local cuisine at the moment. Actually this was one of my go-to menus when I was living in …
Got the vehicle inspected at the Dirección de Investigación Judicial in Panama City, first step to ship it in a container to Cartagena, Colombia. He just checked the VIN and the engine. This was also the meeting place with other overlanders with some of whom I have been sharing info online. Tomorrow the vehicle will …
In Latin America, every city I visit has a church, so I began to almost not care about any churches. In Leon, however, I visited Iglesia La Merced to climb the roof – the church is the tallest building in Centro area. There was a boy collecting $1 before climbing the stairs. The stairway was …
Recently I concluded that I am a water person, instead of a mountain person. I am happy when I’m close to water. And what I enjoy about climbing a mountain is that I can see water on the ground from a high altitude. Lake Atitlan is a big body of water so I was looking …
Costa Rica is known for a variety of adventure activities in nature, but this time (my second visit to the country) my body demanded a hot spring. I was originally going to a hot spring near Liberia, but the rough gravel roads did not sound motivating. Then I remembered a place where the tour guide …
Exiting Nicaragua was the toughest vehicle exit so far. Exiting usually takes about 10 minutes but it took 1.5 hrs in Nicaragua. I am now comfortable with the usual processes and identifying who are real government officials and who are private helpers with similar looking uniforms. What was new here was that I needed to …
Unlike the previous few days, from Leon I had planned to spend more time for conventional touristy sightseeing activities. As expected, Leon was full of travellers which indicated that there is a free walking tour. So I joined one early next morning, only to find out it was the first real day for the new …