I actually remembered to do postcards for my scrapbook on this trip. I hadn't used the Postagram app on my iPhone for 3 years, but I had some credits left over. You prepare the photo/s and text on the app and Postagram emails you a digital copy and also sends one by snail mail. Each postcard uses 10 credits and you can top up at any time. I had enough for 3 cards and then went old school in Honduras and Guatemala. I didn't post these 2 though; I wasn't sure they'd ever make it back to the UK. The Postagrams from Costa Rica and Nicaragua took between 7 to 14 days to arrive (they shipped within a day of me sending them), but the El Salvador one only shipped the day I returned home (29th April), but then arrived 2 days later. Random!
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Juggling 5 different currencies along with the Canadian dollar was interesting! Luckily my roommate had downloaded a handy offline app that told us what to expect with the exchange rates.
Useful info (exchange rates are approx based on when I travelled to Central America - April 2015): Out of the 5 countries I visited, Costa Rica was the most expensive, but Antigua in Guatemala wasn't far behind. El Salvador adopted the US dollar as their national currency some time ago. Costa Rica 1 US dollar = 500 Colones Nicaragua 1 US dollar = 26 Cordobas Honduras 1 US dollar = 20 Lempira Guatemala 1 US dollar = 7.5 Quetzales I was chuffed to get a 1979 white dollar in El Salvador and looked it up to see how rare it was once I got back home. Turns out it isn't that special (would have been great to get the 1981 version), but still a good little find for the currency collection. I poured over my finances for months to make sure I hit my target amount. I wanted to have enough money for a memorable trip and I didn't want to have to fret. My experience of being robbed in Dublin and having to be frugal one day so the next day I could splash out on my friend's birthday has stayed with me. It was horrible not having enough money and having to rely on other people to fund me. Those were my naive days before I got my identity stolen and, as a result of that, began carrying a credit card for emergencies.
Everybody's circumstances will be different, but mine were I was earning half as much per annum in the Post Office as I was previously working in travel, so I knew saving enough was going to take me twice as long. This was frustrating in itself, but I just kept my eye on the prize thinking about the wonderful trip I was going to have! I have friends who do minimal prep. before a trip and other friends who start packing four months ahead; I sit somewhere in the middle of that. Although I'd been saving for months and knew exactly what G Adventures trip I wanted to do, I didn't book it until 6 weeks out (and my flights 5 weeks out because I was flying to Canada first a week before the trip started). It was a case of "Ok, I've finally booked this and... OMG I'm actually doing this!!!" I was in the period where, if I cancelled, I'd lose all of my money. Being prepared for surprises is really important, if you haven't already anticipated them! Two things I never budgeted for were anti malarial pills (£60) and having the Rabies vaccine (£185). I'd purposely picked Central America because I didn't need any visas - and I thought I wouldn't need anti malarial pills either. Easy peasy. However, after checking out the Fit For Travel website with the Nurse, it seemed I would. I don't mess around with anti malarial pills and always buy the efficient (but expensive) Malerone. I only bought the bare minimum to cover me just for the duration of the tour, but that was my choice. I used them a lot whilst travelling around Africa and I know what I can and can't get away with. If I was doing the full course, I would have bought another 9 pills for before and after. With the Rabies vaccine, it's a course of 3 injections over 3 to 4 weeks. I only had these because I thought the so called "chicken" buses were full of chickens and I might get pecked. Turns out this is a myth. And we never travelled on chicken buses anyway. But there were a lot of dogs roaming around so... Anyhow, it's something I don't have to worry about for a while now. Happy days. I had to pay £10 for a private prescription and then £15 per injection for the Nurse to administer it. The actual product cost £130, but be careful (and organised) because they go in and out of stock all of the time (UK). The only other big purchase I needed to make bar the tour and post tour accommodation for 2 nights (£1,000) and my flights (5) via Toronto (£900) was my big back pack. I went cheap on this and took a chance only paying £45. Originally I'd wanted to spend £100, but needs must. As it turns out, it held up very well... phew! So I'd spent £2,200 and now for the trip itself. Switching to dollars and working on the terrible rate of 1.45 £ to $: I had 400 dollars for food (20 dollars per day). This is perfectly do-able if you only eat twice a day (big breakfast and big dinner) which I do in hot and humid temps, or 3 small meals a day. I didn't drink every evening. I had 500 dollars for excursions, activities, laundry and shopping outside of food like emergency headphones (!) There was a 200 dollar emergency fund stashed away as recommended by G Adventures. And finally, 50 dollars for arrival and departure taxes at the border crossings (our CEO handled this), 40 dollars for my two airport transfers (30 dollars in Costa Rica and 10 dollars for the airport shuttle in Guatemala) and the remaining 40 dollars I used towards tips. Total 1230 dollars. So I needed just over £3,000 for this tour. I always have ready cash, but I travelled with my debit card and credit card as well - just in case. About a third of the people on my tour had trouble getting their money from ATMs. It wasn't that there weren't any ATMs. Actually they were plentiful for a change. One had prepaid bank credit cards, but didn't realise only 40% of the card's total could be taken as cash and the other 60% had to be used in restaurants and shops as credit card purchases. The problem with this is, most places charge up to 5% in card processing fees. Another had an STA prepaid credit card which didn't work in the majority of ATMs. Not very helpful. I'm vary of these so called great travel credit card schemes. So, that's my budgeting laid out for you and just remember, if you do choose to travel with lots of cash, be sure to either sleep with your money belt under your pillow and when awake wear it at all times, or use the hotel security boxes, or spread it around your luggage - as long as you can lock your bag! That's what saved me from complete embarrassment in Dublin. I didn't want to leave The Tea and Chocolate Place we visited in Copan - and not just because of the tea and chocolate temptations! It was also the perfect setting for my very own private writing retreat. I absolutely fell in love and it was a wrench to tear myself away. So peaceful and calm with beautiful gardens and views across the valley.
This book fascinated me and, as I was reading it on my Kindle, I was able to highlight text and "bookmark" these interesting and intriguing references as I went along. I started it on the remote beach in Poneloya (northern Nicaragua) which seemed like the ideal place to get stuck into the business of defining happiness and thinking about happiness. Rubin decided to undertake a happiness project - and amazingly she actually stuck to it. I applaud anybody who sticks to a resolution for a whole year. I guess the average Joe never really evaluates their life at some point along the way, but I'm a thinker - and this book got me thinking - a lot. The amount of research Rubin did is also to be applauded. She devoured everything and anything to do with happiness and being happy. Everybody's happiness project is unique, but Rubin's was well structured from the prep to the making of resolutions to the keeping and recording progress of the resolutions. She had a subject she wanted to tackle for each month of the year and within those subjects were more specific goals. She created Twelve Commandments, Secrets of Adulthood and Splendid Truths to keep herself focused on the project. She started a blog to share her journey and asked questions of her readers. Some people might think what an incredible waste of time, but I'm a strong believer if you're passionate about something, you wouldn't be doing yourself justice if you didn't throw yourself into it wholeheartedly. And Rubin's enthusiasm was magnetic. I'll be sharing my favourite parts of the book in a blog series entitled "Being happy" coming soon... To me, there is something delightfully refreshing about drinking coke from a glass bottle in a hot and humid climate - and wherever I am, if I can do it, I will. I swear it's not as fizzy as in the UK, plus we don't have the glass bottles here either. Coke in a plastic bottle doesn't taste anywhere near as good, so I usually stick with cans at home. This simple pleasure when I'm travelling is one of my travel treats.
We've been decorating for five days solid and it was time for a break today to get some fresh air. Sunny, fluffy clouds and 22 degrees. Perfect weather. Living in Hampshire is wonderful because there are so many beautiful places to visit and we are so lucky to have the Test Valley nearby. Stockbridge village and the Down are favourites of ours, but first we took some B roads and ended up stumbling across the gorgeous thatched cottage village of Longstock and just down the lovely named "The Bunny" road, we stopped to admire the views of the River Test. The land is private, but I fell in love with the scenery. I'm sure you can see why.
If you're wondering what to expect of the facilities and transport on a YOLO tour through Central America, all in all I'd say the buses and hotels on my trip exceeded expectation - and free WiFi was everywhere!
Even in the most out of the way garage stops for toilet breaks, there were no "crouching hole in the floor" toilets. At one particular one in Nicaragua, the washing your hands facility was on the iffy side (big drum of stagnant water) and funnily enough, we had to pay to use the bathroom. It wasn't much, but did take us by surprise considering it was probably the worse toilet we came across. In El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, garage / convenience store toilets that were situated in outhouses were often locked by Security guards and unlocked for our use. Shows I haven't been on the road for a while. I wasn't expecting WiFi practically everywhere in Central America. It was free at every hotel and even on the beach on Ometepe Island; the village had a Communications centre. On the buses (privately hired for our group) in Costa Rica, the drivers often shared their passwords with us if we asked. There was no WiFi at our actual Homestay, but we did get purified water from our family. Most of the hotels had free water refills for G Adventures groups so we were always able to top up our bottles and keep hydrated in the humidity. Everywhere we went we had a shower in the bathroom and mostly the water was clear and non smelling. I used the tap water in Costa Rica to clean my teeth, also Granada and Poneloya in Nicaragua. I think I used it in Suchitoto (El Salvador) but skipped out in Ataco and Copan. In Antigua it seemed to be ok. I never drank the tap water though and didn't let any get in my mouth from the shower. I hadn't registered we would be bunking in together at the Surfing Turtle in Poneloya (males and females) and that it was in fact a hostel and everybody shared the bathrooms, but it was all good. So relaxing and chilled out there, it didn't matter. Apart from that, all of the accommodation exceeded expectations. I was expecting hostels and very basic sleeping and washing facilities on every night stop. No problems with transport. All the buses we used were clean and had seat belts (in case you're wondering). I was expecting more "chicken" buses on the itinerary. I was under the impression these chicken buses were stuffed full of people and chickens hence the name, but I think this is a myth. It's also the reason I shelled out for my Rabies vaccines. In hindsight, I don't think I needed to get those shots, but at least it's ticked off the vaccine list now. There were a lot of dogs on the trip, wandering aimlessly, so I was glad I had them. I don't know whether we got lucky with the size of our group (12) so that meant we fitted nicely into a private bus. Working on contracts in a previous life, I remember very well the fixed costs for vehicles and how it could make or break the profit you made on a tour. I remember how important it was to hit certain load factors. 12 was always my magic number! We all have funny trip memories and this trip was no exception. Here are some of my best ones: On our boat trip in Monteverde, we had an older American couple in the group and they were very keen "twitchers" (bird watchers). At one point the woman jumped up and exclaimed, "That bird has beautiful eyes!" We couldn't even see the bird, let alone its eyes! And the funny thing was, she didn't even have binoculars. It really tickled us. My final two are creepy crawly related incidents. First up, my roommate screaming her head off in Monteverde so much so that Security came to check on us and remove the offending spider. The second incident was in Copan when a giant cockroach darted from the bathroom (where Olivia was) to under my bed (where I was). We screamed the hotel down.
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AuthorBlogging is an amazing concept so here I am giving it a whirl. You'll get words. You'll get pics. Sometimes a vid or two. You'll get tongue in cheek, the odd humble opinion and an honest insight into my travels and writing life. Maybe even a few gems along the way. I'll be musing on home turf as I see more and more of the UK and sharing my experiences further afield on holidays and adventurous trips across the globe. Archives
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