The Coffee Robbery of the Century
If you order a cup of Nicaraguan coffee in your town, there is a good chance that the beans used in preparing your drink will be from one of the fincas around Jinotega or Matagalpa. After all, this is a premier region for the renowned and much-sought shade-grown Nicaraguan coffee. […]
The Shadowy Business of Nicaraguan Coffee
On our second day at El Soccorro, at breakfast, we planned to ask our host, Edgar, if he could give us a coffee tour of his finca or recommend any other coffee tours in the area. But it turned out, we did not even have to ask. Edgar was super […]
Coffee: In Love and War
Several years ago, a coffee shop by my office had seasonal Nicaraguan coffee beans for sale. Coffee bags with big letters NICARAGUA had an image of a man in a blue shirt holding a basket of ripe coffee cherries. The name of the coffee was “Don Zeledon”, and the coffee […]
Somoto Canyon: The River Runs Through It
Start with Part I here In the last post, I left off just as we just reached the bottom of the Somoto Canyon and, incidentally, the Nicaraguan border with Honduras. As it turns out, the Rio Coco River which runs through Somoto Canyon divides Hondurans and Nicaragua along most of […]
Somoto Canyon: The What, the Why, and the How
We were eating breakfast in our Granada Airbnb, the standard affair of rice, beans, eggs, and plantains, when Victor loudly snickered and put down the book he had been leafing through. It was an old torn-up Nicaraguan guidebook he found on the bookshelf among poetry books by Ruben Dario and […]
Girls, Girls, Girls. Souvenirs: Part III
Back by popular demand is Part III of our souvenir inventory (Part I and Part II are here). As we wrote before, we are very picky when it comes to souvenir shopping; yet, sometimes, we do bring souvenirs home. Most of the time it is something related to the culture, […]
One Day in Comuna 13, Medellin
A while ago, I wrote a single post about paragliding in Medellin, completely skipping over the part where we went to Colombia in 2022 and spent five days in Medellin. Now that I have a few free weeks after finishing all Norway posts and before the next trip springs up […]
Thanksgiving Around the World
We are not big “holiday” people. We can hardly be bothered to do much for most holidays, and usually use the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Christmas as long weekends for travel. But Thanksgiving has always had a soft spot in our hearts. Maybe because it’s the […]
Exotic Guatemala
When people ask me about the most exotic place we ever visited, I am always torn about how to respond. Was it Egypt with its ancient temples, monuments, and stunning deserts? Or India with its dream-like Taj Mahal, colorful towns of Rajasthan, and ceremonial pyres burning corpses non-stop in the […]
Cool Cats of Türkiye
It is time to acknowledge that a great injustice has been done in this blog. While the name of the blog is “Two Cats Backpack” referring to the never-ending struggle between staying home and spending time with our two cats or packing the backpack and heading out to explore the […]
Raiding and Pillaging through Norway
I am looking at the fjord There is salmon in the sea My baby says she’s bored She is not in love with me Before visiting Norway, we watched Conan O’Brien’s new travel show, Conan Must Go, where Conan travels the world to meet his fans. In the first episode […]