Skipping Managua. Part II. Leon
One week after visiting Granada, we drove into its long-time rival – Leon. Like Granada, Leon is set in a breathtaking location. Approaching the city from the north, we counted at least six volcanoes on the horizon, all part of the Cordillera de Maribios. As we got closer to the […]
Skipping Managua. Part I. Granada
One of the apparent trends in our travels is that capital cities in Central America do not get a lot of love from us. That’s just a fact. In Guatemala, upon arrival, we left its capital, Guatemala City, by jumping into a taxi and riding away without ever seeing it. […]
A Whole New Life
Start with Part I Here We were walking from Airbnb towards the livestock barns, and I noticed it wasn’t quite as dark as I thought it would be. As we were driving up the mountain, my fear of encroaching darkness made me feel that it was much later in the […]
Nicaragua: A Road Less Traveled
The dusk was setting quickly over Matagalpa, the little red and yellow coffee berries no longer visible on the branches of coffee trees lining the narrow, unpaved road steeply ascending into the mountain. The light of our headlamps jaggedly bounced up and down, as our tiny, rented Toyota Yaris struggled […]
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, […]
Iceland in a van
We had 6 days and about $1000 each. “The tickets to Iceland are super cheap!” Victor called out from the couch, “$400 round trip for around Labor Day.” In the back of my head, I could faintly remember an article I read about the recession in Iceland and how much […]
Guatemala – Strangest Place for the Best Coffee
Guatemala, a country where coffee is the number three export after bananas and raw sugar, where coffee plantations are crowded by volcano ranges, and where thousands of people subsist by growing coffee, happens to consume some of the worst coffee in the world. All of their flavorful coffee beans are […]
India – Food and Fast Food
Both of us love Indian food and the trip to India only reinforced our shared love for Indian spices, vegetable curries, flatbreads, and fragrant rice. Friends warned us that we will tire of turmeric and cumin and coriander in every dish and that we will miss meat, but the only […]
McDonalds Everywhere
Almost every country we visit has a McDonald’s. And in every country we run towards it, as it beacons to us, weary travelers, with its golden arches and a free toilet. Our routine is almost always the same. We use the bathroom, I sneak in a picture of the menu […]
Cambodia and Thailand – Us vs. Monkeys of the World
Everywhere in Cambodia, whether it’s the temples of Angkor, the caves of Kampot, or the countryside of Battambang, if you see tourists gathering with cameras while the locals are rolling their eyes, it can only mean one thing – monkeys. Macaques are cute and photogenic. They are also vicious assholes […]
Cambodia – How to Cross the Street and Live
On our first morning in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, we were standing on the corner of a busy intersection, unsure of how to cross. The interweaving flow of scooters, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, tuk-tuks, and occasional trucks never slowed and never stopped. There were no marked lanes, they didn’t […]